Flat-panel iMacs in Apple's Future? 490
WinkyN writes: "A story on Yahoo! is claiming Apple might release a flat-panel iMac for release in early 2002. Analysts for Morgan Stanley who cover Apple say the computer manufacturer has placed orders for component parts to build such a machine (in fact, build about 100,000 of them a month). Perhaps Steve Jobs will announce this at Macworld Expo in January?"
Not Surprising (Score:4, Funny)
And hell, they can make them smaller, and in new shapes, they could do a lot of things with the shape, since they aren't limited by the size of the CRT and the heat problems inherent with monitors in close proximity with other computer pieces...
Besides, If the release another "flower power" imac, and you were stuck using it, wouldn't *YOU* want it smaller/easier to hide?
Ex
Already being sold... (Score:4, Insightful)
But seriously, why would Apple sell such a thing? It would have to be comparable in cost to an iBook, the LCD being the most expensive part.
It would probably be a snazzy box, but would the price be right for a low-end machine?
Re:Already being sold... (Score:2)
They may just add a flat panel config at the high end.
I have an iMac (the current Graphite), and I really like the small footprint, etc. It would be even better if it were smaller and even quieter.
And it will probably look cool. I know it's hard for a geek to swallow that, but people like stuff that looks cool.
I would bet that they will leave the crt version up there--maybe it will be that only the low-end one has the crt rather than only the high-end having the LCD.
Just a few guesses.
mike.
Re:Already being sold... (Score:5, Funny)
I expect
Posting amonymously to perverse precocious Karma
Re:Already being sold... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Already being sold... (Score:3, Insightful)
Nah... First of all, a flat-screen iMac would have a bigger screen, full sized keyboard, faster hard drive, etc. You aren't worried about power consumption nearly as much in a desktop as a laptop, so you can afford to put regular desktop components, which also happen to be cheaper.
Which leads me to my second point, which is that LCDs aren't the only reason laptops are expensive compared to desktops. Miniature hard drives, low-power consumption CPUs, etc. are more expensive (and are also slower) than their desktop cousins.
Thirdly, is the right price? I dunno. At $1200 the current iMac is pretty pricey for a so-called "low end" machine. I think Apple will probably put this machine in the same price category. They sold a bunch of iMac's at that price, they could sell a newer and better iMac at that price, I'm sure.
Re:Already being sold... (Score:2)
Why would it have a bigger flat screen? That will drive the cost up. The full size keyboard can be used in any of the UBM iBook/PowerBook systems, just plug it in.
The low-end iMac is $999 (well, at the moment there is a $500 special in a lot of places, but ignoring that...). $1200 ($1299?) is the high end iMac.
Personally I would have a hard time buying an iMac now when I can get the iBook for $300 more. If the prices get closer I expect even more people would swing towards the laptop. Of corse that doesn't upset Apple (unless the profit margin on the iBook is smaller then on the iMac), losing iMac sales to PCs would upset them. Bumping the iMac price will make that worse, unless it turns out people really want LCD displays...
Re:Already being sold... (Score:5, Informative)
I just configured a low-end Dell Dimension at their website. The main option they left out that I had to add was Ethernet:
Dell Dimension 4300S: $873
1.4 GHz Pentium 4
128 MB RAM
20 GB HD
15" monitor
16 MB ATI Rage graphics card
CD-ROM drive
10/100 Ethernet + Modem
Free Lexmark printer
iMac w/128 MB RAM: $849
500 MHz G3
128 MB RAM
20 GB HD
15" monitor (integrated)
CD-ROM Drive
16 MB Rage 128 Ultra
10/100 Ethernet + Modem
Firewire
So it seems to me that for the same price as an iMac you can get a Dell with a faster processor, that's it. The iMac has a better graphics card plus FireWire, the Dell comes with a bundled printer. The 1.4 GHz P4 is hardly twice as fast. Considering the 1 GHz P3 beats the 1.4 GHz P4 on most benchmarks, and the 500 MHz G3 is nearly as fast as the 1 GHz P3, they're not all that far different.
Sure, you can go down to your local cheap computer dealer and get more bang for your buck, but then you'll probably end up with cheap components that won't run Linux, may crash under Windows more often, and you won't get any support from the manufacturer. People pay a premium for Dell for the same reason they pay the premium for Apple.
You may not like Apple, but there's just no truth to the price/performance argument. The iMac costs a little bit more for the same stuff, that's it. A little, not a lot. For a lot of people, the MacOS makes it worth it.
Put down the crack pipe, please. (Score:2)
I don't suppose you'd care to back up that hysterically funny claim with any actual benchmarks, eh?
A 500Mhz G 4 can, on a very good day, when the moon is in jupiter and there are no clouds, just about barely keep up with a 1GHz P-III on certain benchmarks. (Where "certain benchmarks" basically means "Photoshop Unshark Mask and nothing else.") A G 3 is not getting anywhere near the 1GHz P-III, nevermind the 1.4GHz P-4.
Re:Put down the crack pipe, please. (Score:3, Insightful)
It evidently needs to be said again.
