Apple unveils the new iMac G5 - Page 9

They're usually good right after Apple updates a product, but come 3-6 months (or longer) the PC world has moved on to faster and cheaper things while the Mac hasn't had it's specs or price touched.

So you're saying that if Apple were to sell a headless Mac it would be a Niche product today. Because if Apple (which they are 99.99999% unlikey to do) were to sell a headless Mac it would be today's equivalent of the Cube. It would most likely have lower specs than the iMac and less upgradable.

Man, if only the superdrive was 8x's.... I would have totally just jumped for it

My troll-o-meter gave a good reading off this one.

- reply to another post, only ignore what it says and reply to an imaginary post instead
- make big, declarative statements without any attempt to reason or explain - lots of virtual handwaving
- pick a favorable historical comparison, as controversial as possible, do not address the differences between situations
- pick a number - any number - and use it in the tale you are weaving. Later the number can be explained as an estimate, random or totally figurative if anyone calls you on it.
- turn ordinary logic upside down (a microtower with bigger and standardized parts should turn out inherently more powerful and (especially) upgradable than a computer stuffed in a *tight* AIO enclosure)
- do not bother to spellcheck

All this in so little space. Almost an art form.

just downloaded the official media high-res image off apple.com/pr

anyone notice the image's filename is "imac_hero"? was "hero" it's codename?

What I'm wondering is what the speakers will sound like, they are on the bottom of the machine, pointed at the desktop, according to CNET.....

Craptacular as iMac speakers have always been (sans iSub)? No one really uses them for serious music listening I hope.

Funny, the Philnote showed a graphic with soundwaves emanating from the bottom, with the music bouncing up to the user's face level but the shot right after that was with the keyboard in the same place that the sound is bouncing off of. I imagined a chaotic cloud of those blue soundwave lines bouncing all around in a cacophony as the keyboard "wrecks" the bounce.

Not so bad.

It is pretty elegant. It is just too bad that the pictures on Apple's web site look ten times worse than those taken by an apparent point-and-clicker at the Expo. Either this random guy is the next Ansel Adams or somebody at Apple needs to get a "stern talking to". I am opposed to the AIO concept in theory, and I think that Apple could do much better if they released another line, but I do think that this is the best of all possible worlds given the imposed constraints.

I don't see how this iteration really solves the problems of the previous. I see this attracting two types of buyers: those who would have bought the iMac2 anyway, and those who think it looks like their iPod. Maybe iPod switchers will be enough to make this thing into a success. Deep down I think this is a very conservative move: it will make money and that will be used to propel Apple's new baby-- digital music. Remember, this is exactly what Steve Jobs said he would if he were in charge of Apple many years ago.

A "hero" pose (Virasana) is a type of pose in Yoga. In product photography, when you position a product in it's ideal state (particularly if it's adjustable) it's called the "hero" position or a hero shot.

http://www.movingintostillness.com/book/t-ahero.html







p.s. That's pure bullshit based on deductive reasoning but it's probably right

so now what are they going to make the "computer" icon be in mac os x tiger? a white rectangle with a blue inner rectangle? then again, that's always been a beef with me... would it kill them to have in tiger recognize from appel system profiler what computer you're using and auto-magically make the "computer" icon match, you know, your COMPUTER? crazy, i know...

ah, thanks for clearing that up. i guess i still had visions of jet li kicking the chinese empire's ass in my head.

I added "p.s. That's pure bullshit based on deductive reasoning but it's probably right" too late.

Seriously, I think that what it refers to. Come on, it's California...how could it not be referring to Yoga?

That is an awesome idea. I never even thought of it.

iDunno

I'll add more comments later but a few observations

1. the bottom is much too large to make the front of the computer seem cute/elegant/cool. it kind of just looks "odd" and it makes the screen secondary to the 4:3 white box and makes the screen look smaller. I realize that it is difficult to reduce size of the motherboard but I'm surprised this was a design that was approved. For the most part it is very very cool, but the front needs more detail, something in that bottom third of the face. I think it being all solid white hurts the appearance in that aspect.

