The problem is the display. In these years of economic crisis, people return to the (wise) behavior of not throwing away stuff that works. If you bought an awesome display two years ago, why should you replace it if you want a powerful Mac? The options for a display-less Mac are either the Mini (with lower specs than the iMac) or the Mac Pro (usually priced to another market segment).
This is a real issue for many. The economy plus the focus on post PC realities means that the whole mentality of the desktop business is changing rapidly. I really see Apple getting caught with their collective pants around the ankles. The only bit of light here is that the IMacs sales where flat while the Mini and pro sales are in the gutter, but that was info from two years ago. I really can't imagine the iMac is doing much better today.
Going for a "low cost" iMac will be just a Mac Mini with an attached display, and that will be another failure.
Yep! It is a clear indication that Apple doesn't have a handle on the economics of the marketplace. D
The way to go is to release the top-of-the-line iMac, with the fastest CPU and the fastest GPU but without a display. That's what computer users wish today.
Well no, what they need is a true desktop class machine optimized to be cost effective. It needs to fill the gap between the Mini and the Mac Pro performance wise. So let's call this a quad core in the 70 watt range.
This is a real issue for many. The economy plus the focus on post PC realities means that the whole mentality of the desktop business is changing rapidly. I really see Apple getting caught with their collective pants around the ankles. The only bit of light here is that the IMacs sales where flat while the Mini and pro sales are in the gutter, but that was info from two years ago. I really can't imagine the iMac is doing much better today.
Yep! It is a clear indication that Apple doesn't have a handle on the economics of the marketplace. D
Well no, what they need is a true desktop class machine optimized to be cost effective. It needs to fill the gap between the Mini and the Mac Pro performance wise. So let's call this a quad core in the 70 watt range.
Are you serious with this drivel? Apple introduced the post-PC era with the iPad.
I get the feeling that you’ve asked this before and ignored the multiple times you’ve been told the iMac functions as a standalone display for exactly this purpose…
No man in his right mind buys an iMac to use as a display for another computer.
Maybe I’m wrong, but someone keeps asking it, so I apologize if it wasn’t you.
The way to go is not an xMac, or Apple would have done it.
Apple hasn't change the desktop line up in well over a decade and it is starting to be reflected in sales. Thus the new Mac Pro. So they spruce up one panel of their triptych and leave the rest alone, I don't think that solves the bigger issues here. The problem is the markets are vastly different than they where a decade ago, much of people's computing needs are getting solved by the devices market. So the tendency is to hang onto mainstream computing hardware much longer. If you do that, people are doing exactly that, then the iMac becomes a joke that people will avoid. Who wants to buy a machine that is a beast to repair if the expectation is that it will be used for many years.
Remember this is the post PC era, that doesn't mean the use of PCs dries up just that the perception of what is valuable in a PC changes. Sometime the changes are drastic, the post PC era means that few machines are used for e-mail anymore for example. When I look at Apples desktop line up I see something that might have worked well five years ago, but the world changed with the advent of iPhone and iPad and Apples desktop hardware simply doesn't represent what people need these days.
Are you serious with this drivel? Apple introduced the post-PC era with the iPad.
Exactly my point. Apple use red in the post PC era and did absolutely nothing with their desktop line up to address that new reality. The desktop line up is virtually identical to the line up they had when the iPhone was introduced. Mind you during the same time period the laptop line went through a major overhaul.
Due to the fact that this is the post PC era, the usage of desktop machines is changing radically. The attraction of low end machines is declining rapidly thus the tanking sales of the Mini and iMac. People buying PCs in the future will be buying for performance and value. This means lots of performance out of a minimalist box. The iMac is just the opposite of what these sorts of people need and making a cheaper iMac is just completely stupid as it misses the point.
No man in his right mind buys an iMac to use as a display for another computer.
No; that’s not what’s being said. After the hardware has outlived its usefulness, it’s kept on as a display.
Apple hasn't change the desktop line up in well over a decade and it is starting to be reflected in sales.
Meanwhile, the entire industry has changed its desktop line in the last decade and is reflecting the same sales.
So they spruce up one panel of their triptych and leave the rest alone, I don't think that solves the bigger issues here.
I don’t think the updates to the iMac and Mac Mini in the last decade count as “leaving it alone”.
