<strong>If you were actually right, the iMac would have flopped utterly instead of saving the company. Cheaper beige towers were not saving the company. Apple's already tried that route.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The success of the iMac has more to do with it's cool design more than anything else, you know that so don't pretend.
We all agree the iMac has it's place in the market.
...an expandable Mac, a mini tower, that is the cost of the iMac minus it's display and associated parts, no, not a Cube either. I frankly don't understand the disagreement... Really! The very interest for one in these forums shows there is a market for it. I'm not interested in getting an iMac, never had and never will, it's just not for me. So I'm stuck with an expensive tower!
Take the display out of the iMac, turn the base into a cool mini tower with 2 expansion bays. Same CPU, same HD, same RAM, same video card same everything with the exception that I can upgrade all parts including the CPU. What does that equal: I'm thinking an $800.00 mini tower! How many people out there do you think would go for this? I for one would, a Mac user since 1984 with no interest in ever getting a PC. Oh PC! How many people out there in the PC world do you think would switch in a New York second if Apple had this Mac in it's product line? And don't give me Cube stuff because you know very well that it was way to expensive and wasn't expandable either. It was basically an expensive headless iMac. Huh? Come now, be smart.
[quote]The success of the iMac has more to do with it's cool design more than anything else, you know that so don't pretend.
We all agree the iMac has it's place in the market.
...an expandable Mac, a mini tower, that is the cost of the iMac minus it's display and associated parts, no, not a Cube either. I frankly don't understand the disagreement... Really! The very interest for one in these forums shows there is a market for it. I'm not interested in getting an iMac, never had and never will, it's just not for me. So I'm stuck with an expensive tower!
It's simple.
Take the display out of the iMac, turn the base into a cool mini tower with 2 expansion bays. Same CPU, same HD, same RAM, same video card same everything with the exception that I can upgrade all parts including the CPU. What does that equal: I'm thinking an $800.00 mini tower! How many people out there do you think would go for this? I for one would, a Mac user since 1984 with no interest in ever getting a PC. Oh PC! How many people out there in the PC world do you think would switch in a New York second if Apple had this Mac in it's product line? And don't give me Cube stuff because you know very well that it was way to expensive and wasn't expandable either. It was basically an expensive headless iMac. Huh? Come now, be smart.
<hr></blockquote>
Yeah. 'Cool' sells, up to a point (remember the 'cool' Cube...laments the Bon Bon...)
Your last paragraph spells it out.
We have two all in ones from Apple from the desktop. Talk about 'overlap'. If Apple could get the iMac2 cheap enough...there'd be no reason for the eMac.
If you can have two 'limited' all in ones for the desktop.
Why can't you have two 'tiers' for the towers?
A 'mini-tower' (WITH SOME UPGRADEABILITY, at least more than the iMac2s!!! <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> ) and the 'Maxi-tower' which we have already.
A 'stretch' limo' style Cube. More Cuboid like? Stretch it back for standard components? OR stretch the design vertically. Either way. A mini-tower done right, sized right, upgradable right and priced right would be a hit with enough users to make it profitable for Apple is my belief.
The PC market covers all in ones, upgradable towers, mini-towers, workstation, desktops, laptops, barebones PCs...headless designs...
Two towers.
Two all in ones.
In a PC market with shrinking margins...I think Apple would serve its customers and switchers alike by adding flexibility to their designs (I'm talking about more than swivelling monitors...) or cover that 'flexibility' with something different.
A simpler white tower mini-case made of less expensive materials...a shorter design...and they'd have a nice mini-tower.
An iMac2 Dome without the LCD. You'd have your barebones Mac ala iCube (if it was Cuboid shaped or something...)
Apple's desktop line, is, ironically, not as diverse or as flexible as its Laptop line in my opinion.
I think Apple DO have room to manouver with another two desktops.
A mini-tower Mac.
A bare-bones Mac.
As margins get squeezed in the PC industry it will be interesting to see what Apple does as more and more people wander into their Apple stores with clippings of PCs that are the same price as the eMac but offer greater expandability/upradability...and a better or equal price.
The iMac2 maybe a supreme example of an all-in-one...and it maybe the greatest disposable or 'no hassle' Steve Jobs vision.
But until it gets a better cpu or a cheaper price?
((Needless to say if it had a G4 at 1.6 NOW and a Geforce Titanium on the top model now...with a proper 17 inch LCD...I'd have bought already. ie I wouldn't be 'whining'. ))
The success of the iMac has more to do with it's cool design more than anything else, you know that so don't pretend.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Actually, that was my point. If you check the thread title, it's also the topic under discussion.
