With the 0.09 die shrink, that leaves loads of room for a 1.6, 1.8, 2 gig 970 single 'Mini-Tower' range under the 'new' G5 Hight Tower range...and dual 2, dual 2.5 at current prices.
Ergo: the Tower range could become much like the expanded Powerbook range. ie a Powerbook to suit everyone! Even Matsu bought a 12' Powerbook cause he was finally included in one of their target markets!
Apple have done a great job of adding depth to their Powerbook range with the Jan' updates. I think they could slightly...ever so...slightly expand the range a touch...and drive the iBook down a little further in price.
(To Matsu, what say you that Apple has a laptop in the sub $499 market before they have a desktop there...?)
Same thing with Towers.
Duals. Current G5 price bracket.
Traditional Apple pro crowd.
Singles. Mini-Towers.
The Switcher consumer crowd. Many PC consumers/gamers/edu' people are ignored by the current eMac/iMac2 only option. There's loads of consumers out there that want towers. More than are buying said iMac2 and eMac fer sure.
We expected the POWERMac G5 to be where the current G4 towers are. However, Apple HAS dropped the price of its entry tower...and has bumped the spec by 250mhz! So...
I do think they'll have to do better than this. The £999 inc VAT tower would have looked 'okay' last year. Now they are in this bracket...it seems to signal an intent to get down and dirty in the consumer tower market. GOOD! But to make this really cool they need to get those 0.09 970s out as soon as possible. Get the current speed grades into the current G4 tower price range ie £999 1.6 970 to £1300 2 gigger. And dual the bumped 970 chips at current G5 prices.
I now see the mini-tower as a Tower concept. Everything the tower has to a lesser degree. Plenty of natural room for it under the current Tower. ie a Tower for consumers. The 970 finally gives apple the scaling depth to attempt this.
The 'Cube'. More and more, I see this as a 'priced to go' switcher box. Relatively small (make it a lil' bigger or longer for standard components...) and cheap as hell.
It could form part of a switcher kit. A box that has everything you need. Loads of iapp software. Panther. 1.3 G4 processor...cheap graphics card. Nominal hardrive. Enough memory to run Panther. Couple of Apple speakers...
What rule says it has to be a perfect cube? Why not just make it deep enough for a full size card and leave the rest alone?
Precisely. While I still think it should be proportional to the full size tower from the side, from the front if should be shorter while retaining the same width.
I find it amazingly laughable that people are clammoring for POWER, POWER, POWER all these long years of G5 talk, and now when it arrives, in a very damn nice entry, everyone wants to change because it still ain't cheap enough. You know what, Apple could release a G5 Power friggin mini or whatever, and the masses are still not going to buy it (maybe a few home users, but corporate sales drive market share and home use).
Wanna know why? PC users (read corporate managers) are too f**king afraid to choose Apple as their next purchase.
Given time for enough of them to be worm food, Apple may change that way of thinking but it still is entrenched that Wintel is the way to go for safe business decisions. Sucks, don't it. I know I live in the environment every day, and rejoice to use my Mac at home in the evenings. Even VPN'ing into our network to remote control a failed PC or VNC'ing into my PC to do run some friggin proprietary Winblows management console (SMS, AD, what freakin ever). When enough managers can convince their bosses that an Apple purchase isn't going to break the company or risk anyone's jobs, it will come. Certainly, not soon enough though.
Hardware alone, will not do it, though.
Apple would need to release a bare minimum, Dell fighter and send an applications expert to a company to convert whatever proprietary Windows shit SQL database app or Lord knows what legacy DOS app is still running and get them up to proper computer times with OS X server and the multitude of well designed (Oracle), if not open source (ie PostgreSQL) apps that run natively in OS X Server for a management team to be swayed away from the Beast.
Man, that was one long, run on sentence, huh?
Anyway, you get the drift. In time, perhaps, but I am not sure Apple is in the position to tackle that feat just yet. Like I said, wait til some of those snobby 50-60 year-old managers retire or make senile moves that get them a second look from budget teams, and Apple will become relevant again. Until then, let Windows users flog in the joy of silly, meaningless error messages that keep most of us IT people making money. Then, we can change the face of technology for the better.