If you do that, people are doing exactly that, then the iMac becomes a joke that people will avoid. Who wants to buy a machine that is a beast to repair if the expectation is that it will be used for many years.
Because you buy what you’ll need at POS and supplement it with your mobile device, as was already stated by you to be the case.
At $1,299, the base iMac for its specs is not worth my money even though it's a good machine overall. I can't see a budget iMac being worth it. I'd like to be surprised though.
No; that’s not what’s being said. After the hardware has outlived its usefulness, it’s kept on as a display.
If the general purchasing cycle was imac--->imac it would depend upon whether you require a secondary display, either for the primary system or one owned by a spouse, offspring, colleague, etc. It would also depend upon hardware compliance between machines, as I'm not sure every possible combination of adapters has been tested on these. Personally I hate adapters. Most of the time I try to find a single cable solution such as mini displayport to displayport rather than a dongle conga line.
No; that’s not what’s being said. After the hardware has outlived its usefulness, it’s kept on as a display.
While that's a point too, it's not what I meant. I meant why should you pay for a builtin display if you want a midrange (where a "midrange" is the highest configuration below Xeons). And the reason is clear: even if you bought a great display last year, you've to get yet another new display if you want a midrange Mac, because that's the way Apple scales their product line.
Problem is that most users who want to get a new midrange Mac, have a great display already. And that's why I say this way of scaling is not valid anymore: These users have three choices: A) Getting a Mac Mini, with less specs they want. Get the specs they want but paying an extra for a display they don't need. C) Going Xeon.
That is why the Mac Pro is the most affordable Mac. In the long run; you get to upgrade various parts, while also retaining your display. Of course, when going from ADC to DVI one had to buy the $99 convertor. Now with the imminent release of the new MP this is changing a bit, as you cannot replace the GPU. Storage neither, but that wouldn't matter so much as the internal SSD will be large enough for the OS & software and one could keep their data on external SSD, connected over TB. But yes, the current MP can easily last 6-8 years for many people, providing their software will continue to run on it.
And with the Mini being such an incredible fast machine I think it would cater to the bigger audience wanting OSX instead of...whatever is out there.
So, two cheap options. I see the iMac as the most expensive and useless computer they have. Fantastic looking though, truly a work of art. All generations of it.
hence the importance of the ASeries chip in the grand [4 year] scheme of things. It's the only leverage against the intel tax.
Lower prices on an iMac really are only derived at the moment on the LED screen, Disk, and the memory. Moving to the high end haswell may help in making the cooling less complicated and/or the entire unit lighter (40-$50 of the cost of the unit is shipping[every piece multiple times], and less weight/volume the lower the net ship price… An old Sun Micro Rep said, at the desktop level and volume discounts, you literally are paying by the pound…*).
(*hence building in the USA for some units is cost effective IFF the heavy stuff [Power supply, case, glass] are made in the US as well, given the time humans [wages*benefits] spend per unit assembling has shrunk so much.)
After the recent Intel conference call i now firmly believe there will be a Huge Price Cut or some very cheap lower model soon.
( They promised $299 Haswell Laptop? ) And like everyone else I have the conspiracy theory that Intel 22nm yield are too good and Haswell isn't selling as fast as expected. Hence the push or delay of Broadwell by one / half quarter.
And with the way things are going, Tablet and Smartphone will again put another dent into the PC industry dropping at anywhere from 6%-10% next quarter. So while Intel's Haswell has great margin ( Which helped Intel sustains its profits ), the whole industry is rapidly shifting to Tablet. And I guess with the Super Fast iPad that will be announced on Oct 22nd it will be even worst for Intel.
So it doesn't seem too far off that Apple could get that $200 or more off from Intel next year. Especially when Broadwell arrives.
Although I really wish Apple could use some CPU savings and put those into PCI-E 3.0 SSD in next year iMac model.
Freaking… what in the world is the problem with Apple that they won’t do network attached iTunes Libraries?! I mean, yeah, they want to sell more Macs, but you’d NEED a Mac to format said iTunes Library and add content to it in the first place. Just let me plug a hard drive into my AirPort Extreme and push content to an Apple TV…
The cost different between Aluminum and Plastic casing are minimal in the grand scheme of things. The Problem is Intel doesn't offer any low cost CPU that comes with a good enough GPU for Apple to use.