But "cool design" doesn't just mean making things look pretty. That's what the PC boxmakers have never understood. It means good usability. Form following function. It should look good, too, but the ideal is that the form that works best looks best.
The iMac exudes quality, it's small, it's quiet, it's dead simple to use without compromising usability (as the PC AIOs all do), it tries harder than any other computer to accomodate you rather than the other way 'round (especially with the LCD iMac), and it looks good doing it.
The challenge for the "headless iMac" crowd is to come up with a design with even half the usability advantages that the LCD iMac has by virtue of its design. You buy a computer to use it, so this is the paramount concern. Sure, Joe Sixpack can always call in the computer-savvy family member to set up his new PC, but why should he have to?
I have to chuckle every time I see a would-be Mac user pooh-poohing the importance of the user interface. Hardware design defines the physical interface; it determines how much of the utility of the hardware is available, and how easily. Poor design can hobble or moot the potential of an otherwise excellent piece of hardware in actual use. This is what Apple gets, and nobody else seems to.
95% of the user interface takes place on the screen, not in the industrial design of the hardware. Plugging in exactly two cords more than with the iMac -- Power to monitor, monitor to box -- doesn't test anyone but the dimmest of witts, and we're running out of theose as far as computers go. If Apple were to make ADC monitors more competitive, then we'd only have to deal with one extra cord, though this remains a trivial matter.
A headless computer is instantly more flexibly configurable than an AIO. You can hide it under your desk, in an A/V rack for use with a/V gear, a TV yadda yadda, you can more easily run a multi display set-up and of course add it tto existing displays (ie in schools which hundreds of perfectly reusable monitors, and the same with businesses. They DO get reused, quite often untill they die, independently of the boxen they're attached to. And of course there remains the critical issue of internal-expansion/upgradability and choice. The AIO has hit a huge plateau (you might say, just like the tower, but the tower continues to move 25-50X more units than the AIO) It's market will be eaten by the laptop unless it gets radically cheaper than it is now.
Apple needs to supply real choice here, AIO or boxen, not expensive AIO or insanely expensive and underpowered low end towers.
I have a cube with an analog 15"LCD combo drive, and it is as functional, if not more so than a 15" LCD iMac 2. The Cube is also more versatile, since I can upgrade the video card to take advantage of Quartz extream as well as the memory, HD, and processor. The only things I can add that I might want to are Airport Xtream and FireWire 800.
If Apple designed one mother board, with a daughter card for the processor and a PCI riser card which could be switched out with 2-4 PCI slots then they could offer a lower cost tower/desktop and the higher end tower by switching out a few parts, thus saving development cost and component costs. Or they could design one chip set and have 2 slightly different mother boards, one with 2 RAM slots and 2 PCI slots the other with 4 each, yet since it is basically the same design this would also save them development cost.
<strong>Running two competing consumer desktops side by side wouldn't be so damn difficult considering they run 3 AIO designs vying for the same market. What they ought to do is plug the cracks more effectively with real choice, not three speciously positioned models. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Two of which are doomed/nearly identical balls of duct tape & bailing wire.
I don't think there's _any_ market for the iMac-CRT if the price of the eMac _or_ the iMac-LCD can be brought down in price. The eMac has longer to live perhaps, but doomed, doomed, doomed.
The thing is, we're in a transition. The iMac-LCD is intended to have a run like the iMac. Colors, size changes, hoopla, sure. But here for more than a couple years. The other two are an inefficient kludge until the components prices on the iMac-LCD get substantially lower.
Note that as much as we scream about upgrading AIO's, there's a very short list of things that _can't_ be done. CPU/videocard upgrades are the main ones. FW, USB, Airport -> a _large_ part of the coolness/adding little widgets doesn't require slots anymore.
An LC-like, or PM6100-like ppc 970 (pizzabox, no monitor, ONE slot) would sell by the boatloat. I don't think there's any point in introducing something like this until there's a decent CPU to stick IN it though.
<strong>95% of the user interface takes place on the screen, not in the industrial design of the hardware.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Agreed.
[quote]Originally posted by Amorph:
<strong>Hardware design defines the physical interface; it determines how much of the utility of the hardware is available, and how easily.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Agreed.
Since Apple isn't going to do anything radical with Mac OS X (they did that with the jump to it, however), let's focus on the physical hardware. I can say from experience that using any Mac, beit a tower, iMac, whatever, is much easier than a PC, mostly because of good hardware designs. Keyboard controls for power, cd eject, etc are simple but important things. Easy access to USB via keyboard ports is another good example. I am not sure that a radical change in hardware interfacing is necessary, but I do agree with Matsu that a change in computer component design is needed. Headless is the only way to go in the mainstream business environment. Physically moving around an AIO is a pain! Period! Too damn bulky and heavy. Not to mention the strains you can develop not being able to adjust the height of the screen or the angle (very much).
