So, the big weapon that Apple was highly touting are indeed the new iMacs. Previous low end models were in the price range of $1000, but the new price range of iMacs will start at $1300 USD and goes up to $1800 USD. The specs:
All iMacs will feature a GeForce2MX graphics chipset and the two high-end models include Pro Speakers. To the dissapointment of lots of OSNews readers (judging from our comment’s section), the 15″ LCD monitor only does 1024×768 (by design, good quality LCDs can deliver easily higher resolutions to this screen size – unlike CRTs which are more bound to the screen size). Get the latest info and detailed information from Steve Jobs’ keynote at MacMinute and C|Net News. Our Take: This was over hyped all last week. ZDNews reported that Apple has not hyped anything in such a way ever, and they should have introduced something revolutionary. Apple should not have hyped these new products so much, as they are just a more modern & futuristic revision of an existing product. I am dissapointed in the way they tried to manipulate the crowd. Also, the entry level iMac has a ridiculously small amount of memory and no DVD playback. And it does not even meet my $1000 budget to buy the low-end machine Apple has to offer. I am dissapointed with Apple for more than one reason.
a high end all in one iMac? with flat panel and a g4? This isnt their low end pc, they originally only had low end and high end systems, this is their middle end, not the cheapest nor the most powerful and most expensive. This is the family desktop Mac theyve been missing for so long.
There will still be g3 iMacs, and for the same price as this new iMac you can buy a g3 iBook. You expect too much from Apple, they cant deliver quad G4s with 1600×1200 lcd screens for 1000 bucks. I dont think Id get one of the new iMacs, but those cheaper iBooks look perfect.
iPhoto is easily worth $99 (as good or better than Adobe Photoshop Elements?). The new high end iMac at $1800 is a steal with a 15″ LCD and 800Mhz G4. This would have cost more than twice as much yesterday. The aesthetics of the thing are hard to put a value on, but for a 50% savings versus yesterday, I am more than pleased to get this beautiful new design. I think the hype was understandable: a 50% price drop and a beautiful design are worth a lot of hype!
As a pro user, I will still buy this machine…and the pro market will clearly get an upgrade soon (during MacWorld?) if the iMac now carries an 800Mhz G4. The Titanium Powerbook should expect an upgrade too since the iBook 14″ closes the gap quite a bit.
I do not think so. Jobs, Gates, Allen, Onasis and the newly-rich madames may care about this “digital lifestyle” bullsh*t Jobs is touting for some time now, but what I want TODAY is a modern AND cheap computer to run OSX. How else does Apple is expecting x86 people to switch over? I wonder.
<P>
BTW, you have missed my previous blurbs my friend.
What I need to switch to Apple is:
G4 600 Mhz (I do not want G3, because I want access to G4’s AltiVec, and I do not want a PowerMac but a cheap and modern iMac)
DVD playback and CD/CD-RW combo
256 MB of RAM
GeForce2 MX or Ati Radeon VE (they had that one right)
Either an LCD at 1024×768 or a CRT (I don’t mind CRTs) at the same res, but if it has to be a CRT, I need it with 85 Hz refresh rate.
30 GB of drive. (they actually now offer more than I need – props to Apple for this one)
Better speakers (only included in the high end imac).
Why is this so hard to sell it for $999? I personally believe that the revenue Apple is squeezing out of the mac fans is way too much. You can build a PC with much more processing power than what I mention here for much less money!
I want to switch to MacOSX darn it. But Apple with “direct assosiation with my Wallet (TM)” do not allow me to do so.
Let’s see now, apple who likes to think of themselves as “different” just released a flat pannel Imac… hmm I’m sorry it’s ugly, no two ways around it. the least they could have done is made it look semi nice. Hell when gateway did this a couple of years ago (you heard right) they made them semi decent looking, all in the display rather then in the base. For that matter gateway’s doesn’t have a base, it has to legs w/feet.
How can it be new and innovative if someone else did it some time ago. The only thing new is that now apple has done it.
For info on the gateway flatscreens http://www.gateway.com/home/prod/hm_aio_completeprofile.shtml“>… .
Eugenia, I think the thing that comes closest to your needs is the iBook – they reduced the prices. However, no G4.
The new iMac is cheap in comparison to an equivlent G4 tower, though strange looking. I coud wall mount it though, which I like cause then I could work in my bed or some equally reclined position.
New iBook is cool. Other than that, not worth the hype
Thanks for the suggestionm, but no, notebooks are not as fast as the equivelant desktop systems at the same cpu speed and it does not have G4. I really need a G4, because it includes the AltiVec instruction set. Similar to MMX instructions, but for PPC. G4 CPUs really make MacOSX run smoother than on G3s.
Also iBooks do not have a good 3D graphics card, not at the level of a RadeonVE or a GeForce2MX. These four details (actual speed compared to a desktop, no good 3D, no G4, not much memory) take away any chances for me getting interested in an iBook.
the one gateway you are refering to is just a smart terminal, not a full blown PC
You have to understand the hardware Apple put in these new iMacs is being sold at perhaps the lowest price possible, they are gearing up for high volume selling.
They are selling the higher end now and once march comes and their manufacturing is shipping high volumes theyll sell the cheaper ones which have smaller profit margins, but will still probably be most purchased.
This way makes more money and keeps Apple’s ‘innovation’ name alive. Now cheap macs will even be usable for gaming
I would have liked an Intel version of OSX. I haven’t upgraded to XP yet, but I would pay at least $100 for OSX. I wonder how many other people feel that way. Could be worth a lot of money to Apple and increase their market share of the desktop OS.
OK Eugenia, if you’re after fast CPUs and 3D chips the iBook is not for you. I never really had the urge for the latest CPU or gfx chip (My x86 box still has a 4MB Riva128 card!), despite being in 3D business.
Sweetheart, these (G4 600, geforce2mx) are not the latest CPUs or the latest gfx chipsets. They are just modern for now, but not cutting edge by far.
>You have to understand the hardware Apple put in these new iMacs is being sold at perhaps the lowest price possible.
Do you truly believe that? Because I don’t. I follow hardware prices a lot.
And since all this EXTREME hype thing Apple tried to sell us, I really lost all the trust I had in Apple as a company. I am very dissapointed today. I actually feel bad, because I was expecting more from Apple.
BTW, do you want to talk about revolution? Talk about Artificial Intelligence. Talk about a new Corba-like system. Talk about how whatever. But not talk for iBull. Sorry, I mean, iPhoto. Please.
I think they revamped iMac’s are great. They are definately wierd looking, but what you get for the price is exceptional. I can’t believe people are actually complaining about the price of the high end machine. Bought separately a DVD burner and 15″ flat panel would cost probably around $900, yet this machine is going for $1800. I think it is a steal.
I have two big problems with what was announced however. The first is that these product announcements did not live up anywhere near the hype that Apple itself generated. These are neat devices, just like the iPod, but none of them are revolutionary. My second big problem is the lack of a performance jump in the high end systems. I didn’t expect to see G5’s, despite what the rumor sites say. What was expected however, was a good speed bump in the high end machines. Especially in the internal bus speed department. Apple is still stuck at less that 1GHz on the G4, with an internal bus speed half that of their high end competitors. That is just totally unacceptable.