On a $1299 iMac, at BOM cost of $900, Over 30% of that belongs to Intel.
Maybe thats why Apple is going to move to a A8, A9 chip in two to three years. In order to break the barrier, Apple is going to go outside the box.
After the recent Intel conference call i now firmly believe there will be a Huge Price Cut or some very cheap lower model soon.
See here is the problem, Intel can't afford huge cuts! The new process nodes are very expensive so the shrinkage in chip size doesn't save as much money in the past. Combined with lower sales this puts Intel in a tough position.
( They promised $299 Haswell Laptop? ) And like everyone else I have the conspiracy theory that Intel 22nm yield are too good and Haswell isn't selling as fast as expected. Hence the push or delay of Broadwell by one / half quarter.
Broadwell is supposedly 14 nm. As for Haswell it is possibly the worst drawn out product roll out that Intel has done in years. Somebody at Intel needs to pull a Steve jobs and trim down the product lineup to a rational size. Frankly I don't know how many SKUs they now have just for Haswell based chips but it is far too many.
In a way your are right, it looks like Haswell has yet to put any steam into the i86 processor market.
And with the way things are going, Tablet and Smartphone will again put another dent into the PC industry dropping at anywhere from 6%-10% next quarter. So while Intel's Haswell has great margin ( Which helped Intel sustains its profits ), the whole industry is rapidly shifting to Tablet. And I guess with the Super Fast iPad that will be announced on Oct 22nd it will be even worst for Intel.
Most certainly. If AMD ever gets its ARM based processors out, so that the rest of the industry has access to high performance chips, Intel will be in a world of hurt. A very low power ARM chip with AMD graphics would be very interesting in the marketplace. Then you have Qualcom and the other SoC vendors that will have 64 bit ARM on the market soon.
All of these solution run at power levels well below Intels even with Intels process advantages. Think about it this was, how long would iPhone last on its battery if it had a 64 bit Atom in the box. So yeah things look really bad for Intel. I can't see a tablet or cell phone manufacture logically going down the Intel path.
As for Apple I have to wonder what exactly they will do for the tablet processor. They are pretty far ahead technology wise, I could see them simply upping clock rate instead of a major A7 revision. Of course everyone would love to see a beefed up A7X. If A7X does happen, nobody will have anything even close to such a chip on the market.
So it doesn't seem too far off that Apple could get that $200 or more off from Intel next year. Especially when Broadwell arrives.
Given that we agree on so much above I'm not sure why you believe this. $200 per chip discount would be massive in Intels eyes. I don't think Intel would do it even if Apple threatened to transition some Mac hardware to ARM. Broadwell promises some savings due to higher integration, that is a good thing, but I don't see the chips them selves being much cheaper if at all. Intel will want to get the same profit from each motherboard if it can. The overall cost of the motherboard will be less but that will be due to factors outside of Intel.
Although I really wish Apple could use some CPU savings and put those into PCI-E 3.0 SSD in next year iMac model.
Funny I wish that Apple would pull head from ass and morph the physical design of the iMac into something I might actually buy. Put those SSD cards and RAM cards behind a panel I can get to and I might start to get interested in the iMac.
As to the SSD idea, I really don't know what in the hell Apple is up to with the iMac nor the Mini. If they can stick a high performance SSD in the Mac Book AIRs it ought to be easy for them to do the same in the iMac or Mini. This is just another reason why I don't see Apple as being serious with the desktop market, they through all of this developmental effort into the Mac Books and push out trivial updates for the iMac, and Mini. Thankfully the Pro is getting an update after years of neglect. The thing here is that Apple has been shipping laptops with some sort of SSD for years now, you would expect a trickle down after awhile.
Maybe thats why Apple is going to move to a A8, A9 chip in two to three years.
Well we don't know that for sure yet! ???????????? However A8 is likely only a year away (if Apple can keep up) so the potential is there for something sooner than expected. Frankly A7 looks like a perfectly suitable chip for a Mac like machine already. It would have to be a variant that supports the required desktop interfaces such as USB and TB but that really isn't a big deal, call it A7D for desktop/laptop. Up the clock rate a bit, say 1.8GHz, and you will have a fine processor for an entry level laptop or desktop.
