Apple Delays New iMac 513
An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is running a story that Apple has delayed the release of the new iMac until September and has stopped taking orders for the current models."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Apple Delays New iMac
Related Links Top of the: day, week, month.
"Someone's been mean to you! Tell me who it is, so I can punch him tastefully." -- Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse
Good (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.sgi.com/fun/freeware/3d_navigator.ht
A G4 iMac gives you the UNIX capability and graphics of an SGI machine (I worked with them around 1990) with the ease of use of a Mac. Plus it is more powerful than your old Cray. JP today could be done on iMacs.
Considering that the SGI machine that I worked with cost as much as a house back then, and Macs were much more expensive, the iMac is a real bargain. You can also pick up the iMac and smack a raptor with it, which you can't do with the other computers used in JP very easily.
A pity we can't get a port of the game "Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis" for the Mac. I really, really love that game! It would be so cool to control my parks on a real iMac.
"Oh yeah: 'Oooh!' 'Aaah!'; that's how it always starts, but then later there's running and um.. screaming."
Ian Malcolm, The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Legitimate Sales Tactic (Score:5, Insightful)
This may have more to do with clearing old inventory in retail channels ahead of the traditional educational back to school computer bonanza.
A well timed announcement of a really sexy new iMac in August will get everyone excited, without cannibalising sales of the present generation of stock.
Re:Legitimate Sales Tactic (Score:4, Informative)
This is a fuck-up on Apples part, I assume due to the engineering problems of getting a G5 into an iMac case.
Re:Legitimate Sales Tactic (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Legitimate Sales Tactic (Score:3, Informative)
And, this is the first time [in my experience] that an old Apple product will run out of stock before a new Apple product is shipped, so I don't expect the typical rapidly falling prices of a must-clear-stock-sale. On the other hand, maybe people will just sit on their money and wait for the new iMac, and the price will fall because of low demand.
Who knows.
Re:Legitimate Sales Tactic (Score:3, Informative)
my 2 unnescessary !
Re:Legitimate Sales Tactic (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Legitimate Sales Tactic (Score:4, Insightful)
In hindsight, I'm sure Apple would have hired you to work out the "trivial" details, in which case the new iMac would already be shipping. But the rest of us, many not versed in designing computer systems and not privy to the new iMac case design, have to give Apple the benefit of the doubt and assuming they ran into some difficulties, either with design, demand forecasting, manufacturing, or some combination of these factors.
Re:Legitimate Sales Tactic (Score:5, Interesting)
Not true! Voltage and clockspeed both influence hot hot a processor runs. Many people that want to run fanless for noise reasons will buy a fast processor and underclock it so that it will run cool.
Another clever way of combatting heat is to be able to change speed on the fly, so that you match the current processing load. If you are editing code the processor can run slow and then when you compile it cranks up to full speed. This way you don't have a performance penalty but you aren't generating lots of heat the entire time.
It's really not a hot processor, so anyone who knows the basics of cooling a computer can handle it.
You seem to be oversimplifying the problem of cooling a G5 in the space of an iMac. Maybe once you've mailed in your solution you can tell them how to get one (or two!) into a Powerbook as well.
Re:Legitimate Sales Tactic (Score:3, Informative)
Most processors go into "halt" mode when they're not processing anything. This automatically keeps heat and energy usage down without reclocking the chip. The chip only wakes
Re:Think through what you're saying (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Think through what you're saying (Score:3, Insightful)
I assume the G5's for iMacs don't need to be as fast but they may need to be more conservative in the power consumption/heat generation category. If the new iMac was designed based on IBM saying a 2 GHz G5 will consume xx amount of power, generating yy amound of heat, and it ends up consuming 20% more power and generating more heat, that's a big problem.
Hitt
Re:Legitimate Sales Tactic (Score:5, Informative)
If you look at this PDF file [ibm.com], you'll see that typical power dissipation of the 1.8 GHz G5 is 42 watts. Assuming that's 75% of the maximum, we still end up with a maximum power rating of 56 watts. In comparison, typical power dissipation of an AMD Barton running at 1.8 GHz is around 54 watts typical, 68 watts maximum [erols.com]; an Intel P4 at 2.8 GHz (the slowest I can find readily available where I live) is rated at 56-68 watts (same page).