While I don't think expandability in a business environment is huge (lots of companies lease, so what's the point?), the home user could stand to get a tower that is cheaper.
I think we will get the best of both worlds this summer (Read 970 introduction).
[quote] The iMac exudes quality, it's small, it's quiet, it's dead simple to use without compromising usability (as the PC AIOs all do), it tries harder than any other computer to accomodate you rather than the other way 'round (especially with the LCD iMac), and it looks good doing it.
<hr></blockquote>
I'll give Amorph a point for that one.
It is unparalleled as a piece of computer design. It's more function over art. imac2 over Cube. For. Sure.
Did you know, short of Apple getting their own 'elite' Uber store in London..., that Harrods have picked up Apple's computers to feature in their store?
Check out the story...in Macworld.co.uk
Or was it Macminute...or...Macuser.co.uk...
Or was it dailyMacnews.com Well, it was somewhere...
Harrods are picking up the qualitative apsects Amorph is talking about. That's quite a feather in Apple's cap to get in Harrods! London's top store!
I agree with some of the points Amorph makes.
But I have agree also with Matsu roundly and rightly boo-ing of Apple's desktop rigidity on price and range.
Still, Amorph has pointed out on more than one occasion that a move to the 970 may gain Apple some leeway to offer more options in its desktop line.
Either way, I'd maintain that Apple are missing two desktop models if its serious about growth to 10%. They're going to have to appeal to more people. That's not just stores and not just advertising...but the very real need of accessing the human interface on price and customer needs/wants.
I think Apple have demonstrated with its laptop line that is capable and big enough to support many products within the laptop line that fullfil a role, justify their position in the market grid line-up and be priced fairly.
The desktop line isn't quite there yet. Room for a bare-bones Mac. Room for a mini-tower. Room for an Uber-Mac when the 970 arrives. If I had that? I'd shut up for a while (Promises, Promises...)
Lemon Bon Bon
I think I'm saying that the next design direction for the imac2 is in another product for me. If the imac2 took another 10% price cut, I'd squeeze a couple of mini-towers in there. Take away the LCD and give the market a cheap icube. There's room for something either side of the iMac2. And then I'd be less concerned over the iMac2's limitations.
<strong>...Headless is the only way to go in the mainstream business environment. Moving around an AIO is a pain! Period! Too damn bulky and heavy. </strong><hr></blockquote>
The fix there (as far as I'm concerned) is a "socket" for the arm. A hefty hemisphere alone is pretty easy to carry - a hefty hemisphere with a flapping/easily damaged extention -> asking for trouble.
Designing a quick-lock with electrical would add price... but it would (potentially) be very long-lived. It would allow upgrading the screen, third-party screens perhaps. And allow a (literally) headless iMac to boot
<strong>Headless is the only way to go in the mainstream business environment. Physically moving around an AIO is a pain! Period! Too damn bulky and heavy. Not to mention the strains you can develop not being able to adjust the height of the screen or the angle (very much).</strong><hr></blockquote>
I've already conceded that for a "mainstream business environment" something else is called for. The iMac is not targeted at mainstream business environments.
Moving an iMac CRT isn't that bad. I've done it. Apple graciously provides handles. Moving an iMac LCD is substantially easier than moving a pizzabox/monitor combination. The difficulty of moving an eMac around is a feature: You don't want kids to be able to knock a lab computer around too easily. (This is one reason why I'm waiting for all the schools who think they're saving money by buying those Dells to find out the hard way that they haven't saved a dime. Kids don't mix well with cords and the incredibly flimsy plastic that Dell seems to prefer.)
As for the adjustable monitor argument... um, this thread is about the iMac. Find me one standalone monitor that's as adjustable - and as easily adjustable - as the iMac's is.
[quote]<strong>While I don't think expandability in a business environment is huge (lots of companies lease, so what's the point?), the home user could stand to get a tower that is cheaper.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The main appeal of an "expandable" architecture is that the parts are easily swappable by IT staff. Bad ethernet card? Pull it out and put in a new one. The cheapest, easiest way to accomplish this for a long time was with the standard ATX case. Non-expandable but easily serviceable little boxes are beginning to take over now, though, and that plays into Apple's strengths. Not that I think they'll aggressively target the enterprise desktop market any time soon. There are some areas that are better served by commodity hardware.
[quote]<strong>I think we will get the best of both worlds this summer (Read 970 introduction).</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm eager to see what the 970 brings to the Mac lineup. However, it's the death of OS 9 that's really given them lots of hardware options.