So let's say Apple puts one in a Mini and ends up with performance some where around a 2011 Mini but is able to sell the box for let's say $250 dollars - hot product or not? This isn't unrealistic, a beefed up A7X(D) might cost them someplace between $30 and $60 dollars as opposed to the Intel chips at $250 plus. Yeah it won't be a performance machine, at least not with A7 derived hardware, but it would be god enough for many uses. Get the prices low enough and it is possible to see Apple hardware going into places that it hasn't gone into in years.
All of the above demands an OS as open as today's Mac OS. In fact it is an imperative for any i86 replacing machine.
In order to break the barrier, Apple is going to go outside the box.
Well as you can see above I'm a big dreamer in this respect! A7 as it ships in an iPhone apparently doesn't have the features to permit the sort of Mac OS machine dreamed about above, but that is simply and engineering effort to correct. That is build in the I/O that desktop users still use and need and you have an interesting attack vector to address Intels high prices.
We are not talking about cutting the same chip by $200. It would be properly be a slower bin. Or a Dual Core Version
And Intel has always been cutting price. New Node replace the current price range. Although Intel isn't releasing a 14nm Desktop Chip next year ( 14nm will be exclusively Laptop Broadwell And Atom only ). They will very likely to continue price those 22nm Haswell lower to move them. That includes Celeron And Pentium Brands, if they continue to exist.
Even the High Performance Version of Cortex A57 Implementation running at 3Ghz is no match for Sandy Bridge @ 3Ghz. Let alone Haswell. Once you move out of the low power scenario, the best Power to Performance Ratio Chips still belongs to Intel. Its hard for Intel to move into low power SoC. Its also hard for ARM as well.
And contrary to popular believe Intel Atom isn't a power sucking monster. It may not be the best in class in terms of low power performance SoC. But it is still very very good. The problem was the ARM market force and price, not with its technical ability. ( But I suppose one could argue not being the best is already bad enough )
Now back to price cutting, It is more about Fab utilization. And that is first priority. You cant have them sitting there doing nothing. And without Notebook and Atoms Chips to Fab it is very likely Intel will be moving their Chipset to 22nm as well. But with the Revenue dropping , or Sales Dropping, And as I or analyst predict ( I would say this is rather like pointing out the obvious then prediction ) with iPad and Other Tablet coming, the PC industry will shrink, and Intel will have to move those 22nm Haswell somehow.
And the best indication is Intel has already said there will be $299 Haswell Notebook this Christmas.
I would imagine a Dual Core ( 4 Thread ) , Iris 5100 ( Not Pro ) CPU costing around $150 isn't too far off the table. Remember the Current lowest iMac Model runs 4 Core 4 Threads. So theoretically the performance difference shouldn't be that much.
We are not talking about cutting the same chip by $200. It would be properly be a slower bin. Or a Dual Core Version
Possibly but that is why I see such a machine as futile. People with minimal computing needs are gravitating towards cell phones and tablets. Demand for low end machines just isn't the. At least not in the context of the iMac. Now a low cost Mini that could do server duty or back office support that would sell.
And Intel has always been cutting price. New Node replace the current price range. Although Intel isn't releasing a 14nm Desktop Chip next year ( 14nm will be exclusively Laptop Broadwell And Atom only ). They will very likely to continue price those 22nm Haswell lower to move them. That includes Celeron And Pentium Brands, if they continue to exist.
Intels problem is price doesn't make a difference. PCs are dirt cheap but not moving. Intel could do more harm to themselves by lowering prices too much.
Even the High Performance Version of Cortex A57 Implementation running at 3Ghz is no match for Sandy Bridge @ 3Ghz. Let alone Haswell. Once you move out of the low power scenario, the best Power to Performance Ratio Chips still belongs to Intel. Its hard for Intel to move into low power SoC. Its also hard for ARM as well.
Depending upon whom you believe Apples A7 currently performs about as well as a 2010-2011 Mini.
And contrary to popular believe Intel Atom isn't a power sucking monster. It may not be the best in class in terms of low power performance SoC. But it is still very very good.
Maybe the newest Atom but the old series Atoms where junk, frankly the worst of what was on the market. Even AMD did far better with its solution.
The problem was the ARM market force and price, not with its technical ability. ( But I suppose one could argue not being the best is already bad enough )
I have to disagree ARM biggest advantages are technical. No other platform facilitates the engineering of custom SoC the way ARM does. Silicon today is the printed circuit board of the 70's.