The other thing to bear in mind is: that thermal rating for the 970 is based upon figures for the 130 nm process. The die shrink to 90 nm should reduce it.
I don't think cooling is a major problem. It may take a bit of engineering work, but there's nothing particularly hard, I'd imagine. Yes, it's more than they've had to deal with when using the G4, but at least they don't have power constraints (which they will when it comes time to slide the G5 into a PowerBook.)
they didn't do enough homework (Score:4, Interesting)
Just to put the new chips into perspective.. The max wattage for a 2Ghz Pentium-M is higher than than typical for the 1.8 (and I think 2.0) G5 cpu. PM, the darling of big punch - low power only runs cool at 600MHz.. when it's cranking, it's in the same league as the new G5.
Re:Legitimate Sales Tactic (Score:3, Funny)
"I'm using a 800MHz G3 iBook and it's plenty fast enough for me doing just about anything. Unless you're using photoshop or crunching numbers, why do you even need a G4? "
EXACTLY! My current Mac is a PowerMac 5500/225, with a Sonnet Crescendo 400 Mhz G3 card in the L2 cache slot.
Photoshop 4 runs perfectly well and at a respectable clip on this machine, As do my spreadsheets and just about any other application I ask it to run.
Compared to the first/second gen CRT iMacs. my Mac just blows t
Re:Legitimate Sales Tactic (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Legitimate Sales Tactic (Score:4, Informative)
Two issues here: 1) Clearing the retail channels of old inventory, and 2) Start the clock ticking on the consumer decision making process (e.g. there is a lag between when a consumer becomes aware of a product and when he/she is ready to make the purchase).
To clear the sales channels, you wouldn't really want to announce a new product because people will just decide to wait for the new product. Possibly, announcing the delay will get some consumers frustrated enough to buy an old model, but according to the article, it was an internal schedule, not a public schedule, that is running behind.
To start the clock on the decision process, you need to actually hype the new product and get people excited about buying it. In this case, they don't reveal anything about the new product, so it is hard to think about buying something you don't know. (But maybe Apple users are just crazy that way....)
The irony is, if this is an announcement of a misstep, the announcement itself is further hurting Apple's business. Apple's got great marketing and product design, but its business processes really need some work.
Re:Legitimate Sales Tactic (Score:3)
Strangely, Apple seems to be targeting their sales at regions where there are the greatest number of potential users. Something about being profitable or something.
I'm not saying the Southern Hemisphere isn't important. I'm sure you're all very nice people. But Apple is in the business of business. When you're a global player, sacrifices have to be made.
Although Q3 isn't ideal on either side of the Earth, at least it's time enough to ra
they should call it a jMac (Score:4, Funny)
Pre-announced (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pre-announced (Score:5, Informative)
"We planned to have our next generation iMac ready by the time the inventory of current iMacs runs out in the next few weeks, but our planning was obviously less than perfect."
Quite candid, really.
Re:Pre-announced (Score:5, Insightful)
I must say, my esteem for Apple as a company raises each time they communicate "normally" (i.e. without going through heavy PR filtering). So few companies do it nowadays...
Re:Pre-announced (Score:5, Informative)
Oh you mean something like this incredibly detailed list [apple.com] of every security update ever? The one which lists the CVE IDs [mitre.org] of the vulnerabilities and which links to the appropriate discussion of the problem?
Apple has provided this list for quite some time as you can see by looking at what was fixed. It only took me a few seconds to get from Apple's main page to locate this list.
The explanations of the security problems when you download the patches are left sparse deliberately because there are housewives, kids, grandparents, and other non-techs reading the explanations. If you had a diatribe on every vulnerability that was patched then you'll take the chance that the users might get scared off from patching just due to the geek factor required to read the update notes.
Apple does the smart thing and gives a small, easy to read blurb about the update in the download notes. Anyone who needs more in-depth information can easily find it at the Apple support webpages. [apple.com]
Re:Pre-announced (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pre-announced (Score:3, Informative)
If you look up the CVE name for the vulnerability at the CVE [mitre.org] website you can find links to all this and more. Here's an example: CAN-2003-0020 [mitre.org] is one of the Apache vulnerabilities that were fixed in Apple's Security Update 2004-05-03.
Re:Pre-announced (Score:5, Informative)
Apple mails out a detailed announcement every time they release a patch or a fix for a vunerablility. Anyone can sign up with the mailing list to receive these timely announcements automatically.