I don't expect the 970 in the consumer line until mid-2004-ish, and I expect continued refinement of the current iMac design, until it and/or the eMac finally displace the old iMac CRT.
The Cube is still "on ice," but unless Apple follows the line of speculation I've entertained for a few years now (a reengineered Cube-like desktop with FW3200 providing expansion options taking over for the current PowerMac while the tower configuration moves to a new, fire-breathing high end) I don't expect it back. I know there are a lot of pro users who just want the processing power without the big loud box.
It's possible that some of you guys.. LBB, Matsu et. al. are looking for something like <a href="http://www.marathoncomputer.com/irac.html"; target="_blank">this</a> from Apple.
Perhaps there are plans to include the iMac2s in the future (if it's already not doable). ;-)
Actually, that was my point. If you check the thread title, it's also the topic under discussion.
But "cool design" doesn't just mean making things look pretty. That's what the PC boxmakers have never understood. It means good usability. Form following function. It should look good, too, but the ideal is that the form that works best looks best.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Oh yes, this thread is about the iMac's direction. Upsy!
Yes, I completely agree with you about Apple's ability to create not only cool products, but a combination of coolness with function that the guys on the other side can't even come close to other than by cheap imitation.
The iMac will stay as is for a while. A looooong while with only minor design refinements and face lifts here and there. But the basic design, base with an adjustable display is the new AIO design of all future AIO's including PCs. Much like the invention of the mouse. Can't get much better then that unless you have a display that will float in mid air. As far as having a removable display, I don't see that happening, it may be neat to have one, but there is no real world benefit for that other than display upgrade. People who buy AIO PCs aren't interested in messing around with upgrades, I therefor don't see Apple doing anything like that. Someone in the PC world might do something like that only to find out the theory does not have any advantages.
Some say the iMac will died within a few years. On the contrary, AIO PCs will become more and more popular as tech advances slow down. I mean, how much faster does it need to get to do what we do on a daily basis with our comps? I can have a 1,000 horsepower car, but do I need one? Not really.
When Steve Jobs says this is the year of the laptops... I see the vision. But it's still a few years away form true reality. What I see is the iMac and Laptops merging into one. On the desktop you have a display communicating with your iMac the size of a keyboard wirelessly. Underneath this keyboard sized iMac you have a pull out screen for when you are away from the desktop. That is the future iMac. <img src="graemlins/cancer.gif" border="0" alt="[cancer]" />
[quote] (This is one reason why I'm waiting for all the schools who think they're saving money by buying those Dells to find out the hard way that they haven't saved a dime. Kids don't mix well with cords and the incredibly flimsy plastic that Dell seems to prefer.)
<hr></blockquote>
Well, I will give Amorph a complimentary 2nd point.
The Dell pizza box/lcd combination in our school. Looked very nice after the tower and 15 inch crts. Quieter. More room.
But.
Slow. (No really, those Pentium 4s seem much slower than the 1 gig G4s I whinge about! )
Plastic screen LCDs.
I didn't realise this until a while back. These LCD screens are plastic. Plastic scratches (y'know, like plastic lenses in yer spectacles...) Children love touching LCD screens. We've had the LCD screens for about a year? Already marked and scuffed to death.
Do any LCD screens come with tough, slim glass instead of plastic?
Bit of a racket. Get us to upgrade to LCDs and in a year we're going to need new LCDS because kids mark them to death. Dell's edu' market share is onto a winner there...
As for the Cube 'on ice'. I think the Cube's window of opportunity for a rematch is on the cards. It had a few key flaws. Price. Expandability/upgradability. Expensive case components. Amorphs's ideas on addressing the Cube question seem okay. I see a future where the Cube is a natural evolution. Monitor and base separate. Maybe even a Matsu like Monitor 'floating' LCD/arm unit...attached to a docking statiion for a 'Cube' to sit on. Pick up yer cube to a Quake party...dock her there... Portaloo Cube. 'Floating' swingy arm LCD unit...comes in 17, 20, 23 inch flavours.
On the subject of iMac2s in business. I've watched a bit of tv lately. I'm seeing iMac2s spring up in Newspaper offices, tv news backroom offices...Harrods are picking them up (check out macworld.co.uk for the story...significant UK announcement for sure...) I'm beginning to see Apple have the visibility they had with the original iMac. Surprisingly. This imac2 isn't everywhere. It should be. Maybe its coming.
Lemon Bon Bon
PS. Y'know when the rumours for the Cube were first rife...I seem to remember one of the ideas for the Cube was access to more modular elements that could turbo boost the Cube's rendering/cpu/graphic power. That the cube of only the first step as part of a bigger design.
