Bottom end mac? hmm...
With MWNY around the figurative corner, the death of the iMac classic seems inevitable. Will there be something to replace it? I think apple should make something to compete with the $500 PCs you see. I think they should make sort of an... LC IV.
-700Mhz G3 or G4 (G4 as an upgrade, G3 as base model)
-128MB of ram (base)
-40GB U6 hard drive
-Rage 128 onboard
-the old LC startup chime as a reference back
-2x AGP and one 33Mhz PCI slot
-$599 base G3, $749 base G4.
That would be cool.
-700Mhz G3 or G4 (G4 as an upgrade, G3 as base model)
-128MB of ram (base)
-40GB U6 hard drive
-Rage 128 onboard
-the old LC startup chime as a reference back
-2x AGP and one 33Mhz PCI slot
-$599 base G3, $749 base G4.
That would be cool.
Comments
Dobby
Heh. That was rhetorical, before you answer. Not a worthwhile idea, IMHO. They could lower the G3 iMac's price, though, and maybe give us a snazzy new color.
<strong>And um. Like, why wouldn't Apple just keep the G3 iMac instead of wasting their margins on R&D/production for something like that?
Heh. That was rhetorical, before you answer. Not a worthwhile idea, IMHO. They could lower the G3 iMac's price, though, and maybe give us a snazzy new color.</strong><hr></blockquote>
beige
The new 700-800 mhz G3 used in the iBook is quite snappy from various forum responses and changing the motherboard for new video isn't honestly all that hard. iMacG4 should go to geforce4mx and iMac classic should go to Geforce 2mx. If Apple started popping them out at $499 they couldn't sell enough of them.
Trumptman
The new 700-800 mhz G3 used in the iBook is quite snappy from various forum responses and changing the motherboard for new video isn't honestly all that hard. iMacG4 should go to geforce4mx and iMac classic should go to Geforce 2mx. If Apple started popping them out at $499 they couldn't sell enough of them."
As a teacher myself, I have to ditto that.
Apple are missing out on a heap of edu' sales due to not having a £500 inc VAT model.
The base imac CRT should have a 700-800 G3 already AND Geforce 2mx.
At $499 that would probably work out at £350. It would offer schools with problematic NT networks a compelling alternative.
I'd buy one myself for that kinda price
Lemon Bon Bon
people want the cube give it back to us.
and...
"$1600 is the cheapest upgradible apple computer on the market. "
Yeah. We know. I sympathise with what you're saying, Blackbird.
There's no doubt that Apple has conquered many of its old demons eg 'not invented here', modern OS, relevance, retail presence, a sub £1000 computer and having a decent range of its OWN software etc.
BUT, the 'value added' approach aint that value added! Being stuck with a Geforce 2mx on an LCD is pathetic. There should be an option for a Titanium! And...why no option for a bigger screen?
emac. Nice computer. But where are the options to upgrade the graphics card?
As many customers as wins with its 'simplicity' it pushes more away (remember the Cube debacle?)
They still don't see the 'BIG' picture. If sub £500 PCs have an upgrade path then why don't Apple's costing up to £1,800 inc Vat? It's ridiculous.
Anyways. You two guys said it better than I did.
If Apple want people to 'switch' then give them a low-cost low risk option? A sub £500 imac crt could be it. If they only made £10-25 on each one then with the amount of 'switchers' they're after...it could soon add up...and there's that 'double' yer market share thing too...
Lemon Bon Bon
people want the cube give it back to us."
Yeah. Now THAT I WOULD buy in a second
Tear their arm off and LCD monitor of my choice. I'd be in heaven.
No monitor. A Geforce 2mx. A G3 700 mhz. Bare bones everything else. (For me, the Cube's enclosure needed to be a bit bigger alround for industry standard components eg graphics card...)
Sub: £500.
Just how much would it cost to put out a sub £500 block of plastic anyhow?
The Cube: Gorgeous. The perfect 'switch' machine.
Wake up Apple! Quit the built in 'obselete'.
Lemon Bon Bon
[ 06-21-2002: Message edited by: Lemon Bon Bon ]</p>
Or better yet, make a G4 iMac dome without the LCD monitor and have them attach any monitor they want to it to keep the costs down. I figure that 15" LCD screen adds to at least 1/3rd the system cost. Make it red and white and call it R5G4 or something
Or open up the Mac Clone market, bad for Apple but good for the Mac and Mac Users. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
[ 06-25-2002: Message edited by: Cable ]</p>
G4
agp graphics
room for 2 hds
A single external optical drive bay (oh wait, Apple's HIGH end towers have this! doeh!)