Here's an example of the latest announcement:
Re:Pre-announced (Score:3, Funny)
--Steve Jobs
Re:Pre-announced (Score:3, Insightful)
What makes you think this is anything less than PR filtering? A big part of Apple's PR strategy is the branding themselves as a friendly corporation vs. the evil Microsoft. Pound for pound, however, I suspect Apple spends just as much on PR as Microsoft does. Now this shouldn't count against Macs; I encourage everyone to make dec
Re:Pre-announced (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pre-announced (Score:5, Insightful)
Thinking about it, the announcement makes perfect sense. Usually pre-announcements have the effect of depressing sales as folks decide to wait for the upgraded version. That generally makes them a bad idea, but in this case it's exactly the results desired. It will help eke out the remaining inventory such that fewer people are left unhappy -- those that need the latest and greatest will wait, with the limited inventory going to those who can't wait.
Re:G5s still unlikely (Score:5, Insightful)
Think different (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Think different (Score:5, Insightful)
But it was a fine computer. The original iMac was a brave departure from the beige boxes we'd all become so accustomed to. The compact all-in-one design simplified things for people who don't want to invest a lot of time in figuring out how everything goes together. (You or I may feel unfulfilled with any computer we haven't built with our bare hands from raw sand, but there are plenty of folks who just want to use the thing.)
The iMac moved things forward in part by turning its back on a lot of legacy stuff. The iMac upset a lot of long-time Mac fanatics who were upset that they couldn't plug their old ADB and serial peripherals into the USB ports. Some people were aghast at the absence of the floppy drive. Now that Dell has embraced the idea of computers without floppy drives, I guess the iMac's work here is done.
Snif... Drat... I promised myself I wouldn't cry...
Re:Think different (Score:3, Interesting)
That doesn't mean shit; the original floppy-less iMac came out in *1998*. Now, the omission of the floppy drive could be justified nowadays (assuming you can boot from the USB key), but 1998 was a long time ago, and I think the decision was wrong at the time.
The fact that the majority of (original) iMacs I've seen had an external drive would seem to bear this out.
Re:Think different (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Think different (Score:3, Interesting)
Which drive in particular would allow this? Please tell us.
wbs.
Re:Think different (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Think different (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Think different (Score:3, Funny)
Most of them. Theres even a HOW-TO [berlios.de] on how to boot Linux from one. I assume DOS would be almost as trivial [marlow.dk].
Re:Think different (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally I use a Mac these days, it's bootable off the iPod plugged into the firewire port, so I don't need any more than that.
Re:Think different (Score:4, Insightful)
I think Apple was trying to stress the internet as a medium for transfering data rather than floppies when they released the iMac. They probably thought emailing attachments would work better than carrying floppies. I'm just assuming that's what the "i" stood for.
And they probably were trying to let market forces allow a larger capacity disc become a standard as well, like Zip discs or memory card readers, because 3.5" discs just didn't have enough capacity for a lot of things people needed. Without an established new standard, leaving USB ports available so users can add their choice of drive would seem the logical thing to do.
Good riddance (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good riddance (Score:2)
Re:Good riddance (Score:2)
Have you checked eBay lately? Perhaps it's the low supply, but G4 cubes are going for quite a hefty sum there. It's one computer which just about keeps its value constant.
Hovering displays (Score:5, Funny)
Last I checked, the iMac's flat panel was attached via a swing-arm to the circular base. Where can I find one with no arm where the LCD magically hovers above? Perhaps this is the new model in fall? The hoverMac?
Re:Hovering displays (Score:5, Funny)
Sony Ad (Score:2, Offtopic)
Mabey (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand I can't wait to see the new iMacs (mabey i'll buy one), And 3 years is a long time for a computer design. Unless your talking about a PC where towers have been 'in' for over 10 years.
I would really like to know how this is going to affect the Apple resellers who would have a large inventory of iMacs which they would undoubtably have to lower the price on. And as we have seen, Apple is not always on good terms [neowin.net] with its resellers
Re:Mabey [sic] (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, if Apple's flat out of iMacs for at least two full months, my guess is whatever little inventory is out there on the market shouldn't have that much difficulty finding happy new owners who don't want to wait 'till September.