Now back to price cutting, It is more about Fab utilization. And that is first priority. You cant have them sitting there doing nothing.
This is true.
And without Notebook and Atoms Chips to Fab it is very likely Intel will be moving their Chipset to 22nm as well. But with the Revenue dropping , or Sales Dropping, And as I or analyst predict ( I would say this is rather like pointing out the obvious then prediction ) with iPad and Other Tablet coming, the PC industry will shrink, and Intel will have to move those 22nm Haswell somehow.
Well obviously the PC industry is still shrinking. This however highlights that Intel doesn't really have a lot of room to cut prices, they may even have to increase prices.
And the best indication is Intel has already said there will be $299 Haswell Notebook this Christmas.
I haven't heard that one but here is the problem, it doesn't matter. If nobody wants to buy a Haswell notebook the price doesn't matter. This is the PC industries biggest problem right now, nobody is interested.
I would imagine a Dual Core ( 4 Thread ) , Iris 5100 ( Not Pro ) CPU costing around $150 isn't too far off the table. Remember the Current lowest iMac Model runs 4 Core 4 Threads. So theoretically the performance difference shouldn't be that much.
Well like all things it depends, the performance may be there for the majority of users. In any event I just don,t see demand for a low performance iMac.
As for pricing I suspect Intel will find itself in a situation they have never been in before. That is an environment where they can't stimulate demand with price cuts.
What I would like is an IMac thats more transportable, to move between rooms or out to the patio. A 17-20 inch with kickstand, a battery that give say 8 hrs of use. So basically a laptop without a a keyboard. This may also incorporate Apple TV. It would have to be Light enough to move, easily so the handle is also the stand? A transportable 20 inch for the same price point. As current model.... After all Who has a computer hutch anymore?
Comments
This “a lot more” is the same number of people who want an xMac.
Well no, what they need is a true desktop class machine optimized to be cost effective. It needs to fill the gap between the Mini and the Mac Pro performance wise. So let's call this a quad core in the 70 watt range.
Are you serious with this drivel? Apple introduced the post-PC era with the iPad.
Remember this is the post PC era, that doesn't mean the use of PCs dries up just that the perception of what is valuable in a PC changes. Sometime the changes are drastic, the post PC era means that few machines are used for e-mail anymore for example. When I look at Apples desktop line up I see something that might have worked well five years ago, but the world changed with the advent of iPhone and iPad and Apples desktop hardware simply doesn't represent what people need these days.
Exactly my point. Apple use red in the post PC era and did absolutely nothing with their desktop line up to address that new reality. The desktop line up is virtually identical to the line up they had when the iPhone was introduced. Mind you during the same time period the laptop line went through a major overhaul.
Due to the fact that this is the post PC era, the usage of desktop machines is changing radically. The attraction of low end machines is declining rapidly thus the tanking sales of the Mini and iMac. People buying PCs in the future will be buying for performance and value. This means lots of performance out of a minimalist box. The iMac is just the opposite of what these sorts of people need and making a cheaper iMac is just completely stupid as it misses the point.
No; that’s not what’s being said. After the hardware has outlived its usefulness, it’s kept on as a display.
Meanwhile, the entire industry has changed its desktop line in the last decade and is reflecting the same sales.
I don’t think the updates to the iMac and Mac Mini in the last decade count as “leaving it alone”.
Because you buy what you’ll need at POS and supplement it with your mobile device, as was already stated by you to be the case.
No; that’s not what’s being said. After the hardware has outlived its usefulness, it’s kept on as a display.
If the general purchasing cycle was imac--->imac it would depend upon whether you require a secondary display, either for the primary system or one owned by a spouse, offspring, colleague, etc. It would also depend upon hardware compliance between machines, as I'm not sure every possible combination of adapters has been tested on these. Personally I hate adapters. Most of the time I try to find a single cable solution such as mini displayport to displayport rather than a dongle conga line.
No; that’s not what’s being said. After the hardware has outlived its usefulness, it’s kept on as a display.
While that's a point too, it's not what I meant. I meant why should you pay for a builtin display if you want a midrange (where a "midrange" is the highest configuration below Xeons). And the reason is clear: even if you bought a great display last year, you've to get yet another new display if you want a midrange Mac, because that's the way Apple scales their product line.