I love macs, and I’m a recent Mac user after many years away. Love OS X, love Cocoa and love their industrial design. Their marketing department, and probably Mr. Job’s as well, need a reality check however. If the aging hardware beneath all these beautiful cases isn’t brought ahead of their PC counterparts, then they won’t have much to offer in six months to a year.
Damn, all that hype for nothing – I was hoping for at least an x86 version of OSX. I guess the threats from MS to stay off their patch were a little uncomfortable for them.
An iTablet would have been nice too.. ah well, an iMac with modern features.. whoopee (sarcasm intended).
This really is a Moment 22 situation imo. If Apple released MacOS for x86, who the #”¤&! would pay for over-priced Apple/Motorola hardware?
When you look at the specs for the new line of iMacs and compare it to it’s x86 counterpart, the price tag looks ridiculous in comparison.
And between… why do they release them one and one in a months interval? Probably just to milk the last cent out of the users, forcing them to buy the most expensive model not haveing to wait 2 month for the cheapest.
How can they? …cause in the Mac area there are no competitors…
Even if Apple were to switch over to an intel architecture, they will never support OS X for the common PC. They are a hardware company. That is why they give away their mainstream software products. Selling OS X to a PC manufacturer would cannibilize their hardware revenues even more than the clones did back in the 90’s. Sun can get away with it because their server and workstation market base isn’t directly threatened by PC’s. Apple’s is. NeXTStep wasn’t available for PC’s until it was decided that they were discontinuing their hardware development. The BeBox was probably the same way. If you want to run OS X you’ll just have to break down and buy a Mac. That’s their strategy.
Well, G4 600 and GForce2MX are cutting-edge for Apple standards
You’re right on the revolution thing. A wearable with speech recognition would be revolutionary. A NLP command line. A ZUI. But iPhoto is crap, I just tried it.
>I can’t believe people are actually complaining about the price of the high end machine.
I am personally complaining about the *low end* model, not the high end. The high end value is almost ok.
>What was expected however, was a good speed bump in the high end machines. Especially in the internal bus speed department. Apple is still stuck at less that 1GHz on the G4, with an internal bus speed half that of their high end competitors. That is just totally unacceptable.
Indeed! Very good remark! Amen to that (the “Mhz myth” is not extended so much that can justify compare a G4 866 to any of the P4 or Athlon XP – The PC is breaking speeds every 3-6 months, and Apple is stuck for long now under the 1 Ghz.)!
Hey Fizz,
I think you’re hyperlink showed exactly how close to the price-point Apple is on their new designs. While not revolutionary, if you compare their prices and features, the macs win hands down. They all have the same screens, but the iMacs are more expandable and have ethernet ports. The 3D accelerator cards in the Gateway’s are also the generic intel accelerators, which quite frankly blow. Now lets look at prices.
For $1300 Gateway gives you a 900MHz Celeron, 128MB of RAM and a CD-ROM drive. This is exactly what you get for the low-end iMac, except again it has two firewire jacks, and ethernet and a better 3D graphics board.
For $1700 Gateway gives you a 1.2GHz PIII with 128MB of RAM and a CD-RW drive. Apple’s $1500 computer gives you the CD-RW drive with twice the memory, and all the other additional features mentioned above.
For an extra $100, the high end iMac bests the Gateway by giving you an extra 20GB of hard disk space and a DVD-R drive.
So in the end, I guess Apple isn’t price gouging anyone. But I would agree these aren’t revolutionary either.
as cool (in both senses) the G4s are, a 700 MHz G4 is roughly equivalent to a 850-900 MHz PIII. And I may be exaggerating in favor of the G4, here.
I agree with Hank… yesterday I decided to go on ahead and do some price checking and comparisons. So I went to Gateway, Dell, HP, Compaq and a couple other websites. The really sad thing is that you can get your bang for the buck even in the PowerMac models!!!
Ick…Is it just me? Those new iMacs are ugly.
And yes, I too, am extremely disappointed with Apple. I’m not a Mac person, but I was hoping the G5 would be introduced. This will be a nice processor if they ever work out the bugs and release it. But, apparently, they are having greater problems than previously thought. Sad, really….
Of course, there is the possibility that they have more to announce.
A cursory glance at Fry’s ads will show that for $1300, you can get a decent flat panel display, an Athlon 1.4 ghz processor+MB, 512 MB of ram, a floppy drive, a GeForce 2 (maybe even a 3), a CDRW, an 80 gig IDE disk, and still have cash left to spend on games.
I agree with Eugenia that they could have went with a higher resoulution LCD, but I can’t imagine this thing coming in under $2G’s if they did. I never expect Apple to be giving away the farm on whatever thing they do. All that “pretty” comes at a premium I guess.
Here’s the deal though, before all this hype I was looking at i-Books but I really wanted a G4. I was ready to hop up an top of the line i-book with the 30 gig hard drive and 256 mb of ram and lay down $1900 bucks to do it, but it just didn’t seem worth it with the G3 processor. I didn’t want to put out $2500 for a power book, and I didn’t want the low end desktop for various reasons. It just seemed there was no middle ground with Apple.
The new iMac G4 gives me everything I was looking for an more in a Mac. Finally you can get all the options of their Top of the line workstation but without having to go all out. This is exactly what I was looking for *and* I think its price point is right where it needs to be. iMac G3 Cheapest, pay a little more and turn it into a notebook, pay a little more than that and get the G4 ibook, a little more than that and get the lowend/ workstation or powerbook or soup it up another grand and get a $3500 bad boy (which I just don’t see as worth it).
I think the iMac G4 is just right for me and I think if I could get the store pages to load I may have ordered one already…
-Jason
You all think it is ugly? I don’t think so. Like the design, the flat screen, and the price is okay, more or less.
The fact is: Apple is barely hanging in there financially, and these eye catching products are important brand differentiators. Jobs is right: you have to make it distictive. And you have to make people pay for the privilege. And Apples core clientele are relatively price resistant.
I didn’t see a flat screen DELL for 1200, other than one of their lower level laptops, and even then, as a DELL owner, I wouldn’t give that basic rig a thought.
Now, if you showed me a sleek, modern, design with a flat screen with similar capabilities to the x86’s out there, I’d pay attention.
This is a shot right at the heart of the windows markets, nothing more, nothing less. Package this up with an I-POD and Office X, and Apple might just post a profit.
Nah. You can put together a substantially better x86 machine for less than the cost of any of those. The windows markets won’t even notice this thing, much less be threatened by it.
Hank gave a good price comparison to the gateway modle type thing…..the iMac 2 blows it out of the water interms of value for your money…the prices are lower for each respective model and you get more with the iMac. and to whome ever claimed apple was on hard times, BZZZZZZT. they, along with IBM or sony(one of the PC OEMs) were the only profitable computer maker in 2001. apple neted $60,000,000. Dell lost, Gateway lost, HP lost, etc. Apple has been on the rebound for a long time, and now, with this new middle model, they will attract those who don’t want it to hot or to cold, this will be just right for them.
>>Nah. You can put together a substantially better x86 machine for less than the cost of any of those. The windows markets won’t even notice this thing, much less be threatened by it.<<
Oh yeah I am going to go eMachines website and order me one now… NOT!!
What has the PC makers done for the industry lately?… NOTHING but layoffs!!!
Screw gateway. build the machine yourself. See my prev post.