The G4 is the G3 with Altivec and SMP. They're the same chip otherwise. The G4 runs Altivec-enabled programs faster than the G3 does. This includes mostly Photoshop.
If you're not running Altivec programs, and you only have the one processor, a 500MHz G3 runs as fast as a G4.
However, FWIW... I have a 400MHz G3. It runs about six times as fast as my P133 on most tasks; that suggests a rough speed equivalent of 800MHz. (For example, it encodes MP3s using BladeEnc at almost precisely six times the speed. Other tasks are similar.)
Working the math, that would suggest a 500MHz G3 should be about a gigahertz or so.
Re:Put down the crack pipe, please. (Score:2)
Hmm, noting that I don't have many pictures that need sharks removed from them, it appears that the P-III would be the better processor for my needs.
DELL???? (Score:2)
Sure, you can go down to your local cheap computer dealer and get more bang for your buck, but then you'll probably end up with cheap components that won't run Linux, may crash under Windows more often.
Local cheap computer shop? I build all my own boxes, buying best-of-breed components from various places and end up with a box that has higher-end components than those put in that overpriced Dell bitty box.
I just priced out the following system for
$550:
1.4GHz Athlon
256 MB RAM
40 GB HD
15" Monitor
64 MB ATI RADEON
SB AWE64 Sound
52x CD-ROM
Firewire
10/100 Ethernet + Modem
Shoot. I for an extra $100 or so (bringing our total to $650) I could have gotten a 17" monitor. This even includes the translucent case!
Heck, I could throw on a DVD-ROM or a even CD-RW drive and still be under your price.
Oh, and AMD processors have far more bang-for-the-buck than comparable Intel CPUs.
Re:Already being sold... (Score:3, Insightful)
What I'm saying is that you have to go further than just RAM, CPU, HD, graphics RAM to put a PC together that can capably replace an iMac. You've got to add some software and hardware and do a lot of configuring. iMac also has very decent speakers in it, a beautiful optical mouse, a great keyboard, and wireless antennaes built-in so it can be a base station for your notebook or any other 802.11 computer if you add a $99 AirPort card. And no fan. It's very quiet. Also, the design and appeal of the iMac has to count for $100 or so. You add RAM by opening the RAM door with a quarter and popping in a chip of "iMac RAM" (many vendors sell RAM this way, guaranteed and tested for iMac). That shit really, really counts for many users. It enables them to admin their own system to a certain degree and not have to call a geek to get anything done.
Re:Already being sold... (Score:3, Interesting)
Since this will be a new generation of iMac, Apple may be looking for something else in terms of design for looks of the case. What exactly that will be is hard to tell. The current portable products use the metalic look, while the desktop range use a coloured plastic look, even of the plastic is not completley transparent.
Flat screens have come down in price a fair bit. I can buy an average quality 15" flat screen here in Canada for around $500. Given that Apple partly owns a flat-screen manufacturer in Asia, it means that they have the ability to get hold screens more cheapley than othe companies.
Re:Already being sold... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Already being sold... (Score:2)
For most iMac users the Weight issue is irrelevent, as its a static desktop machine. That leaves, Depth, or Footprint.
Why go half way - this thing would have to be an inch and a half thick, at worst, to be a serious advantage. Then I could hang it on my wall - or to the ceiling above my bed! Or put it in my camper.
But those are all niches currently being served, to the seriously dedicated, by the iBook.
Nah... I don't want one!
Re:Already being sold... (Score:2)
It shouldn't add more than a few hundred dollars to the price... you can get a nice 15" 1024x768 LCD for not much over $300 retail these days. On an iMac, they'd probably go with a smaller screen that would be even cheaper.
Re:Already being sold... (Score:3, Insightful)
Some good examples: the iBook's 20GB 4200rpm hard drive vs iMac's 60GB 7200rpm hard drive; iBook's notebook keyboard/trackpad vs iMac's full-size desktop keyboard and optical mouse; iBook's 8MB graphics RAM vs iMac's 32MB. It all adds up to where iMac makes more sense if you don't want to take it all with you.
Apple has a chance to do some really special stuff with a flat iMac that's not possible for other PC manufacturers. With the CRT gone, the 6-7 watt G3 and G4 chips are going to enable Apple to do some cool miniaturization or design things that PC's with 50-70 watt P4's are not going to be able to do as they move to flat panels.
As for being a low-end machine, it is the low-end of Apple's line, but it's also sort of the flagship, "people's" computer. The simplicity and ease of use of it are admired and respected by a lot of people. Many iMac users don't think of themselves as low-end users
Re:Already being sold... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Kinda defeats the purpose (Score:2)
water? no way (Score:2)
I'll bet you a ThinkGeek T-shirt [thinkgeek.com] that there won't be water cooling. I take size large, thanks.
