New iMac Announced 1146
Steve Jobs is terrific at just that, Creating Desire. This is no surprise to us, for sure, but nothing drives it home as much as sitting in the audience and watching him speak. I could tell you how wonderful an orator he is, and how groovy his products are, but I really want to hear what the Slashdot user communtiy has to say about that. I want to talk about what Apple is doing technically.
First: The new iMac is very attractive. It's cool, it's neat. It will be a very popular machine. It's got a good price/feature spectrum and it looks like a pretty decent machine for the consumer. It isn't, in the end, a machine for the linux die-hard, but that's okay. It's slick, it ships with a bunch of very decent apps to manage your digital media. I want one, it's a cool machine. I don't know what I'd do with it (which is the problem), but it's cool looking. It's not particularly a good deal, I mean, you can pick up 200$ 15" tft displays at Fry's and lets get real, the G4 (Excepting the velocity engine stuff) isn't that fast of a chip at any available speed compared to the x86 world. But boy, this is one slick machine. But we know that already from the previous story. I do worry about it overheating, as I did flash back to the cube's cracking problems a bit.
Second: Photoshop for OS X will be coming out "soon". That was the big news. They had a very impressive working demo, I hope to learn more tomorrow on the expo floor.
Third: iPhoto is a decent cataloging program, and one designed to be used easily and generate more revenue streams for apple in the form of booklets and print costs. But it looks very polished and useful.
Superdrive: You'll see the superdrive in the new imac finally, which is nice. Note that this is not the superdrive that everyone remembers from the 80s' :-)
That's about all. The keynote was terrific, but in the end, not so outstanding. I'll post pictures soon. I'm sure a lot of /. regulars will be doing the same. More Tomorrow!
Mount on wall (Score:5, Interesting)
oops (Score:5, Interesting)
The iMac now has a G4 at comparable speeds, a Superdrive, more expandable RAM capability, and OH YEAH it comes with a 15" LCD display. The PowerMac has the same thing, for $600 more, and without the display (so throw in another $500 if you want to be able to actually see the output of your computer). It is more than just disappointing...it is totally illogical.
I will grant that the PowerMac is more expandable in terms of PCI slots, but...I can no longer think of a single good reason anyone would want to buy a PowerMac, which means unless Apple updates them before the iMacs ship in January, their high-end desktop sales are pretty much going down the crapper.
sean
I wish that laptops had the cool screen arm thingy (Score:3, Interesting)
The only problems that I could see with a feature such as this is that you might be able to change the center of gravity of the machine enough to tip it over and it might be difficult to design a mechanism that would be both lightweight and durable.
Yay, go BSD go! (Score:1, Interesting)
Open Source BSD Unix(tm) is now the largest
volume shipping Unix(tm), eclipsing all other
*Linux and commercial Unix(tm) versions combined.
The new iMac is just one more platform that will
spread Unix to more and more users.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
The photo/video difference... (Score:2, Interesting)
Some nice little jabs at Adobe and Time magazine sprinkled in, too...fun. Photoshop X does look nice, though, and I'm dling iPhoto as I write this. It looks sweet enough to make me want to get a camera.
Oh, and all those wondering about the Pro Line...I doubt anyone'd bet against new Powermacs at MW Tokyo this March, and unlike what was predicted for this show, I imagine that those really will have the G5.
Am I Now Immune... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:oops (Score:4, Interesting)
The bright side of this is that Apple will obviously have to put out new Power Macs (and probably at least speedbump the Power Books) at Tokyo, and the fact that they didn't announce them at MWSF might indicate that they will wait for G5s rather than bumping them to Apollo G4s.
Wicked cool, but not as much as I hoped... (Score:3, Interesting)
iPhoto is a compelling new application, and I'm going to download it and play with it tonight - it supports my Olympus 3000 so I'll try it directly instead of just using the reader like I normally do.
The new reconfiguration of the iBook line is nice, too - and the 14.1" screen on the high-end model will be a plus.
But - what about the Pro line? Apple's margins are fattest on the tower Macs, and they're not announcing anything today. Unless they do something soon, expect a bad quarter. I don't know about Motorola's yields, but Apple must be pretty pissed at them since they obviously can't get enough G5 (or fast G4 - whatever) processors to announce anything yet.