Of course you can buy cheaper PCs, as parts are available from everywhere. Now, try to make them work smootly. Add as many features the Macs have (USB, Firewire, DVD/CDRW and so on) and compare the prices. They are close, OK. Now, compare the prices from a BRANDED machine, like Dell’s.
Wow. Apple wins. Hands down.
Sorry APPLE Gateway’s been doing this for years. It’s called the Gateway Profile.
>>Sorry APPLE Gateway’s been doing this for years. It’s called the Gateway Profile.<<
Yeah and I just went to checked out what they are offering with this ‘Profile’ PC… it does look better than their last all-in-one PC which was a bloat-hog and very ugly, but look at the specs, you get more with Apple’s new iMac! And I think it is about time to get rid of the floppy… it is useless and even Intel is saying get rid of it because they will no longer support it after 2002! Sorry but old hardware specs with old external ports… Parallel Ports?… please give me a break, who uses those on a daily basis?! And it is about time to get rid of the PS2 ports as well, USB does just fine for keyboard and mouse connections! I am sorry folks, but the PC Makers are the ones ripping you off and keeping innovation from flourishing while holding back the amazing new techno stuff that Apple is willing to take a chance on. The only PC maker worth giving any credit to is Dell and that is because their new products have style and good customer support, all the other PC makers should close up shop (well except for IBM)!!!
>Of course you can buy cheaper PCs, as parts are available from everywhere. >Now, try to make them work smootly.
They work smoothly whenever I do it. I know teenagers that can easily do it. What’s your point?
>Add as many features the Macs have (USB,
All MB’s you can buy today that I am aware of have USB on them.
>Firewire,
$100-$150, if you need it (the vast majority of people don’t)
>DVD/CDRW and so on) and compare the prices.
$50
>They are close
No they aren’t.
Face it, you can put together a far more capable PC for much less money than these new iMacs. All your succumbing to the Reality Distortion Field of Jobs will not change that fact.
I stand corrected. I found a firewire card for $30.
> “Face it, you can put together a far more capable PC for much less money than these new iMacs. All your succumbing to the Reality Distortion Field of Jobs will not change that fact.”
Hehe, good one. I agree.
However, there is one problem. 99% of the people who buy iMacs, can’t put together PCs and they maybe can’t even use correctly their hi-fi system let alone mess with hardware.
However, for you and me, the “geek people” who have a small clue about hardware etc, Apple has nothing to offer us. Their iMac models are too expensive for our knowledge of putting together a more capable and less expensive PC. It seems that you and me are not the customers that Apple wants. They seem to like people who pay *a lot* and for people who eat hype (and ‘Reality Distortion’) as easy as ice-cream. I am not one of these people. I tried/wanted to be a Mac user, but after today’s fiasco, I am truly dissapointed, because I was one step away from buying one of these. I am really feeling bad. It had a huge impact to my mood today.
Maybe I should go out more…
“but what I want TODAY is a modern AND cheap computer to run OSX. How else does Apple is expecting x86 people to switch over? I wonder. ”
Yeah, I agree. If I could get a OSX machine for as cheap as a emachine i’d get rid of windows completely! I still think apple should bring back the clones… OSX would really take off if the clones were around, because they would prolbey be alot less expensive…
the Amiga 600 is still my favorite low end computer desing ever! Sometime i think to put a PC board in my A600 case to be my BeBOX.
This time i think apple wanted to kill clone of their machine, nobody will want to clone that
They should have removed all the team member of the Cube because they seem to be the same bunch.
About the hype, nobody will beleive them now. Steve, try to pose nude next time because you wasted lot of credibility hype on that one.
And that is only the begining. happy OSX to all, i prefer to stick to OpenBeOS.
I’ve built many PC’s in my life for friends and family. Most of the time they work fine, but there have been hair-pulling problems too. I don’t find the practice entirely without merit for a technically knowledgeable person. That said, if it was as easy as assembling tinker toys, why are *any* of these companies still in business. No major manufacturer really competes price wise against garage shops and custom built computers. The fact is that most computer users don’t even feel comfortable opening their computers, much less building one from scratch. Which is why hardware manufacturers go to great lengths to emphasize how easy it is to upgrade a machine.
Your custom and garage built computers have a different target audience, and comparing them against major brand name prices isn’t as relevant as it seems. While you get the same hardware for the buck, the average user will be left with a lot less software, technical support and warrenty.
Which brings up another point, I notice nowhere in your custom built machine do you include software costs. Getting equivalent software on these systems can bring that price up several hundred dollars, regardless of which manufacturer.
Bottom line, Apple’s “reality distortion field” on this point is no different than every other computer manfacturer’s
Eugenia, that’s a good point.
Luckily, there are lots of small screwdriver shops that put machines together out of cheap parts for a small markup as well. Some of them are very good, and the markup on the machines puts them well below the cost of the new iMacs for a substantially better machine.
But I’m sure you knew that 🙂
Most bundled software is fluff that the majority of users don’t use. But for the OS, you have a point. Not sure what XP costs these days. Of course Linux is cheap.
The reason they charge more for the hardware is to pay for all that free software that you can download from them such as iTunes, iPhoto and the like. They have to make some money somewhere to pay for r&d, development, marketing, the electric bill just to name a few.
Why is it everyone knocks Apple like this? The only company that has been able to hold off MS and Intel for over a decade. They are a business, and their customers are not people whom rip apart their PCs and upgrade them for better performance, or install linux etc. Their customers range from school children to high end media and genetic research. These people dont want to have to take apart their computer to fix it, and by making Macs come with just about everything they need in the box with high quality parts and only being able to add new things via firewire these boxes continue to work. Macs arent for hobbiests like us, They are for getting certain types of work done. Probbably the only reason Apple is still in business today.
OS X finally made people like us whom enjoyed playing around with computer parts and OSes want to get a mac, ad now we bash them for doing what they do best, make money. G5 powermacs will come, and you will all want them but they will be too expensive and you wont buy a g4 imac or ibook because g5 is so much more powerful. PowerMacs arent toys, they are tools, thats how Jobs wants them to be.
Maybe once os X is embraced more there will be more toys for us hobbiests to use and play with. Macs are a different way of computing, I dont think I would give up my PC which I can play around with multiple OSes, and all sorts of neat software. But for developing software Macs seem best to me as all the hardware will be the same usually.
I do wish these new macs had higher resolution screens, but these are for consumers. I agree with you on what you want, I want a semi-powerful g4 system that isnt expensive, but Apple tends to divide its product lines by cpu type. g3 was for consumers and g4 for professionals, now hes gearign up for g4 for consumers, and g5 for pros.
I think eug, you would like an iBook, it isnt really for gaming, but still would be great for email, and you can do most of your work on one.
All I need is Access and Visio and I can switch over to Mac now, if anyone knows any comparable software for os x please email me.
They should have made the keyboard and mouse wireless in my opinion
>>However, there is one problem. 99% of the people who buy iMacs, can’t put together PCs and they maybe can’t even use correctly their hi-fi system let alone mess with hardware.<<
This is an untrue statement and very discriminate!! I know alot of Windows/PC user who really don’t know nothing about their computers and are luckily enough to get connected to the internet without some help (like I did for a friend last week who just bought a custom built PC with Windows XP)!