Looking at the way the iMac2 can sit on 3rd party components...I kinda know what I mean...heh. Like a modern kettle sitting on the dock/power plug in rather than a flex that enters the side... (Sorry, minds gone on...thinking about all the Cube possibilities...)
There ARE things macs do better, but they just won't ever reach more people than they currently do if they don't find a way to keep their advantages while adding some of the advantages of the wintel machine.
Cables? uh un, no points. We've got a new lab with what looks like 200 Dell desktops (not towers) with 15" LCD's on top of them. They take up very little room. No more than an eMac, scarecly more than an iMac. Cables are ALL neatly routed to behind/through the tables. I cleaned up a grade school computer lab once, one that suffered from the idiotic things children do. 5 dollars worth of zip-ties had it looking neat and kept them from prying things apart for the whole year. The teacher wasn't thinking. Those kids would have murdered iMacs in similar fashion. And those machines I fixed up were fairly ugly bulky towers not the little black AT style Dells or phonebook HP's that take up hardly any room at all. Cable management is evenb less of an issue there.
The best cable management thing Apple does is put a short mouse cord on the keyboard, where it should be, but it that great of an advantage. Monitor and box power cords and interconnect aren't an issue. They don't have to be moved unless something's getting replaced -- Zip ties, I tell yeah, a coule of strategicaly placed zip ties will cure ALL your cord problems and keep them from coming back, even in a public lab.
Cables? uh un, no points. We've got a new lab with what looks like 200 Dell desktops (not towers) with 15" LCD's on top of them. They take up very little room. No more than an eMac, scarecly more than an iMac. Cables are ALL neatly routed to behind/through the tables. I cleaned up a grade school computer lab once, one that suffered from the idiotic things children do. 5 dollars worth of zip-ties had it looking neat and kept them from prying things apart for the whole year. The teacher wasn't thinking. Those kids would have murdered iMacs in similar fashion. And those machines I fixed up were fairly ugly bulky towers not the little black AT style Dells or phonebook HP's that take up hardly any room at all. Cable management is evenb less of an issue there.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That is why the eMac is better for lower end education even though they should have made it $300 cheaper.
Anyway, back to topic,
I think a removeable tablet monitor is the future for the Mac. Need to do media work, plug in your station and you are ready to roll. Need to surf the web, grab your tablet and sit on the couch eating donuts...
Comments
<strong>If you were actually right, the iMac would have flopped utterly instead of saving the company. Cheaper beige towers were not saving the company. Apple's already tried that route.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The success of the iMac has more to do with it's cool design more than anything else, you know that so don't pretend.
We all agree the iMac has it's place in the market.
...an expandable Mac, a mini tower, that is the cost of the iMac minus it's display and associated parts, no, not a Cube either. I frankly don't understand the disagreement... Really! The very interest for one in these forums shows there is a market for it. I'm not interested in getting an iMac, never had and never will, it's just not for me. So I'm stuck with an expensive tower!
It's simple. <img src="graemlins/cancer.gif" border="0" alt="[cancer]" />
Take the display out of the iMac, turn the base into a cool mini tower with 2 expansion bays. Same CPU, same HD, same RAM, same video card same everything with the exception that I can upgrade all parts including the CPU. What does that equal: I'm thinking an $800.00 mini tower! How many people out there do you think would go for this? I for one would, a Mac user since 1984 with no interest in ever getting a PC. Oh PC! How many people out there in the PC world do you think would switch in a New York second if Apple had this Mac in it's product line? And don't give me Cube stuff because you know very well that it was way to expensive and wasn't expandable either. It was basically an expensive headless iMac. Huh? Come now, be smart.
We all agree the iMac has it's place in the market.
...an expandable Mac, a mini tower, that is the cost of the iMac minus it's display and associated parts, no, not a Cube either. I frankly don't understand the disagreement... Really! The very interest for one in these forums shows there is a market for it. I'm not interested in getting an iMac, never had and never will, it's just not for me. So I'm stuck with an expensive tower!
It's simple.
Take the display out of the iMac, turn the base into a cool mini tower with 2 expansion bays. Same CPU, same HD, same RAM, same video card same everything with the exception that I can upgrade all parts including the CPU. What does that equal: I'm thinking an $800.00 mini tower! How many people out there do you think would go for this? I for one would, a Mac user since 1984 with no interest in ever getting a PC. Oh PC! How many people out there in the PC world do you think would switch in a New York second if Apple had this Mac in it's product line? And don't give me Cube stuff because you know very well that it was way to expensive and wasn't expandable either. It was basically an expensive headless iMac. Huh? Come now, be smart.
<hr></blockquote>
Yeah. 'Cool' sells, up to a point (remember the 'cool' Cube...laments the Bon Bon...)
Your last paragraph spells it out.