Full gamut of I/O ports
Such a tower could be made much smaller since it doesn't need room for as many extra HDs, PCI slots, or drive bays. It's basically a cube without all the expensive engineering and manufacturing gimmicks. It would be easier to cool. And I think Apple could sell such a tower at prices competitive with PC crap out there, like $800 low end.
The problem with such a mac is that it would cut into iMac sales, and thus kill Apple's margins. Apple relies on gross margins of 28-30% to survive, they CANNOT subsist with margins any lower.
With an all-in-one system, Apple is guaranteed greater margins because the cost of a monitor is included. Apple gets the monitors in bulk for cheap, and all-in-ones guarantee their sale. But offer a headless Mac at a low price, and suddenly Apple's margins are going to be ruined and Apple goes belly up.
This is why the cube was overpriced, because Apple couldn't count on display sales with each cube.
It's the ugly truth about Apple, and until their market share increases to something like 15%, they are screwed.
As X progresses many of the machines that are being discussed here would be horrifically(sp?) crippled within a short 12-18 months. Hardly the image and reputation Apple wants. In that matter price point is not a factor. The cost to dispel a reputation as that far outweighs the benefit.
The eMac is really the cut-off. A headless eMac for 899 may be appealing, but in 6 months it will go for that anyhow.
A low end machine may be in the cards eventually.... But they are really just the retail machines of today.
It will trickle down.. but until then any R&D in that area is a poor investment. Pro models always get the R&D because they bring in the high margin. Consumer units get the tech when the cost is lower.
But oh, I forgot, Apple doesn't like Mac Clones anymore. The Mac Clones used to sell for cheaper than the Apple made Macs?
How about an iMac on a PCI card for PC machines to run MacOS and OSX applications? Run it under a Window in Linux, Windows 9X/NT/W2K/XP, and Darwin?
Apple has a fairly solid low end currently. The eMac is a great computer for the price, with a beautiful display that is in many ways better (and larger, w/higher resolution) than the G4 iMac's display. If I were in the market for an all-in-one Mac, it would be an eMac for sure, it's basically the same computer as the G4 iMac, with a better display and minus the cutesy looks and gimmicky joint.
Yep. I still agree.
Though, I prefer said specs in a Cube like body.
Then I buy the display I want.
With Jaguar and a Geforce 2mx (a low spec card even two years ago...) 'X' aint going to be a problem. The G4 at 700mhz (the pending desktop 'low end') will more than handle what people want to do with a 'low end' machine.
'X' performance won't be an issue in another half a year.
Apple's low end needs re-defining. Make the iMac crt G3 a £499 price. It would fly for schools. But better is just to push those eMacs down further in price.
Yeesh, if Apple can't sell a four year old processor on a crap bus with crap memory, with a tiny disply combined with a lump of plastic and a crap Rage Ati card for less than £500 then they're never going to reach 10% marketshare like Stevie wants... Yeesh.
Lemon Bon Bon
<strong>How about a MicroATX and ATX motherboard made by Apple and the cloners can roll their own Macs? Just add the video, audio, hard drive, CD/DVD/CDRW drive, etc and then slap in some memory and a monitor.</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's interesting that you mention Darwin later in your post. For the low-end, I imagine the best, non-Mac-cannibalizing solution to be an ATX and/or Flex-ATX motherboard that supports a G4 processor and DDR RAM., with possibly modem, ethernet and USB/Firewire built-in.
Apple sells just the motherboard online(providing pointers to where to get the rest of the parts, and possibly some kind of assembly guide for certain "preferred configurations"). Customers buy their own case, RAM, video, audio, etc. Apple sets aside a few people to work with the OpenDarwin and GNUStep people on source code compatibility, then releases Darwin/GNUStep binaries for certain key OS X apps, like Mail, either free or at low prices. Of course, if we can get source code compatibility, then these apps could also run on x86 Darwin.
Not sure how the image and brand exposure things would balance out with releasing Apple apps for such a potentially varied hardware base.
Can anyone else see this?