rumor: low end g4 box?

keyboardf12keyboardf12
Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
from:



http://www.macrumors.com by way of macplus.org



Quote:

MacPlus.org is reporting that Apple is a planning on revamping its product line with the possible introduction of a low-end G4 "box" with 32MB VRAM, and 256MB RAM. Target price is reportedly $599.



If true, this might fill in a much-requested segment of the Mac product line -- low end "headless" machine. It's unclear from this report if the machine would be expandable.



ineresting if true. i think more than one rumor speculated that apple would keep the g4 in the low end?
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 112
    bioflavonoidbioflavonoid Posts: 723member
    Woo! I'm buying one!
  • Reply 2 of 112
    gargar Posts: 1,201member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Bioflavonoid

    Woo! I'm buying one!



    i'm not



    but my boss will love it
  • Reply 3 of 112
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    The problem (problem!?) with apple is that its standards are too high to mass produce shitty loads of shît, a la dell.
  • Reply 4 of 112
    lemon bon bonlemon bon bon Posts: 2,383member
    T'hain Esh Kelch posted on Macrumors:



    "I just want a cube.. With a fast graphics card.. Nice ammount of ram.. Decent harddrive.. And a good processor... A gamer mac.. Why is it so hard to come by? :/ "



    Exactly.



    Same again for cheap office Mac. Cheap Switcher Mac. Cheap Edu' Mac. Cheap Market Share builder Mac.



    'Why is it so HARD to come by?'



    If Apple is serious about 10% marketshare in consuemr or business arenas then this rumour had better be serious too.



    It's SO OBVIOUS...a cheap, headless G4 'X-Mac' for £395. Yeesh, they're nearly there with the sodding eMac entry anyhow. Take away the bulky 17inch monitor and bingo...Apple should be able to make that £395-495 entry point. 1 gig G4, 256 megs of ram. 32 meg Nividia 'FX' budget card (an impressive card for less than a $100 US! So why bother with the 2Mx or 4Mx?) Hard drive size? 30-40gig? Great gamer/edu'/bus'/Lemon Bon Bon rig to compliment his computerless monitor. I'd rather douse myself in petrol and light me with a match than pay over one grand for a 'fat, overpriced, 1 gig G4 Tower'. Go headless under five hundred bucks and I'll begin to sweat.



    It can't be that hard. Maybe alot of Switchers already have PC monitors. Maybe Edu' buyers aren't rolling in dosh. Maybe business budgets suck because the economy sucks.



    What does Apple do? Give us a built in monitor we may not need. (I've got a D2 21inch monitor sitting on my workwork floor waiting for a cheap, headless Mac!!!) Gives us a 'Son of Cube' with a price tag to match. Yeah. Maybe 95% of Apple's target 'Switcher' market can't afford to upgrade £2K on a 'risky' propasition. Which a Mac is unless they 'get on the ladder'.



    And you can only build market share if you get enough people to view it as a risk worth taking. Lowering the price is the deal breaker for many. (The kind of 'many' that, along with Apple's help, put Apple were they are today. )



    I'd buy an 'X-Mac'. Designed like the Cube? I'd tear Motorola's arm off for one...



    Lemon Bon Bon
  • Reply 5 of 112
    lemon bon bonlemon bon bon Posts: 2,383member
    Quote:

    The problem (problem!?) with apple is that its standards are too high to mass produce shitty loads of shît, a la dell.



    You can buy machines more pricey than Apples that do not look as good. At every price point. Bar one key area. The sub-500.



    Apple have already proven they can do a cheap, well designed gadget. It's called the iPod.



    They've already done an eMac for £695 inc VAT. Not bad. Not great. Drop the monitor and get it under 500 at £495 inc VAT?



    Switcher box. Use a cheap enamel white box. Vaguely Cube like case...and they'd fly out the stores.



    I don't think Apple would have to £299 EMachines style. But they need one close.



    They can still have their 'high standards' in each price point.



    A sub-500 computer gives Apple a real shot at marketshare penetration in edu'/bus'/cons'.



    I think the Taiwanese link of late...(monitor prices slashed etc...) may give a clue to Apple really going for it soon...



    I don't think Apple have to compromise their design or style values at all. Look at the PS2 or Gamecube. They have their own style. If Apple was sub 500. Do we really think it would be a cheap, beige tower? Nah. It would be a cute, white iSlab or enamel iCube.



    I hope so. I wish them well if they do.



    Lemon Bon Bon
  • Reply 6 of 112
    jccbinjccbin Posts: 476member
    Amen!



    BTW- I just ordered an AIBO from Sony. Got a thread on it in Gen Disc.



  • Reply 7 of 112
    lemon bon bonlemon bon bon Posts: 2,383member
    "Chef Ramen

    macrumors member



    Registered: Dec 2002

    Location:



    maybe it will be available as some sorta switcher kit



    includes:

    - that program for transferring your hard drive



    - nessecary adapters



    - .mac subscription



    mmm



    maybe"



    A 'switcher' kit. How interesting...



    Lemon Bon Bon
  • Reply 8 of 112
    lemon bon bonlemon bon bon Posts: 2,383member
    "MovieGuy

    macrumors newbie



    Registered: Jun 2003

    Location:





    I think this would be a good idea. Focus it at switchers who do not want to buy extra hardware. My parents are completely jelouse of what I can do on my mac, however, they do not want to shell out all of the money to buy an entirely new computer when their monitors, keyboards, mice, and so one work fine. This could be good, but only if it is marketed correctly! I want to see Apple commercials showing poeple how easy it is to use OS X and how cool the hardware looks."