Also this stupid myth of not being able to upgrade a Mac is false. The Power Mac is very easy to upgrade and is more advanced technically than PCs at the same price. Oh and saying PCs are easily upgradable is not entirely true… lets take Packard-Bell PCs for example (I know I own one these and I am embarrassed to admit it), it has a daughter-board built inside that limits the things you can upgrade, which forced me to eventually think of other alternatives (like buying a new computer). Of course where is Packard-Bell these days?… trying to survive in the European market!
>>It seems that you and me are not the customers that Apple wants.<<
You’d be surprised at the type of people who use Macs, oh and they are geeky!!!
The truth of the matter is that there are limitations on both the PC and Mac side, Apple isn’t so innocent and neither is any of the following PC makers we know today. I own 5 Desktops computers and one laptop… 3 are Macs, 1 is a PC and 1 is a BeBox (a collectors piece), I will eventually fire up my old PC again since I still like to play with Windows 95 now and again and I do plan to either
1) buy a PC to run Linux/BeOS or 2) build my own… I haven’t decided yet!
Eugenia, you can admit you don’t like Macs and that is fine… I still like your articles either way… you sure know how to keep OSNews buzzing!!!
Oh one more thing… I can admit the design of the new iMac is slightly different ( I am speechless too), but I guess we’ll find out how successful it will be soon 🙂
Be sucks
They should have made the keyboard and mouse wireless in my opinion
>The Power Mac is very easy to upgrade and is more advanced
>technically than PCs at the same price.
Maybe on your world. Here on earth, they are overpriced and a PC put together at a similar price will far, far outperform them. Not to mention have two or more orders of magnitude more software available for them.
>I think eug, you would like an iBook, it isnt really for gaming, but still would be great for email, and you can do most of your work on one.
Please read the previous comment page in this story regarding why I do not want an iBook. I explain there. Plus, I used an iBook for sometime, led by my ex-housemate.
>Eugenia, you can admit you don’t like Macs and that is fine…
CattBeMac, please! I am opening my heart over here and write down my pain (I had my husband almost sold to buy me a new iMac if the circumstances with the new machines were different!). And you prefer to find such an easy explanation? Not good, not good…
>>Maybe on your world. Here on earth, they are overpriced and a PC put together at a similar price will far, far outperform them. Not to mention have two or more orders of magnitude more software available for them.<<
I’m not sure what planet Earth you’re talking about… but if you are from this planet earth you need to do some more research… if you want to build a Bluelight special PC that is good enough for email and maybe type a word document or 2 that is fine. But if you decide to get into real multimedia, then you need something more powerful and the ‘Bluelight Special’ is not going to cut it for you, and why build one… Kmart has them for $499 with Windows 98/Me!
As for the software… I guess you have 3000 applications loaded onto your PC right?! This stupid argument is really getting old!!!
>>CattBeMac, please! I am opening my heart over here and write down my pain (I had my husband almost sold to buy me a new iMac if the circumstances with the new machines were different!). And you prefer to find such an easy explanation? Not good, not good…<<
I can see your point there… I am planning on buying my mother an iMac (not necessarily the new one) to replace her old Compaq PC, so I decided to wait and find out what Apple had in store for us, I sometime wonder where Apple comes up with all this crazy stuff. I wouldn’t mind the new Specs with the old casing, G4 with a SuperDrive… though you’re right, people like my mother doesn’t need anything like that! She just started her own business and I figured it would be nice for her to take her old PC to her shop and use the iMac at home!
Eugenia: Now that you saved $1000 by not buying a new iMac, I recommend you spend that money a romantic dinner with your husband
>Eugenia: Now that you saved $1000 by not buying a new iMac, I recommend you spend that money a romantic dinner with your husband
We are having this tonight!! Today is Jbq’s birthday!!
CattBeMac, are you a fecking idiot or something? For the price of any mac out there, you can put together a PC that has a much faster CPU, more memory, faster bus speed, more disk space, and far more software (of any type). If you can’t see that (hint: surf around and look at prices of PC components), I don’t know what to say.
Hey Eugenia, is it possible to not allow anonymous posting. I notice that non-anonymous people tend to be far less beligerant and less prone to flaming. I think that most of anon’s points are valid, I just think they tend to be less intellectual and more brutish because there isn’t a name and e-mail address to go along with it.
Trust me I am looking especially since I plan to either buy or build my next PC to run BeOS/Linux on, I already have the tower picked out and I want to go AMD since my PC wielding friends say it is better than anything Intel has to offer, but even my good friend and colleague (who likes to build his own boxes) says that ity is hard to build a decent box that you can almost spend just as much buying one straight up. My argument to you is buying comparitive PCs to Macs where the price is concerned isn’t the case anymore… almost like you Windows PC users say that Windows is stable now and I say Macs are not as expensive as you think they are compared to PCs!
Take a look at Power Macs (which is a professional model) and compare them to any of the PC makers Business Model PCs and you’ll spend just as much if not more on similar hardware… I did this yesterday! You folks are comparing Apple’s Professional line of products to [place the company name here] PC makers consumer line which is unfair. I do agree with Eugenia on the top model iMac (now the old one) should of had DVD playback (mine does, but it is also over 2 years old and was a DV model)… so Apple did take a step backwords in some respects when the CD-RW drive was released and the DVD was taken away… but I think more people burn CDs than watch DVDs on their computers (at least that is my opinion).
We can argue about this all day (which I am not) I am satisfied with my Macs as you are probably satisfied with your PCs and that is great, I definitely do not want to see a Mac only world nor do I want to see a PC only world, because the computing world would be boring either way 🙂
>Hey Eugenia, is it possible to not allow anonymous posting.
But it is the same thing.
No matter if someone called ‘Anonymous’ or ‘Hank’ it is the same thing, as none of the two has logged in and had an account with OSNews. I do not want to add accounts here because it gets boring and complicated… At least not yet.
However, no one is truly anonymous to me. I got IP addresses of the posters, I know who is who if I want to investigate (the *whole* of a user’s IP address is of course strictly confidential). I added the IP thing because I had someone impersonating my husband back in September in the forums.
Personally, I was very exited when I started reading the news about this new device… right up until I got to the price tag. This is an iMac!!
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Jobs & Co. are *superb* engineers, but they don’t know the FIRST THING about marketing! Most families are buying their home PC for <$1K now! Only power users and hard core gamers need more performance than can be offered under this line. I had thought that Apple might finally have realized the err of their ways when they introduced the iMac for $999, but now I can see that I was wrong.
The iMac offering made by Jobs today is about as revolutionary as the first iMacs were several years ago, from a hardware standpoint. Along those lines, they should be offered at a comperable pricing scheme. These should be the replacement for the iMac! They should be priced at a couple hundred more than the iMac, while the G3 is slowly (but surely! Really, how many new PIII computers do you see for sale today?!?) – phased out -. The G3 iMacs are OLD HARDWARE now.
The verdict: cool device, ludicrous price tag.
Evan
Now cheap macs will even be usable for gaming
Wholly shit. Dude, this is NOT cheap. You want cheap? http://www.pcinfinity.net/specials/specials/SIMBADDA4.htm“>Here… a PC with more options than today’s new iMac (including the GForce 2 MX) for $699. Add Anonymous‘s options from above:
>Firewire,
$100-$150, if you need it (the vast majority of people don’t)
>DVD/CDRW and so on) and compare the prices.
$50
And a 15″ <a href=”http://store.yahoo.com/shopnetlux/net15tftlcdm.html“>LCD</a&… for $275
TOTAL: $1125, and I just BANGED that out, I didn’t even look for the best deals!
