Apple preparing to introduce Sandy Bridge iMacs early next week - sources - Page 2

@Rot'nApple;
"An unborn child's property rights are protected by law. His right to life is not."

Wow, totally off topic, but I couldn't let this BS slide. What about "Her right to life"? How blatantly sexist and self righteous is your statement? VERY!

It seems that most people who try to deny a woman the rights to determine what she does with her body are male. As soon as you are able to conceive and nurture life within your body for nine or so months, then, and only then, should you be able to give your opinion of what women should be able to do with their bodies. To try to force your sexist views on one half of the human race when you are unable to be impregnated is unconscionable.

Dude, you should remove your sexist views from your comments and stick to technology.

Speaking of which, I can't wait to see what the new iMacs will offer and at what price points!

Depending on the processing power of the different iMac's, I'm gearing towards an iMac + Air.

You’re arguing with a joke?

I guess I didn't see the lead up sarcasm before the delivery line to catch it was intentionally over the top. My bad.

I wasn't sure how I'd like the magic pad and kept my mouse nearby for about 2 weeks; after which time it had been relegated to the junk drawer and hasn't been used since. That was 6 months ago and I can say that I love it and haven't missed the mouse at all. I just really wish I'd known about the double tap sooner than today. Thanks for making it even better Dick.

Wanting a midsize desktop, I grudgingly bought an iMac. Found I Love it.
It came with a Magic Mouse that I liked even better than my Logitech 8 button mice. Then I bought a Magic Track Pad so I wouldn't have to move a mouse around; therefore, saving my wrist. I LOVE being able to move the cursor around the 27" monitor with ONE finger effortlessly. Getting used to the rapid double tap took some effort, but now I use it instead of the MTP click.

I keep the MM on my desk next to the MTP, but I hardly ever use it. I'll put it out to pasture very soon. I can't imagine a better cursor mover and controller than the MTP. It just takes getting used to and then it's an Uber tool. My wrist feels better and I don't have to grope for buttons, wheels, and sliders.

Only 'thought control' could be better for me.

"As consumers increasingly grow accustom" should be "accustomed".

I'm curious as to how much smaller the "footprint" needs to be. My iMac has a stand that takes up a tiny patch of desk with a reasonably small bezel. If the bezel were much smaller, off-screen distractions could be a problem (I have a window behind the Mac). The stand doesn't get in the way of anything.

My vote for the "best post of the week!"

And by "best," I mean funniest!

I would love to see a matte display myself - but if not it isn't a deal killer for me. Was ready to pull the trigger on a BTO 27" 2.93 gHz i7 with 1TB HD and 512 SSD with wired keyboard (I want my damn keypad - and it appears they feel the same at Apple these days about a wireless w/keypad as they do BluRay LOL).

I will gladly throw don't my card on the 3rd for a BTO with specs like that - and of course a Thunderbutt port and one of them new Sunny Beachy processors. Doubt it with Thunderbutt a cumin but wouldn't mind a USB 3.0. Think it will still have Fried Wire 800? Be nice since there is already stuff out there that works with it today.

You mean like this:

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/i...lacement/873/1

But I guess the idea of putting on gloves, using suction cups, taking apart bare LCD panels and removing 50 screws makes some guys feel more manly. Does it help them get more girls?

Also, it's not just about doing your own repairs. By making computers more serviceable, repair shops could get also get their customers machines repaired more quickly. I wonder if Apple's hardware designers work behind locked doors and walk through separate underground tunnels to avoid being seen by the repair depot people. Do the designers even try to take apart Macs themselves just to see what it will be like for the technicians? Replacing a stick of memory does not count.

Nice of you to be able to "voice" your opinion.

"What about her right to life?" Seems to me she is already living. Oh, you mean the right not to be "bothered" by the consequences of her and her mates actions... Pretty selfish and petty of both of them, but that topic can go off in an entirely different direction and I just want to reply to the heart of your posts reasoning.

So since I can't give birth you say I should be silent. I'm not in the military. You?... If I'm not in the military, I guess I can't speak, pro or con, about war. I'm not a politician, so I guess I can't speak on the policies our government implements. I'm not a teacher so I guess my opinion on what children are taught is mute. I'm not even a computer maker or software writer so by your reasoning I guess commenting on the design of Apple's next iMac or the upcoming Lion OS should be off limits, probably to the majority of us here. Hey AI, time to close shop. A lot of your viewers can no longer post a comment because we are not "able to conceive and nurture" an opinion and to do so would be "unconscionable". Oh, by the way, are you a "Green Energy Engineer and Expert"? If not, maybe you need to change your handle "Solar Saves" until you are, because according to you, you can't have an opinion on whether or not solar saves..

