What happened to the "tower"?

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  • Reply 101 of 130
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    actually, people haven't had any time to complain yet, because both the MDD and the FW-800 PowerMacs (the latest 2 generations) had the expansion, the G5 will be missing.

    And I've already found quite some complaints over the lack of expandability now.
  • Reply 102 of 130
    naplesxnaplesx Posts: 3,743member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by G-News

    actually, people haven't had any time to complain yet, because both the MDD and the FW-800 PowerMacs (the latest 2 generations) had the expansion, the G5 will be missing.

    And I've already found quite some complaints over the lack of expandability now.




    I hear that Windows XP is much more stable than previous versions. here is a site that offers a tower that will most likely fit your ever expanding needs.



    http://www.thermaltake.com/products/xaser3/v2000a.htm
  • Reply 103 of 130
    i, fredi, fred Posts: 125member
    The evidence that Apple already KNOWS that multiple drive bays for HD's and OD's is good is seen in the progression of the plastic el Cap over time, until Apple itself was touting in the QS case and the MDD case about how expandible it was.



    Did they suddenly have a change of heart, and decide that expandibility was no longer important, or necessary? Or did an artificial design constraint promulgated from above (Jobs or maybe Ives) create a less useful case?



    Or is it a 'plan' to sell more XRAIDS or whatever?
  • Reply 104 of 130
    naplesxnaplesx Posts: 3,743member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by I, Fred

    The evidence that Apple already KNOWS that multiple drive bays for HD's and OD's is good is seen in the progression of the plastic el Cap over time, until Apple itself was touting in the QS case and the MDD case about how expandible it was.



    Did they suddenly have a change of heart, and decide that expandibility was no longer important, or necessary? Or did an artificial design constraint promulgated from above (Jobs or maybe Ives) create a less useful case?



    Or is it a 'plan' to sell more XRAIDS or whatever?




    Hey, I know, everyone at apple is wrapped up in this evel plan to, come close for this, MAKE MONEY. Would you expect anything less.



    Every product they produce is carefully aimed at gaining market share and customers. If they didn't they would have withered years ago. And you conspricy nuts would have nothing to talk about.



    Thank you for the interesting yet non-enlightening discussion about the fate of the tower. I hope your focus changes because you just may miss some small factors like bandwidth, bus speed, performance, and such things.



    If you are a pro user, pro meaning professional, you should be able to afford the minor costs involved in using your drives externally. If you can't, you may want to consider changing your profession. Or you could spend less time complaining about a machine you don't even own and use that time to make some more money to buy on that better suits your needs. Just a thought.



    You could also just send an email to apple that states "hey I'm a pro user and I don't appreciate that there is less ability to expand in the new machine and would like you to consider correcting this." They seem pretty open to suggestions these days.



    All you guys can seem to knock in this new design is the lack of bays and subtraction of one PCI slot.
  • Reply 105 of 130
    i, fredi, fred Posts: 125member
    Naples: Despite your derision, no one has yet offered a good reason why the Tower should be less expanable than it's predecessor.



    "Trust in Steve, and He shall deliver," may work for you, but it's still a shjtty explanation for the single OD bay and paltry 2 HD spaces. Until you can explain how this is 'better' you're not really explaining anything.



    As for PCI slots, I could give a shit. 3 is enough for me, and would involve a mobo change, of which I will defer to the mobo engineers. But as for HD's and OD's, that's a design/space change, Apple clearly put the design and space ahead of practicality.
  • Reply 106 of 130
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by I, Fred

    Naples: Despite your derision, no one has yet offered a good reason why the Tower should be less expanable than it's predecessor.



    With the G4 doing what the G4 did, Apple had to pull out pretty much every stop to get people to keep buying PowerMacs. By the time the MDD arrived, there was hardly room for an ant in the case once all the bays and slots were filled.



    Quote:

    "Trust in Steve, and He shall deliver," may work for you, but it's still a shjtty explanation for the single OD bay and paltry 2 HD spaces. Until you can explain how this is 'better' you're not really explaining anything.



    As for PCI slots, I could give a shit. 3 is enough for me, and would involve a mobo change, of which I will defer to the mobo engineers. But as for HD's and OD's, that's a design/space change, Apple clearly put the design and space ahead of practicality.




    Note that I'm not going to claim that the current expansion options are in some way "better" than the MDD's; it seems more likely to me that Apple went from furiously trying to make the PowerMac saleable to carefully trying to cut out options on their new, pricey boards so that they'd keep a sane price point and a comfortable margin (keep in mind that Apple breaks even operationally, so they're not exactly raking in profit hand over fist even at their current margin rate. They need that padding, at least until sales increase dramatically).