I can’t even believe this statement. Do you know a SINGLE Windows PC user who would be willing to buy a machine which wasn’t usable for gaming?!? Apple still has a long way to go to catch up in this arena.
Evan
Why is it everyone knocks Apple like this? The only company that has been able to hold off MS and Intel for over a decade.
Apple isn’t “holding off” anyone. They just have a different product, aimed at a different demographic group (which you point out later in your comment).
I certainly don’t have any problem with Apple as a company. In fact, I like using OSX, and would like to use it as my primary machine. The fact of the matter is though, this iMac hardware is needlessly overpriced.
CattBeMac
Oh and saying PCs are easily upgradable is not entirely true… lets take Packard-Bell PCs for example (I know I own one these and I am embarrassed to admit it), …
Let’s not take Packard-Bell for an example, as it is very much the exception and not the rule. In the 3 years I worked in a mom and pop OEM, we saw more Packard-Bell computers than any other come in to be serviced. Their design is poor, and their repair record even more so. But since you’re intent on picking out the worst in the industry: I’m sure your Packard-Bell is no harder to upgrade than my PowerPC 6100/60 (with 1 expansion slot)!
Eugenia, you can admit you don’t like Macs and that is fine… I still like your articles either way… you sure know how to keep OSNews buzzing!!!
Eugenia
>Eugenia, you can admit you don’t like Macs and that is fine…
CattBeMac, please! I am opening my heart over here and write down my pain (I had my husband almost sold to buy me a new iMac if the circumstances with the new machines were different!). And you prefer to find such an easy explanation? Not good, not good…
Eugenia never said she doesn’t like Macs. She just disagrees with the revolutionary nature of Apple’s most recent offering. So do I.
Re: Revolution
Wow, that game looks good
But alas I think it’ll go the way of the FiMac, B&W and sooo many other computer products…
All hype, very little content ;(
re: For $1300 you can get SupperPC!
Yeah, that takes over your desk, and in a dull looking case (unless you go game-less).
But, no I don’t honestly think this will dent the PC market much at all.
re: We are having this tonight!! Today is Jbq’s birthday!!
Happy Birthday
heh, neither of my ooogly PC’s are on my desk. In fact everyone I know keeps them on the floor.
But you want nice desk art, buy a PC that far outperforms a new mac, and spend the money you save renting a nice sculpture from SFMOMA for a year. Then you have a computing experience that both outperforms and looks better than any mac 🙂
How much longer can Apple play the aesthetics card? What you get for the money is just not up to par at all.
Also, wake me up when I can upgrade the Mac with a new board and CPU in 2 years like I can with a PC in a standard ATX case.
My options:
Spend a shitload on a new Apple computer in 2 years, with Apple’s latest fad industrial design of the day, or buy a new mainboard & CPU for my PC. Tough choice. Let me think about this one for a while…
I kinda like it. Who says a PC has to be a box anyway?
A few comments: OSX on Intel? Why bother? The problem with the “wintel” world has always been the hardware, in my opinion. Nothing is ever standard, and so doing an OS that “just works” ™ is next to impossible. Why do I say this? I have a very “standard” PC, a bit old now. Let me sum up how each Intel OS behaves on this PC:
1. BeOS – never got my serial mouse to work. Yep, mind boggling. Of all things, the friggin’ mouse wouldn’t work. Oh, the ATI graphics card never got past gray mode either, and no hope for SCSI card either.
2. Windows 95/98/ME – for some reason, my printer and scanner fail to work “from time to time”. Windows just doesn’t “see” the parallel port, or something. No, it’s not my hardware, because Linux can print just fine (and I booted into Linux several times when Windows played up just to prove that the hardware is not the problem). Yes, I installed the latest printer drivers (Canon BJC4100) and yes, I even reinstalled the “OS” from scratch.
3. Linux – X couldn’t get past 256 colors on my ATI card (the older X could, but the new “improved” X couldn’t). Gave me problems with the mouse pointer too, and I had to “tweak” the config files to get it to work (disabled the hardware support for the pointer, used software pointer instead). My parallel scanner? No hope in hell of Linux ever supporting that. Despite this, Linux comes close to supporting all my hardware, but fails to impress with it’s ugly fonts under X (well, sorry, but it’s 2002 and I want to see my web pages in full color with nice fonts, thanks). KDE, by the way, which fixes font problems to a large degree, slows down my machine too much (Pentium 200) and so I might as well use NT.
4. OS/2 – Sort of OK, but couldn’t find support for my SCSI card.
5. NT 4 – Actually, all my hardware works fine and I don’t have any real problems. I don’t run 2000 or XP because my hardware is too old now. Given I choice between XP and OSX, I think I’d like OSX better (hey, it’s Unix!). But on my PC, NT 4 is the closest I’ve come to having everything working smoothly. I’m actually kind of happy with it at the moment. Still, it took 2 hours to install the OS, the stupid service pack and updates, and after installation it was left up to me to install and configure drivers that didn’t come with the OS. And Jeeezzuss… how many times did I have to reboot in the process??!! At one stage, NT told me it wanted to switch off file and printer sharing (something about it being on the same TCP/IP connection as my Internet access and therefore being a security problem) and I never did figure out how to get it back, but kept getting an error on startup about the “server service” not working.
So… why does anyone think OSX would be useful on the “wintel” platform assembled from parts purchased at a Sunday swap meet? If you want your OS to work on your hardware each and every time, no questions asked, then you have to design the two to work together, from the start. You probably should expect to pay more for that.
PS: No, I don’t have an Apple (yet). I just *see* the sense in designing the OS and hardware ***together as a whole*** since, after all, the OS has the job of controlling the hardware. Duh!
>A few comments: OSX on Intel? Why bother? The problem with the “wintel” world has always been the hardware, in my opinion.
You are forgetting something my friend.
IF Apple ever comes to x86, they will not release MacOSX to common x86 hardware. Apple is a hardware company. They will most probably design new cases etc and they will only support THEIR specific x86 hardware. They will modify the BIOS of their x86 motherboards in order for MacOSX to work only in the Apple PCs. Why do this, in this all hypothetical scenario? There are numbers of reasons:
1. Apple is a hardware company, needs to sell hardware.
2. The x86 hardware world is immense. You *can’t* just support everything, neither all configurations are working as expected, as you very correctly spotted. This is why they would only support specific hardware and have modified BIOSes.
3. The Motorola-Apple relationship is not great these days. G5 takes ages to come out, high speed G4s are in short supply. I am sure that Apple is not happy with the situation.
4. Instead of coming to “x86” as per se, they could decide to have a special agreement with AMD to port MacOSX to the AMD Hammer, which is a 64-bit CPU and only a version of Linux has been ported so far. No Windows there yet!
5. Better prices.
>>They should be priced at a couple hundred more than the iMac, while the G3 is slowly (but surely! Really, how many new PIII computers do you see for sale today?!?) – phased out -. The G3 iMacs are OLD HARDWARE now. <<
The PIII is still being shipped by PC makers on low-end PCs, see below…
http://www.euro.dell.com/countries/nl/nld/dhs/products/series_dimen…
http://products.hp-at-home.com/sub_category/sub_category.php?id=11
http://www.gateway.com/home/products/hm_dtp_catalog.shtml
>>I can’t even believe this statement. Do you know a SINGLE Windows PC user who would be willing to buy a machine which wasn’t usable for gaming?!? Apple still has a long way to go to catch up in this arena. <<
Please enlighten me on this phenomenon. PCs do have more gaming titles to choose from, but there also game titles on Mac that you can’t get on PC… this goes both ways. And one other thing I don’t miss is having to download another driver after driver for 3D/fx or whatever after installing another game on my PC… I have yet needed to do this on my Mac, PC gaming is not what people make it out to be… I am a gamer, I still like game consoles more anyways!