Macintosh needs to go back to the future. (Score:5, Interesting)
A good example of this is the emac, which is a great computer but is overkill for the tasks of checking email and cruising the 'net, and too inflexible to do things like operate with external music devices (ie MOTU).
Apple currrently sells Emacs for $799. That's pretty cheap, but I think Apple highly underestimates what the public really wants. Most people want a computer that is expandable, and can accomodate things internally (or at least have the option to).
Most people have a monitor of sufficient size to meet their current needs, but have a computer that is too slow. Out of these, most would probably end up re-using their old monitor if it weren't for the fact that Dell generally bundles it in with the package.
I would gladly give up the CRT in the Emac for a cheap Macintosh tower that has slots for expansion, and places to put those extra hard drives.
My guess is many people would change to a mac if it was cheap enough (which I believe the Emac is appropriately priced), and eliminating the CRT wold more then likely offset the cost of adding slots and materials for the drive space.
This is just my two bits, but I believe both of those bits are on, so I guess that's my three bits. .
Re:Macintosh needs to go back to the future. (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you sure about that? Years ago, I read a study that said that most people never open their PCs, from purchase to disposal. They treat it as an appliance. I know people like that, they don't want to know what's inside the magic box and they don't care.
Re:Macintosh needs to go back to the future. (Score:5, Insightful)
No one else's has ever been opened unless I was visiting and wanted a peek inside.
And remember; you can't upgrade PCI or video in an imac. Aside from that, they're about as expandable as one of the towers, and they come with anything a *normal* user (ie, someone who doesn't play FPS or need SATA RAID) would need built-in.
Re:Macintosh needs to go back to the future. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd have to disagree with you here. I think knowing enough about computers to be comfy opening the case is optional. Or should be.
People don't purchase cars they can't open the hood. They know when the clothes drier is making funny noises they need to take a look inside and see what's causing the blockage.
Beyond adding gas and -- maybe -- changing the oil, I'm betting that most people take their car to a mechanic for maintenance.
I did build a PC once, and kept upgrading the hardware for years. But it was a hobby, very much like my Dad used to tinker with cars. Eventually I got tired of that hobby ... and I bought an iMac.
Yet when someone's Outlook toolbar "magically" disappears, they don't bother to look at all for the right-click menu they just used. They call support, we come over, show them for the 80th time how to turn menus on and off, then they immediately choose to forget it.
I think it's less "choosing to forget" than having different priorities about what's worth remembering. It may be hard to believe, but remembering details about using computers is not high on everyone's attention priority list.
Re:Macintosh needs to go back to the future. (Score:5, Funny)
Good deal, but you can get it much cheaper
here [gnu.org].
Re:Macintosh needs to go back to the future. (Score:3, Funny)
I can think of two excuses:
1) ----------------
2) ----------------
Re:Macintosh needs to go back to the future. (Score:3, Informative)
Reason for delay (Score:2, Funny)
"We regret to announce this delay in the release of the new iMac. The reason for this delay is that we are close to developing a mouse with MORE THAN ONE BUTTON! Although we know that many people are eagerly awaiting the new iMac we believe that most users, when introduced to a multi-button mouse, will agree that it was worth the delay."
About time they give heads-up (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, thing is, Apple should always do this, maybe not a year in advance but a few month is good, let's hope this isn't just a reaction to a problem but the beginning of a new attitude...
No more 15inch iMacs. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No more 15inch iMacs. (Score:3, Insightful)
Obligatory Prediction (Score:5, Funny)
my prediction about the new design (Score:3, Funny)
Andrew
A sunflower inspired Jonathan Ive's iMac 2 design: (Score:5, Funny)
iMac looks like a Sony player to me... (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe this is how Sony plans on selling it? Confusing people about it being an Apple product?
Why not spill the beans on the new model now? (Score:4, Insightful)
Apparently not, as Apple seems to make pretty smart PR moves, but I still wonder -- Why not spill the beans now? I suppose the G5 in the iMac is a shoo-in at this point (and we'd be disappointed if it wasn't), but how about another hint or two? Maybe it'll show movies from the net and replace your TV. Maybe the floppy's back!
Re:Why not spill the beans on the new model now? (Score:5, Insightful)
The people at WWDC (or paying attention to news about it) aren't generally an iMac market. It was a better place to focus on Tiger.