Problem is that most users who want to get a new midrange Mac, have a great display already. And that's why I say this way of scaling is not valid anymore: These users have three choices: A) Getting a Mac Mini, with less specs they want.
Get the specs they want but paying an extra for a display they don't need. C) Going Xeon.
That is why the Mac Pro is the most affordable Mac. In the long run; you get to upgrade various parts, while also retaining your display. Of course, when going from ADC to DVI one had to buy the $99 convertor. Now with the imminent release of the new MP this is changing a bit, as you cannot replace the GPU. Storage neither, but that wouldn't matter so much as the internal SSD will be large enough for the OS & software and one could keep their data on external SSD, connected over TB. But yes, the current MP can easily last 6-8 years for many people, providing their software will continue to run on it.
And with the Mini being such an incredible fast machine I think it would cater to the bigger audience wanting OSX instead of...whatever is out there.
So, two cheap options. I see the iMac as the most expensive and useless computer they have. Fantastic looking though, truly a work of art. All generations of it.
hence the importance of the ASeries chip in the grand [4 year] scheme of things. It's the only leverage against the intel tax.
Lower prices on an iMac really are only derived at the moment on the LED screen, Disk, and the memory. Moving to the high end haswell may help in making the cooling less complicated and/or the entire unit lighter (40-$50 of the cost of the unit is shipping[every piece multiple times], and less weight/volume the lower the net ship price… An old Sun Micro Rep said, at the desktop level and volume discounts, you literally are paying by the pound…*).
(*hence building in the USA for some units is cost effective IFF the heavy stuff [Power supply, case, glass] are made in the US as well, given the time humans [wages*benefits] spend per unit assembling has shrunk so much.)
After the recent Intel conference call i now firmly believe there will be a Huge Price Cut or some very cheap lower model soon.
( They promised $299 Haswell Laptop? ) And like everyone else I have the conspiracy theory that Intel 22nm yield are too good and Haswell isn't selling as fast as expected. Hence the push or delay of Broadwell by one / half quarter.
And with the way things are going, Tablet and Smartphone will again put another dent into the PC industry dropping at anywhere from 6%-10% next quarter. So while Intel's Haswell has great margin ( Which helped Intel sustains its profits ), the whole industry is rapidly shifting to Tablet. And I guess with the Super Fast iPad that will be announced on Oct 22nd it will be even worst for Intel.
So it doesn't seem too far off that Apple could get that $200 or more off from Intel next year. Especially when Broadwell arrives.
Although I really wish Apple could use some CPU savings and put those into PCI-E 3.0 SSD in next year iMac model.
Not in an Apple environment, it can’t.
Freaking… what in the world is the problem with Apple that they won’t do network attached iTunes Libraries?! I mean, yeah, they want to sell more Macs, but you’d NEED a Mac to format said iTunes Library and add content to it in the first place. Just let me plug a hard drive into my AirPort Extreme and push content to an Apple TV…
CONTENT PROVIDERS!!!! CONTENT PROVIDERS!!!! CONTENT PROVIDERS!!!!
The cost different between Aluminum and Plastic casing are minimal in the grand scheme of things. The Problem is Intel doesn't offer any low cost CPU that comes with a good enough GPU for Apple to use.
On a $1299 iMac, at BOM cost of $900, Over 30% of that belongs to Intel.
Maybe thats why Apple is going to move to a A8, A9 chip in two to three years. In order to break the barrier, Apple is going to go outside the box.
So it doesn't seem too far off that Apple could get that $200 or more off from Intel next year. Especially when Broadwell arrives.
Intel won't be cutting their prices anytime soon, revenue is down again.
In a way your are right, it looks like Haswell has yet to put any steam into the i86 processor market. Most certainly. If AMD ever gets its ARM based processors out, so that the rest of the industry has access to high performance chips, Intel will be in a world of hurt. A very low power ARM chip with AMD graphics would be very interesting in the marketplace. Then you have Qualcom and the other SoC vendors that will have 64 bit ARM on the market soon.
All of these solution run at power levels well below Intels even with Intels process advantages. Think about it this was, how long would iPhone last on its battery if it had a 64 bit Atom in the box. So yeah things look really bad for Intel. I can't see a tablet or cell phone manufacture logically going down the Intel path.
