REALISTIC suggestions for new iMac 2004 - Page 7

Not only has the current iMac not sold as well as the original, but it hasn't BEEN SOLD as well. The Time article was a good though awkward beginning, but the followup was less than great. I did like the "tongue out" commercial personally, but it needed followup for how cool and easy the shape really is!!

as i said....no 1.6. not when a big problem with the iMac is MHz...that is...the lack of it. 1.8 minimum but expect 2.

if Apple can do 1099 they can get to 999.....and they have said several time they want 999 and that is the pricepoint people want. expect something at 999.

i also wouldnt be surprised to see colors....the iPod mini proves colors sell.

also, design.....the imac does have some good elements.....it'd be stupid to ignore em just to make a completely new design. Apple is known for evolving but keeping the best elements (with the exception of the swinging side door of the B/W G3 and G4 towers.

Won't even come close to happening at 999 with a 17". Think about what you just said...

17" display... 500 or more with apple's displays
2ghz g5 at least 300-400... I would hope more unless apple is making more
5200 about 50
256mb about 50
4x superdrive about 70
motherboard... who knows until we see a design
80gb hd... 50

Where is the profit?

If this was a g4 I could see a 999 price point with a 17"... I expect 1299 at least for a 17"...

They would be cutting down 700 dollars going from g4->g5... on the 17" model... no way you can convince me it is the metal arm, case, and mobo that cost the extra 700 dollars.

Btw I agree with your color statement. Also i agree that apple won't have anything less than 1.8ghz on the iMac... for a while I was thinking 1.6ghz with the 130nm chips... but if it is going to be in a compact case 130nm won't cut it.

As I said the G5 is completely different in form factor from the G4. The LCD iMac was a completely different form factor then the CRT, even though there was speculation that the only basic change would be an LCD screen... heck SJ even went over that speculation when he introduced it. No, the new model will be completely different I believe. No incremental changes when the previous model didn't have the appeal of the original. Although it should be mentioned that the original Bondi Blue iMac was not a big seller. It wasn't until the color models (and slightly revamped shape) came out that the iMac took off. And we know the rest of the story.... everything from pens to irons came in those colors. In regards to MHZ, that is highly overrated these days. Intel and AMD downplay that part of the equation. Only Mac fans seem to really care... some still have MHZ envy I'm afraid. For desktop use by Joe and Jane Sixpack, getting on the internet, making movies and downloading music and making CDs, word processing and budgeting daily life is the prime concern. For hardcore techies games are important I'd say. I don't play computer games. I rather get out into the real world after a day of working on my computer -- business, mostly and listen to my iPod while strolling down the street. $999 would be nice but if Apple couldn't do it with the current iMac, even a few years after the intro, what makes it possible to do it with a completely new computer. There are tremendous costs involved in designing new casings, new internals, new manufacturing techniques that Apple always seems to introduce. There's R&D expenses, shipping manufacturing, advertising, warehousing (well maybe not that since Apple doesn't seem to have anything on hand at any particular moment!), etc. The cost of computer is not just the cost of the individual parts. If it was, the iMac would sell for $700. Anywho, 3 weeks and everybody will be either amazed or start whining and complaining. The more things change the more they stay the same when it comes to the Apple "faithful". \

Good points MacsRGood4U,

I didn't think about all the other things.... I just thought about the immediate items...

2 most expensive components are the processor and the screen. the processor is the LOWEND of the G5 product line (90nm version at least). the 1.25Ghz G4 was the HIGH END of the G4 product line. I expect the cost of the G5 to either be equal or less at this point in time.

the screen....the 17 inch is still based off a price from over a year ago. ive seen 17 inch LCDs retail for less than 500. Of course being widescreen and of a higher quality it might be a bit tighter but I don't think its impossible. And of course, I'm assuming the design of the machine itself is cheaper (either no arm or cheaper to produce version).


of course it's all speculation and I admit that we very well may see a 15 inch again on the low end but I'm sticking to my prediction that a product at $999 will be released with specs close to what I said.

I can't be convinced that a 2ghz 90nm g5 is cheaper or the same price that a 1.25ghz g4 was a year ago. First off... 18 months ago the 1.42 g4 was top end... 1.25ghz g4 was over 2 years ago. Second... IBM is having major problems getting 90nm procs out the door in large quantities. That drives price up. I also can't be convinced that todays products are the same price as the g4 a year ago....

Ram is more expensive...
The motherboard will be WAY more expensive for the components on it vs. the components that were on it over a year ago. Perhaps they can shave some $$$ signs off by having a better designed mobo and not a round one... obviously that costs more. One thing they do have going for them is no l3 cache.