We have two all in ones from Apple from the desktop. Talk about 'overlap'. If Apple could get the iMac2 cheap enough...there'd be no reason for the eMac.
If you can have two 'limited' all in ones for the desktop.
Why can't you have two 'tiers' for the towers?
A 'mini-tower' (WITH SOME UPGRADEABILITY, at least more than the iMac2s!!!
A 'stretch' limo' style Cube. More Cuboid like? Stretch it back for standard components? OR stretch the design vertically. Either way. A mini-tower done right, sized right, upgradable right and priced right would be a hit with enough users to make it profitable for Apple is my belief.
The PC market covers all in ones, upgradable towers, mini-towers, workstation, desktops, laptops, barebones PCs...headless designs...
Two towers.
Two all in ones.
In a PC market with shrinking margins...I think Apple would serve its customers and switchers alike by adding flexibility to their designs (I'm talking about more than swivelling monitors...) or cover that 'flexibility' with something different.
A simpler white tower mini-case made of less expensive materials...a shorter design...and they'd have a nice mini-tower.
An iMac2 Dome without the LCD. You'd have your barebones Mac ala iCube (if it was Cuboid shaped or something...)
Apple's desktop line, is, ironically, not as diverse or as flexible as its Laptop line in my opinion.
I think Apple DO have room to manouver with another two desktops.
A mini-tower Mac.
A bare-bones Mac.
As margins get squeezed in the PC industry it will be interesting to see what Apple does as more and more people wander into their Apple stores with clippings of PCs that are the same price as the eMac but offer greater expandability/upradability...and a better or equal price.
The iMac2 maybe a supreme example of an all-in-one...and it maybe the greatest disposable or 'no hassle' Steve Jobs vision.
But until it gets a better cpu or a cheaper price?
((Needless to say if it had a G4 at 1.6 NOW and a Geforce Titanium on the top model now...with a proper 17 inch LCD...I'd have bought already. ie I wouldn't be 'whining'.
Lemon Bon Bon
[ 02-19-2003: Message edited by: Lemon Bon Bon ]</p>
<strong>
The success of the iMac has more to do with it's cool design more than anything else, you know that so don't pretend.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Actually, that was my point. If you check the thread title, it's also the topic under discussion.
But "cool design" doesn't just mean making things look pretty. That's what the PC boxmakers have never understood. It means good usability. Form following function. It should look good, too, but the ideal is that the form that works best looks best.
The iMac exudes quality, it's small, it's quiet, it's dead simple to use without compromising usability (as the PC AIOs all do), it tries harder than any other computer to accomodate you rather than the other way 'round (especially with the LCD iMac), and it looks good doing it.
The challenge for the "headless iMac" crowd is to come up with a design with even half the usability advantages that the LCD iMac has by virtue of its design. You buy a computer to use it, so this is the paramount concern. Sure, Joe Sixpack can always call in the computer-savvy family member to set up his new PC, but why should he have to?
I have to chuckle every time I see a would-be Mac user pooh-poohing the importance of the user interface. Hardware design defines the physical interface; it determines how much of the utility of the hardware is available, and how easily. Poor design can hobble or moot the potential of an otherwise excellent piece of hardware in actual use. This is what Apple gets, and nobody else seems to.
[ 02-19-2003: Message edited by: Amorph ]
[ 02-19-2003: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
A headless computer is instantly more flexibly configurable than an AIO. You can hide it under your desk, in an A/V rack for use with a/V gear, a TV yadda yadda, you can more easily run a multi display set-up and of course add it tto existing displays (ie in schools which hundreds of perfectly reusable monitors, and the same with businesses. They DO get reused, quite often untill they die, independently of the boxen they're attached to. And of course there remains the critical issue of internal-expansion/upgradability and choice. The AIO has hit a huge plateau (you might say, just like the tower, but the tower continues to move 25-50X more units than the AIO) It's market will be eaten by the laptop unless it gets radically cheaper than it is now.
Apple needs to supply real choice here, AIO or boxen, not expensive AIO or insanely expensive and underpowered low end towers.
If Apple designed one mother board, with a daughter card for the processor and a PCI riser card which could be switched out with 2-4 PCI slots then they could offer a lower cost tower/desktop and the higher end tower by switching out a few parts, thus saving development cost and component costs. Or they could design one chip set and have 2 slightly different mother boards, one with 2 RAM slots and 2 PCI slots the other with 4 each, yet since it is basically the same design this would also save them development cost.
<strong>Running two competing consumer desktops side by side wouldn't be so damn difficult considering they run 3 AIO designs vying for the same market. What they ought to do is plug the cracks more effectively with real choice, not three speciously positioned models. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Two of which are doomed/nearly identical balls of duct tape & bailing wire.
