New iMac's in Sept - **CONFIRMED** - Page 7

and thats why apples only consumer desktop at the moment has a blindingly fast radion 9200 with a whopping 32 megs of ram, that model is at least 5 years young... and on the emac, Apple takes integration a step further by attaching the damn monitor.

So all said, these offerings dont suck in morons, they simpley bring blinde and ignorant apple cool-aid drinkers back to the troff to separate them from their money.

The truth about computer buyers - the average non-geek ones, is that they rarely "upgrade" their CPUs after purchasing. In 4 years or so they buy a completely new computer. Best Buy and CompUSA aren't interested in simply selling graphic card upgrades anymore. Apple single handidly made computers easy to use and to own. No amount of trolling by fowl-mouthed teenagers is going to change history. The new iMac will appeal to the demographic that wants to send eMail, surf the net, assemble personal photos and do things other then sit in front of the damn thing and play video games.

I doubt that Apple has this opinion of the Mac platform; I certainly hope not. However, I think what you say might apply to one model of the Mac, like the future iMac. The concept of the iMac is good. Take all the features that some large market segment wants in a computer, and integrate these features together in the most cost-effective way. So the iMac might target the consumer digital hub market, for example, and for this particular application it should represent one of the best values. This is the concept at least, and hopefully Apple will pull it off better this time around.

Where I really disagree with you is trying to apply this principal to the entire Mac platform. The entire computer market has very diverse needs. An iMac might represent good value in its main market segment, but it cannot be expected to be a good value in many others. If Apple expects to increase market share, Apple needs more diversity in the type of Macs offered.

I've often wondered how many people actually need super fast graphics cards because they play games. They're (mostly) the only ones who need fast GPUs yet we hear an awful lot of whining about how Apple's computers don't have good cards. Is it 10% of all computer users, maybe? I kind of doubt if the percentage is even that high.

I don't buy this one bit. It flys in the face of reality. Do you think that the big box stores run all those adds on Sunday for nothing?

I actually think reality is the other way around. Few if any computers survive to their replacement date without an upgrade of some sort.

I can only speak to the windows side but the GPU is for a lot moree than gameing, for example, on low-end GPUs today, I find it hard to play full screen video at any res. higher than 800*600, and some of them cant even handle 32 bit color, but only 24.

like a sub pwrmac tower with one g5 cpu 256 mb upgradeable to 4 gigs ram, 60 gig hdd(optional upgrades 80, 120, 180), 1 agp(ships with a stock nvidea 5?00 or radion.), 1 pci, 1pcix, and standard I/O and a combo drive for $1100 base...any takers?

One thing that you underestimate is the people ouside the gaming community that can benefit from a good graphics card. An iMac type machine, with good graphics, could be a boon to researchers who just want to attach to a compute server for example.

The bigger problem is the demands of future software. More and more operations are being done on the GPU simply because they out perform the CPU. It is a trend that won't stop on the Mac platform and will soon get started on the i86 platforms. The performance advantage is so clear that competition will drive the use of the GPU into more and more of the OS. A fast GPU card may very well be required to get the level of performance we have today.

It really isn't whining as you state it is a reality! Even Apples top of the line hardware is wanting in that respect. I think everyone would be willing to let the GPU in the eMac slide, it is when you start paying top dollar for what should be performance machines that things get a bit unbearable.

As to the iMac if Apple wants to keep the price high on the machine like they have in the past then yeah I expect a decent graphics card. On the new machine I expect that card to meet the demands that have been outlined at WWDC for the next OS revision. This is not a lot to ask for a new machine, that is that it is capable of running the new software that will be coming out withing a few months of its debut. At the same time I don't expect Apple to give up its quality, a tweaky GPU run at the limits of its performance has no place in Apple hardware. Many of us are not looking for game playing overclocking video cards, we are simply asking for hardware that is contemporary.

Thanks
dave

Apple sells premium hardware, the specs that they have should reflect that. A 2 year old graphics chip on a premium computer is not a good value. Also, with Tiger Apple is going to rely even more on the GPU for total system performance.

