the problem is that the people who buy at $1199 DO care about the display-resolution ... i think the next iMac-Lineup has to be a 15" widescreen with 1280*854 pixel at $999 to $1199... the 17" will probably go from $1399 to $1799 ...
I think you are giving too much credit to this class, because it contains a lot of first time buyers who know jack about screen rez. If they know about screen rez they'd probably opt for the 17". I'm sticking up for the 15" by saying people who buy it don't know or don't care about screen rez or size. They just want a nice reasonably priced mac.
[quote] They just want a nice reasonably priced mac.
<hr></blockquote>
You're right. Just how many Auntie Gladyss type people have bought Win95 type cheapy tower cos their nice nephew said so? And cos it was cheap?
Half of Apple store sales are to 'switchers'? That aint bad. But consider the 'feet' Apple are getting into the store. Millions of visitors so far. But they need to convert more of those 'feet' into actual sales for true growth. They need to make the machine cheap enough for Wintel 'Switchers' to perceive it to be worth the risk.
That's where a cheap, 15 lcd incher with ancient (but still 'decent') Geforce2 mx graphics, 128 megs of ram and G4 867 mhz at an amazing £799 inc VAT would have people fighting to get out the stores with one. Edu', office and students would be rioting outside stores. I think alot of people would think, 'Awesome price. Looks way cool. I'm buying'. Monitor included? Nice games machine. Makes the lard assed X-box look like a 20 century games machine.
Well, I know that Apple have just upgraded the other lines, but for the iMac I think it represents a much more expensive prospect to modify the machine.
If they uprgade now with BT, FW800 and Airport Extreme and we don't get DDR now; then won't they need to revise the motherboard again when they do?
If we see new machines on Tuesday, then I think that has to be bad news because it means that the timeframe for DDR iMacs, must be at least January 2004.
However, if we see a change to 15.4", 17" and 20.1" widescreens with DDR and at least 133mhz bus speed then no one will be more pleased than I.
If they uprgade now with BT, FW800 and Airport Extreme and we don't get DDR now; then won't they need to revise the motherboard again when they do?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Why wouldn't they add DDR? The bus will still be SDR, but every little bit helps.
[quote]<strong>If we see new machines on Tuesday, then I think that has to be bad news because it means that the timeframe for DDR iMacs, must be at least January 2004.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The timeframe for an iMac with a frontside bus capable of soaking up the bandwidth of DDR RAM is January 2004 or so. Apple could add DDR RAM, Xserve style, tomorrow without too much difficulty. Since DDR RAM actually runs cooler, it might not actually be that hard to add to the iMac's tightly managed dome.
[quote]<strong>However, if we see a change to 15.4", 17" and 20.1" widescreens with DDR and at least 133mhz bus speed then no one will be more pleased than I.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm not holding my breath for a 20.1" iMac. The rest is doable, although there's no guarantee that Apple will do it. There really isn't any guarantee that we'll see the "sunflower" design, although I think the odds are good that we will.
There needs to be a $999 iMac. Consumers only see price and obvious features (ram,hard drive, processor speed in megaherts, and screen). Apple needs to compete with Dell and Gateway who are offering $700 towers with LCDs. The quality of the computer and the lcd are not important to the average consumer, therefore most will not equate this into their thought processes when buying a computer. So, what should Apple realease?
No, all apple has to do is actually release new iMacs in the first place. They need to give them a 1MB L3 cache and a 133Mhz bus along with DDR RAM. 17" and 20" screens and superdrives. 867Mhz and 1ghz G4 with FW 800 and a Radeon 9000 graphics card. Price them as follows:
That does not sound bad except that the iMac will not get L3. It just wont. But with a 133 bus things should be improved. If they would only put a stupid 7200 RPM drive in the dumb machine!