Re:Kinda defeats the purpose (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Water cooling? Huh? (Score:3, Redundant)
don't be so foolish. the correct term would be a lower frequency (as denoted by the unit of measure, MHz/GHz)
this is not an indication of speed, it is an indication of how many cycles per second it has.
speed comes from how many operations can be performed per second or even howmany can be performed per cycle. Athlons perform more operations per cycle that P4s do, and G4s perform more operations per cycle than either of the two.
now when you multiply how many operations per cycle by the number of cycles, you get the number of operations per second, you can then make statments about speed.
if a P4 executes 1 operations per cycle and has 2 billion cycles per second, that is 2 billion operations per second.
if a G4 does 3 operations per cycle and operates at 667 Mhz, that is also 2 billion operations per cycle. both chips operate at the same speed, one however has a higher frequency that the other.
the speed of applications is irrelivent to the most part because each chip has their own optimizations that a program can take advantage of. I say for the most part, because you can compile an application with no optimizations for the architecture and then it would be possable to get a fel for each chips speed, however, the instruction sets are diffrent and one instruction set could be more efficient that the other, in which case you do not get an actual feel for raw speed of the architecture.
Re:Water cooling? Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't forget to take into account what you can accomplish per operation. Sure one architecture has the same number of cycles at half the frequency, but if the other architecture takes fewer operations to perform the same tasks, then it's faster. I think it's useless to try and compare different architectures. Just go with the one that works for you.
Re:Water cooling? Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
The other major advantage that a G4 has is altivec, but I would argue that this isn't as great an advantage as Apple claims. True, it's cleaner and faster than MMX or KNI in the Intel line, but the difference isn't *that* great, and more to the point many developers aren't taking advantage of it. So while you can get a 6x speed boost on seti@home or photoshop, it's not going to do much for your run-of-the-mill applcation.
Finally, in terms of overall speed, I think it's ludicrous to claim that Macs are 2-3 times faster at the same clock rate. True, it's somewhat faster at the same clock rate due to a simpler instruction set, shallower pipeline, and other reasons, but I simply don't buy a 3-fold performance advantage. On average, a 866 G4 is probably equivalent to a 1 GHz or maybe 1.2 GHz P4. That's still substantially slower than Intel's top-of-the-line 2 Ghz P4's.
Apple has been very successful at selling the idea of a "megahertz myth," and to a certain extent they may be right. But honestly, better architectures can only push you so far. If the chip is doing fewer cycles per second, that *has* to be a handicap.
So I would say Macs at the moment are slower than their PC counterparts. They also happen to be less power-hungry, have better industrial design, run a better OS, be easier to use, etc. That's why I bought one. But I don't think we should be doing Apple's PR job for them. The G4 is a fast chip, but it's not *that* fast.
Re:Water cooling? Huh? (Score:2)
the fact the the G4 instruction set is better and more efficient that X86 only adds to the overall speed at which you can get stuff done in the real world...but as for raw speed, a 3 operation/ cycle G4 at 667MHz is as fast as a 1 operation per cycle P4 at 2.0GHz. math does not lie my friend, it does not lie.
What are you talking about? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you claim that one processor has a better risc design, and allows more flexibility, then HOW can you claim that it will take less operations as well???????????
Being RISC means you break down complex operations into MORE instructions that are SIMPLER. This is where the flexibility comes in, because you can order your operations more efficiently in your pipeline to avoid resource conflicts, and utilize more of the resources available. Since you have more instructions that are simpler, usually you clock the hell out of it. Otherwise how can you be running a slower clock AND get better performance? RISC usually means you need to execute MORE instructions, NOT less...
If you talk about x86 being CISC, then that means it takes LESS instructions to execute, but they are more complex. Usually to accomplish this, your instructions CANNOT utilize resource sharing, otherwise you will NEVER be able to pipeline your instructions. Given this, it means the instruction MUST finish in one clock cycle. Hence typically a CISC processor is supposed to be clocked lower than a RISC processor.
Now before anyone pipes in about the P4 being 2 Ghz, let me mention that the P4 actually has a RISC core... So that is why a P4 clocked at a HIGHER clock is performing about the same as an Athlon with a LOWER clock, because the P4 needs to execute more instructions. The benafits will be realized when/if Intel can runaway from AMD in terms of clock speed.
Of course, I boiled this all down to explain here, but you get the point...
TV Show costs... (Score:2, Flamebait)
So... (Score:3, Funny)
Well, this old rumor is bound to be true someday. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well, this old rumor is bound to be true someda (Score:3, Interesting)
So it's time for something "revolutionary" again. I've heard rumors of the flat panel iMac from lame sites like Mac OS Rumors since at least the end of 1998. Actually this particular rumor (and its failure to materialize) was one reason I stopped reading MOSR and its ilk and realized what garbage they were.
So if Steve Jobs unveils a flat panel iMac, it won't be a big surprise. The difference now will be if he doesn't, analysts will be disappointed and Apple's stock price will probably take a minor hit.
Re:Well, this old rumor is bound to be true someda (Score:2)
They also got rid of the fan at some point (yes, it had a fan in the past) and a faster front side bus.
I know! Let's make a little cube with no fan and a big LCD panel for it...