Before when I asked if anyone had any info on the rumor of apple not purchasing any more 15" screens.... I meant standalone lcds.... not the 15.4's that go in the powerbooks. I could be wrong but I think the 17" will be bottom line in the iMacs... if rumors from earlier this year are true.

Either way we will all see in 3 weeks :P

1.25 is near the top end for the 7447, which is much lower wattage than the XPC7455A that got cranked all the way up to 1.42GHz. So applenut is right here. Motorola just came back up to the ~1.5GHz range with a CPU that could run at that speed without sucking down power.

IBM's had some yield issues, true. Motorola's yield issues are the stuff of legend, and they won't go away until the CPUs are coming out of Crolles 2... which is a 90nm fab.

The G4 in the current Macs is not a year old; the 7447 is Motorola's latest and greatest, released this spring. It's a physically larger processor (fewer chips per wafer) fabbed on a smaller wafer (200mmm vs. IBM's 300mm, so fewer chips per wafer) and a larger process (130nm vs. 90nm, so... fewer chips per wafer). The odds that it's cheaper than the 970fx are slim indeed. Motorola would have to be enjoying tremendously higher yields than IBM, and it's very hard to even speculate on that possibility with a straight face, even given IBM's difficulties. Motorola spent years longer than anyone else did trying to get anything out of 130nm. The 7447 was delayed by nearly an entire year. It wasn't pretty.

Last I heard, the kind of 7447A Apple uses was available for $150 or so apiece in lots of 10,000. You can believe that Apple gets a better price than that.


There's no guarantee of this. HyperTransport is cheap to implement; that's a design goal. If the board is highly integrated and rectangular, it should be cheaper. If it's large enough to not have to be double-sided, it'll be significantly cheaper. If Apple can avoid using SO-DIMMs at all, again that lowers the price (Apple isn't paying anything like retail prices for their stock RAM, BTW). One advantage of the limited BTO options that the iMac usually represents: Apple can lock in tremendous, long-term supplies of parts, and reap considerable savings and price protection in the process. By price protection I mean that they can negotiate a price for, say, RAM, and then that's what they pay for six months or a year or so regardless of where the market goes. Integration lowers cost. Consistency lowers cost.


While I wouldn't be shocked to see an iMac start with the PowerBook's 15" LCD, I would fully expect Apple to meet or beat the $999 price out of the gate in that case. That LCD is a nonstandard size, and therefore it's probably exempt from the inflated pricing of commodity 15" LCDs. I'm quietly hoping that Apple goes with a 17" at the low end, and still hits $999. If they simplify, simplify, simplify they can do it.

Thank you Amorph.

Just remember all that in a year or so when you argue that the iMac can't be any cheaper, or when some fool argues that being an AIO makes the iMac more costly than the average PC.

Let's stick to the now, or soon to be.

999 -- 17" LCD iMac, entirely doable

I would expect a 15.2/15.4" iMac to be on offer for 799 and totally remove the eMac from the consumer line-up. It could survive for edu -- because it is offered at nice prices to large edu buyers.

I would be interested in the I/O of the new iMac.

The USB2 and FW400 will be standard, of course. Will wireless -- BT and AE -- be standard or options? And, will FW800 make an appearance? I ask because my feeling is that we'll be getting a preview of the Powerbook G5 (the curreny G4 already features FW800); inclusion in the iMac ought to cost no more than the price of a connector, it'll probably be on the chipset which is likely to be shared.

when I said ram is expensive I meant, ddr 2700 or ddr 3200 is more expensive than pc133 or pc2100.

I didn't mean apple pays retail for ram.. Of course they don't.

When I mentioned the motherboard on current designs being round.... I meant that to be a disadvantage for the g4 costs... and an advantage towards the new iMac of being cheaper.

Apple would have to do some serious corner cutting to get a 17" down to the 999 price ranger... I just don't see it happening. I know apple doesn't have the balls to pull a microsoft and make the price lower than what it is costing them... and I mean all expenses.

Personally I'll be completely shocked if it makes it lower than 1199... I'm actually expecting a 1299 with a 17"... but we'll see. Apple could do anything at this point... even put in a 130nm 1.6ghz g5 in the low end if they can get the heat low enough.

At this point its all speculation... we will have to wait and see what happens.

Could this be? Nah. Would be too expensive to manufacture... or would it?

That looks interesting, but not simple.

I think a big point people are missing is that Emac and iMac need replacing and Apple has no consumer/business towers to sell folks with those xserves. iam expecting 2 new products from Apple but am not expecting to see a $999 imac. anyone who does will be dissapointed but iam expecting a new imac at the same price except this time iMac will have performance thanks to a G5 and better video system. Apple has never made cheap anything so why should they now? no way are you going to see a G5 and 17" screen from apple for $999 it just isnt going to happen.