Playing Cards Close to Chest (Score:3, Informative)
Whatever the cause, it's mysterious and it's anybody's guess. Jobs is probably whipping up a huge frenzy and they might spring it on everyone a bit earlier than they announced.
No matter what, we're all just rumor whores on this thread anyway
And in the other news (Score:3, Funny)
Enough of the iComputers (Score:3, Insightful)
Slightly off topic, but is anyone else sick of the "i" prefix yet? iMac, iTunes, iLife, iPod - time to give it a rest.
Re:Pidgeon Holed (Score:5, Interesting)
OTOH, you have to realize that 95% of students are using computers to surf the web, send e-mail, and write papers...and thats it(unless you count entertainment things like games, mp3's etc.). These are things that could be done on literally ANY platform, and are virtually the SAME on every platform. You have MS Office for both Windows and Mac, and for Linux under Crossover Office. You have Mozilla or Netscape for any of those platforms...not that using them is all that different from IE.
And nowadays, a document or picture saved on one of those platforms is going to be readable on any of the others. So a student can easily take their work home, regardless of whether they have a mac, windows, linux, whatever.
The bottom line is that generally speaking, schools should just buy whatever is the best deal. Whether it is the most widely used platform or not is completely insignificant at this point. Unless you're a CS student, you'll do your homework the same way no matter what the system is.
Re:Pidgeon Holed (Score:2)
I was my old Uni in May (100 years of it being a Uni), and they use Linux in the labs - which replaced SGI's..
Re:Pidgeon Holed (Score:2, Redundant)
Like the other reply, our lab was full Sun Solaris before moving to full Red Hat 9 this year. We have no Windows machines at all.
Re:Brain Holed (Score:5, Informative)
What are you talking about? What does developing from the cmd shell have to do with what type of code you can write? You can write code that's just as portable in Windows as pretty much any other platform at the level that portability is reasonably maintainable (i.e. no gui's). Unless you're definition of portable means "*nix" of course.
Plus what the hell difference does it make what platform you're writing in (even notwithstanding the fact that the guys lab is using the same OS that is significantly more likely to land that person a job), the point is to learn how to code. You talk about platform independence, then you start spouting off about restricting the platform (for dubious technical reasons).
Re:Pidgeon Holed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Pidgeon Holed (Score:3, Insightful)
It's especially a horrible OS to run a lab on. Ditto for Macs.
I don't see for the life of me how a university with a comprehensive identity-management system (they all have one, if they have email) gets by having desktop settings and file access tied to the machine and not the user. 'Specially given that college kids are not exactly sedentary.
When I was in school, we still used telnet and pin
Re:Pidgeon Holed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Pidgeon Holed (Score:3, Insightful)
There are a bunch of things you'll discover when you get out of college. Not of all nice. Actually few of them nice. There's a reason why it's the job where, in spite of the good money and all, satisfaction is lower than among plumbers and shoe sales clerks.
Believe it or not, being a programmer isn't about having fun with the platform or tools of your choice. When you go out in
Re:Pidgeon Holed (Score:2, Insightful)
The Platform is not the Technology (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure how valid this thought is but it would seem that using Apple products in a school (talked about in the article) setting would pidgeon hole students into a very limited sector of the market.
That is moronic, and yet oddly it is used by school districts all the time to put a Windows monoculture in place. Think about it: what system could possibly be used that isn't totally outdated by the time kids graduate in 5 years? Even if you gave them expert-level training on Windows XP, Microsoft's defacto standard that enjoys a monopoly position, that "education" is down the drain when Longhorn ships. The same is true of any non-monopoly system, too. The pigeon hole playing field is pretty level.
I would have loved being able to choose to work on a platform of my choosing instead of being forced into one thing.
Kids don't know shit. Platforms of their "own choosing" are video game consoles. Teachers aren't there to follow the students' instruction; it's the other way around. What school administration needs to go with is a computer that will build a technology base for the students without causing the teachers a lot of headaches. That neither describes Windows nor Linux.
Re:The Platform is not the Technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Platform is not the Technology (Score:3, Insightful)
I learnt on Unix Sustem V at University in about 1980. Most of that is still applicable, in Linux and other work-alikes. Just don't have to wait overnight for my 20-line SQL job to run as in the olden times. Yay for the *nix monoculture.
