iMacs, nothing but aesthetically pleasing.

Originally Posted by Splinemodel

Well -- they certainly haven't FOOLED you, have they! Think about how much money you saved by building your own PC, buying the '93 Honda, and dating the plain girl!

Originally Posted by DanMacMan

Not only do Macs "look cooler" a university study shows that using them inspires users to be more creative.

News story.

Originally Posted by Galley

Crawl back under your bridge, troll.

Originally Posted by Bergermeister

There is something about aesthetics; people enjoy working on a sexy computer.

Before you trash the iMac too hard, be aware that there are plenty of companies and individuals using iMacs every day to produce great work The machines are also selling like hotcakes, which means people like them.

I think I smell a troll.

Originally Posted by Kenneth

With your trash talking, which company/ies do you like or not lying?

Originally Posted by Bergermeister

Welcome to my ignore list.

Originally Posted by Splinemodel

Oh Snap

More seriously, why do you care what we do with our money? Are you a major shareholder in Dell and MS, embarking on some kind of grass-roots campaign to drive their stock prices higher?

Originally Posted by tonton

Ok...

Which company do you like?

Which company has never lied or exaggerated to sell a product?

Which company has never laid off workers?

Which company has never kept a product secret until the day of launch?

Originally Posted by Splinemodel

IBM doesn't sell PCs anymore. Most of IBM's revenue comes from solutions consulting ... and it always has. Sun is also getting out of the hardware game, and it's almost certain that anyone your age who has used a SPARC box has done so at a museum.

In making PC's, Alienware (owned by Dell), Dell, and HP all use the same basic parts that Apple uses. The added price of a comparable Apple system is a luxury fee, yes, but as long as Dell and HP continue to make PC's, you'll have the choice to avoid it.

For the interest of the viewers, here's a stock chart comparing the companies above over the last five years. Obviously, people who matter to business (i.e. people with money) are happy that Apple is taking the strategy they have. Link Note the non-linearity of the scale.

Originally Posted by Marvin

Does anyone else think that iMacs are aesthetically unpleasant? I think they look horrible.

I much prefer a Mini and display with symmetric trim round the edges. I have to look at iMacs almost every day of my life and I hate it because I'm reminded that some idiot somewhere decided that minority sales work better on novelty value rather than practicality.

Having that big ugly Apple logo staring at you and the camera always pointing in your face. Then you've got the reflections on the new one as well as the black border on the screen.

I can but dream of a day when a keynote comes round and they bury the iMac like they did with OS 9. Then they make a Mini double the height with a good GPU and a 3.5" drive and you've got the iMac in a nice little box.

Then the lineup becomes Mac, Mac Pro, Macbook, Macbook Pro. The wording is perfect and the Mac is just the Mac for everyone as it suits most needs.

And how many complaints will there be that there isn't an AIO model that forces you to be stuck with one display? None. Not a single complaint, just like there aren't any complaints now from PC users who don't have to suffer that limiting design. PC users who can go out and buy a sub-£1000 machine with a Geforce GPU and stick a 17" display on it if they want. But no, you want a Mac with a good GPU, well here's a giant 24" shiny screen stuck to it with a hard drive you can't get access to, that'll be £1500.

What

But wait, you don't want a display stuck to it, that's ok we sell a tower with a geforce card. That'll be £1500 for our 2-ton workstation.

I don't mind the ipods, iphones, laptops and even the Mac Pro because they fit their markets perfectly. The iMac tries to change one market into another forcefully at the customer's expense.

Originally Posted by Bergermeister

If you only look at hardware, yes, Macs have a premium.

If you look at the bundled apps that all work together (photos from iPhoto show up in iMovie, etc) and have a similar look and feel and intuitiveness about them, you start getting a better value with the Mac.

Couple that with a single store to return to or phone number to call if you have any problems, and you get a pretty darned good package.

Sure, there are improvements that need to be made (and I feel strongly about one or two of them), but all in all you get a very good package in a Mac, not to mention a very capable one.

About forcing customers... the customers have a choice. If they don't like it, they don't have to buy it. That the iMac is selling as well as it is suggests that the customers are buying it and most are happy with it.

There is also the statistic about the Apple Stores (physical) that shows a large percentage of their sales go to first time Mac buyers, and they are often buying iMacs.

Having used computers for the past 30 years (yep, I'm an old-timer), I find iMacs the best over-all package for almost any user, especially newbies who are looking to create stuff fast without a steep learning curve. Pro apps are also available.