If it is all the same to you, I'll speak for those who yet have that capability!
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I don't see why we wouldn't see an iMac Touch with a thermal liquidmetal internal component. Everything is going touch so why wouldn't the iMac?

Also, the following link shows that Apple's head of consumer products has patented the spray technology to incorporate Liquidmetal as a thermal benefit.

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patentl...etal.html#more

I've been using a free program called Better Touch Tool for the past few weeks for the Magic Trackpad and it gives even more options than what Apple includes. It's fully customizable and you can add all sorts of swipes and gestures for triggering different events.

The Magic Trackpad is great. My mice are collecting dust in a drawer.

Wonderful. Just for kicks I tried it but it refuses saying Mac OS X 10.7 can't be installed on this Mac.
I really don't consider hacking the OS installer to be a viable means of upgrading, so I will stick with my original plan to buy a new iMac instead.

You still don't get it dude,

"his right to life" so all unborn children that have a right to life are only male? You are so sexist that you can't even use a gender neutral word to try to make a point that has nothing to do with this website.

And you think that people in a happy relationship and can't be bothered would do that? Have you ever been raped, date raped, had a man take advantage of you when you were drunk or after drugging you or beating you, given in to your boyfriend to have unprotected sex who then takes off when he finds out he impregnated you, had some relative or family friend molest you? Only a few of the reasons that you didn't mention...

"Hey AI, time to close shop. A lot of your viewers can no longer post a comment because we are not "able to conceive and nurture" an opinion and to do so would be "unconscionable"."

What the heck is this foolish statement about? You put a controversial signature on your post and I just called you on your misplaced opinion, pointing out that most people who devalue women and their right to choose, are self-righteous, sexist men.

Actually I've been researching and training in solar technologies for several years. I built my own solar panels that save me over 400 gallons of fuel oil every year. Solar Saved me over $1600 this winter alone! I also teach classes to show other people how to save money with solar technologies. If you want, I'll be happy to send you some plans. If you buy the materials, I'll even help you build and install them.

So my handle and my opinion are well founded, as being Rot'n probably is for you.

Exactly. As much as I love the look of the glossy displaysand as much as I love showing video to clients on our glossy screensI find the glossy to be hopeless for color critical print output.

Very simply, with Apple's glossy screens, contrast gets bumbed up tremendously while nuances hide themselves away. Many times I've seen Photoshop work that originated on a glossy demonstrate GLARING errors when viewed on a well-calibrated LCD, but the real proof is in the proofs ... from the printer.

As a consequence, my 17" Macbook Pro has a matte screen as do the monitors we use with our Mac Pros. We save the glossy screens for a certain "wow" factor. They're beautiful, but (for print-oriented workflow, at least) flawed.

So is your issue a glossy display or an uncalibrated LCD? Sounds like youre creating a false reasoning for any errors in Photoshop.

I hated glossy screens when they first came out, but now I am used to them. The only time I get the sh*ts with my glossy screen now is when I'm watching a movie and a dark (light-wise) scene comes on and I see my own face staring back at me and it takes me out of the movie. Or I have to move my face closer to the screen to make out what's going on. But in general use you can adapt to these screens by not having a black desktop picture and other adjustments.

I suppose if you job requires you to work on a black document you're a bit stuffed, but then you probably have a pro monitor anyway.

It's an odd statement. Mac desktops have grown in both unit and net sales year after year. Their growth has been accelerating, defying the rest of the industry.

The fact that portables have been growing much more rapidly doesn't mean the desktop line isn't relevant - desktops accounted for $6.2 billion in revenue FY 2010. It'll probably be more in FY 2011.

It's the rest of the manufacturers whose desktop sales have been declining.

I wish Apple would not reserve top-spec for the large display models. I need the power, but prefer the smaller display.

Ah well, not gonna happen. I'll just wait for the next Pro.

All most matte users want is the OPTION. My home/working environment has two walls made out of glass, try controlling that in the summer. That's a stupid comment. I use a Mac mini with a DELL display, because I ran out of decent quality old white iMacs. I simply can't use a glossy machine, and judging by the amount of times it gets flagged when new iMacs are discussed, I'm not alone. We just want the CHOICE, don't be such an apologist.

Wanting an option is acceptable, but expecting and crying foul when it doesnt come is not. I havent read anything from you doing the latter, but that is usually how that request is presented. The antithesis of foljs comment.

I do wonder why you arent controlling the light in a room with a monitor. If you are doing work that requires accurate color then simply having a matte display isnt going to cut it if you have two walls made of glass.