<strong>No, all apple has to do is actually release new iMacs in the first place. They need to give them a 1MB L3 cache and a 133Mhz bus along with DDR RAM. 17" and 20" screens and superdrives. 867Mhz and 1ghz G4 with FW 800 and a Radeon 9000 graphics card. Price them as follows:
867Mhz G4
1MB L3 Cache
256MB DDR RAM
60GB HD
Combo drive
17" LCD
Geforce 4MX 64MB
Firewire 800
Airport extreme
$1299
1Ghz G4
1MB L3 cache
256MB DDR RAM
80GB HD
SuperDrive
17" LCD
Radeon 9000 64MB
Firewire 800
Airport extreme
$1599
1Ghz G4
1MB L3 cache
512MB DDR RAM
120GB HD
SuperDrive
20.1" LCD
Radeon 9000 64MB
Firewire 800
Airport extreme
$1899</strong><hr></blockquote>
Thos specs sound great, but they seem a bit too optimistic. Apple has surprised us lately, so we shall see. As for these pricepoints, I think they are great, but I really think there should be a $999 model.
in addition I think from now on it would be a good idea for those who price their predictions to include their age and economic resources. Why? Well its a matter of perspective. I'm a college student and I can't afford to spend vast amounts on hardware. The difference of $1000 and $1300 is major when it takes you several weeks working a part time job to pay the difference. Without sounding hostile, it isn't fair to say that a machine costing several hundred dollars extra isn't that big of a deal. I know many people interested in the Mac who turned away due to the higher prices. I wish I could spend thousands of dollars a year on computer equipement, but this just isn't in the cards. My point is the perspective of what is good pricing is relative based on the income of the buyer, so I think it is unfair to say that $1299 is cheap when it is in fact expensive for many potential customers.
<strong>I think you are giving too much credit to this class, because it contains a lot of first time buyers who know jack about screen rez. If they know about screen rez they'd probably opt for the 17". I'm sticking up for the 15" by saying people who buy it don't know or don't care about screen rez or size.</strong><hr></blockquote>I would agree that many non-professionals wouldn't know what resolution numbers mean. I would also agree that they are willing to settle for a smaller screen size.
Where I disagree is that they don't care about resolution. At 1024x768, the 15" iMac screen immediately seems crowded to even the most novice users. They can tell in about 3 seconds how little of a web page is visible in OS X at 1024x768. After the dock, menubar, scroll-bars, title bar, toolbar, favorites bar, and status bar, they are left with a window which can't view many webpages at full width. It becoms neccessary to play with the window size and layouts in order to maximize the viewable space. All you have to do is watch any windows user use an iMac for the first time.
It is immediately obvious that 1024x768 is not pleasant in OS X. For some, this is an acceptable price/performance sacrifice. For most, they'd rather skimp on something else and not have to constantly be anoyed by a tiny workspace. I will make the bold assertion that the 17" is more popular not because of the incrased size or widescreen aspect ratio, but rather because people can actually view web pages and word documents without feeling cramped by too few pixels.
<strong>I would agree that many non-professionals wouldn't know what resolution numbers mean. I would also agree that they are willing to settle for a smaller screen size.
Where I disagree is that they don't care about resolution. At 1024x768, the 15" iMac screen immediately seems crowded to even the most novice users. They can tell in about 3 seconds how little of a web page is visible in OS X at 1024x768. After the dock, menubar, scroll-bars, title bar, toolbar, favorites bar, and status bar, they are left with a window which can't view many webpages at full width. It becoms neccessary to play with the window size and layouts in order to maximize the viewable space. All you have to do is watch any windows user use an iMac for the first time.
It is immediately obvious that 1024x768 is not pleasant in OS X. For some, this is an acceptable price/performance sacrifice. For most, they'd rather skimp on something else and not have to constantly be anoyed by a tiny workspace. I will make the bold assertion that the 17" is more popular not because of the incrased size or widescreen aspect ratio, but rather because people can actually view web pages and word documents without feeling cramped by too few pixels.</strong><hr></blockquote>
as mentioned earlier in this thread:
they can put the widescreen display from the pb15.4" on top of the imac so the real estate of the desktop will be quit nice. also i did some photoshopping and the 20.1" doesn't look that bad on a imac.
I have to agree that X loves screen estate as much as it does CPU and RAM. 1280x1024 Is good 1600x1200 is very nice. Currently I am crammed into a 800x600 and that is truly bad so form this also 1024x768 looks good!
For Office web browsing etc a 1 GHz CPU gives plenty of speed higher speed CPUs is good for games Video editing etc. So a low end Imac with a 1 GHz G4 would be avery nice thing. The problem is that then there is very little room for the high end version. Later this year when the 970 comes out hopefully there will be room to have low end iMac that will work well for Education and Office settings
<strong>I would agree that many non-professionals wouldn't know what resolution numbers mean. I would also agree that they are willing to settle for a smaller screen size.