2. this machine definitely looks made for colors. If a blue one were available I think I'd be all over it. Two tone color. Match the iPod mini colors. White just does not appeal to many people. Original iMacs had color options and that was one of the biggest selling points. I think it's a shame that Apple doesn't offer different colors anymore.

3. When paying for a desktop and designing one, desktop parts should be used. the 4X vertical superdrive is a shame. and it shows that this design will be limiting in the future in several ways. Form over function.

4. the graphics card is perfect for the 1299 model, and possibly the 1499 model. The 20 inch model should at least have a jump to 128MB of VRAM with its higher resolution and steeper price. Also, Apple really could resolve a lot of complaints by simply offering a BTO graphics card option. I don't see why they don't do this. One, it'd satisfy a lot of complainers. 2. It would make people order direct from Apple. Three. They would probably make good money off of it.

I'm impressed to say the least. But a couple things are holding it back from being a knock out. They are closer than ever though.

Your joking right... This is Apple were talking about. I mean there products in the past would just blow you away before you even turned them on. I just can't belive that this with all their talent this is it. I just don't get the premiss that "Oh wow it is in a 2 inch pizza box. Where is that cool apple style. I just am not going to drool because it is new and it's got a G5.

I do however hope it sell's well and is well received by the mass and not just not mac faithfull. Because I guess when it is all said and done I rather use the new iMac than a Winblows box.

DGNR8

i was thinking the new imac would make a pretty nice set-up with some white jbl creature speakers. $67 refurb at megamacs.com, in case you're lookin'... i got mine refurb last year for the same price, best deal EVER.

Are you guys serious? All the damn bellyaching?

An iMac that takes up no more space then a well designed flat screen!?

It's fricking great. It's a perfect consumer/student machine.

and it comes with wireless keyboard and mouse.

If you want a game machine get a G5 PowerMac or a playstation...

I think the disc burner speed compromise is perfectly acceptable.

A similarly equipped dell would take up 3 times the desk space... and be but ugly on top of it.

Doesn't. Just saying...you always need to be wary of Apple. They hate "sold separately" and "not included" types of blurbs sullying their clean layouts...

Yes the VR and promo shots show wireless mice but it definitely ships with wired KB and mouse. The tech specs indicate 2 USB 1 ports on the keyboard. Practically the only thing that suggests it comes with a wired KB and mouse. They really hide it fairly well except for these pics.

What is particularly odd is that the Apple Wireless Mouse and Keyboard are nowhere to be seen when going through the normal purchasing process, not even on subsequent "Apple Extras" section.....what's the deal? I thought adding the Bluetooth module might toggle them but it doesn't. Strange.

'hero' is design-speak for that sort of low three-quarter view of a product. Like the hero in comic books or fifties films.

You really are talking crap.

No they haven't

My initial thoughts are that for a 20" monitor with 1680x1050 resolution and Quartz Extreme/CoreImage/CoreVideo Tiger, I think the FX5200 Ultra with 64 MB is a little weak. That's just a nagging thing really. Expose seems to work fine on my 8 MB iBook 500, so I'm probably wrong. For most purposes, I think it is fine though. It'll work fine for its entire lifetime outside of 3D games and 3D apps that require a lot of graphics memory and pixel pushing.

All three models really hit a nice price point for their performance, and I would struggle in deciding which model to take.


That's what Apple says. You may want to wait on the 3rd party RAM to make sure.

You can select it under the Keyboard options. The only options before used to be English or Spanish keyboards. Now, you can select the wireless keyboard.

Ah!! Ok...I saw the Mac OS X disc icon and totally ignored it Since I wasn't really buying I was in skim mode looking at the icons Missed the clearly labeled "Apple Keyboard & Mouse" title...