The best plan Apple, or any other computer manufacturer, can have to combat upgrading over replacing a computer is to make the specs advance fast enough and make the computer cheap enough to be cost prohibative for upgrading. As as example, right now it would cost me about $500 to put a 1.2 Ghz processor and a "flashed" Radeon 7000 in my Cube. Even though most of the specs have imporved on the iMac, I do not see any compelling reason to replace my Cube with a new iMac for home use. If the iMac were at 1.6 Ghz, and $300 less then this would be different.

The best path that Apple could take to increase market share, in the consumer market, is to make a computer that competes better on the surface in it's market. That is what they did when the original iMac was put out, and part of it's success was due to this. That would mean a 1.6 Ghz iMac with a GPU that is comperable to those sold in the same price range and getting the system's price down below the $1000 psychological barrier, again something that they did better at with the original iMac than they have been able to do with the current one. I think that the reason that we do not have a competative iMac today has a lot to do with Apple taking a buisness strategy of increased profits over that of increasing market share.

i think apple tried to make a beautifull computer and enough profit, the computer however turned out to be to expensive to build.
something i geuss apple will try to handle with the next generation imacs.

Wrong. Most of us consumers just want to pop it out of the box and do one thing and one thing only. Turn it on and it works. No hooking up and cords anywhere. I am really getting pissed that the power mac users seem to think that I and the majority of consumers had this deep down desire to open the hood of the car and put on headers and a blower. I never want to upgrade my iMac. I just bought one. Serves me perfect. No, I do not need or want to ad more memory, or graphics card. Why don't you all get it. The iMac is for a different market. I think I need to tell Apple to change the PowerMacs so that upgrades are impossible on the basis I don't wish to ever upgrade. How do you feel about that!

Sooo..let me get this straight. When the new webbrowser or program comes out that requires more RAM...you're just gonna go out and buy a new computer? Real smart. Good consumer.

You mean the 2-3% of the consumer market that you are a part of, not the other 97-8% who obviously have no difficulty w/ a few extra wires.
Why don't we get it? It's very simple really, sales. Whether or not you or anyone else will ever upgrade your computer people want that option, this is borne out by the fact that 97%+ of all consumers buy computers that at least appear to be upgradeable. Or maybe your argument is that windoze is so much better than the Mac OS that people are willing to go through more work to set up their computers.

Interesting argument. 97 percent of computer buyers use Window PCs, which are mostly some type of tower with PCI expansion slots. However, I'd bet that half of the home consumers buy it the way they want it and never intend to open it up. I think a large segment of the market, but way under 50 percent, would find an iMac to be an ideal computer, if it had an appropriate price tag and the right features. Yet, for one reason or another, most of this market segment will not buy a Macintosh. If Apple does it right this time around, maybe more will switch.

Having said that, I believe Apple has been neglecting the majority of the market, which does not want a professional Power Mac or an iMac/eMac thing.

This debate has been going on for years - my view is that the very fact that there is so much polarity in view between (1) a simple AIO solution on the one hand and (2) a consumer headless solution on the other, indicates that Apple has taken an oversimplistic view of its consumer market. It should probably discontinue the eMac and iMac and instead offer a new AIO solution and a headless model and recognise that the consumer market needs both. This is not a mutually exclusive decision and Apple might be in a far better position if it were to recognise that this market is segmented. Also, it would be better for Apple to cannabalise its own sales with two offerings rather than lose these sales to PC-land.

Well they still have their old OS 9 boot systems but at a starting price of $1299 for a headless mac it's ridiculous. If they just took that system and updated it they'd fill a headless void below the current Powermacs.

I just don't think Windows users buy Windows Boxes because of expansion. I think it comes to down to lingering misconceptions about the Mac. I think people feel intimidated to learn a new platform, even though it would probably be easier for most to learn Mac OS X than to continue aimlessly poking around with Windows. I don't think most consumers have much of an investment in software either. Basically, most consumers don't even consider the Mac because they aren't aware of the advantages.

With regards to the iMac, I think a lower price and more retail exposure would have a very positive impact, regardless of expandability or an AIO design. Perhaps a mail-order campaign like Dell's would make a difference. A PC trade-in program may also help.

Maybe we're all wrong. Maybe 97% of people have some sort of genetic make-up that makes them immune to the RDF.