PS: Are you not allowed to throw half stones?

PPS: its possible to remove a great deal of potential glare by removing the glass cover on the iMac. Its only attached by magnets. Its still a glossy display but its far less glossy than the panel itself. Last time I mentioned that I was told it would look ugly.

I don't need the matte for the colour accuracy, I only need it so I can work in the one space my house that's ideal for a computer without straining my eyes. I'm not crying foul, I just fail to see why Apple provide the option on their MBP's but still refuse to give the option to iMac users? Surely there's a huge crossover in potential buyers in that segment? I like the Mini set-up, but it's lacking in power for some tasks, and I miss my iMac's clean lines. I now have a mini server running OS X client with the drives in a RAID 0, so I have to use an Air Superdrive. Along with the monitor the footprint is huge compared to an iMac.

I realise the glass removal is an option, but it's less than ideal, I would like to use the computer "as is" without having to remove part of it to make it functional. Part of the appeal of an iMac is the aesthetic, and it's diminished when the screen is removed as the gap is clearly visible.

p.s. Nice one. No half stones, but it's great for tomatoes.

Mac Desktop Product shipment are not declining, which is what the article was suggesting. They are just Growing a lot lot slower compare to Macbook Segment.

No false reasoning whatsoever. Yes, the glossy LCD is calibrated. We calibrate all of our monitors. The issue is bumped up contrast due to the glass. Colors—especially those that approach black—get unnaturally skewed toward shadow tones. It's a "beautiful skew" for viewing purposes but not for print.

I continue to be perplexed by the number of people who doubt this effect when numerous designers in the field continue to use matte screens and call out for a matte option on the iMac. Apple offers the choice of a matte screen on the 17" Macbook Pro. Little wonder—the chief reasons being those that I—and many, many others—have delineated.

I hear you. I feel exactly as you do, but I suspect that keeping the iMac as an all-glossy lineup protects Mac Pro sales for high-end print designers. Apple knows that such folks require top-drawer monitors, and if Apple actually provided one on the iMac then sales of their most powerful desktops would decline.

Because we do video in our shop, we appreciate the power of the Mac Pro. Increasingly, though, we don't need a Mac Pro for print—except for the monitor issue.

I was thinking the same thing. The percentages are misleading because, even though sales of desktops are increasing, additional mobile product offerings have increased gross sales dramatically and reduced the percentage that desktops contribute to the whole. They're not losing desktop sales, they have created new market categories that have taken off and become a huge part of the overall business.

It's the only logical explanation, but I wish they would just bite the margin bullet for once. It's not like the same people aren't going to go straight out and buy an iMac, I know I would. I would also be upgrading it every year.

You really can't depend on any monitor for accurate color when it comes to print. You need to just know color and always sample the ink densities and view the separations in Photoshop. What the composite image looks like can be deceiving especially in the really light and really dark areas. It is still an RGB representation of a CMYK image. The unfortunate thing about print these days is that you can't depend on ink jet proofing either. Because we are so picky about everything we print, I do press proofing. It can get really expensive if you have to start reburning plates. The old Match Print proofing was dead on, but it was slow, expensive and used some nasty chemicals.

Bottom line is the glossy monitors are not ideal for print but should not be a problem if you know what you are doing.

Desktop sales revenue grew over 43% from 2009 to 2010. Macbook sales grew only 18%.

On the other hand, iPad sales grew from zero to $4.9 billion during the same period. An ∞% growth rate When that ∞% declines to, say, only 150% from FY 2010 to 2011, surely there will be those who say Apple's iPad unit is suffering.

It takes at least a cursory understanding of mathematics to analyze a company's performance, which this author clearly lacks.

It's OK, investors love this kind of "analysis".

I wonder if the 21 inch will be dual or quad core? Base quad would be awesome. If its the dual, then the 15 inch macbook pro would be more powerful than it.

Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what they did but they had to modify a few files. You could google it, but if your getting a new one anyways thats cool.

But then, if your like me, why not use the old one for messing around and see if you can do it too?

I think they could and should make the hard drives accessible if they switched to 2.5" drives and made pull-out trays from the bottom beside the RAM like you got with the old MacBooks. This way, you can easily slot in a 3rd-party SSD. Or they can use one of their SSD blades as a boot drive and have two slots for the 2.5" drives that can be setup in RAID or used for Time Machine. So you could have a RAID 0 for 2TB or RAID 1 mirrored or one for storage and the other for Time Machine backing up both SSD and storage.

It's way more flexible than just one 3.5" drive stuck in the middle of the machine that you can't get to. This is one huge advantage the laptops have over the desktops. Just a few screws and you get to your drive.