I don't think there's _any_ market for the iMac-CRT if the price of the eMac _or_ the iMac-LCD can be brought down in price. The eMac has longer to live perhaps, but doomed, doomed, doomed.
The thing is, we're in a transition. The iMac-LCD is intended to have a run like the iMac. Colors, size changes, hoopla, sure. But here for more than a couple years. The other two are an inefficient kludge until the components prices on the iMac-LCD get substantially lower.
Note that as much as we scream about upgrading AIO's, there's a very short list of things that _can't_ be done. CPU/videocard upgrades are the main ones. FW, USB, Airport -> a _large_ part of the coolness/adding little widgets doesn't require slots anymore.
An LC-like, or PM6100-like ppc 970 (pizzabox, no monitor, ONE slot) would sell by the boatloat. I don't think there's any point in introducing something like this until there's a decent CPU to stick IN it though.
<strong>95% of the user interface takes place on the screen, not in the industrial design of the hardware.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Agreed.
[quote]Originally posted by Amorph:
<strong>Hardware design defines the physical interface; it determines how much of the utility of the hardware is available, and how easily.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Agreed.
Since Apple isn't going to do anything radical with Mac OS X (they did that with the jump to it, however), let's focus on the physical hardware. I can say from experience that using any Mac, beit a tower, iMac, whatever, is much easier than a PC, mostly because of good hardware designs. Keyboard controls for power, cd eject, etc are simple but important things. Easy access to USB via keyboard ports is another good example. I am not sure that a radical change in hardware interfacing is necessary, but I do agree with Matsu that a change in computer component design is needed. Headless is the only way to go in the mainstream business environment. Physically moving around an AIO is a pain! Period! Too damn bulky and heavy. Not to mention the strains you can develop not being able to adjust the height of the screen or the angle (very much).
While I don't think expandability in a business environment is huge (lots of companies lease, so what's the point?), the home user could stand to get a tower that is cheaper.
I think we will get the best of both worlds this summer (Read 970 introduction).
[ 02-19-2003: Message edited by: Rhumgod ]</p>
<hr></blockquote>
I'll give Amorph a point for that one.
It is unparalleled as a piece of computer design. It's more function over art. imac2 over Cube. For. Sure.
Did you know, short of Apple getting their own 'elite' Uber store in London..., that Harrods have picked up Apple's computers to feature in their store?
Check out the story...in Macworld.co.uk
Or was it Macminute...or...Macuser.co.uk...
Or was it dailyMacnews.com Well, it was somewhere...
Harrods are picking up the qualitative apsects Amorph is talking about. That's quite a feather in Apple's cap to get in Harrods! London's top store!
I agree with some of the points Amorph makes.
But I have agree also with Matsu roundly and rightly boo-ing of Apple's desktop rigidity on price and range.
Still, Amorph has pointed out on more than one occasion that a move to the 970 may gain Apple some leeway to offer more options in its desktop line.
Either way, I'd maintain that Apple are missing two desktop models if its serious about growth to 10%. They're going to have to appeal to more people. That's not just stores and not just advertising...but the very real need of accessing the human interface on price and customer needs/wants.
I think Apple have demonstrated with its laptop line that is capable and big enough to support many products within the laptop line that fullfil a role, justify their position in the market grid line-up and be priced fairly.
The desktop line isn't quite there yet. Room for a bare-bones Mac. Room for a mini-tower. Room for an Uber-Mac when the 970 arrives. If I had that? I'd shut up for a while
Lemon Bon Bon
I think I'm saying that the next design direction for the imac2 is in another product for me. If the imac2 took another 10% price cut, I'd squeeze a couple of mini-towers in there. Take away the LCD and give the market a cheap icube. There's room for something either side of the iMac2. And then I'd be less concerned over the iMac2's limitations.
[ 02-19-2003: Message edited by: Lemon Bon Bon ]</p>
<strong>If I had that? I'd shut up for a while
Never happen!!!
<strong>...Headless is the only way to go in the mainstream business environment. Moving around an AIO is a pain! Period! Too damn bulky and heavy. </strong><hr></blockquote>
The fix there (as far as I'm concerned) is a "socket" for the arm. A hefty hemisphere alone is pretty easy to carry - a hefty hemisphere with a flapping/easily damaged extention -> asking for trouble.
Designing a quick-lock with electrical would add price... but it would (potentially) be very long-lived. It would allow upgrading the screen, third-party screens perhaps. And allow a (literally) headless iMac to boot
<strong>Headless is the only way to go in the mainstream business environment. Physically moving around an AIO is a pain! Period! Too damn bulky and heavy. Not to mention the strains you can develop not being able to adjust the height of the screen or the angle (very much).</strong><hr></blockquote>
I've already conceded that for a "mainstream business environment" something else is called for. The iMac is not targeted at mainstream business environments.