So, they'll sell a ton of iMacs, but I was hoping for a little more this time around.
Re:oops (Score:5, Interesting)
From a business perspective, it's killer - from a customer's perspective, it's nonsensical.
Personally, for a non-geek household, the new iMac seems like a hell of a deal. Most geeks, of course, will want something with a bit more oomph in the server department or the gaming department - but for the average Joe who needs to type a letter or throw some pics up on the 'net, it's pretty good.
Now...if they'd made it a *bit* more expandable (for example, being able to replace the 15" LCD with a special iMac-ized version of the Cinema display)...
I was expecting updates to the G4 tower and TiBook, but alas, that will have to wait for MWNY (or *possibly* MW Tokyo...)
Re:No USB 2.0? (Score:1, Interesting)
Firewire is for the perofrmance things. USB2.0 what a waste... my keyboard and mouse communicate at 100Mbps... big whoop.
Firewire, the only sane choice... If I'm wrong, then WHY does every video camera have it and not USB?
There Steve goes again.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Am I the only one who's bothered when Apple says with a straight face, "The PowerPC G4 with Velocity Engine can perform complex calculations two to four times faster than processors found in run-of-the-mill PCs"? I'm sure they're still using their old, tired Photoshop benchmarks to back up those statements. Only Apple could get away with calling an 800Mhz G4 a 'pentium crushing' 'supercomputer.'
They even mention Quake on the page.. how about they pit that puny Geforce2 MX against a real PC? Let's see.. lowest iMac has 700mhz CPU, 128MB RAM, 40GB HD, CD-RW, flat panel. You can get an AthlonXP system with all that, and money to burn on a Geforece3 card. Then see which one is the 'supercomputer'.
Re:Wicked cool, but not as much as I hoped... (Score:4, Interesting)
To tell you the truth--I don't think that the consumer price point is sub-$1000 right now unless that consumer is willing to buy an Emachine or something similar (cheap hardware, off-brand.) After Xmas, we went shopping with my father-in-law for his new computer. Outside of processor speeds (which can't be compared on a one-to-one basis between Intel and Apple, anyhow) the machines we were looking at were very similar to the low-end iMac/Lamp. We could have picked up an open item for under $1000, but nothing from a name brand, even Dell (every time you clicked through the front page "deals" the price jumped!) The price range everywhere we looked (online, offline) was about $1099-$1399 for the system/hardware he wanted. This iMac, if it had been out (and if he was willing to go with an Mac, which would have been the bigger struggle ;) could have easily been in the running. And that's what really surprised me, out of everything announced today. $1,299 is pretty close to what is on the market right now. And it's a lot slicker-looking ...
Interesting response to Apple shows... (Score:3, Interesting)
Then, after each show, a large number of people are disappointed and a few are wildly happy. A couple of in between the 2. But mostly people are just disappointed in Apple for not living up to their expectations! Granted, this time Apple _did_ beat their own drum way too loudly, but I can't think of any other computer hardware company that gets this kind of press, rumor mongering, and vast discussion after the event.
Just wondering if anyone has a good idea why Apple inspires all this? Is it Steve-o and his RDF? Because Apple is the underdog? Apple's penchant for always pushing the boundry on HW design (like, love, or hate it)? Personally I think it's because Apple keeps innovating, whether it's a success like the original iMac or a failure like the Cube, keeps people wondering "Just what the hell are they gonna pull next?!"
Re:Mount on wall (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Vertical Use? (Score:3, Interesting)
That would be pretty cool indeed. I seem to recall a monitor from long ago that would do that, the Radius Pivot. It could detect when the monitor was physically rotated and change its orientation from landscape to portrait. Of course, this was during the days when most Macs had built-in monitors and needed a (expensive) video card to use an external monitor, so its use wasn't all that widespread.
Speaking of vertical orientation, I wonder if the iMac could be rotated and mounted vertically on a wall. That seems like it would make for a really space-efficient workspace, especially if the monitor could be moved out of the way when it's not in use.