    Yeah. Maybe he could tell Apple this...



    Lemon Bon Bon
  • Reply 9 of 112
    programmerprogrammer Posts: 3,461member
    Apple knows this. Unfortunately a low end machine has low end margins so if you build them you have to sell them or else you lose your shirt. And that means you have to spec them pretty well, and that means you'll eat into the sales of high margin products. Currently Apple has no real ability to differentiate a low end headless box from from their high end towers. I've been saying for a year that when they have a new high end processor they'll be able to use the G4 in a low end headless box which will generate a lot of sales. That time is almost upon us and while I don't know if I believe this particular rumour, I do believe that we might see Apple do exactly this.
  • Reply 10 of 112
    apeirosapeiros Posts: 16member
    Apple should found a sub-company called e.g. "Tomato". Then under that label produce incredible cheap (and low quality in order to maintain really low prices) mac-compatibles. They shouldn't call them macs but mac-compatible.

    In that way Apple would (perhaps? *g*) not get bashed for making sucking (but inexpensive) machines and all the wintel-crybabies screaming for a cheap mac would be satisfied :-)



    Perhaps this idea sucks, perhaps not - i just pulled it out of my fingers ;-)



    greetings

    apeiros
  • Reply 11 of 112
    banchobancho Posts: 1,517member
    I think Programmer nailed the real reason Apple doesn't have a nice low end tower. I think after the 970 intros we may see exactly what everyone's been asking for and perhaps the 970's will slip into the "old" G4 Powermac's price points.
  • Reply 12 of 112
    majormattmajormatt Posts: 1,077member
    egads, making a cube look good is hard



  • Reply 13 of 112
    whoamiwhoami Posts: 301member
    what is that?
  • Reply 14 of 112
    bigcbigc Posts: 1,224member
    Looks like they'll be able to use the PPC970 for the cheap box according to SlacJackWhispers.
  • Reply 15 of 112
    bioflavonoidbioflavonoid Posts: 723member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by apeiros

    In that way Apple would (perhaps? *g*) not get bashed for making sucking (but inexpensive) machines



    O, I think they would be bashed for making "sucking machines."
  • Reply 16 of 112
    shaktaishaktai Posts: 157member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Bigc

    Looks like they'll be able to use the PPC970 for the cheap box according to SlacJackWhispers.



    If there is any validity to this at all, it might allow Apple to use some innovative technologies in their high end PowerMacs and also produce some less innovative but still very powerful consumer machines.



    Weren't he chips Motorola provided Apple were really just custom variations on the chips they intended for imbedded use, and except for a few very small custom companies, Apple was pretty much the only customer.



    The PPC 970 though will be used by both IBM and Apple and who knows what other producers, for desktop machines and servers. This means higher volume production, and generally that translates to lower cost per unit. It could be very possible.
  • Reply 17 of 112
    thegeldingthegelding Posts: 3,230member
    not that i believe anything at macwhispers, but i have heard over and over that the 970 and the G4 will probably be around the same price (some say the 970 will be cheaper)...so why would apple have a cheap G4 box when it would cost the same as a cheap 970 box?? unless ibm can't make enough 970 chips, but i don't think that will be the case...and would apple keep buying from moto just to have separation between pro and consumer when they can do it by speed and number of chips (consumers get 1.4 to 1.8 single 970 motherboards, pros get 1.8 to 2.3 dual and quad chip motherboards)...or will moto give the g4 chips suddenly very cheap to apple because of ibm and maybe the possible apple lawsuit over the G5???



    i just don't see moto giving it's G4 1.2 and G4 1.4 chips away for cheap seeing as they are the moto top of the line chips...and i don't see much call for this cheap box getting anything slower than that or who will really want it when the 970 is soooo much faster?? if apple wants to compete against dell in the underpowered office boxes (and apple will lose that battle bloodily) they could just go with a g3 box...it will run office and email and the internet fine....and the g3 is a cheap cheap chip that apple can get from moto or ibm....



    g
  • Reply 18 of 112
    banchobancho Posts: 1,517member
    Apple *could* burn through the remainder of their on hand G4's in a bargain tower and sell the 970's at or close to current tower prices. Considering the relative power of both chips I think customers will be willing to pay the premium for the 970 based on performance alone. It could be the first chip to justify premium pricing in a while.
  • Reply 19 of 112
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Bancho

    Apple *could* burn through the remainder of their on hand G4's in a bargain tower and sell the 970's at or close to current tower prices. Considering the relative power of both chips I think customers will be willing to pay the premium for the 970 based on performance alone. It could be the first chip to justify premium pricing in a while.



    Considering that the XPC7455s are probably made in small batches by hand at this point I doubt there's much in the way of remainder.



    I suppose they could just pull the processor cards out of unsold PowerMacs before landfilling them...



    I think a low voltage 970 would make a great low end machine - a PowerBook in a box, essentially, like the original iMac. I'm still not sure about Apple releasing a consumer AIO, but, to play devil's advocate with myself, they're venturing into new territory, and doing lots of things that I wouldn't have thought they'd do - like allow Core Computers to exist for longer than it took the press release to cool.
  • Reply 20 of 112
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Placebo

    The problem (problem!?) with apple is that its standards are too high to mass produce shitty loads of shît, a la dell.



    Standards? I thought it was ego and rep.
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