>>I certainly don’t have any problem with Apple as a company. In fact, I like using OSX, and would like to use it as my primary machine. The fact of the matter is though, this iMac hardware is needlessly overpriced. <<
Compared to what… lets do a comparison to similar specs and all-in-one design…
Gateway Profile PC;
http://www.gateway.com/home/prod/hm_aio_completeprofile.shtml
Apple new iMac (desktop lamp hehe) Please compare both iMac models;
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore
I do feel Apple has been really greedy to how they price the iMac on occasions, but I think when you compare both models above… you’ll see that Apple’s products are not as expensive as people try to exploit… it is almost the same problem to how people say Windows is unstable, it isn’t quite true anymore… but it takes awhile for these rumors to disappear which for Apple’s and Microsoft’s case will be a longtime unfortunately!
TaCo I have much respect for you, Though you do have really good points
… some of your points are invalid in this case!
“Of course you can buy cheaper PCs, as parts are available from everywhere. Now, try to make them work smootly. ”
Spoken like a true Mac Addict.
I just went to my favorite online store http://www.newegg.com and put together a system much like the iMac for about the same price. All the same features, but more horsepower. The big difference though, is that down the road, I can upgrade the CPU, or the video card, or the hard drive, or the sound card….you get my point.
iMac’s are useless simply by being a closed, future-dead system.
>>Also, wake me up when I can upgrade the Mac with a new board and CPU in 2 years like I can with a PC in a standard ATX case.<<
Well you can wake up now OpinionBoy… here is some upgrade options;
http://www.powerlogix.com/home.html
there are others, but this was an example!
Enjoy 🙂
I agree with Evan… I did some price shopping, and you can’t find a better deal than those iBooks. Even if you ignore the whole “if power pc take mhz and times by two thing” and just do a raw comparison, the iBooks are still extremely competatively priced.
I think Apple is playing it right. They don’t have enough of the market for a full spectrum of penetration, so they hit a few target markets, price it so that you know you are buying something (as opposed to a -great deal- that always leaves you wondering why it was such a great deal. Underpricing is bad too…)
I’m behind them, I’m tempted to get an iBook and hope they keep optimizing OS X.
>>iMac’s are useless simply by being a closed, future-dead system.<<
I’m not sure about the new iMacs, but this isn’t the case with old iMacs!!!
Eugenia. Your point is taken. I hadn’t thought of it that way. Could be trouble for Motorola though.
Let’s ask audio makers like Bose and Bang & Olufsen that question.
FYI: Bose engineers their products to emphasize audio “sweet spots.” This is a great psychoacoustic trick but it comes at the price of true high fidelity reproduction (in which you want your response curve to be as flat as possible). But, what Bose has is kind of nifty industrial design and absolutely great marketing. (Sorry for any rabid Bose fans I may have offended, but as an audio engineer I’m acquainted with put it, “The great thing about Bose speakers is that they give cheap audio equipment the Bose Sound. The awful thing about them is that they give really expensive audio equipment the Bose Sound.”)
B&O, meanwhile, certainly aren’t household names–but they win an amazing number of design awards. Their products are just really, really DAMN COOL. Their audio reproduction is certainly good, but you can arguably get equivalent equipment for half the price. You’re paying because their products are really, really DAMN COOL.
I think the problem here is that this board is by and large not comprised of people who are Apple’s target market. Some people absolutely want a G5. Eugenia wants a G4 with reasonably modest specs, but would rather have something utilitarian-looking (at least compared to “iLamp”) for $999. These aren’t irrational leanings by any stretch.
But Apple’s targeting two groups: the vertical markets in creative fields that kept them going through their darkest times, and the boutique consumer market. The first one is mostly comprised of people for whom the five Altivec-focused tasks a 700 MHz G4 can beat a 1.4 GHz Pentium III in comprise 50% of their average workday. (To be a little less facetious about that, if you talk to people who are professional pre-press workers, you’ll often find that they simply can’t use Windows for what they do. The software or functionality just isn’t there. Yes, it does happen.)
In the second one, Apple *knows* that they can’t compete with an off-the-shelf CompUSA system, much less a homebrew machine you savvy hacker guys threw together from parts bought at Fry’s and scavenged from your company’s wiring closet. So they’re *not* competing with it. They’re looking for people who want something that isn’t just a computer, but a conversation piece among their non-geek friends. And, again, you may not be the market for the “digital hub,” but THAT is the concept that is going to get PCs into the non-computer-owning market. Music, photography and home video have gone digital. So give people something manages their photographs and CD collection, controls their Walkman, lets them turn their home movies into DVDs–and lets them do it all out of the box, as close to the ease of the analog equivalents as possible.
You’re probably saying, “you can do that on a PC.” Yeah, YOU can. But you’re a geek. And, with all due respect, you can’t do it as easily as the current line of consumers Macs can. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: non-geeks don’t want “internet appliances,” because the internet alone isn’t a killer application. What they want is something that makes a *full* computer as easy to use as an appliance for most functions. Apple is doing that. Nobody else is really trying.
Overall, I thought it was a pretty good keynote. And, I think the new iMac is much better looking than the original with two big improvements: the flat screen and the G4.
Regarding the hype, I was turned into a foaming frenzy from thoughts of a new G5.
Now that I look back, I think it would have taken away from the iMac. However, I have a serious “no G5” hangover.
iPhoto is great! My wife will love it (once I buy a powermac).
Apple has a special deal regarding the powermacs and the flat screen monitors that ends on Jan 31st. I believe upgraded powermacs will be announced around that time. However, not sure if they will have G4’s with DDR or G5’s.
They better do something quick because I can’t see people spending 2500 bucks on a 867 MHz when you can get the almost same performance for about 800 bucks less and, with a monitor.
– Mark
Futuresheep, I’m not quite a Mac addict, you see. I like Macs but I don’t take them as a religion. I own a Performa 6360 and I truly like it. It’s running OS 9.1 and it’s really fast if you know how to tweak it. I also own a Compaq Presario 4126, which is a rather old Pentium 133. Those are my machines. This Compaq is pretty much modded to its maximum, as I changed the HD, put a DVD drive on it, added more RAM, Ethernet (cable modem), AWE64, RivaTNT, Zip Plus, optical mouse , HD drawer (which holds the 1.6GB drive the computer came with)… I guess you got the idea.
Bottom line is: I own 2 brand machines, both were amazing back in 1996. Both are lagging behind technology, but both do their jobs quite well, albeit slowly.
Now, if you want my humblest, most sincere opinion: I like the Mac better. Buying a Mac where I live is not the easiest task on Earth and when these new iMacs arrive, they will be extremely (read that aloud) overpriced because of imported goods taxes et alli. Still, I’d rather save a lot of money and buy the highest-end Mac I could and use it for the upcoming decade or so. I’d be able to run PC stuff on VirtualPC, I also would run the most promising OS since BeOS, etc.