32 bit color is 24 bits of actual color (8 bits each of red, green and blue) and 8 bits of transparency. Since monitors can't display actual transparency, 32 bit color is computed down to 24 bit color in the GPU (layers of semitransparent pixels are rendered down to one pixel with one 24-bit color) and then the final result is sent off to the display.

The highest display quality is "millions of colors." 2^24 is 16,777,216. 2^32 is 4,294,967,296. if you see a display supporting "billions of colors" let me know.

In response to later posts: As for the fact that the PC buying public takes home non-AIO PCs, what choice have they ever had? Towers are so ubiquitous that most PC users, confronted with an iMac of any vintage, wonder aloud where the computer is. I know one PC user who thought her mother's iMac was a terminal, that she had to connect to a remote machine to be able to use it at all!

Granted, you can find the occasional PC AIO, but they suck so roundly that it's small wonder that people keep buying the familiarly cumbersome minitowers (and calling people like me to set them up). That doesn't mean that a good AIO won't sell. If anything, the iMac is the first real choice in the form factor of a consumer PC that the consumer has been given. Take that away, and the iMac is one important step closer to just being like everything else on the shelves.

...and why might that be?

I don't see an Apple G5 tower being any more 'cumbersome' than an AIO iMac 2.

(Ironically, the iMac 2 has been very 'cumbersome' for Apple... Cumbersome design to update, to manufacture, to meet price points...cumbersome to switchers who failed to walk out with an iMac 2 from Apple Stores...)

Your AIO arguments could be applied to what I'm saying..., Apple 'could' this and 'could' that.

Fact is: towers sell more than AIOs. AIOs suck. Apple's AIOs look sexy but suck and their sales figures suck.

Maybe it's the built in obselete-ism that gnarks me most.

If you could make an AIO with the benefits of a tower then...

Apple does this to force feed an upgrade to the the Mac user base. Fine.

But I think this strategy gives them a smaller and smaller pool to make hardware sales from.

There was a recent report that said of 100% of PC buyers who had been exposed to the Mac, 50% still went ahead and bought the Dell. That's pretty damning. Not of Apple's great software...but of its pretty poor AIO range.

Apple's implementation of AIO limits choice. I think the new iMac 3G should be about choice.

That means choosing the graphic card I want. That means choosing the cpu I want. That means choosing the monitor I want. I shouldn't (and PC switchers...) shouldn't have to pay £1395 to begin to get that choice.

A 20% premium is one thing. But 50-100% premium over a PC that can offer that choice for far less is taking the p*ss. What's more, Apple store foot patrol, switchers and computer buyers alike know it.

Lemon Bon Bon

It doesn't mean that a mini-tower won't sell. Especially with Ives soothing styling.

That real choice stopped selling. The iMac 2 didn't sell that well.

Take it away and what? 100,000 iMac 2s don't get sold. None are being sold now. Nobody is really noticing or crying that much.

Yet, when the original iMac got pulled editorials mourned its passing.

If it's one step closer to being like everything else on the shelves then more people might buy it.

You can be too different and too AIO. See Cube, see iMac 2.

Apple haven't bought the clue yet.

A slimline mini-tower version of the G5 tower. RnD is done. Design tweak. AGP slot. A few memory slots. Single G5. Same Alu. Job done.

I haven't a problem with Apple offering an AIO range that sells 200k tops.

I have a problem with the fact that they don't offer an alternative when clearing two AIOs ranges right up to £1395 and higher!

I wouldn't mind them offering a tower range that went from £545 and higher!

It's the lack of choice. The G4 towers vanish and so does the £999 tower. Why not a G5 tower with a single 2 gig for £999?

I hope the new iMac offers some benefits of a tower.

Apple's best AIOs are their laptops. They are true AIOs because they integrate keyboard and mouse controller. Makes sense. Portable.

Desktop AIOs are a misnomer. That's why it hasn't worked in PC land. That's why it isn't really working in Mac land. It inhibits choice.

Lemon Bon Bon

Lemon Bon Bon

... You really start to wonder just how strong is the rum inside those Bon-Bons ???