    That's really the only argument that makes sense to me: At a certain point, they crunched the numbers on their fancy new machines and realized that they'd have to start cutting out less popular options in order to keep the low end machine under $2K. If Steve (or Jon Ives) was on some religious crusade against expansion, the MDD would never have had so many bays in the first place, so that doesn't strike me as a persuasive argument.



    As always, if Apple isn't offering something you want, send feedback. No, make that send firm, but polite feedback. They are listening, and if there's enough demand for the MDD's internal expansion options, Apple will find a way to make them come back. Remember, though, that the PMG5 case is so much bigger and airier to make it run quietly, addressing the #1 issue with the last generation of PowerMacs, so they're not going to compromise that solution in order to make room for a second optical drive. (They will, however, be able to refine their cooling and airflow techniques over time.)
  • Reply 107 of 130
    jccbinjccbin Posts: 476member
    Gnews,



    Why don't you pay for a scientific study to see how many current Mac users use more than one optical drive?

    More than one HD?



    I'll ask the PR folks at Apple for an explanation next time I call over there.



    Not one client that I have sees the need for the second optical drive (and that's hundreds of people who pay me money to get them what they want.)
  • Reply 108 of 130
    jccbinjccbin Posts: 476member
    I'll add this:



    Of all the things I'd really rather have it would be...



    The ability to strip down the machines at order time.



    If I want a G5 with no HDs, no RAM, no optical drive, why can't I buy one and install my own stuff?



    I've got a nice 4X DVD-r/rw with no home right now, but I have to pay for a Combo Drive even if I'm not going to use it. What if I want to save the $250 Apple charges for RAM and buy equivalent sticks elsewhere for $75? What if I want to buy my own SATA drives for less than Apple sells them?



    Now I consider that a valid complaint.



  • Reply 109 of 130
    rbrrbr Posts: 631member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by jccbin

    Gnews,



    Why don't you pay for a scientific study to see how many current Mac users use more than one optical drive?

    More than one HD?



    I'll ask the PR folks at Apple for an explanation next time I call over there.



    Not one client that I have sees the need for the second optical drive (and that's hundreds of people who pay me money to get them what they want.)




    That is a perfectly circular argument. People who do not know enough to order their own equipment pay you to order what you tell them they need and you are surprised that they do not ask for something more than what you tell them they need?
  • Reply 110 of 130
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by RBR

    <snip>



    Except for the very confusing use of english, exactly.
  • Reply 111 of 130
    buckeyebuckeye Posts: 358member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by grad student

    a-nut is right: your an idiot, my condolences



    Your pathetic. Why do you bother wasting your time to post an unfounded insult. Don't you have anything better to do?



    If you disagree with my opinioin, then go ahead and lay out an argument.



    If you just want to pick a fight, well that suits me too.



    Since I see that you live in my town I would rather you just knocked on my door and called me an idiot to my face. Then I can offer my condolences to your mommy.
  • Reply 112 of 130
    macgregormacgregor Posts: 1,434member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by NaplesX

    I hear that Windows XP is much more stable than previous versions. here is a site that offers a tower that will most likely fit your ever expanding needs.



    http://www.thermaltake.com/products/xaser3/v2000a.htm




    Ha, ha, nice to see that you can get the state of the art and be able to change the speed of the fans manually with a knob? That's innovation.
  • Reply 113 of 130
    macgregormacgregor Posts: 1,434member
    This site has an interesting photo of the G4 and G5 cases side by side and the difference is amazing. The G5 looks alot bigger. Seems like they should have found more room inside, even with Buick radiators keeping the cpu's cool.



    http://www.99mac.com/forum/showthrea...threadid=25423



  • Reply 114 of 130
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by buckeye

    Your pathetic. Why do you bother wasting your time to post an unfounded insult. Don't you have anything better to do?



    1) You haven't been on the internet long, have you?

    2) Your argument is very flawed, and despite that you keep posting

    3) You are hurling baseless insults, not applenut or grad student



    Barto
  • Reply 115 of 130
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    Quote:

    I hear that Windows XP is much more stable than previous versions. here is a site that offers a tower that will most likely fit your ever expanding needs.



    I'm no longer going to argue with someone who, having just switched from the PC side, taunts long time Mac user, telling them to go buy a PC, when all I'm doing is daring to criticize a shortcoming on a upcoming machine that is in a totally different ballpark than your iMac you're aparently happy with.

    You just don't want to accept my complaint as a point and therefore I stop arguing with you, before you definitely piss me off.