Yeah, but when has Apple really ever offered BTO options in the iMac? The biggies would be CPU options, graphics options, and LCD resolutions.


Apple doesn't have to make the iMac cater to everyone. What they should do is have different machines cater to as many niches as possible or prudent. The iMac G5 is fine, I think it hits all the right price points, but what's wrong with them offering a G5 mini (1.6/1.8/2.0 GHz cpus, 1 AGP, 1 PCI, 1 hard drive) starting from $999 and a 17" monitor for $499 in addition to the iMac G5? They could get pretty good margins if enough people buy Apple monitor, especially the 20" and 23" monitors. Heck, what's wrong with them offering a 15" iMac with 1.4 GHz G5 for $999?

As someone said before, nope. iMac G4 has AGP 4x. The benchmarks on the Apple website would only make sense if Halo and Unreal were FPU heavy apps that were memory bandwidth starved on the old iMac G4. Who knows how Apple tested it, though.

Here are my thoughts on the new iMac

Overall Design
The computer built behind the LCD was an interesting design choice, especially since Steve Jobs mentioned it was not a good way to go when he introduced the iMac2. The problems with this design are still here (because of the vertical placement of the optical drive, this model is stuck with a slower superdrive), but they went with it anyway. One also wonders if cooling constraints do to the thin size will prevent Apple from putting in faster G5s and graphics cards in the future.

The VESA mount is something that I really like about this design. It will allow some very interesting mounting options.

As for the color: Apple's insistence on using industrial white for a consumer machine is unfathomable. One of the reasons that the iMac 1 sold so well was that it gave people a choice in colors so that they could choose one that went with their decor or personality. If they ever want a new iMac to sell as well as the original models they must give consumers a choice of colors (or if they are only going to use one, make it black, or even silver).

Price and Performance
Well, we all know were the major problems are here, and the granddaddy of them all is the use of one of the weakest graphic cards still being sold. The Nvidea 5200 Ultra is a bad joke of a video card, and it is crippling what would otherwise be a fairly decent system (a little overpriced and underpowered, but not that bad for Apple). Here is a Barefeats link (note: they are using a 2GHz G5 on those tests, so it will be worse on the iMac) and a few Tom's Hardware links Link 1 Link2 Link 3 that show just how lame a card the FX 5200 ultra is by todays standards (actually the Tom's Hardware article is from last year, and even then the FX 5200 ultra was a dog of a card).

The truly sad thing is that it would only add about $40 to the cost to put in a decent video-card. Gaming makes up over half of computer software sales -- why in heavens name is Apple trying to avoid that market by crippling the iMac's graphics, when it would only take a few dollars more to make it a computer that would handle most of the games? I know Steve Jobs doesn't like computer games, but this is hurting Apples bottom line -- It just dosen't make sense!

Forgive me if I'm not current on Apple, but I believe Avi Tevaranian detests using a computer to play games. As long as he's at Apple, Macs will never be "gaming savvy". If you ask me, this is typical Ivory Tower mentality on the part of Apple. They dare to dictate the market when they control very little of it.

I don't know if that is true or not, I wouldn't be surprised. It wouldn't be the only thing Apple "detests" people doing with their Macs. Your last sentence could not be any truer.

Has anyone heard what the actual surface of the iMac is?

It was supposed to be brushed aluminum... but it looks like it is coated with something... what is that colored hard coat stuff that they use on custom Harleys?

I remember what it is called now -- "powder-coating". This is what it looks like to me.

I suspect it's plastic much like the iBooks. Sure looks like it.