Some of us DO like AIO's ... I'm typing this on an iMac ... a 5 year old 266 G3...

It'is still a perfectly adequate computer ... I have added RAM and swapped out the origional HD and CD for an 80 gig and CDRW. That operation was no more difficult than for a tower ... takes maybe an hour instead of 40 minutes.

So it's still running along with Panther installed and doing everything that most cinsumers want a computer to do.

No... it sucks if you want to run Photoshop filters, or render an iMovie project ... but a new G5 AIO would certainly last me another 5 years or more. (I have no plans to trash this one when I replace it.)

Most of my PC owning friends choose windows for one reason only:

Copied games / software.

Piracy is so rampant on the dark side, everything from games to DVD's are readily available... There's a massive network of friends and colleagues who will have what they are after.

Wow! Perhaps it's the drugs I am on at the moment, but that seems the opposite to me of what you made of it. 3% market share, and 50% of the 97% were affected by being exposed to the Mac? That seems to me to good to be true. Are we one Superbowl ad away from >40% market share?
While reading through this thread, I keep thinking the reason people don't buy Macs is because we are outnumbered 97 to 3, and when someone's uncle, or father in law, etc, suggests a computer, it's more often then not what they know of, without unbias consideration for what they don't know of. How many times as a Mac user have you discussed with a "PC" user, who is trashing Macs, had any real opinion? I mean, even something like "I hate that little apple" would be a more legitimate statement then I've heard from a lot of them. Certainly, there are people who don't like a lot about the Mac, and many of them I think are just more informed versions of the others not willing to give em a chance, but there are so many that have never been in the same room as a Mac that are willing to hate them.
Oh, and when I was in school, I saw exactly what the last poster mentioned... Not only the network for the software/games, which is considerable, but when you know enough people, you can peice together a system for almost nothing at times with the parts from other's closets.

On a side note, other then when I was a kid & I spent every last dime on a Mac +, and 40mg external brick of a crappy hard drive, and maxed it out at 4 mg of ram after my first Mac Expo in Boston, the trend in my family was that when a machine might need an upgrade, it became a hand me down to the next in the family without. After 10 years of this, there have been a lot of Macs in this family, and ones perfect for grandma to check email with. Unfortunately, I couldn't convince my Dad to buy any portables, so I have had to spend not quite every last dime over the last 6 or 7 years on my own.

This whole thing about people building PCs out of left over parts is absurd, less people do that than there are Mac users.

you're right and i hate that mentality.
their music and movie libraries are full of trash.
they don't even care to look or listen.
for bragging rights only.

that's called: technological isolationism phobia.
people are afraid to act different than their family, friends or neighbours. mac is something for those artistic- creative- elite bastards and fags.
but because of that pretty interesting.
50% bought a mac?
that's a nice score.
i had zero effect on my family.

Oh ok so Apple should just write off 97% of the market because YOU think that consumers should be using AIO's.

I'll reiterate the part you obviously overlooked in your adamant refusal to see the facts, Apple wishes to sell computers to consumers who apparently are NOT interested in AIO's. Had they been really interested in AIO's then the original iMac, which was a good value, would have garnered Apple far more marketshare than it did.

Ergo Apple must meet the desires of the vast majority of consumers or they can stick their head in the sand and watch their marketshare fall even further.

I'll agree that for most consumers an AIO is the best choice, however these are the same people buying SUV's when a car or minivan would usually be better suited for them. People buy what they think they need even if they know they'll likely never use it to its fullest potential. How many SUV's have you seen covered in mud? I see maybe 1 in 100 that might have been off-roaded once.

Not all consumers even know what this alphabet soup means: RAM GPU CPU CDRW and whatever else. So giving them a choice between two "GPUs" is meaningless. Asking them to build a computer out of a lot of choices is not only meaningless, it is terrifying.

The AIO form takes these wonders, and fears, out of the equation for people.

Simple.

The biggest mistake one can make in this discussion is to assume everyone is as educated about this business as we (nutcases) are.