" Apple has left available in its arsenal a single Power Mac G4 system clocked at 1.25MHz, replacing the 1.0GHz, 1.25GHz and 1.42GHz systems previously available. It can accommodate up to 2GB of RAM and comes equipped with an 80GB hard drive, CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo Drive and ATI Radeon 9000 Pro graphics card, with a SuperDrive or Nvidia GeForce4 Ti-based card as build-to-order options.
Priced to start at US$1,299 and available configured in single and dual-processor configurations, the Power Mac G4 is not the same 1.25GHz model that was available a few weeks ago. ...
Apple said the switch from the 1.25GHz system introduced this January was a deliberate effort to deliver a low-cost system to its professional customers and anyone else who might want to pick up an inexpensive, expandable Mac.
"It's part of our plan to hit the lowest possible price point for that configuration," said Apple vice president of hardware product marketing Greg Joswiak.
"We don't have a definite [termination] date in mind, but it's not a short-term effort," said Joswiak. "As long as people keep buying the Power Mac G4, we'll keep selling them."
There you have it. It's relatively low cost. Its expandable. Its fast enough to do most things people want to do save the real high end stuff. I'm sure some gamers will also never be satisfied. God, how many times have we heard people asking for this? Its cheaper and faster than an iMac and you can use your old monitors etc. THIS IS A GOOD DEAL.
. . . Apple said the switch from the 1.25GHz system introduced this January was a deliberate effort to deliver a low-cost system to its professional customers and anyone else who might want to pick up an inexpensive, expandable Mac.
"It's part of our plan to hit the lowest possible price point for that configuration," said Apple vice president of hardware product marketing Greg Joswiak. . .
I also read that this older motherboard will boot from OS 9, and this may be another reason for the step backward in hardware. Likely there is still a demand for OS 9 booting, so this model could linger on for a while. It also fills the price gap below the 1.6 GHz G5 until Apple is ready to offer something like a G5 mini. I'm not sure about it being a good deal for most buyers. Sure, the price is lower, but a 1.6 GHz G5 with a combo drive is well worth the extra 500 dollars US, IMO.
Reports are in that the Dual G5 is the top seller from the Apple store. Looking at the price/performance of the single G5's they are not going to sell many. The full tower needs to go to all duals before gaining acceptance from the Apple buying public.
Is anyone here planning on buying a single G5? They won't move many of them at the current price points. As they begin to pile up in the channel Apple will realize their mistake and will have to slash prices just to get them out of warehouses.
This "mini-me" is what the singles will need to sell, at a significantly lower price. Anybody know what the crippled version of the G5 motherboard dimensions are? Look for the crippled low end to rapidly pile up as buyers say "no way" to this obvious mistake.
Again I ask, will anyone even consider the low end G5?
Again I ask, will anyone even consider the low end G5?
Aphelion ...
I am. I'll wait until they hit the stores, then I'm buying. Unless the unbelievable happens and Apple introduces something more compelling in the consumer line up, it's either the low end or mid range G5 for me and I'll be very, very, very happy.
Again I ask, will anyone even consider the low end G5?
I have been honestly considering it for half an hour. Then I decided that the mid-range should have several months more to its life-time. Then I recalled the state of my bank account. Now I'm temporarily not considering anything.
I also read that this older motherboard will boot from OS 9, and this may be another reason for the step backward in hardware. Likely there is still a demand for OS 9 booting, so this model could linger on for a while. It also fills the price gap below the 1.6 GHz G5 until Apple is ready to offer something like a G5 mini. I'm not sure about it being a good deal for most buyers. Sure, the price is lower, but a 1.6 GHz G5 with a combo drive is well worth the extra 500 dollars US, IMO.
Apple committed too supporting OS 9 booting trough July of this year if I remember correctly. That leaves room for Apple to boost the configuration to the newer mother board any time after that date. The 57's are due of soon, with published speeds of 1.3 Ghz and a heafty reduction of per chip price. They are also a pin for pin replacement. I think that it is possible, and would hope to see, a newer tower out in the August/September timeframe at 1.3-1.6 Ghz using these new chips. It would be great if Apple could also get the entry price down $100-$300 for this tower as well, even if they had to lower the HD size and offer an older GPU to do it. This would address the low-end tower/cube/desktop market that Apple does not compete in today.