I'm not so sure every business really needs towers. When IT does a refresh at my work they replace the entire system every time. It is done on a 2 year cycle. AIOs would be excellent here and, judging from the size of this Dell piece of furniture on my desk, would be most welcome. This assumes that my work would even consider an Apple solution (which the sad pricks would never do ).

Reality Check.

1000 US Dollars is no longer considered a "cheap" home/business computer.

It's a nice price point, 999. A psychological barrier, not "4" digits, just low enough that people considering cheaper stuff will want to buy it, just pricey enough that a company putting together a product can make a reasonable profit.

HDD's are dirt cheap, so is RAM. LCD's, GPU, and CPU are all falling, all the time. If Apple follows the mantra of simplify, simplify, simplify then we will all be able to sit in front of a 17" iMac for 999.

Personally, I hate the eMac, for no other reason than that awful CRT -- and they are all awful. I wouldn't ever buy one, not for me, not for my kids, not for my schools. Just because we seared our retinas in front of CRT's for most of our lives does not mean that we should continue to do so or that our children should suffer the same fate. A Dell with an LCD bests any Mac with a CRT from a health an safety perspective.

I rather see a 15.2" LCD iMac for 799 and banish the eMac fromthe consumer space altogether.

The current iMac is $1299 at 15" and $1799 for 17". They are not going to drop these prices by $500 and $800 respectively when they bring out the G5 model. Come on, this thread is supposed to be "REALISTIC suggestions".

Let's face it, they have a lot of R&D costs to recoup. My guess is that the prices will stay the same, but there will be a 15" model. Down the road (say, after the first of the year) they will drop both models $200.

As for the eMac... it'll get a 1.5GHz G4 and better graphics, and remain in the lineup for another year.

Touche'. This logic is hard to dispute. I don't expect it to happen, but my personal opinion is,"to reach the $999 price point, or below, Apple would have to sell a monitorless mini tower." But then again what the heck do I know.

Not inevitably, and not significantly. SDR RAM has cost more than DDR RAM at points. I'd consider this a wash.


Yes, and your meaning got across. I just clarified how it would be cheaper.


They won't make the iMac a loss leader. They'd lose their shirts. I think they can get there, though. They might try a $100 premium out of the gate, lowering to $999 in six months, but since that backfired on them last time, maybe they won't.

The iMac 2 is an expensive beast to make. I'll bet that a minimalist iMac with a simple, rectangular, one-sided board and a stamped aluminum case could shave a lot off the cost of the machine.

As for the price of the 17" iMac currently, I'm not concerned. I'll bet that a lot of that is profit margin. At any rate, Apple is fond of repurposing the top of the line as the new bottom of the line (with a few features shaved off, granted), so clearly larges changes in price are possible for them.


There are a lot of variables that we aren't considering (because they're hard to consider in the abstract), like whether the design is as engaging as the jellybean iMac's was. Things like that can matter more in the consumer sector than whether the CPU is a 130nm 1.6GHz G5 or a 90nm 1.8GHz G5.


In the mean time, speculation is fun.

you think it would more cost affective to release a dual core G4/G5 imac

MacsRGood4U: That AIO would only be expensive if the boards inside were that funky shape. If everything was rectangular and similar to the future G5 Powerbook, then it might not be expensive. I like that armature, btw.

cubist's "reality check" is pretty sobering, but only if Apple feels no need to change its consumer end business model. I'm hoping that the iPod phenom has gotten Apple to think more outside the box than just shapes and sizes and concentrate on real form/functions. The lcd iMac has grown on me and I see the elegance of its design - simple function "forcing" simple design. However as I've speculated, if the consumer Mac is going to be a digital hub, it won't really be effective to be so simple independent of periferals. It will continue to evolve into a base station for iPods and cameras and video (TV or whatever). So IF that is its function, then its form will have to be something like an elegant accessory for these devices, that also happens to be a great, enjoyable computer when needed - a giant docking station that looks cool! The internet, music and photos are not really computational activities to most people - at least Apple doesn't want them to think so .... so the consumer iMac shouldn't look like a computational device. The sunflower lcd iMac did some of that, but it didn't function that much different than any other computer, except for the great ergonomics of the display arm. So it couldn't get over the price point and "strange, lamp stand" impression to sell well.

So I hope this new iMac really looks like a hub device, like the Swiss Army knife for the digital lifestyle, but keeps the armature. That unfortunately would not be necessarily cheap though. Thus I also hope for the elusive consumer/business minitower....Apple has done it before.