Hope Springs Eternal,

Mandricard
AppleOutsider

who is YOU?
nope, consumers are more interested in getting hardware for cheap or free.
the kapitalistic market mechanism has become the victim of its own succes:
consuming as much as possible for the lowest possible price ie for free.
that's why kazaa is such a succes, as cheap computers to retrieve it.
apple can't do anything about this.

quality of life has a price. as does hardware and software
i don't believe this "cheap-is- good" mentality is adding any quality to life, it's a quantification of life.

i care less then shit about the fast majority of consumers.
if you listened to them there wouldn't be civilisation. it's cattle. give them food and reproduction rights and they are (more or less) happy.
it's not apple's market.

i don't like suv's either.
i think people don't buy what they think they need. they buy what they think other people think they need. you buy a suv for the same bragging rights as expensive houses and watches. a computer is still something different. it has to hurt.

There are two factors that Apple considers when choosing a GPU for the iMac -- what does it cost, and does it have the capabilities required to run their latest (or upcoming) hot software. CoreImage is a good example of the latter. As observed up the thread, the target market for the iMac doesn't care which flavour of GPU is in the machine and frankly they shouldn't as long as it does the job. The current "low end" GPU is actually a powerful unit compared to high end GPUs of 2-3 years ago, and it is perfectly capable of doing most tasks. Even compared to today's high end they are typically 33-66% the speed for most tasks, and for most users those high end GPUs are way faster than your typical iMac user needs anyhow.

I think some of you guys have been staring at benchmarks too long, or are too focused on your own needs to realize that the iMac's target market has its own needs. Apple can't build a single machine for everybody, so they are aiming it as a particular class of user. Perhaps one day they'll decide the time is ripe to introduce a mini-tower or headless-iMac to address a different class of user, but that's not what the iMac is for.

I don't think anyone can knock the AIO design - the original iMac proved that's what many people want, just look at the sales. It was a design iCon and some say it saved Apple.

Upgradability is not that important for the kind of person who wants an iMac.

I'm using an iMac DV now and even though it's 3+ years old it's fine.

To compete with the cheap (but powerful) PCs that are selling for £799 in Comet, PC World etc. with LCD screens and DVDr's Apple must offer the same thing but with an Apple twist:

Make a compact pizza box Mac, no bigger than a standard DVD player.

Colour it white, like the current iMac, with a slot loading superdrive.

Remember: USB/Firewire?headphone on the FRONT please!

Put a decent graphics card in an AGP slot including a TV tuner.

Invent iTV for recording and managing recorded TV

Give it 4 RAM slots.

Throw in a 1.8Ghz G5.

Include Bluetooth and Airport Extreme.

Offer a matching screen to sit on top, but that's just an option.

Make the top lift up like an old 7600 for easy upgrading.

Now, sell it for £999 with a 17" LCD, or £799 without.


Anyone wanna mock up what I'm thinking about?

Well just how well is CoreImaging supported on current Mac hardware, that we don't really know. Yes we know that atleast a few PowerMacs and a couple of portables are "supported" but we don't know how well. As to the iMac well that most likely will be dealt with in the next rev, it is not unrealistic for people to expect very good performance with Core Imaging.

That is a totally absurd suggestion. It is like saying that somebody going out and buying an automobile should not care what engine and transmission it has. It is a very poor investment if you buy a car with a manual transmission and you have no desire to drive one. There are whole host of other parameters that the average buy should be interested in when purchasing a car such as fuel economy.

People should care very much about what is inside the PC they purchase. That should not mena that they know and understand the machine to the depth of the average ARS user but they shouldn't be making the purchase as complete idiots either. It is reasonable to expect that people will want an iMac that supports the latest software from Apple even if they are not able to express what that software is. Much in the same manner as a person that wants an automatic transmission in his auto but has no idea how one works. Unfortunately we have no way to quantify performance (horse power & torque) of the GPU, so a reference to the hardware is a requirement. Lets not wander off into the world of benchmarking as I know that last statement leaves that open.

The problem with the ever chaniging nature of PC's is that it takes much more effort on the part of the average consumer to keep up with the changes in the technology. the choice between auto and manual and three different classes of engine horse powe for each automobile have been around for years. For the most part the consumer understands and accepts this arraingement. The options provide a way to solve the majority of potential cusotmer wants.