Comments
Ergo: the Tower range could become much like the expanded Powerbook range. ie a Powerbook to suit everyone! Even Matsu bought a 12' Powerbook cause he was finally included in one of their target markets!
Apple have done a great job of adding depth to their Powerbook range with the Jan' updates. I think they could slightly...ever so...slightly expand the range a touch...and drive the iBook down a little further in price.
(To Matsu, what say you that Apple has a laptop in the sub $499 market before they have a desktop there...?)
Same thing with Towers.
Duals. Current G5 price bracket.
Traditional Apple pro crowd.
Singles. Mini-Towers.
The Switcher consumer crowd. Many PC consumers/gamers/edu' people are ignored by the current eMac/iMac2 only option. There's loads of consumers out there that want towers. More than are buying said iMac2 and eMac fer sure.
We expected the POWERMac G5 to be where the current G4 towers are. However, Apple HAS dropped the price of its entry tower...and has bumped the spec by 250mhz! So...
I do think they'll have to do better than this. The £999 inc VAT tower would have looked 'okay' last year. Now they are in this bracket...it seems to signal an intent to get down and dirty in the consumer tower market. GOOD! But to make this really cool they need to get those 0.09 970s out as soon as possible. Get the current speed grades into the current G4 tower price range ie £999 1.6 970 to £1300 2 gigger. And dual the bumped 970 chips at current G5 prices.
Lemon Bon Bon
The 'Cube'. More and more, I see this as a 'priced to go' switcher box. Relatively small (make it a lil' bigger or longer for standard components...) and cheap as hell.
It could form part of a switcher kit. A box that has everything you need. Loads of iapp software. Panther. 1.3 G4 processor...cheap graphics card. Nominal hardrive. Enough memory to run Panther. Couple of Apple speakers...
£499 inc VAT.
Watch it fly.
People go nuts for one.
Lemon Bon Bon 8)
Originally posted by Whisper
What rule says it has to be a perfect cube? Why not just make it deep enough for a full size card and leave the rest alone?
Precisely. While I still think it should be proportional to the full size tower from the side, from the front if should be shorter while retaining the same width.
Wanna know why? PC users (read corporate managers) are too f**king afraid to choose Apple as their next purchase.
Given time for enough of them to be worm food, Apple may change that way of thinking but it still is entrenched that Wintel is the way to go for safe business decisions. Sucks, don't it. I know I live in the environment every day, and rejoice to use my Mac at home in the evenings. Even VPN'ing into our network to remote control a failed PC or VNC'ing into my PC to do run some friggin proprietary Winblows management console (SMS, AD, what freakin ever). When enough managers can convince their bosses that an Apple purchase isn't going to break the company or risk anyone's jobs, it will come. Certainly, not soon enough though.
Hardware alone, will not do it, though.
Apple would need to release a bare minimum, Dell fighter and send an applications expert to a company to convert whatever proprietary Windows shit SQL database app or Lord knows what legacy DOS app is still running and get them up to proper computer times with OS X server and the multitude of well designed (Oracle), if not open source (ie PostgreSQL) apps that run natively in OS X Server for a management team to be swayed away from the Beast.
Man, that was one long, run on sentence, huh?
Anyway, you get the drift. In time, perhaps, but I am not sure Apple is in the position to tackle that feat just yet. Like I said, wait til some of those snobby 50-60 year-old managers retire or make senile moves that get them a second look from budget teams, and Apple will become relevant again. Until then, let Windows users flog in the joy of silly, meaningless error messages that keep most of us IT people making money. Then, we can change the face of technology for the better.
Sorry, end of sermon.