    As for the "more than 2 drives thing":

    out of 2 MDD owners I know, both have at least 2 HDs and at least 2 opticals built in. My brother, an el Capitan owner, would have loved to get an internal burner, but hat to get an external one.

    Being co-organisator of Switzerland's biggest LAN-Party, I can tell you that the majority of all machines used there have at least 2 optical drives and between 2 and 4 harddrives.

    Aparently there are people who need it.



    PS: I sent feedback a long time ago already, I even said so here.
  • Reply 116 of 130
    matsumatsu Posts: 6,558member
    Someone, please lift off those heat sinks and get a look to see how exactly Apple chose to mount those CPU's! Let's see if they're removable or not -- then we can really crank this debate up a notch or ten.
  • Reply 117 of 130
    jccbinjccbin Posts: 476member
    -/sarcasm on-



    Oh, yes, people just take my advice blindly, and yet somehow run multimillion-dollar businesses.



    -/sarcasm off-
  • Reply 118 of 130
    macgregormacgregor Posts: 1,434member
    At the risk of actually trying to stay on topic and get something useful out of this thread....



    Can anyone make an image that shows the internals of both G4's and the G5 case to scale side-by-side? It sure seems like there is room for a second optical drive in there. My hope is that it was merely an "Apple thing" to have only one drive initially and that they can merely tweak the case to put in the second one.



    As for some of you guys....shouldn't you be studying for your summer school GED classes and not wasting bandwidth on insults?!?
  • Reply 119 of 130
    i, fredi, fred Posts: 125member
    The only place I see in the new case for additional drives is down low, up front in front of the heatsinks, next to the RAM slots. Until I see one, though, I'm not holding my breath. This would only be true if you only had one G5 and one fan in that area.



    Does anyone know if they remove the top or bottom G5 in a single proc conig?
  • Reply 120 of 130
    naplesxnaplesx Posts: 3,743member
    I think that too many people confuse need and desire. You still have not convinced me of a need. With drive capacities skyrocketing it will not be long before two drives will have the capacity of 1TB or more.



    I understand that you may have information on old hard drives, but I still dont know why you would not want put that info on bigger faster drives. If you are saying that you have multiple drive sitting around and you have to swap them out to get to the info, sounds like a firewire solution would be ideal. Why would you want to open the case to swap drives? If your argument is based on the thrill of doing it yourself, I can understand that, I have been there but have long surpassed said thrill. Othetwise, your argument is weak because it is based on physical drive counts rather than capacity.



    As far as the OD bay goes, this new machine is so fast and the pipes so wide and the superdrive so capable that the necesity of a second drive is vertually illiminated. Copying disks will be virtually as fast as before, according to apple. Your argument is based once again on drive count rather than on capability.



    They have made it clear that COOLING and NOISE and SPEED is a priority in this new machine, they have gone to great lengths to illustrate this. That is the main reason for lack of bays.



    Apple has made it clear that they have adopted firewire and USB as their connectivity protocals. As far as I know apple has never adopted a wireless computer, just tried to illiminate unnecesary wires. So the argument that external storage is contrary to apple's phylosophy is just left field bunk.



    Remember apple is trying to deliver a viable bleeding edge product to its users on a fast as possible manner. This machine along with Panther is a screamer and pro users will benifit greatly by this speed bump. This technology along with improvements will trickle rapidly to their other and future products. Patience is a vurtue.



    I am sick of hearing "oh it would have been a minor engineering thing to add this or that." Oh I see, all you self appointed engineers could have done it better. OK. I don't see any of you on Apple's consultant or partner list. As far as GNEWS goes, if you don't need this machine don't buy it, if you do, then do. If you think that apple has made their R&R a personal attack on you or your swiss freinds, I only say there is a plethora of PC's out there with endless expandability. Or, Maybe you could wait a bit for apple to perfect their design and add more bays or accept that you may need to use Fireware. No offense intended but those are the choices.



    There seems to be much discussion about very little. I am not saying that you do not have a valad point or points, just that there are viable and prooven alternatives. Consider that maybe you should braoden your perspective.



    By the way, I own 3 dual 1ghz G4's and 2 custom built PC's along with an XServe. I personally use an iMac. I have been using macs in verious form for the last 5 years. I recently switched over 100% because of OSX. You are not by any means talking to a computer novice. I consult with multi-million dollar companies and countless local businesses and residents. I have been in and around the computer business for 12 years. I have been an aerospace machinist and prototype designer/machinist/programmer. Not that anyone cares about all of that, just I am not a mindless drone and have some experience and expertise behind what I say. Take anyway that you like.
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