I'd say the footprint alone gives the iMac an advantage and you're right as long as they are making a profit, there's no reason to stop selling them.

It is however an important trend to be aware of and it appears to be a rapid trend. While Apple's desktops are growing in number, overall sales are expected to grow year on year and the desktops aren't growing nearly as quickly as laptops.

Laptops have grown 400% in 5 years but desktops not even 200%. The iPad may change this trend but the numbers for the past year and a half don't reflect this.

The percentage share may not mean a whole lot going forward to Apple's decisions and if anything the iMac sales volume must keep costs for the Cinema Display down so even if it went to 90:10 share in a few years, there would be some reasons to keep going with it. If desktops go under 5% though, even if the sales number is large enough, you'd have to wonder if it is worth their effort.


I think it's time to scrap the 21.5". I also think the 27" is too big. For a normal computer viewing distance, 24" is an ideal size. I think 1080p resolution would work great but it is nice to be able to put a 1080p clip into windowed mode at native size so a resolution like 2200 x 1240 might be more appropriate.

This way they can sell much more affordable Cinema Displays too and put quad-cores across the whole line.

However, I'd expect people to only buy the entry model if this happened so I think Apple will keep the current display sizes and go dual-core in the smaller ones and quads in the 27" ones.

Apple was successful with its "digital lifestyle", that's why. Most people don't use computers for "computing" or development; they use them as over-priced media players. And can't imagine them as anything else.

When your #1 interest is playing music, watching videos or surfing the Internet with a browser, you want to be mobile, or at least there is no upside to a fixed location.

Developers, etc., who invest intellectual capital in their machines, want it more locked down to avoid loss or instability. Desktop/workstations are just that ... for work, in a controlled stable environment. If you aren't using the computer for work, but just looking at screen, you can do that anywhere.

I've been in computers since soldering together my first Heathkit H8 in 1976 ... hard-core users are now marginalized in Apple's profit margin as we move toward cartoon-like, grossly simplified interfaces. Hiding complexity from ignorant users with simple needs is the be-all and end-all.

The trajectory inevitably leads to computers that are will be useless as "computers". You can see it in the new college com sci. grads coming out of school who know practically nothing about the underlying nature of the systems, only taught in high-level user-interface issues.

Eventually we will be back to people having to build their own systems because the market percentage for "those sorts of people" will be too small for any manufacturer to bother with...

Further there has to be more demand than a few people on AI whining about their inability to work with they current monitor line up. This noise makes about as much sense as the people that try to drive their cars through a snow bank then whine that their car is no good in the snow.


You really should open up your mind a bit and not allow yourself to damn something you haven't tried. Each new Mac should be evaluated on it's own merits, that includes whatever screen they install on it.

Funny how the two have evolved. Laptop drives used to be hard to replace; desktops, simple.

I wish it were easier to replace a hard disk, but like user-replaceable batteries there's a manufacturing cost consideration. I imagine the whole question will soon become moot as SSDs replace HDs anyway. Besides, I think Apple is soon going to offer "cloud" storage for all your local content, which will reduce users' ever-growing mass storage needs.


5% may still be significant. The question to ask is when will their desktop segment represent Xserve's share when they dropped it - I'm guessing way less than 5%, probably less than 1%.

Apple lumped Xserve sales together with "desktops" so I don't know.

In any event I imagine iMacs and Mac Pros will continue to be sold for a long time.

Probably. Then you can start your own company in your parents' garage

Sadly true! Worst is that many of these people are convinced that they know all about computers.

I'm not 100% convinced of that. For example a larger screen goes a long way to making videos enjoyable. The general point though is correct, today's laptops handle this fairly well.

There is a lot more interest in desktops than the developer crowd. for many it is more about performance and flexibility.

commodore c64, Heath Z100 and others here. However I think your attitude about Mac OS is a bit negative. I switched to the Mac after years with Linux because Mac OS as a whole is a better option. At least for a general purpose laptop / desktop machine.

Wish I had the time to get into this point, maybe later.

Later

It's interesting to go to a conference and sit behind a row of people running Mac laptops.

You see this wall of mirrors in their laps, and can watch 8 faces from behind, reflected in their screen, as they each bob and weave their heads from side to side to avoid the glare and make out what's on the screen ...

But man, the colors are great ... at least if you can mentally subtract the reflected image of the room and face from each pixel...

It illustrates the frivolousness of modern computers; showroom flash is more important than functionality.

Now for the vigorous defense from Apple shareholders/tulip bulb salesmen:

I think you just found Adobes new slogan.