Oh, wait, that flopped. Mostly because of the price. It's not time for a "revolutionary" new Mac, but a successful one :-)
Depends on what else is released then. Also if the new iMac costs a lot more then the old one I expect bad things to happen.
Re:Well, this old rumor is bound to be true someda (Score:2)
Apple got credit for copying itself. The iMac is a sleeker version of the Macintosh 128k.
Not that the iMac isn't cool, I think that computers that come in square boxes are what is needed for computers, but anyone who thinks it's a change from what apple was doing before is simply wrong. They just brought the old style into the 21st century.
Re:Well, this old rumor is bound to be true someda (Score:2, Insightful)
size, speed, industrial design, interface design, battery life...
you don't agree?
Like the PCs I see in TigerDirect? (Score:2, Offtopic)
-J
Re:Like the 20th Anniversary Mac? (Score:3, Informative)
So, with the price of LCD panels dropping, it's the obvious next step... but it just isn't a breakthrough (except getting it done at a price suitable for iMac).
Re:Like the PCs I see in TigerDirect? (Score:2)
Re:Like the PCs I see in TigerDirect? (Score:2)
Ummm... (Score:2)
Is what a new concept? Nothing has been introduced yet. And regardless of what they do introduce, one major difference is that these machines will be designed to run Mac OS X.
- Scott
I can see the ad campaign now.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I can see the ad campaign now.... (Score:2, Funny)
Good thing that they sell computers and not bras. :)
Again? (Score:3, Funny)
Oh yeah, I think I read that the new iMac would be completely solar powered and hovers weightless whereever you want it totally negating the need for a desk. And it reads your mind, all thanks to the new G6 processor. ;)
Re:Again? (Score:2)
Cynicism has its place and appropriate context, but unfortunately for you, this is not it. Sorry to disappoint.
Like these rumored looks? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll take any of them.
Re:Like these rumored looks? (Score:2, Insightful)
What are they going to use for their low-end market? Look at those things! I realize they're not actual production iMacs, but they're going to have a hell of a time keeping cost down on them. A 15" (viewable) costs around $300-600 more than your average 15" (13.9" viewable) CRT.
Making the new iMacs come in at around $1100. Eef.
Re:Like these rumored looks? (Score:2)
Re:Like these rumored looks? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Like these rumored looks? (Score:2)
Here's the relevant shot:http://www.acorncreative.tv/imac2.html [acorncreative.tv], which shows "The New iMac" as having a Cinema Display up to 15.2", 500, 600, or 700 MHz G3, Airport, CD/CDR/CDR-DVD combo drive, and integral Harman/Kardon speakers.
I'll also chime in as someone qualified to comment on the economics of the box (I was formerly a Program Manager for Dell's laptop lines, Latitude and Inspiron): I think this is do-able at an iMac price point. LCD screens are down to where this can easily be done. (Heck, I just paid $400 (after $100 rebate) for a very nice 17" standalone LCD display. Surely apple can do better in quantity...) Laptop components haven't really been all that much more expensive than desktop components for several years - the reason laptop prices have remained high is that the OEMs are soaking the market for what it's willing to pay, rahther than what it costs them to produce. The margins on laptops are several times higher than the margins on desktops.
This is all a volume economics game: and Apple re-learned something very important with the iMac: if you build it, they will come. And if they do, you'll have the volume to make the economics work for all those "expensive" features that differentiate your product from the rest. (Things like FireWire, USB, built-in networking (wired or wireless, depending), serious audio, great RISC processors, and now, integral Cinema flatscreens...)
Don't forget about the weight. (Score:3, Insightful)
hell, they're small enough now that with a retracting power cord and wireless mouse/keyboard that they might as well be.
With some depthwise space savings from the removal of the CRT, and the removal of the weight from the glass, they could throw a cord retractor and keyboard/mouse dock on the back of the thing...
Anyhow, it's about time, I think that's going to be a killer machine. (As long as I don't buy an iMac and get a dead friggin pixel in the center of my screen)
Re:Don't forget about the weight. (Score:2)
my iMac is a semi-portable. it's got a carrying handle on the top. I think all of them do. It's kinda heavy but it's not that bad, I've carried it cross-country on trains before.
the big advantage of going to LCD IMO would be heat. the CRT puts out the vast majority of the heat of the iMac; an LCD screen would run very cool.
a marketing idea: the iceMac. we already have the iceBook, Steve, how about it? ;)
It's been done (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's been done (Score:2)
Re:It's been done (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's been done (Score:3, Interesting)
Obviously if Apple comes out with an LCD flat-panel iMac, it is going to have to be a lot cooler/more revolutionary that just an all-in-one Mac with a flat screen. They always seem to go that little bit further than other companies.
We've also heard all sorts of rumours about some new Apple product based on their Newton tech. Hmmmm. And we know that Apple loves their AirPort product. Hmmmmmm.
So here is the new product: it's a powerful desktop iMac with a 15" LCD screen, but the screen pops out of it's case/dock and is a portable web pad/writing tablet. Connected to the main machine via AirPort, of course. You can tote this baby all over the place, take notes with its hand-writing recognition, surf the web wirelessly. Then just drop it back in the dock/stand/cradle, and it's now the display for you much more powerful desktop machine, with it's hard drive, DVD+RW drive, etc.