Heck I'd be happy to see Apple advertise their machines with two classes of GPU. Have one that offers "good" perfomance and another that offer 'maximum". AS long as Maximum actually delivers that and the machine with good performance offers a significant price differential the customers would be well taken care of. The problem is that Apple has had significant issue delivering maximum performance GPU's for some time now, if they continue to follow that pattern this idea would quickly become a joke.

How the current GPU's compare to processors of 2 or 3 years ago are of no concern to anyone. What should be of concenr is how the low end or even the high end of a few weeks ago compare to the recently arrived GPU's. The differential is rather huge between the new GPU.s and what was top of the line a few weeks ago. In effect the old low end stuff is so far behind as to not be significant anymore.

It is certianly true that Apple can't build a computer for everybody, but in the iMacs case they certainly have managed to build a computer for nobody. Don't get me wrong I like the appearance of the iMac it is the other short comings that turn me off personally and make it hard to reccomend. Is it possible for Apple to address the iMac issues and make a more marketable computer, sure. Does the market care - nope - at this point Apple will have to work real hard to sell the iMac3 beyond they debut surge they always get with new machinery. We can all hope that Apple has a winning formula.

Agreed, and hopefully soon Apple will release such a machine. I think that it is long overdue, and something that the Cube could have been without it's early demise. However the current iMac is not filling the criteria that made the original one a success and an iCon. It is overpriced by Apple's own admission, and underpowered in comparison to the PowerMacs of a similar gerneration. The iMac was ment to be a powerful, elegent, and simple desktop for the reast of us. It may still be elegant and simple, but it is not longer powerful in respect to Apple's own computers or the market which it competes in. This along with Apple's inability to get the price beck down to the G3 iMacs pricing structure has seriously hurt its ability to compete in today's market.
Again, I agree wholeheartedly, and I think that this is the main argument FOR a consumer level upgradable computer. It gives Apple more flexability to fill the needs of more computer users using BTO options with a lower initial investment than it would take to have 2-3 different configurations of AIO style computers. AIO's dont fit everyone's lifestyle, and Apple does not have a viable, afordable option for these buyers. I don't have anything against iMacs, I think that they do fit pert of the market, but there is a larger part of the market that is not purchasing them for one reason or another. For Apple to ignore this market because they think that thier AIO is THE computer that consumers need is ignorant as well eletist. Bottom line, people want choices that is why Burger King's catch phrase was "Have it you'r way" not "Have it our way." and the only choices Apple is giving is Super Size it!(the monitor and price).

How many times have we been over this?

ATX is a set of standards for cases dating back to the earliest days of the IBM PC at the latest. All the commodity cases that you can buy are ATX. All the commodity PC boards you can buy are ATX. Ergo, any company wishing to take advantage of the commodity market for PC parts will ship an ATX board in an ATX case. What the customer wants is never for a moment considered in the design, because there's no choice: If you want to use the commodity PC market, that is what you're shipping, period. The commodity market can't allow a choice of standards here, and it doesn't.

Fortunately for the likes of Dell, the amount of internal expansion in the cases makes BTO options nice, and it gives corporate IT people warm fuzzies (not because of upgrade potential — the mantra of corporate IT is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" — it's because they like to be able to swap out defective parts). This is another reason why the big PC vendors are so wedded to enterprise: It's what their products are best suited for, not accidentally given that the original vendor of the PC was IBM.

Making a machine "consumer friendly" means bundling lots of software, putting a support shortcut on the desktop, and adding a few bits of bright plastic to the case.



And here we go again. You've never directly answered this question: Is this because the iMac is an AIO? Or is it because it's a bit slow and at least $300 too pricey? Maybe there's a little bit of the fear of being stranded with an incompatible machine, or of having to learn a new interface, too?

I think that Apple's investment in buildin market share is going on right now, just not directly in the consumer market today. The Xserve clusters have gone a long way to build an image of Apple as a seriouse computer company instad of just one that is used in the Art department. OS X is getting good praise as well, and I think that there is a good chance that in the near future Apple servers will gain ground in the enterprise market. This is important becouse that could effect what is purchased as desktops in that market (if Apple has an affordable solution by that time) and that in turn will have a big impact on what people will consider when purchasing a computer for home. At least I hope that they are thinking of this "Trickle Down" marketing strategy today.