Trust me, I’m a techie. I had to learn almost every trick in the computing world to keep these machines running with no major quirks. This Pentium 133 runs XP, btw, in addition to several other OSs (and I mean it). I also am a Computer Sciences student, so, please, spare me — I’m not your grandma or the standard Apple zealot nerd. I know my business.
And, as someone said before on another board here in OSNews, “I’m too poor to buy cheap stuff”…
I’m sorry my English is not the best out there, so bear with me. I’ve not been sleeping well lately =)
Well said.
I’d like to add that the only thing preventing me from buying one of those new Macs is MY financial situation. I can only hope to have my budget improved by the time the new G5s are rolled out =)
>>The only company that has been able to hold off MS and Intel for over a decade.<< Bzzzt wrong. Microsoft bailed apple out $150 million, that aint peanuts either. Still apple retains an abysimally small portion of the computing market. Why you ask? There is one answer and one only, price. Look at what they charge for ram upgrades at the apple site and tell me you cant find it cheaper or more readily availible elsewhere. Couple that with apples proprietary outlook, you’ve got to be kidding it’s like beos all over again. There either has to be more value with a mac (15″ screen? are you kidding me? bah. I dont care if it’s flat screen I want real estate) or it must be priced more competitively for the performance. The pull of osx will wear off in time, then what does apple have up it’s sleeve? Look at sun and realize why linux is becoming a more popular server OS, sun a hardware company just as apple is, is being low balled for ubiquitious hardware (x86) and a low cost operating system that’s providing better value with each new kernel and has a predictable future that doesnt depend upon market forecasts. It’s that $imple.
>>Microsoft bailed apple out $150 million, that aint peanuts either.<<
you need to get your facts straight, before spreading bad gossip…
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1997/dom/970818/cover1.html
Enjoy 🙂
>>Look at sun and realize why linux is becoming a more popular server OS, sun a hardware company just as apple is, is being low balled for ubiquitious hardware (x86) and a low cost operating system that’s providing better value with each new kernel and has a predictable future that doesnt depend upon market forecasts. It’s that $imple.<<
Though this is true in some cases… this is not true in all cases! Some big corporations are realizing that reliability is a better investment than cheap hardware, now there are companies going back to folks like Sun Microsystems to regain that confidence… I will tell you from experience of about 10 years, Industrial strength UNIX like Solaris just plain works and takes care of itself and that is why it’s so widely used by companies who can’t take chances on cheaper alternatives, like the company I work for and the one before that and before that (the list goes on)!!
Don’t get me wrong we use Linux in conjunction with our Sun boxes and it really does a bang up job of managing our network, but Sun and Solaris is doing all the hard work for our mission and goal!!!
I work in an industry that tries to pack as much
computing power into as small a space as possible.
(Advanced airborne imaging systems)
I can see where people are coming from with the
“It’s odd looking” lines. Granted it doesn’t look
anything like the big old crap box 1980s PC-AT that
everyone seems to own these days.
Speaking from experience on the scale of this stuff
I can honestly say that stuffing that much power, into
that little space, for that little price is a *substantial*
achievement.
Hype will always be over-hyped. You learn to stop keeping high expectations especially when the party is over-enthusiastic with the hype. After saying that, I have to say the new iMac is sweet. It looks good. It looks funny, but who ever decreed that computers had to be rectangular. I like what Apple has done.
I don’t get why people are so worked up over the CPU speed differentials. I have an Athlon 600 and I used to want to upgrade until I really thought about why I needed a 1+GHz processor. blink. My computer waits for me more often than I wait for it. I think the current G4 speeds offered here are good enough for most of us except those into heavy work. I’m fine with my ibook 500 except that os x is a tad slow. If it’s the GUI, it should be blazing fast; eye candy should not be more important. I hope apple really shine up os x. And I barely use os x anyway, only for watching dvds, just cos I can’t get linux to play dvds yet on the ibook.
I digress. My point being that even without all the software on the iMac, I would still buy it (if I had the money and more than just lusty need). Yes, the hardware alone is worth the price. The hardware and the look. Not just form but functional form.
I wonder what I would do with all the spare cycles if someone gave me a 2.2GHz P4 processor. Probably watch a nop pass through a 20-stage pipeline.
And my athlon desktop now languishes in neglect. The iBook rules supreme. Thank goodness for Apple and their industrial design team. Now I’m saving up money to buy an iPod, and when my athlon is on its death kneel, I’ll probably buy the iMac too. Hype or not.
Over hipe a product to death and it might sell.
I like the overall design and think it would make a nice Internet Appliance for $500 to $800 range. I might buy one as an IA when the price comes down under $1000.
This is a nice design for an IA, I hope it does not go the way of the Cube.
ciao
yc
Stop Picking on the KMart Bluelight PC! I bought a BlueLight PC for kicks on
day as a kick around machine…a 533 Mhz Celeron with 32 Megs of Ram.
Upgraded the RAM to 128 Megs, threw in a Promise Ultra ATA PCI Hard Disk
controller and an older hard drive that was laying around
and added a 24X CD-RW drive…ended up costing me like $299 for the
computer and $200 bucks for the upgrades. The machine has been working
without a crash or hangup since I bought it a year and a half ago, and
has not been shut off! Used the second hard disk to install Mandrake 8.1
so that I could play around with MySQL for work…believe it or not the
BlueLight PC that I bought as a joke at the time, turned out to be the most
trouble-free PC that I have ever owned…so what that it has a big blue
K mart sticker on it…and a blue case…LOL….made by LG International in
Korea, and runs solid in my book…motherboard has accellerated Intel video
which is good enough to play Unreal Tournament on…over all a good computer!
DANO!
There are many trolls and Mac shi-ot talkers out there and quite frankly I don’t give a rats ass. Go on and talk all the crap you want but for me it comes down to this.
Windows is built like a Ford Pinto, it’s just sucks all the way around and blows up in your face. Yes, even Win2K (though I haven’t tried XP yet). The interface is junky like the all crappy plastic parts littered about the dash of so many crappy chevy cavliers I’ve had the displesure of renting in the past. It’s the best OS for games, not by design but the number of available titles. I can see the XBox having a great future. Think DLL hell!
Linux is great if you want to run servers or spend the rest of your life tweaking crap. It makes for a wonderful development enviroment but sometimes you just want it all to work damn it! My best experience was leaving the system without X windows completely.
BeOS, no comment, never used it.
QNX looks spiffy, reminds me of the Amiga days never used it though.
MacOS 9-, great interface, great applications, but shoddy OS, crashes way too much for my tastes.
MacOS X, great applcations clean interface, UNIX underneath, Scripting everywhich way, Good applications, Cocca frameworks look tastey, somtimes slow by todays measures but suprisingly fast at times. It’s another beast most people aren’t accustomed to. Duel proc systems are so liquid, organic and altivec rips and encodes at ‘BLAZING’ speeds. Design of apple systems surpasses any PC hardware I’ve touched. Everything fits, works, and just feels good.
Say what you want. If you’ve tried OS X and don’t like it, it’s not for you. If you haven’t tried it, don’t knock what you don’t know.