You heard it here first
Re:It's been done (Score:2)
True enough. My point was that an integrated form factor with a flat panel LCD is already out there (key properties of the iMac). However as you point out, it does not run MacOS....
Re:It's been done (Score:2)
Blatant Karma whoring: (Score:2)
A lighter, more luggable luggable (Score:2)
Now all they need to do is make the thing as cheap as the original imac and we're cooking.
Old Rumor (Score:3, Interesting)
While the reported component order gives the rumor slightly stronger legs, don't forget that Apple already buys lots of 15" LCDs for their 15" Studio Display [apple.com]. It would be very interesting to know how many of these monitors Apple currently sells per month. Perhaps the additional 100kmonitors/month is simply forecasting additional demand?
my dream -- the iMac II (Score:2)
I'd love to see an iMac equivalent of the IIci or the LC3 [apple-history.com]. Flat panel, compact desktop case, one or two expansion slots, and much cheaper than the pro towers. Basically, what the Cube should have been. It can be done. They have the technology. But is Lord Steve willing to do it?
Re:my dream -- the iMac II (Score:2)
A inch tall slab of Titanium colored plastic with a mobile Radeon or GeForce for video and a 10/100/1000 nin along with a couple USB and Firewire ports. Toss in a 60-80 GB hard disk and you've got a sweet little OS X workstation or server. Throw in the G4 laptop's silent little fan for cooling. That would rock.
Common apple rumors. (Score:5, Funny)
And then Hitler will build a snowman.
--saint
Not the first, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
The trouble with LCD iMacs is.... (Score:5, Informative)
The abuse that a computer takes in a school setting is enough to make me cringe.
Still, I like the idea of having a LCD iMac. It would be cool for me, I'm just not sure that it will work in the education market. (Yeah, I know. Maine just bought 38,600 iBooks. Still, most schools buy iMacs.)
Re:The trouble with LCD iMacs is.... (Score:2)
Side effects (Score:3, Interesting)
So, everybody who doesn't care, or are mac maniacs, go buy one of these;)
Let us just hope (Score:2, Insightful)
The new iPod commercial actually has a blip of OS X, and yet it is a mere 2 second glimpse.
Sad.
Reminds me of the same situation that AMD is in.
Great product, little or no exposure to "the unwashed masses/joe+/or jane 6 pack".
It almost seems to me as if they are taking the "female" tact of "if you don't know, I'm not going to tell you"...
(hint: never come back with 'If you don't tell me, how am I supposed to know'...big mistake... more pain than "yes, your but does look big")
Both make great products (amd/apple) but in the AMD the hardware needs exposure, with Apple, their new os (OS X, naturally) is in *dire* need of some air time...at least more than 2 seconds.
And "flat panel" imacs...well like the G5 rumors, I'll believe it when I see it.
Oh, whatever happened to "I/we don't comment on unreleased products."?
I'm suprised Steve Jobs has not repealed that policy and said, yes we will have a G5/flat panel Imac/whaterver rumor...but it is slated for release *after* 3 or more years.
IOW, beat the users and rumour mongers with a clue stick and the truth.
Yeah?
Cheers.
Moose.
.
CmdrTaco's fortune cookie say... (Score:3, Funny)
More info on Apple Insider site (Score:3, Informative)
Apple Insider has a story [appleinsider.com] on this, as well.
It's true that this has been rumored for quite some time, and nothing has come of the rumors. The key reason that Apple Insider seems inclined to believe it this time is essentially that:
It's no surprise that a major change to the iMac is coming. What has been difficult to nail down is exactly what will be changed, and when these changes will occur. What has precluded this product from being introduced is component availability and prices: AppleInsider sources have revealed, however, that the prices of key components has reached an acceptable level at which Apple can sell the new iMac at a price palatable to consumers and still retain profitability on its most popular line.
We'll see...
This community drives me nuts... (Score:4, Troll)
Re:This community drives me nuts... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does the Slashdot community automatically tear apart everything Apple does?
Actually, aside from a few Windows trolls and knee-jerk, reactionary, anti-corporate drones, I've found the Slashdot community to be fairly supportive of Apple, MacOS X and Macintoshes in general. Articles get posted which are mostly unbiased, except when they are rants against the corporate aspects of Apple. Comments are made by people who seem to mostly appreciate Apple's efforts in the open-source world. There are also admissions made that Apple does have some really cool hardware.
Personally, I don't mind the critics of Apple. If the criticism is fair, unbiased, and open then it is welcome because only good can come from it. On the other hand rants, trolls, and baseless accusations are not welcome, since they are clearly inflammatory and don't contribute anything to the discussion other than to turn people off of the point the poster was trying to make.
Re:This community drives me nuts... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why the margins are higher (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple has a different business model than somebody like Dell. Apple has an entire platform to develop. They provide free, ad-free internet services to their customers. They provide quite a bit of free software. They host open source projects. These things cost money to create and maintain. This money comes from the margins. Basically, you pay more so Apple can develop a better experience.