Given this, it only makes sense to me that Apple would want a computer of similar design to cover as broad a spectrum of the market as possible with a minimum investment in R&D. The iMac by design cannot do this. Another point to make is that a lot of poeple make buying decisions based on what they have at work. Apple has never been well accepted in the enterprise, but is bieng given a second look due to OS X and the Xserves. Apple really needs a solution that will fill the needs of these enterprise customers.

The car analogy lives!

First, your manual transmission analogy is bad: A manual transmission is a significant change to the hardware interface to the machine. A GPU isn't.

Second, and more tellingly, most people don't look at the numbers when buying the car. They might look at one set (HP if they care about that, or gas mileage if they're looking for that) but what they almost inevitably do is test drive the car, which tests how well all the various pieces work together, and how well they answer to the driver's expectations. Since many of these are highly subjective and no less important for that, any attempt to analyze the merits of a car by crunching numbers is... well... just as silly as attempting to analyze the merits of a PC by crunching numbers. They won't look at the gear ratios of the transmission vs. the power and torque curves of the engine, they'll just drive the thing and see if it responds the way they want it to.

Despite the howling on this board and elsewhere, a GPU that is not the absolute latest-and-greatest is neither obsolete nor disgraceful nor incapable of running future systems and applications — including many games — well enough. The iMac does not have to include twin dual-dual-link DVI X800s with 512GB of video RAM, connected via PCIe in order to remain marginally competitive with last year's PCs, or even to do a good job running Core Image and Core Video.

Why? So they can be as hard to distinguish from Dell as possible?

Given that they can't take advantage of one very important commodity — the ATX motherboard — they'd already be playing with one hand tied behind their backs anyway.

The iMac is a perfectly decent enterprise machine in concept, and in fact the original jellybean iMac got a fair amount of enterprise and government attention: Simple to deploy, ergonomic, hard to steal components, and once you've gotten used to handling them, they're better from a maintenance standpoint, too: If an IT guy mucks around in your PC to replace something (especially in the years before Apple taught the industry how to make easy-open cases!) you're down for 10-30 minutes. If he shows up with a working backup iMac, swaps it, and walks off with the broken one, you're down for 1-3 minutes. The increased difficulty of fixing the machine is offset by the lack of any need to fix it on-site, because it's a compact AIO.

And, of course, the ergonomics of the current iMac are hard to beat. Ergonomics is a big deal now, because of the billions of dollars per year that are estimated to be lost due to poor workplace ergonomics.


This is true, but on the other hand Dell has pushed the "buy what you have at work" mantra hard because it's the only way you'll ever get to test drive their stuff. They don't have a retail presence. This is what the Apple stores are trying to counteract, and this is why they're in high-traffic areas. Also, with viruses and the like making corporate computing less and less reliable and more and more intolerable, maybe people won't do that anymore...

The consumer market is potentially much larger than the enterprise market, so I can't blame Apple for targeting it directly. It's always been their forté anway.

thats right, we buy the parts NEW...

First - the AIO: the aio is good but the iMac is absurd, the AIO market is essentialy one peg abouve the lintel wal*mart croud, they have a budget of ~$1000 tops, like the size and ease of hook up, and do no heavy computing, just email and web and maybe the iApps, the most intense thing an aio would ever need to run today is Garageband. here the emac at $800 is a good deal but could stand a price cut.

Takeing a step up: the next peg above this is the highend home user, bordering on that buzzzword "pro-sumer" here, no matter what the platform, an AIO is a laughing stock, particularly the iMac G4 with it's price and preformance ratio. look at the PC side, for $1000-$1700 you get a decent graphics card that is UPGRADEABLE, 512 megs of ram, 100 gig hdd as a base, and most of these come with a 17 inch display, some with flat pannels. This is a key market where the mac is getting killed, the iMac is stupid now, the emac has taken the iMacs job period. apple needs a stand alone system, preferabley a tower form factor, and some flat pannel monitors starting at <$500.

and on up to the workstation: apple kicks ass here...'nuff said.