Where I disagree is that they don't care about resolution. At 1024x768, the 15" iMac screen immediately seems crowded to even the most novice users. They can tell in about 3 seconds how little of a web page is visible in OS X at 1024x768. After the dock, menubar, scroll-bars, title bar, toolbar, favorites bar, and status bar, they are left with a window which can't view many webpages at full width. It becoms neccessary to play with the window size and layouts in order to maximize the viewable space. All you have to do is watch any windows user use an iMac for the first time.
It is immediately obvious that 1024x768 is not pleasant in OS X. For some, this is an acceptable price/performance sacrifice. For most, they'd rather skimp on something else and not have to constantly be anoyed by a tiny workspace. I will make the bold assertion that the 17" is more popular not because of the incrased size or widescreen aspect ratio, but rather because people can actually view web pages and word documents without feeling cramped by too few pixels.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I disagree. I don't think Mary Jane who's only seen a computer on TV, doesn't know what HD stands for and has no idea why people are pushing RAM on her, is going to look at the 15" iMac and suddenly say "Hey the rez on this screen sucks". Most people I know who aren't computer savy would say they'd rather have a 17" then a 15" because it's bigger. I don't think they know any about a higher rez. If the 15" had a higher rez things might not appear as crowed. Also, for first timer users, they don't go for the biggest and fastest, they go for the starter model, the basic one that has the hot features that their freinds talk about. That's why we need the 15", which is all my point is.
algol- those are the prices i think Apple needs to go with. Also, i think the Emac needs to cut a few hundred off also. The eMac can go to $700-$800 I think.
Comments
<strong>
the problem is that the people who buy at $1199 DO care about the display-resolution ... i think the next iMac-Lineup has to be a 15" widescreen with 1280*854 pixel at $999 to $1199... the 17" will probably go from $1399 to $1799 ...
[ 01-29-2003: Message edited by: Krassy ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think you are giving too much credit to this class, because it contains a lot of first time buyers who know jack about screen rez. If they know about screen rez they'd probably opt for the 17". I'm sticking up for the 15" by saying people who buy it don't know or don't care about screen rez or size. They just want a nice reasonably priced mac.
<hr></blockquote>
You're right. Just how many Auntie Gladyss type people have bought Win95 type cheapy tower cos their nice nephew said so? And cos it was cheap?
Half of Apple store sales are to 'switchers'? That aint bad. But consider the 'feet' Apple are getting into the store. Millions of visitors so far. But they need to convert more of those 'feet' into actual sales for true growth. They need to make the machine cheap enough for Wintel 'Switchers' to perceive it to be worth the risk.
That's where a cheap, 15 lcd incher with ancient (but still 'decent') Geforce2 mx graphics, 128 megs of ram and G4 867 mhz at an amazing £799 inc VAT would have people fighting to get out the stores with one. Edu', office and students would be rioting outside stores. I think alot of people would think, 'Awesome price. Looks way cool. I'm buying'. Monitor included? Nice games machine. Makes the lard assed X-box look like a 20 century games machine.
I might just crack if I saw an imac2 that cheap.
I'm certain Auntie Gladyss will.
Lemon Bon Bon
[ 01-29-2003: Message edited by: Lemon Bon Bon ]</p>
If they uprgade now with BT, FW800 and Airport Extreme and we don't get DDR now; then won't they need to revise the motherboard again when they do?
If we see new machines on Tuesday, then I think that has to be bad news because it means that the timeframe for DDR iMacs, must be at least January 2004.
However, if we see a change to 15.4", 17" and 20.1" widescreens with DDR and at least 133mhz bus speed then no one will be more pleased than I.
<strong>
If they uprgade now with BT, FW800 and Airport Extreme and we don't get DDR now; then won't they need to revise the motherboard again when they do?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Why wouldn't they add DDR? The bus will still be SDR, but every little bit helps.
[quote]<strong>If we see new machines on Tuesday, then I think that has to be bad news because it means that the timeframe for DDR iMacs, must be at least January 2004.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The timeframe for an iMac with a frontside bus capable of soaking up the bandwidth of DDR RAM is January 2004 or so. Apple could add DDR RAM, Xserve style, tomorrow without too much difficulty. Since DDR RAM actually runs cooler, it might not actually be that hard to add to the iMac's tightly managed dome.