A company like Dell, however, is primarily an assembly service. They don't have product development in the same sense that Apple does. Dell's products are defined largely by Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, IBM and component manufacturers. The actual machines and experience end up being very similar to that of other manufacturers, so Dell effectively competes on the sale rather than the product. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with this -- it's just a different business model.
The fact that Apple and Dell have different approaches to selling computers is good. It means we have choice.
Apple is profitable and has well over $4 billion in cash, but if you look at their actual profit on per-quarter basis, they aren't raping customers and just watching the money pour in. They're doing constructive things with it.
- Scott
Re:Why the margins are higher (Score:2)
Re:This community drives me nuts... (Score:3, Informative)
> As a tool for updating a BIOS
Updating the "BIOS" on a Mac involves downloading and running a firmware updater file. After a reboot, a graphical meter informs you of the progress of the firmware update and then reboots the computer. It's basically the same as the way an old Compaq that I had worked, except you don't have to put the file onto a floppy to make it work. How you think this is a knock against Apple, I don't know. If you want the update on a disk, write it to a CD-R, CD-RW, or DVD-R. It's as easy to make one of those on today's Macs as it was to make floppies in the past. The only difference is that when you eject the disc, you're asked if you really want to burn your data onto it. You say yes, and then the disc is burned and pops out. Easy.
> or as an easy R/W boot device it is unequalled.
You have got to be kidding. An easy R/W boot device on the Mac is an iPod or any other FireWire storage. You can get a FireWire hard drive enclosure for $80 and put any hard disk in it that you please and boot any Mac from it. It's been a while since you could boot a Mac system off a floppy, and the same is true for Windows. There was an article on MacSlash recently by a guy who works at three different locations on three different Macs, but keeps his system on an iPod so that it is the same no matter where he works and he can carry the iPod between jobs on his bike. That's what you're looking for if you like to put systems on floppies.
And, as if that weren't enough to kill floppies on the Mac platform, every Mac comes with a free iTools account, which gives you a free 20GB storage "disk" on Apple's servers. It appears as just another hard drive on the Mac, so you can copy stuff there and get it later from another machine.
Finally, a utility called DiskCopy, which is included with both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X makes "virtual disks". If you had Mac floppies at one time, then you have long since converted them to "virtual floppies". Basically, you have disk images that you can double-click and they mount, as if the original media were present.
> Why? because there is an equally unbalanced
> community that will support ANY move by Apple
Here you are talking absolute bullshit about why you think that the Mac platform should have floppy drives, and you are saying that Mac users are unbalanced? You don't know anything about it, yet you want millions of perfect strangers to embrace magnetic 1.4MB storage that they have no need for? Take a moment to get a clue, man. The 3.5" floppy debuted on the Mac in 1984. It was retired in 1998. It had a pretty good run. We're over it.
Consider for a moment how ubiquitous PC's are. Mac users are not sitting there using Macs because they don't know Windows exists. We have all pretty much used both. Still, we are passionate and vocal about the advantages of the Mac, and we're very proud of the technological artistry and leadership that comes out of Apple because it has saved us time and money and hassle in the past. If you haven't used both, then you ought to shut up
A flat screen on a curved box? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, an iMac box would look really weird without the CRT, because it would be mostly empty, and they probably can't just make the box smaller, because they need vent space. So they'll probably have to come up with a special new shape.
Re:A flat screen on a curved box? (Score:2)
I wonder about the vent space. How much of the iMac's heat comes from the CRT? Nearly all, I believe.
What I'd love to see would be an iMac with mounting screws - to be hung on the wall.
Now, that would exceed cool.
Re:A flat screen on a curved box? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's about time to phase out smaller CRTs (Score:4, Insightful)
There are big wins in switching when you make the whole machine. The box size goes down. Shipping cost goes down. Shelf space at retail goes down. Power supply size goes down. It's a bigger win for Apple than for the Wintel crowd.
I'm just surprised that Apple didn't do this before the holiday shopping season.
Flat-panel iMac == iBook (Score:3, Interesting)
--Bud
real revolution (Score:3, Interesting)
Stop producing desktop machines cause the laptops are just as good, ramp up production to drop costs.
Make a range of 'digital hub' servers for home and small office - file-sharing, internet gateway type things. Or maybe multi-user servers and ibook-like thin clients that connect to them. Schools would love that and so would families with 2+ kids.
Re:They should (Score:2)
Re:They should (Score:3, Interesting)
That certainly used to be the case. Interestingly, however, Apple has gone out of their way to make the iMac and the iBook almost completely trivial to upgrade, at least if you're doing the most common upgrades (RAM and an Airport card). In other words, now that hard drives are getting to the point of being "big enough" (many fewer people are getting to the point of being squeezed for hard disk space even in the age of mp3s) and video cards are "fast enough", if you build everything else in, you really can make all reasonable upgrades possible for a person armed only with simple instructions and a US quarter.