As for Apple I have to wonder what exactly they will do for the tablet processor. They are pretty far ahead technology wise, I could see them simply upping clock rate instead of a major A7 revision. Of course everyone would love to see a beefed up A7X. If A7X does happen, nobody will have anything even close to such a chip on the market. Given that we agree on so much above I'm not sure why you believe this. $200 per chip discount would be massive in Intels eyes. I don't think Intel would do it even if Apple threatened to transition some Mac hardware to ARM. Broadwell promises some savings due to higher integration, that is a good thing, but I don't see the chips them selves being much cheaper if at all. Intel will want to get the same profit from each motherboard if it can. The overall cost of the motherboard will be less but that will be due to factors outside of Intel. Funny I wish that Apple would pull head from ass and morph the physical design of the iMac into something I might actually buy. Put those SSD cards and RAM cards behind a panel I can get to and I might start to get interested in the iMac.
As to the SSD idea, I really don't know what in the hell Apple is up to with the iMac nor the Mini. If they can stick a high performance SSD in the Mac Book AIRs it ought to be easy for them to do the same in the iMac or Mini. This is just another reason why I don't see Apple as being serious with the desktop market, they through all of this developmental effort into the Mac Books and push out trivial updates for the iMac, and Mini. Thankfully the Pro is getting an update after years of neglect. The thing here is that Apple has been shipping laptops with some sort of SSD for years now, you would expect a trickle down after awhile.
So let's say Apple puts one in a Mini and ends up with performance some where around a 2011 Mini but is able to sell the box for let's say $250 dollars - hot product or not? This isn't unrealistic, a beefed up A7X(D) might cost them someplace between $30 and $60 dollars as opposed to the Intel chips at $250 plus. Yeah it won't be a performance machine, at least not with A7 derived hardware, but it would be god enough for many uses. Get the prices low enough and it is possible to see Apple hardware going into places that it hasn't gone into in years.
All of the above demands an OS as open as today's Mac OS. In fact it is an imperative for any i86 replacing machine.
Well as you can see above I'm a big dreamer in this respect! A7 as it ships in an iPhone apparently doesn't have the features to permit the sort of Mac OS machine dreamed about above, but that is simply and engineering effort to correct. That is build in the I/O that desktop users still use and need and you have an interesting attack vector to address Intels high prices.
We are not talking about cutting the same chip by $200. It would be properly be a slower bin. Or a Dual Core Version
And Intel has always been cutting price. New Node replace the current price range. Although Intel isn't releasing a 14nm Desktop Chip next year ( 14nm will be exclusively Laptop Broadwell And Atom only ). They will very likely to continue price those 22nm Haswell lower to move them. That includes Celeron And Pentium Brands, if they continue to exist.
Even the High Performance Version of Cortex A57 Implementation running at 3Ghz is no match for Sandy Bridge @ 3Ghz. Let alone Haswell. Once you move out of the low power scenario, the best Power to Performance Ratio Chips still belongs to Intel. Its hard for Intel to move into low power SoC. Its also hard for ARM as well.
And contrary to popular believe Intel Atom isn't a power sucking monster. It may not be the best in class in terms of low power performance SoC. But it is still very very good. The problem was the ARM market force and price, not with its technical ability. ( But I suppose one could argue not being the best is already bad enough )
Now back to price cutting, It is more about Fab utilization. And that is first priority. You cant have them sitting there doing nothing. And without Notebook and Atoms Chips to Fab it is very likely Intel will be moving their Chipset to 22nm as well. But with the Revenue dropping , or Sales Dropping, And as I or analyst predict ( I would say this is rather like pointing out the obvious then prediction ) with iPad and Other Tablet coming, the PC industry will shrink, and Intel will have to move those 22nm Haswell somehow.
And the best indication is Intel has already said there will be $299 Haswell Notebook this Christmas.
I would imagine a Dual Core ( 4 Thread ) , Iris 5100 ( Not Pro ) CPU costing around $150 isn't too far off the table. Remember the Current lowest iMac Model runs 4 Core 4 Threads. So theoretically the performance difference shouldn't be that much.
Well like all things it depends, the performance may be there for the majority of users. In any event I just don,t see demand for a low performance iMac.
As for pricing I suspect Intel will find itself in a situation they have never been in before. That is an environment where they can't stimulate demand with price cuts.
Here you go.