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/...6/30/powermac/
" Apple has left available in its arsenal a single Power Mac G4 system clocked at 1.25MHz, replacing the 1.0GHz, 1.25GHz and 1.42GHz systems previously available. It can accommodate up to 2GB of RAM and comes equipped with an 80GB hard drive, CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo Drive and ATI Radeon 9000 Pro graphics card, with a SuperDrive or Nvidia GeForce4 Ti-based card as build-to-order options.
Priced to start at US$1,299 and available configured in single and dual-processor configurations, the Power Mac G4 is not the same 1.25GHz model that was available a few weeks ago. ...
Apple said the switch from the 1.25GHz system introduced this January was a deliberate effort to deliver a low-cost system to its professional customers and anyone else who might want to pick up an inexpensive, expandable Mac.
"It's part of our plan to hit the lowest possible price point for that configuration," said Apple vice president of hardware product marketing Greg Joswiak.
"We don't have a definite [termination] date in mind, but it's not a short-term effort," said Joswiak. "As long as people keep buying the Power Mac G4, we'll keep selling them."
There you have it. It's relatively low cost. Its expandable. Its fast enough to do most things people want to do save the real high end stuff. I'm sure some gamers will also never be satisfied. God, how many times have we heard people asking for this? Its cheaper and faster than an iMac and you can use your old monitors etc. THIS IS A GOOD DEAL.
Originally posted by Carson O'Genic
. . . Apple said the switch from the 1.25GHz system introduced this January was a deliberate effort to deliver a low-cost system to its professional customers and anyone else who might want to pick up an inexpensive, expandable Mac.
"It's part of our plan to hit the lowest possible price point for that configuration," said Apple vice president of hardware product marketing Greg Joswiak. . .
I also read that this older motherboard will boot from OS 9, and this may be another reason for the step backward in hardware. Likely there is still a demand for OS 9 booting, so this model could linger on for a while. It also fills the price gap below the 1.6 GHz G5 until Apple is ready to offer something like a G5 mini. I'm not sure about it being a good deal for most buyers. Sure, the price is lower, but a 1.6 GHz G5 with a combo drive is well worth the extra 500 dollars US, IMO.
Is anyone here planning on buying a single G5? They won't move many of them at the current price points. As they begin to pile up in the channel Apple will realize their mistake and will have to slash prices just to get them out of warehouses.
This "mini-me" is what the singles will need to sell, at a significantly lower price. Anybody know what the crippled version of the G5 motherboard dimensions are? Look for the crippled low end to rapidly pile up as buyers say "no way" to this obvious mistake.
Again I ask, will anyone even consider the low end G5?
Aphelion ...
Originally posted by Aphelion
Is anyone here planning on buying a single G5?...
Again I ask, will anyone even consider the low end G5?
Aphelion ...
I am. I'll wait until they hit the stores, then I'm buying. Unless the unbelievable happens and Apple introduces something more compelling in the consumer line up, it's either the low end or mid range G5 for me and I'll be very, very, very happy.
Originally posted by Aphelion
Again I ask, will anyone even consider the low end G5?
I have been honestly considering it for half an hour. Then I decided that the mid-range should have several months more to its life-time. Then I recalled the state of my bank account. Now I'm temporarily not considering anything.
Originally posted by snoopy
I also read that this older motherboard will boot from OS 9, and this may be another reason for the step backward in hardware. Likely there is still a demand for OS 9 booting, so this model could linger on for a while. It also fills the price gap below the 1.6 GHz G5 until Apple is ready to offer something like a G5 mini. I'm not sure about it being a good deal for most buyers. Sure, the price is lower, but a 1.6 GHz G5 with a combo drive is well worth the extra 500 dollars US, IMO.
Apple committed too supporting OS 9 booting trough July of this year if I remember correctly. That leaves room for Apple to boost the configuration to the newer mother board any time after that date. The 57's are due of soon, with published speeds of 1.3 Ghz and a heafty reduction of per chip price. They are also a pin for pin replacement. I think that it is possible, and would hope to see, a newer tower out in the August/September timeframe at 1.3-1.6 Ghz using these new chips. It would be great if Apple could also get the entry price down $100-$300 for this tower as well, even if they had to lower the HD size and offer an older GPU to do it. This would address the low-end tower/cube/desktop market that Apple does not compete in today.