Yeah, it is fantasy, but I like speculation of what SHOULD happen alot more than mere speculation of what WILL happen.

And the debate continues, which does Matsu hate more, the eMac crt or kormac threads?

I know for a fact that Kormac is in fact a robotic head made out of an eMac CRT.

LCD screens, unless you buy the very expensive ones, are lousy for graphic arts use. Colors are way off on the ones that Apple uses. CRTs are still the best at accurate colors and at reasonable price points.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAmen!!!!!!

Even though I agree with you 100%... my next monitor will be a LCD even though I do graphics. I'm tired of these CRTs burning the hell out of my eyes

The original iMac used a very odd shaped motherboard and was cheap. I don't think that's the biggest issue.

I think a big issue is the original iMac was designed around a pricepoint. It also had several requirements or guidelines that its engineers were suppose to follow and meet. The iPod had the same thing. This produced in both cases a very focused product that was innovative yet appealed to the majority rather than a minority and was affordable.

The iMac 2 seemed less about that and more about idealism and margins.


In the 10K report they make note of two things.

source ThinkSecret

so.....one consumers want a system under 1000 dollars....and two...they want a new enclosure.

so....based on Apple's statements and patterns we know a couple requirements put in place for Apple's engineers
1. Under 1000 dollars
2. G5 processor
3. Fully support tiger (graphic card to go along with it)
4. new enclosure
5. LCD
6. Full Digital Hub Support (USB, Firewire, Superdrive, Bluetooth, Airport Extreme)

I don't think 15 inch LCD displays appeal to most of anyone anymore. People have moved on to bigger screens a long time ago. We've been complaining about 15 inch screens since 1998....sure, LCD gave us 1.2 more inches of viewable area, but the point remains....17 inch is needed.

So, I think we have a decent idea of what to expect. And Apple will always have the 20 inch model, possibly with more features (faster processor/graphics/hd) for a higher price.

I also expect to see colors.

On the whether 999 is realistic?

Why wouldn't it be? It's obvious that Apple has been working towards a replacement to the sunflower for a while. The sunflower has been left to stagnate once Apple realized that they would need a whole new machine to rescue sales. In the meantime they focused on products with a future, the iBook, the iPod, PMacs, etc etc. Even the eMac, which sells for a decent price to edu channels -- someone had to do some work to build that thing down to the 550-600 price at which Apple can blow them out to edu (even without the optical)The Sunflower persisted as a design icon for the company, hence the even pricier and more boutique 20" version. The G5 doesn't cost more than a G4, and everything that gave reason for the high price of the original iMac has fallen substantially. Combodrives cost nothing, and even some superdrives costs next to nothing, larger LCDs have fallen big time, HDDs and RAM are Low low low... Apple may have been locked in at different prices for components, but anyone contracting to buy 10's of thousands of units per month these days is going to get some SWEET prices.


As for the original gumdrop, I think it was basically a PB minus the expensive parts, back from a time when Apple's mobile technology was unquestionably a generation (or more) ahead of the other guys, and actually a lot simpler and more standard than it may at first appear when dismantled. Everything was different back then, no real difference between "mobile" and desktop PPC, the bulk of the cost of the PB being very expensive stuff like Batteries, the LCD, and mobile HDD, of which none were on the iMac. All of that has been commoditized to a far greater degree in recent years -- especially LCDs.


The Sunflower, while simple on the outside, had a 2-sided round motherboard that took notebook so-dimms, required a very compact PS, a special alloy dome and mounting arm.

I think an iPod mini styled iMac would be great. Open at the sides -- I/O on the left, optical on the right. Vesa mount, simple stand. Packs in a nice small box, just like their notebooks. Maybe with a click wheel on the front, for display settings and volume, if that's not too kitschy?

No 20" model. A 20" display is 999. People in the market for it would probably be better served by a 999 headless box.

My dream iMac lineup

Headless iMac

1.5 GHZ G5, 256 Ram, Geforce 6600 64 MB, Superdrive, and The usual I/O ports. DVI and VGA out. Make faster G5 and faster video card options.

$1099

iMac

Same as above with 17 in LCD $1399

Same as above with 20 in LCD $1899

Chances of my dream coming true = 0%

I've changed my feelings about the new iMac. Apple should revise their lineup. The eMac is a decent entry machine and should be marketed as such. The iMac should be positioned between the eMac and the PM. The new machine should be headless so that the consumer can select the size monitor he (or she) wushed, including purchasing a monitor made by an outside manufacturer. The iMac should be customizable with choices of video cards, RAM, HD, etc. It's time Apple gets with it and competes directly with Wintels. All this BS about quality being their primary concern is a smoke screen. Apple needs to enter the 21st century if they want to survive.