Has anyone checked to see what identifier is used for these new iMacs? Is it 'PowerMac 8,1' as had been rumored?

i'm a newbie here, i know, (and i'm still in high school, so yeah, i have certain limitations on what i can afford and such) so theres a few things i'd like to say in regards to all recent events at apple expo and about many things in general.

first of all, i like the new imac. i am currently running a 450 mhz g3 slot-load imac. its slow, but not all that bad, considering its 4 1/2 years old. the new ones are a hell of a lot better than what i've got. i'm not much of a gamer right now, but i'm interesting in getting into it. the graphics card question on the new imac i think is trivial, because most people don't need something like a radeon 9600 or something like that. it would be nice, but for most consumers, its not required. and seriously, most games these days will run fine on a 5200 ultra. if you look at the requirements for games like Halo and UT2004, they require a geforce 2. A GEFORCE 2. HONESTLY. this is a smidge bit better, last time i looked. besides, the improved CPU and frontside bus will dramatically help frame-rates and overall quality of the the games. i think everyone is being a little dramatic with the whole deal, because really, the only game thats going to cause problems with the card is Doom 3 when it comes out. until then, its not an issue. to those of you that are still skeptical, i would suggest waiting until the second incarnation of the iMac G5 so that bugs can be fixed, and so that hardware can be updated. i'm guessing prices will drop and it will go up to 2 ghz, and it will probably go to a radeon 9600 w/ 128 mb. as for normal ram and hard drive capacity, it'll probably improve as well, we'll have to see.

for a long time i've been trying to get my parents to buy an eMac, because they're high-quality machines for a low price. its not outstanding, but its enough. the advantage over the new imac is the price and the radeon card. a 9200 isn't top of the line, but from what i've heard for a long time, the 9200 is better than the nvidia 5200 ultra. i dunno, any tips from anyone? i can get the education discounts, so i can get an eMac with a superdrive, an 80 gb HD and 512 MB RAM and and airport card for just over $1000. its a pretty good deal. on the imac side, i can get a 1.8 ghz 17-inch with comparable extras for around $1500. the ultimate question is then, should i get an emac, which is enough for what i do as well as for pretty much every game on the market right now, or should i wait 6 months or so and get the second version of the iMac G5? its a brain-teaser

and with the powerbook g5, its still a possibility. the 2-inch thick imac is definitely a good sign, cuz it means they're getting closer. heat is still the biggest problem (perhaps even on the new imac? which is probably why they went with a less-than-the-best graphics card) so it may take a while. but keep in mind that this is the FIRST DAY of the apple expo, and there are most likely still things to come this week.

No, that was a thumb hole so you could open the door. If you noticed, the side of the door was curved to allow the cables to pass through without being squished.

For its specs the iMac is a very attractive computer but the problem isn't so much the price I don't think as much as Apple leaves a whopping great difference in price between their low end iMacs and their Powermacs. The iMac with a 20" monitor is less than the lowest PowerMac, there's no reason they couldn't fit in a more upgradeable machine to cater to people who play some games above the consumer line but below the PowerMacs. Odds on they are losing sales by not having it and BTO options would offer potential methods to boost margins.

The one thing I want to know is whether this will play World of warcraft in native resolution @ at least 30fps.

I think they also should have worked in a built in dock for ipods, I think that would really draw in the ipod crowd, and help the AIO aspect of the system. It won't be so pretty with a bunch of cords running from the back

my $.02

Here's a thought: Apple probably contracted to buy a certain number of fx5200 chips from nvidia for the gen2 iMac. They didn't use them all. So they throw them into the gen3. In 3 to 6 months they release a tweaked version with improved graphics.

Just my ruminations

WoW should run fine. The system requirements for the stress stress client are not that demanding. I would upgrade if this baby proves itself on the field.

Who says it was supposed to be brushed aluminum? Oh yes, RUMOR sites.
It is made out of the same material that the iBook and the former LCD Mac is made out of. There seems to be a transparent outer shell with an off white inner shell - again similar to the first white iBooks. The stand is brushed aluminum. Powder coating goes over metal I believe, not plastic.

P.S. Right about the hole in the door on the original iMac. I got it wrong. The new iMac however, seems to have that hole situated so cables can be put through it other then just the power cord.