I don't know if this would be possible. I imagine it's not physically possible out of the box, but maybe with some additional mounting hardware. The only question is whether the iMac could survive such an orientation -- I would think it could, but it might be a problem for the hard drive or DVD/CD. Also, the monitor may not be able to swivel or reach far enough to position itself in a useful configuration with the base mounted on the wall.
Still, it sounds interesting, even if purely for the coolness factor.
Re:Vertical Use? (Score:2, Interesting)
What're you going to do, mount the iMac onto a wall or something with the monitor arm sticking out horizontally? 8)
I like it but... (Score:2, Interesting)
- If you had the screen adjusted in a low position (because of your seating position, setup or whatever), wouldn't you have to move the screen up every time you want to change disks in the drive?
- How are they cooling this thing? I can see a vent around the top, but if it has a fan surely two vents would be needed, intake and outflow?
- Apple should have made it an option to mount it upside-down, effectively hanging it from the top shelf of a workstation. The screen would need to be rotatable through 180 degrees and the drive would need to be capable of being remounted upside-down too. Maybe it's hackable.
- How long before we see the colors that the existing iMac demographic love so much?
Re:More information from the keynote (Score:5, Interesting)
Right now Apple's concentrating more on useability and convenience than sheer power. And at the moment, that's most of what I'm looking for. Yeah, I'll probably always keep a Wintel machine to play games on. But to an increasing degree, that's ALL i'm doing on Wintel. The user experience on the Macs is hard to leave behind. And that's really where Apple's adding the value. Not simply in the basic power of the hardware. Though the hardware isn't all that bad either (especially when "Velocity Engine" comes into play).
EfDTT, under 1/2 KB, uses only 10% CPU (Score:4, Interesting)
I forget how long it takes to decrypt a DVD
EfDTT [cmu.edu] by Charles Hannum, whose source code fits under half a kilobyte, can descramble CSS data in real-time using only 10% of a G4 Cube's CPU power. Think of what an implementation that uses more tables [cmu.edu] can do.
design (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm amazed at how only apple manages to sell weird designs.
* Dell quietly discontinued a similarly designed box.
* Intel has demonstrated many similar designs to this since 1997 at their IDC. (remember the fish-bulb thing, and the ziggurat?)
* Even AMD had the flat-screen-on-a-bun concept box (interchangeable neon colors)
However, only Apple actually sells any of these weird shapes. I wonder why they take the risk of weird designs when Dell, Gateway, Compaq and IBM don't.
I also wonder how many times the new iMac it can handle being hoisted by the "neck".
Re:Cooling this thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
I trust that this provides adequate cooling and depending on the environment the iMac is used in, won't get fouled by dust and crap, as packing all that kit into such a small package means the chances it will clog up over time are quite high. At least in my beige box there's room for that crap to accumulate without adverse effects to my components.
Bullfrog
Re:Intellimouse sux (Score:2, Interesting)
I called MS to bitch, and their program is: fax in a photocopy of the bottom of the mouse (with serial number legible) and they'll replace 'em. I had a half dozen replaced last year, that costs MS for shipping, customer service time, and of course the cost for the replacement meeses,
Scotch tape carefully inserted as padding around the cord entry point (tuck it inside the joint) will also extend the life of the mouse and may repair the damage in some cases.
And OS X recognizes the Intellimouse out of the box, with all buttons and the wheel working. Heck, OS X DP3 supported the Intellimouse.
Re:More information from the keynote (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, for $1300 you can do that. However, people who would do that are not part of Apple's target market. People keep forgetting that Apple is a premium brand. They aren't competing with people who would order their own parts and build a box. With a $1300 entry price they aren't even competing with Compaq etc in the bargain market. Your same argument can be used to take a knock at Sony's PCs as well. Point is, for a premium brand like Apple, you pay a premium price.
Re:More information from the keynote (Score:3, Interesting)
iMovie isn't full featured by any means, but it's incredibly easy to use. I can do things with iMovie on an ibook faster than can be done with something like premier on any type of hardware you care to throw at it. And hey, it's free as well. Hard to beat that.
The new iMac is about more than itself. It's more about creating a home for the software. It's about creating a new interaction between people and computers. This interaction won't mean that much to powerusers, at least not in the beginning, but that's why it's targeted at the everyday consumer. I think it's quite brilliant.