In essence, people are empowered but not hassled, which could basically be Apple's new slogan.
Re:They should (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Price ? (Score:2)
Re:Apple Come back? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice hardware, growing in leaps and bounds as the market for those things matures (pc133, yes it was late, and yes, it's slower than DDR, but hey, better than pc100), nice processors, removing all relic hardware as necessary (USB instead of ADB, etc). Apple has always done this. Making the powerbook g4 was the next step, making a laptop just slightly less powerful than a desktop, *AND* has a battery life to speak of.
Nice software: OS X. BSD core. No need for them to figure out how to reinvent the wheel with their crappy old OS's--Simply change a few widgets, and call it Darwin, then add a GUI, and Voila! instant OS. With a *LOT* of software available, not to mention the 20 billion BSD hackers, the people that'll keep the Darwin OS up to snuff.
Totally reengineered interface--Finally a command line that doesn't suck! And for that matter, a GUI that doesn't suck! And multitasking! And all sorts of neat widgets that make techies and non-techies alike scream out "I WANT ONE!"
Giving computers to schools, making great leaps in hardware, standardizing their video system. I see this as a incredibly brilliant move for Jobs.
All in all, more power to them... They may live, they may struggle, or they may die. They are pushing the user's into a whole new realm; DVD-R's in affordable systems, laptops that don't suck, and keeping up with technology a lot better than they used to.
Ex.
Re:Apple Come back? (Score:3, Interesting)
Except that it wasn't remotely this easy, or this simple. They actually updated the display language from display postscript to display pdf, which I know is a minor change since one is much like the other, but then they reimplemented all widgets under the new system. They also developed an Old-MacOS-API-in-a-box for NeXTStep on Mac, and the resulting bundle of everything is called MacOSX.
You know, I hate to have to be the one to point this out, but Luna doesn't suck either. Oh, sure, it looks like someone in fisher-price's art department developed a theme for windows, but you can change themes all day, even to some fairly convincing aqua themes. With GlassXP and a geforce or radeon card, you can have arbitrarily hardware-alpha'd windows (though some things don't work like you might like, like transparent video windows or transparent windows OVER video windows) and you can, quite frankly, make windows look like anything you want in much the same fashion as using windowmaker or some other highly-configurable window manager, using StyleBuilder and StyleXP. My windows Theme is a work in progress that's looking better and better all the time. Heck, you can even use PNG images with the alpha channel utilized in your themes.
Let's not forget the feature set of windows' GUI, either, besides silly alpha features (which I am nonetheless quite fond of) - It's based on motif, more or less, (note the popdown menu on the left, which in Win 3/NT 3 even looked like Motif) so it provides an interface familiar to windows users and CDE users alike. It supports all the usual operations for windows, the taskbar has grown up quite a bit and now supports grouping, there's a virtual desktop manager included with Power Tools for XP, and so on.
That's true, but their price point still seems a bit high to me in most cases. Comparing the iMac to a PC doesn't seem to do the PC justice just because of the PC's basic modular, expandable nature, which you are paying for; If the PC were as unexpandable as the iMac, it would be cheaper. However, it's built to be expanded (at least slightly) and it's made with off the shelf parts which means that, unlike most mac hardware which has "graced" our desktops over the years, the hardware is all pretty much the same these days, which is also a nice feature.
With all this said, I do think that the current Mac hardware is fairly sexy. I do however think I'll stick with PCs. You can build a dual athlon XP pretty cheaply now...
Re:Apple Come back? (Score:4, Insightful)
> do the PC justice just because of the PC's basic
> modular, expandable nature, which you are paying
> for; If the PC were as unexpandable as the iMac,
> it would be cheaper.
I think people also buy iMacs for their expandability, but what they appreciate about the expandability is that it already has great "add-on" software and hardware in it from the start, and adding more software and hardware is easy (drag-and-drop software installs, plug-and-play hardware installs, easy-access expansion doors in the cases). I mean, all of the ports are right there on the side, attractively presented to the user. People who never looked at the back of their PC are looking at the FireWire port on their Mac and going "that's where you plug-in a camcorder or hard drive" because when they do that, it just works. It's already been set up for that before they get the machine.
For example, a non-technical friend of mine gave up trying to add software and hardware to his PC because he didn't enjoy all the work involved, and he was generally always suffering from one problem or another with Windows, anyway, and "didn't want to make it worse". He got an iMac and added a printer and scanner himself, no problem. He adds software all the time. So he actually told me that the iMac's "great expandability" was one of the things he liked about it over the PC, second only to the fact that it crashed less than his PC. Also, I got one "help desk" call from him in the past two years with his iMac, versus one a week when he had his PC.
So to say an iMac is "not expandable" is really looking at it from a PCI board / geek hacker perspective. For many people, it's the most expandable system they've ever used. That's part of why they're still selling more than a million iMacs a year, even in this economy, even with CRT displays in them, even with all the empty MHz you get on the PC side. It really serves the needs of the users who buy them.