I was an iMac hater but somehow bought a DV iMac and haven’t regretted that decision. It comes closest to the Amiga 2000 I miss so much. I’ve had a few PCs and really hated the experience no matter what OS the damn things had.
iMac 2.0 looked ridiculous when I first laid eyes on it last night on the Time Canada site but it’s growing on me. I’ve always found my greatest loves weren’t instant but gradual. It took me almost a year before I went to the iMac camp before but I don’t regret it one bit. Since I bought this DV I’m using right now I built a commodity PC with an Athlon T-Bird, 1gig DDR ram, ATA100 RAID and 18″ LCD… had it for 2 months before I gave it up and kept the older iMac. It’s works 100% of the time. Rarely crashes (now almost never with OS 10), never need to screw with BIOS….
Trash talk all you want. Tweak linux ’till you’re blue in the face and comment how special you are… fact of the matter is…
My iMac rocks!
Lo L3 cache and only PC100 RAM …
>>Lo L3 cache and only PC100 RAM …<<
That meets high end PC standards in price and value!!!
PC100 RAM is *not* high end PC hardware.
PC100 was not low end hardware in ’98 or in 2000 when I purchased my iMac. When I built an Athlon system with PC2100 DDR, I wasn’t too impressed with it.
>>PC100 RAM is *not* high end PC hardware.<<
Trust me, most of my PC wielding friends don’t mind when I give them my old PC-100 Ram Cards, and you know that PC users like a bargain, to be honest, the argument over PC100 and PC133 is almost pointless, though the higher the better, well in most cases.
Calling the new iMac a low end machine is really funny compared to what you’ll get in a PC at the same price and I am talking about the All-In-One boxes, not some joe shmoe chop “we can build” PC shop around the corner, like what my friend just had done, and I told him he could have got a Dell at a better price and would have got that well known customer support Dell is famous for!
“I want real screen estate!”
Well, you GOT it. It’s 15″ VIEWABLE area.
Whinner.
For your average user (internet, word processing, gaming) 100MHz memory should be more than fast enough. I would never say that 100MHz memory is not usable. To call it high-end memory however would be inaccurate. The previous iteration of memory speed is 66MHz, which is rarely used nowadays. That means 100MHz is the low end. We then have one step up, at 133MHz. After that we get to DDR RAM, which is much faster than 133MHz, and after that we move to RDRAM, which is again much faster. Your statement was “That meets high end PC standards in price and value!!!”. In reference to a small L3 cache and 100MHz RAM. As I’ve shown above, that is simply not true. I would agree however, that this doesn’t mean that the iMacs are low end systems.
The difference between Macs and PCs are _choise_.
Can I by a Mac without firewire and DVD stuff, with a
bigger HD, 22″ screen ,1Gig ram and a CPU comparable with and Athlon 1200Mhz…? How much will it cost?
With PCs I can build my own system exactly as I wan’t it without going
bancrupt. And no there aren’t any problems nowadays with mixing hardware in
a pc system. And when it comes to OS I choose QNX.
Well then I certainly hope that you can find the applications
you want\need! AFAIK QNX is a bit like BeOS used to be; no major
software packages have been ported over just a few REALLY good
shareware packages. Have fun finding QNX gamez too!
Okay, Eugenia wants a G4, 17″ screen, SuperDrive for $1000. She thinks this is reasonable. She’d be willing to compromise in a few areas here and there, but basically, she thinks it’s UNACCEPTABLE that this machine doesn’t exist.
Look at the low, low end iMac ($799); look at the high end PowerMac ($3499). Now imagine this “middle” (really, E, do you think this machine is entry-level?) machine that Eugenia proposes and imagine how it would cannabilize from the high AND low end (Remember, Apple failed with a more diverse line than high-end workstation, low-end all-in-one, high-end laptop, low-end laptop), and imagine what Apple would have to do with its other prices. How long would Apple be around?
Yes, maybe I support Apple a little zealously… but in my mind, that means saying, “No, PowerMacs — well don’t want attention taken away from the iMac and Seybold and MWTK is soon and a G4 iMac does point to G5 sooner than autumn; hmm, iMac, I wonder if the base will support a 17″ or a swivel Portrait mode… can’t wait to rev. 2 or 3. Wow, I’m glad I like Macs.”
Eugenia on the other hand supports another form of fanaticism: I want everything that I want and I don’t care what the company is capable of delivering nor do I care what their customers want because my saving $300 is clearly the only thing that is gonna get me to adopt MacOS which I agree is the best OS available now but I won’t use it because I insist that a computer is a commodity even though the company that makes the best OS (that I’d like to use) thinks the computer hardware is intimately linked to the OS and software.
Cut the crap dp.
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=488&offset=0&rows=25“>… what I want, in my first comment, and for what price. Don’t get stupid. You did not even read the comments before you reply in this manner.
I read your original post an I read all the comments. I noticed you said at one point, yes, the 17″ would have been better so I added that… you don’t want the SuperDrive? Okay, I’ll change that and I’ll change the monitor specs to a 15″ (with higher res) — my post remains about the same, and certainly the post is the same.
Okay, Eugenia wants a G4, 17″ screen, SuperDrive for $1000. She thinks this is reasonable. She’d be willing to compromise in a few areas here and there, but basically, she thinks it’s UNACCEPTABLE that this machine doesn’t exist.
Look at the low, low end iMac ($799); look at the high end PowerMac ($3499). Now imagine this “middle” (really, E, do you think this machine is entry-level?) machine that Eugenia proposes and imagine how it would cannabilize from the high AND low end (Remember, Apple failed with a more diverse line than high-end workstation, low-end all-in-one, high-end laptop, low-end laptop), and imagine what Apple would have to do with its other prices. How long would Apple be around?
Yes, maybe I support Apple a little zealously… Eugenia on the other hand supports another form of fanaticism: I want everything that I want and I don’t care what the company is capable of delivering nor do I care what their customers want because my saving $300 is clearly the only thing that is gonna get me to adopt MacOS which I agree is the best OS available now but I won’t use it because I insist that a computer is a commodity even though the company that makes the best OS (that I’d like to use) thinks the computer hardware is intimately linked to the OS and software.
I SAID CUT THE FUCKING CRAP. You CAN’T READ.
>Okay, Eugenia wants a G4, 17″ screen, SuperDrive for $1000. She thinks this is reasonable
Why are you distorting the truth?
I HATE superdrives, where did I say I want a superdrive? Where did I say I want a 17″? Are you stupid or something?
What I need to switch to Apple is:
G4 600 Mhz (I do not want G3, because I want access to G4’s AltiVec, and I do not want a PowerMac but a cheap and modern iMac)
DVD *playback* and CD/CD-RW combo (*NOT* A F*CKING SUPERDRIVE)
256 MB of RAM
GeForce2 MX or Ati Radeon VE (they had that one right but VE has multihead for the same money as MX)
*Either* an LCD at 1024×768 or a 15″ CRT (I *don’t* mind CRTs) at the same res, but if it has to be a CRT, I need it with 85 Hz refresh rate.
30 GB of drive. (they actually now offer more than I need – props to Apple for this one)
Better speakers (only included in the high end imac).
That’s all. This can be done for $1000.
And I want a Mercedes but I don’t want to pay a Mercedes price. I guess that’s the company’s problem.
That’s all. This can be done for $1000.
Prove it. No, really. Prove it.
With x86 hardware it can easily be done.
I don’t go search for components and pick together a system here for you just to prove a point, but if you look through Eugenias posts you’ll find a x86 system she composed with these specs (well, even better) for under $1000