Why should Aple assist you in choosing non Apple hardware? Wouldn't they be better off moving the Powermac line down to $1499 and having the iMac line setting into two models at $999 and $1299. Someone with a budget less than $1299 today isn't getting larger than an 18" LCD with that purchase. Those who want the most options would be taken care of by a future 970MP system that of course would be "headless"

I guess speculation is over. Now that ThinkSecret posted the specs of the new iMac, I think we wished a little too much.

http://www.thinksecret.com/news/imacg5specs.html

I think MacsRGood4U and myself win

I called the 1299 price point with a 1.8 on the 17" v00t

not really since that was my initial "realistic" prediction.

everything above has been what i hoped for and would be arguing for.

there are also questions to be answered about the specs they provide and what the real starting pricepoint is.

either way, this is a bit of an underwhelming report and im dissapointed in apple's lack of aggression

BTW I was just messing around...

I have a feeling apple was under the gun on this one. They obviously didn't come out when they ran out... so I think they were rushed into this.

Personally I don't think they did THAT bad of a job. We all knew ram would be that low... since the dual 1.8 comes with 256. 1.6ghz g5 isn't a bad processor... and neither is the 1.8. I have a friend who is a professional video artist... he uses his original single g5 on a daily basis and loves it.

I still think those screens are a majority of the price... Oh well... I never was going to buy one... but I feel apple didn't do a BAD job... they may have been able to do better...

Also these specs aren't written in stone... day before the new g5's were released... thinksecret said dual 2.6ghz as the top of the line... what happened to that

1299 ?

Three months of strong sales to mac-addicts. After that? Flatline. You'd think Apple would learn by now.

Would have been better to sell a headless machine for 500 USD less and let us worry about the display.

Laptops it is then...

Apple gets people to look through innovative styling, not price. Any self respecting aspirational brand like Apple would never throw away its brand values with a bargain basement machine. The damage that it would do to its perception by its core users would be disastrous. Apple is a "love" brand, Dell most certainly is not.

Ok BMW have a new baby BMW, Mercedes have the A class...but they are still more expensive than the comparitive models from other manufacturers. Why? Because people will always pay a premium for perceived exclusivity and style even if in road tests these machines perform similary. I now what you are talking about with a sub 500 box but it will never happen nor should it. The user who spends that amount on a machine will never be a core apple user or buy the volume or type of software that Apple wants to sell and will only be a drain on Apples limited resources.

Apple are the masters of the up-sell, they just do it from a higher starting point than anyone else because they know they can get away with it.

999

IS NOT

Bargain basement.

Apple has once again managed to come up with a consumer desktop price that demonstrates a complete detachment from the market reality. Congratulations pinheads.

Sorry.

My post was in response to earlier comments. I have to agree, 999 is a sweet spot. I just dont think they can do it for that, not with a decent 17 inch screen. I bought a dell for my brother the other day (he knows no better, god knows I tried) and fully speced it came in at over £1200 with a 17 inch screen, Office Small business edition and XP pro.

We all know these bargain machines are not the bargains they appear to be.

Looking back at my posts from last night... and re-reading the specs today... I feel like an idiot.

I didn't realize that the 17's only came in the 1.6 form... I thought they came in both. Also I noticed the 32mb video card in the low end and NO OPTICAL DRIVE!!! WTH! So basically you get a machine for 1300 (at least according to TS) that can only have software installed remotely!? For some reason I don't see that happening. So really the first iMac that would even be considered by us is a 17" 1.6ghz g5 for around 15xx-16xx!!!

Matsu is right.... these machines will be bought by the mac faithful for the next few months.... then crash and BURN again.

This has been the absolute worst year I have seen from apple since I started using them in 1992. What a let down for being an anniversary year. I am so angry at apple right now. They have really lost focus on everything. Rumor has it that linux will have a larger market share than apple next year... I can see why.

After thinking about this a little... I have to vote that these specs aren't completely accurate. I can not see apple not putting an optical drive into a computer. It makes absolutely NO sense what so ever, even if it is an education model.

First off, if OS X goes bad... how with they reinstall it? Over network? Over Firewire? How can they expect you to do that, even if you are an education institution? Do they expect you to buy your own optical drive? If so that is like expecting you to buy a mouse or keyboard... I don't see the logic...
Only possible reason I can see them doing it is so kids don't use optical drives... but it would be easier to put a lock on it for student accounts then to take it out!!

I know TS is usually good about this stuff, but I wouldn't get mad until they are announced aug 31st.