Re:Apple Come back? (Score:2)
MultiTasking, which unix does...I don't know about Win XP.....allows the resources to be used equaly and concurently by all applications.
just because you can click on another windows and keep the other one viewabel does not mean that you are multitasking, that is why the system lags in windows when you have a game running then all of a sudden you get a IM from a chum, the resources are taken away from the game and give to the IM client.
Re:Apple Come back? (Score:2, Interesting)
Yet, since I saw a G3 in action two years ago at my uncle's place (he is an artist), I got interested.
Now, my old laptop (P120/32MegRAM, running Linux) is getting really old. How long will it live? 6 months perhaps, but replacement is probably due next year? I didn't make up my mind yet, but an iBook is now definately an option! I want to try OS X, Yellow Dog Linux, perhaps even NetBSD. Plus they look good!
If they can get *me* interested in their hardware, they must be on for a comeback: two years ago, I would have laughed a Mac user in the face...Now I say: cool show me how it works.
Re:Apple Come back? (Score:2, Interesting)
So true. I'm in the same boat (life-long PC user).
Next year I'll be replacing my desktop with a laptop, because I absolutely need a laptop now. If I were to buy now, I would buy the Titanium. It's an incredible little machine, and not overly pricey given its abilities.
As an engineer (-to-be) I think the Titanium is technically amazing. It's got a great-looking screen, a fast hard drive (for a laptop), REALLY good battery life (5 hours *average*? I've never seen a similarly equipped Wintel laptop last anywhere near that long) etc. It's also pretty light (5.5lbs). I'm just blown away by the thing.
I'm hoping, though, that Dell comes out with a Wintel laptop that can compare. I don't know if it's feasible, though, because of the fundamental difference in hardware architectures. The thing is, I need some school-related software that exists under Windows only. Oddly enough, if Dell doesn't make a laptop like the Titianium, I'll forgo my needs.
Re:Apple Come back? (Score:2)
One of my co-workers has a Ti, and it just flat out rocks! The only problem is poor AirPort reception, but I guess that should be expected since you are sticking the antenna inside a Ti shell.
Not doing much lately? (Score:2, Informative)
I don't what you mean by "lately" I guess if you mean the past couple of months all they have done is open more of their own retail stores, speed bump their hardware, come out with a new MP3 player, update their OS, multimedia and MP3 software - which i guess is "not much" when we are talking about apple. But I don't know of any other manufacturer that does as much as Apple even on a "slow" day - the PC manufacturers are mostly just assembling and reselling new products from Intel and Microsoft whereas Apple does more of it's own hardware engineering even contributing (a little) to the PowerPC chip design and makes it's own OS (a Unix "for the rest of us"), a whole host of multimedia software and every year or two takes enormous risks coming out with inovative hardware which is either a spectacular success (iMac, Titanium PowerBook) or a spectacular (but cool) failure (the Cube)
But back to your original question: Is apple actually going to attempt a huge come back?
Yes, everything they do is designed to attempt a huge comeback. They started their own retail stores with the stated goal of significantly increasing market share. They take risks with such strange hardware and their own excellent software because they aren't looking for a product that is "good enough" but are hoping for a blockbuster. They have had some spectacular successes with this strategy (Most notably the iMac which singlehandedly broght them back from the grave) and some spectacular failures (the Cube - which was a failure but was still "cool")
Re:gateway profile series (Score:2, Insightful)
The idea is to replace the original iMac. How upgradeable was that? Macs in general are not designed to be über-hackable. They are aimed at designers and the like, for whom k3w1 looks are more important than k3w1 internals.
Re:Imacs and colors (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure Apple is know for their design aesthetic, but they have some really cool technology too.
Re:Floppy (Score:2)
Re:Floppy (Score:2)
USB 2.0 is Dying (Score:2, Insightful)
No USB 2.0 support in XP, and Intel is moving towards IEEE-1394.
I reckon that Apple will put a higher speed Firewire in all the new desktops in January along with faster G3s and G4s, might call the new G4 a G5 and do an LCD iMac, but USB 2.0...no biggy.
Platform (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't think of a worse time in the platform or company's history than during the point that clones were available. It was an absolute mess. Part of the problem was that none of the manufacturers had any interest in actually expanding the market. They just took Apple's best customers while Apple was left to foot the bill for platform development. Clones elminated a lot of the core value of the Mac.
Cloning was in direct conflict with the Mac experience, philosophy and culture. It may have seemed like a good idea on paper (largely people assumed if it worked for x86, it would work for the Mac), but in practice, it just didn't flow right. The platform is undoubtably in a more stable position today.
and they had a fully operational 486 booting Mac OS, complete with desktop and even Quicktime movies with sound
Welcome Mac users, to the wonderful work of IRQ conflicts and COM2.
Controlling hardward and software helps integrate, but not innovate
Actually, just the opposite. Things like iDVD, iMovie and AirPort worked immediately upon introduction (and therefore added value) due specifically to the fact that Apple controlled both the hardware and software.
The fact that Apple owns and maintains its own platform is at the core of its value proposition and ability to differentiate from other manufacturers. It provides choice in the industry.
- Scott