[quote]<strong>However, if we see a change to 15.4", 17" and 20.1" widescreens with DDR and at least 133mhz bus speed then no one will be more pleased than I.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm not holding my breath for a 20.1" iMac. The rest is doable, although there's no guarantee that Apple will do it. There really isn't any guarantee that we'll see the "sunflower" design, although I think the odds are good that we will.
[ 01-29-2003: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
$999
800mhz G4 133bus
256mb PC133
40gb hard drive
32mb Geforce4MX
Pro Speakers
15inch LCD
Audio In
Combo drive
867Mhz G4
1MB L3 Cache
256MB DDR RAM
60GB HD
Combo drive
17" LCD
Geforce 4MX 64MB
Firewire 800
Airport extreme
$1299
1Ghz G4
1MB L3 cache
256MB DDR RAM
80GB HD
SuperDrive
17" LCD
Radeon 9000 64MB
Firewire 800
Airport extreme
$1599
1Ghz G4
1MB L3 cache
512MB DDR RAM
120GB HD
SuperDrive
20.1" LCD
Radeon 9000 64MB
Firewire 800
Airport extreme
$1899
<strong>No, all apple has to do is actually release new iMacs in the first place. They need to give them a 1MB L3 cache and a 133Mhz bus along with DDR RAM. 17" and 20" screens and superdrives. 867Mhz and 1ghz G4 with FW 800 and a Radeon 9000 graphics card. Price them as follows:
867Mhz G4
1MB L3 Cache
256MB DDR RAM
60GB HD
Combo drive
17" LCD
Geforce 4MX 64MB
Firewire 800
Airport extreme
$1299
1Ghz G4
1MB L3 cache
256MB DDR RAM
80GB HD
SuperDrive
17" LCD
Radeon 9000 64MB
Firewire 800
Airport extreme
$1599
1Ghz G4
1MB L3 cache
512MB DDR RAM
120GB HD
SuperDrive
20.1" LCD
Radeon 9000 64MB
Firewire 800
Airport extreme
$1899</strong><hr></blockquote>
Thos specs sound great, but they seem a bit too optimistic. Apple has surprised us lately, so we shall see. As for these pricepoints, I think they are great, but I really think there should be a $999 model.
in addition I think from now on it would be a good idea for those who price their predictions to include their age and economic resources. Why? Well its a matter of perspective. I'm a college student and I can't afford to spend vast amounts on hardware. The difference of $1000 and $1300 is major when it takes you several weeks working a part time job to pay the difference. Without sounding hostile, it isn't fair to say that a machine costing several hundred dollars extra isn't that big of a deal. I know many people interested in the Mac who turned away due to the higher prices. I wish I could spend thousands of dollars a year on computer equipement, but this just isn't in the cards. My point is the perspective of what is good pricing is relative based on the income of the buyer, so I think it is unfair to say that $1299 is cheap when it is in fact expensive for many potential customers.
[ 01-29-2003: Message edited by: jdbon ]</p>
1Ghz G4
1MB L3 cache
256MB DDR RAM
80GB HD
SuperDrive
<strong>17" LCD</strong>
Radeon 9000 64MB
Firewire 800
Airport extreme
<strong>$1599</strong>
1Ghz G4
1MB L3 cache
512MB DDR RAM
120GB HD
SuperDrive
<strong>20.1" LCD</strong>
Radeon 9000 64MB
Firewire 800
Airport extreme
<strong>$1899</strong><hr></blockquote>
<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
The price difference between 17" and 20" is > 1000$ alone. You're dreamer!
<strong>I think you are giving too much credit to this class, because it contains a lot of first time buyers who know jack about screen rez. If they know about screen rez they'd probably opt for the 17". I'm sticking up for the 15" by saying people who buy it don't know or don't care about screen rez or size.</strong><hr></blockquote>I would agree that many non-professionals wouldn't know what resolution numbers mean. I would also agree that they are willing to settle for a smaller screen size.