Re:Outdated Tech doesn't matter! (Score:3, Insightful)
It comes down to the philosophy of the OS used in the schools. If you've used Windows95, you can used WindowsXP...not too much has changed. Try going from XP to OSX....it's a little tougher you see.
It's only tougher if you've done a poor job teaching (or learning). Sitting down in front of a computer for a student shouldn't be about learning that one system, it should be either about learning general computation or, conversely, have nothing to do with the technology at all (e.g., Lemonade Stand).
So
Re:Pidgeon Holed (Score:2)
Re:Pidgeon Holed (Score:2, Interesting)
i've seen a few schools try to go all linux - only to find that they don't have the expertise to manage them - this is where apple have always been strong in the education market, not only do they provide education with disco
Re:Pidgeon Holed (Score:2, Informative)
eg. MPEG4 isn't free.
Re:Attention: Important info about Apple (Score:5, Informative)
Not content with doing any actual research on this story, now you've propogated the misconception that Dashboard was "stolen" from Konfabulator.
For John Gruber's excellent write-up on why this "spin" is plain wrong, read here [daringfireball.net].
Re:Attention: Important info about Apple (Score:2, Funny)
"Blue screen, how I love thee"
Re:If Microsoft did it... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I'm fairly sure a lot of slashdotters would rejoice if Microsoft were to delay a product until it's truly ready. Throw in the discontinuation of the current product as well and you've got the ingredients for the declaration of a bonafide Open Source holiday.
On a serious note, I think you've fallen into the trap of thinking the specific action is what people object to. Nobody really cares about integrating a browser into the OS (although the way MS did it, technologically, was a big screw-up--but that confuses the issue, there are many instances (WebKit on OS X, Konqeror on KDE) where it's been done right). It's not the action, it's the ultimate effect the action has on the user that people really are fed up with.
Which brings us back to the topic at hand. What is the effect of Apple's announcement? Media buzz? Big deal, who cares. It doesn't quash Dell or IBM by locking them out of a market, it doesn't pull the rug out from under the consumer. In fact, it's the result of a screw up at Apple, and they're afraid of an already slow and, to some, stale product continuing to get ever more slow and stale. They've fessed up, and humbled themselves before the consumer. What they've done is take a bad situation and do the right thing about it.
This is a good thing, and if MS did it, I, for one, would find it refreshing. Sadly, MS rarely does the right thing, so I have to look to Apple (and, for other but somewhat similar reasons, IBM) for a company that I can feel good about dealing with--that the persuit of money doesn't corrupt everything it touches, as it so often seems to do (such as you see with the RIAA, MS, and Sony's ATRAC players).
Re:Black isn't patented is it? (Score:3, Funny)
He made that nice black NeXT cube way back when. Nobody much bought it so perhaps he reckons it's bad luck!
TWW
Re:Apple faggots (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Clearing out old inventory? (Score:5, Interesting)
The average person doesn't even keep up with release news. None of my 200 clients or so had even heard that there was a World Wide Developer Conference or that Apple had introduced new displays.
The real reason is supposedly two fold.
IBM is JUST NOW catching up with demand on PowerMacs for the G5. This computer will most likely be a G5. Demand is expected be met within the next few days to a week and then production in Taiwan on the new design iMac (most likely with a G5 but definitely with an IBM chip) will begin.
We'll most likely see 1.6 1.8 and 2.0 single versions - the iMac will become Apple's single processor line and the Pro line will be it's dual processor line. As you can imagine, that's a lot of chips to produce.
Apple is changing it's patterns, instead of building demand only to not ship and customers losing interest, they are building interest THEN shipping on time. This has pretty much been on the advice of IBM - and after the intro of 2.5 Ghz G5s and the backtrack on 3Ghz.
Not True (Score:5, Informative)
The iBook, iMac and iPod are all white, while the Powerbook, Powermac and XServe are metallic.
Re:Not True (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple currently has two distinct case types. White for home, and metallic for professional.
The iBook, iMac and iPod are all white
The iBook G4 is aluminum. The iPod minis aren't targetted at professionals, and they're metallic. The old Apple 23" Cinema displays, targeted at professionals, weren't metallic. Apple didn't have any metallic displays to match the Power Mac G5 casing until recently.