Where I disagree is that they don't care about resolution. At 1024x768, the 15" iMac screen immediately seems crowded to even the most novice users. They can tell in about 3 seconds how little of a web page is visible in OS X at 1024x768. After the dock, menubar, scroll-bars, title bar, toolbar, favorites bar, and status bar, they are left with a window which can't view many webpages at full width. It becoms neccessary to play with the window size and layouts in order to maximize the viewable space. All you have to do is watch any windows user use an iMac for the first time.
It is immediately obvious that 1024x768 is not pleasant in OS X. For some, this is an acceptable price/performance sacrifice. For most, they'd rather skimp on something else and not have to constantly be anoyed by a tiny workspace. I will make the bold assertion that the 17" is more popular not because of the incrased size or widescreen aspect ratio, but rather because people can actually view web pages and word documents without feeling cramped by too few pixels.
<strong>I would agree that many non-professionals wouldn't know what resolution numbers mean. I would also agree that they are willing to settle for a smaller screen size.
Where I disagree is that they don't care about resolution. At 1024x768, the 15" iMac screen immediately seems crowded to even the most novice users. They can tell in about 3 seconds how little of a web page is visible in OS X at 1024x768. After the dock, menubar, scroll-bars, title bar, toolbar, favorites bar, and status bar, they are left with a window which can't view many webpages at full width. It becoms neccessary to play with the window size and layouts in order to maximize the viewable space. All you have to do is watch any windows user use an iMac for the first time.
It is immediately obvious that 1024x768 is not pleasant in OS X. For some, this is an acceptable price/performance sacrifice. For most, they'd rather skimp on something else and not have to constantly be anoyed by a tiny workspace. I will make the bold assertion that the 17" is more popular not because of the incrased size or widescreen aspect ratio, but rather because people can actually view web pages and word documents without feeling cramped by too few pixels.</strong><hr></blockquote>
as mentioned earlier in this thread:
they can put the widescreen display from the pb15.4" on top of the imac so the real estate of the desktop will be quit nice. also i did some photoshopping and the 20.1" doesn't look that bad on a imac.
[ 01-30-2003: Message edited by: gar ]</p>
For Office web browsing etc a 1 GHz CPU gives plenty of speed higher speed CPUs is good for games Video editing etc. So a low end Imac with a 1 GHz G4 would be avery nice thing. The problem is that then there is very little room for the high end version. Later this year when the 970 comes out hopefully there will be room to have low end iMac that will work well for Education and Office settings
<strong>I would agree that many non-professionals wouldn't know what resolution numbers mean. I would also agree that they are willing to settle for a smaller screen size.
Where I disagree is that they don't care about resolution. At 1024x768, the 15" iMac screen immediately seems crowded to even the most novice users. They can tell in about 3 seconds how little of a web page is visible in OS X at 1024x768. After the dock, menubar, scroll-bars, title bar, toolbar, favorites bar, and status bar, they are left with a window which can't view many webpages at full width. It becoms neccessary to play with the window size and layouts in order to maximize the viewable space. All you have to do is watch any windows user use an iMac for the first time.
It is immediately obvious that 1024x768 is not pleasant in OS X. For some, this is an acceptable price/performance sacrifice. For most, they'd rather skimp on something else and not have to constantly be anoyed by a tiny workspace. I will make the bold assertion that the 17" is more popular not because of the incrased size or widescreen aspect ratio, but rather because people can actually view web pages and word documents without feeling cramped by too few pixels.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I disagree. I don't think Mary Jane who's only seen a computer on TV, doesn't know what HD stands for and has no idea why people are pushing RAM on her, is going to look at the 15" iMac and suddenly say "Hey the rez on this screen sucks". Most people I know who aren't computer savy would say they'd rather have a 17" then a 15" because it's bigger. I don't think they know any about a higher rez. If the 15" had a higher rez things might not appear as crowed. Also, for first timer users, they don't go for the biggest and fastest, they go for the starter model, the basic one that has the hot features that their freinds talk about. That's why we need the 15", which is all my point is.
Emacs:
800Mhz G4
256MB SDRAM
40GB HD
CD-RW
17.1" CRT
Airport extreme ready
FireWire 800
$999
900Mhz G4
256MB SDRAM
60GB HD
Combo
17.1" CRT
Airport extreme ready
FireWire 800
$1199
1Ghz G4
512Mb SDRAM
80GB HD
Superdrive
17.1 CRT
Airport extreme
FireWire 800
$1499