Moving an iMac CRT isn't that bad. I've done it. Apple graciously provides handles. Moving an iMac LCD is substantially easier than moving a pizzabox/monitor combination. The difficulty of moving an eMac around is a feature: You don't want kids to be able to knock a lab computer around too easily. (This is one reason why I'm waiting for all the schools who think they're saving money by buying those Dells to find out the hard way that they haven't saved a dime. Kids don't mix well with cords and the incredibly flimsy plastic that Dell seems to prefer.)
As for the adjustable monitor argument... um, this thread is about the iMac. Find me one standalone monitor that's as adjustable - and as easily adjustable - as the iMac's is.
[quote]<strong>While I don't think expandability in a business environment is huge (lots of companies lease, so what's the point?), the home user could stand to get a tower that is cheaper.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The main appeal of an "expandable" architecture is that the parts are easily swappable by IT staff. Bad ethernet card? Pull it out and put in a new one. The cheapest, easiest way to accomplish this for a long time was with the standard ATX case. Non-expandable but easily serviceable little boxes are beginning to take over now, though, and that plays into Apple's strengths. Not that I think they'll aggressively target the enterprise desktop market any time soon. There are some areas that are better served by commodity hardware.
[quote]<strong>I think we will get the best of both worlds this summer (Read 970 introduction).</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm eager to see what the 970 brings to the Mac lineup. However, it's the death of OS 9 that's really given them lots of hardware options.
I don't expect the 970 in the consumer line until mid-2004-ish, and I expect continued refinement of the current iMac design, until it and/or the eMac finally displace the old iMac CRT.
The Cube is still "on ice," but unless Apple follows the line of speculation I've entertained for a few years now (a reengineered Cube-like desktop with FW3200 providing expansion options taking over for the current PowerMac while the tower configuration moves to a new, fire-breathing high end) I don't expect it back. I know there are a lot of pro users who just want the processing power without the big loud box.
[ 02-19-2003: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
Perhaps there are plans to include the iMac2s in the future (if it's already not doable). ;-)
--
Ed M.
<strong>
Actually, that was my point. If you check the thread title, it's also the topic under discussion.
But "cool design" doesn't just mean making things look pretty. That's what the PC boxmakers have never understood. It means good usability. Form following function. It should look good, too, but the ideal is that the form that works best looks best.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Oh yes, this thread is about the iMac's direction. Upsy!
Yes, I completely agree with you about Apple's ability to create not only cool products, but a combination of coolness with function that the guys on the other side can't even come close to other than by cheap imitation.
The iMac will stay as is for a while. A looooong while with only minor design refinements and face lifts here and there. But the basic design, base with an adjustable display is the new AIO design of all future AIO's including PCs. Much like the invention of the mouse. Can't get much better then that unless you have a display that will float in mid air.
Some say the iMac will died within a few years. On the contrary, AIO PCs will become more and more popular as tech advances slow down. I mean, how much faster does it need to get to do what we do on a daily basis with our comps? I can have a 1,000 horsepower car, but do I need one? Not really.
When Steve Jobs says this is the year of the laptops... I see the vision. But it's still a few years away form true reality. What I see is the iMac and Laptops merging into one. On the desktop you have a display communicating with your iMac the size of a keyboard wirelessly. Underneath this keyboard sized iMac you have a pull out screen for when you are away from the desktop. That is the future iMac. <img src="graemlins/cancer.gif" border="0" alt="[cancer]" />
<hr></blockquote>
Well, I will give Amorph a complimentary 2nd point.
The Dell pizza box/lcd combination in our school. Looked very nice after the tower and 15 inch crts. Quieter. More room.
But.
Slow. (No really, those Pentium 4s seem much slower than the 1 gig G4s I whinge about!
Plastic screen LCDs.
I didn't realise this until a while back. These LCD screens are plastic. Plastic scratches (y'know, like plastic lenses in yer spectacles...) Children love touching LCD screens. We've had the LCD screens for about a year? Already marked and scuffed to death.
Do any LCD screens come with tough, slim glass instead of plastic?
Bit of a racket. Get us to upgrade to LCDs and in a year we're going to need new LCDS because kids mark them to death. Dell's edu' market share is onto a winner there...
As for the Cube 'on ice'. I think the Cube's window of opportunity for a rematch is on the cards. It had a few key flaws. Price. Expandability/upgradability. Expensive case components. Amorphs's ideas on addressing the Cube question seem okay. I see a future where the Cube is a natural evolution. Monitor and base separate. Maybe even a Matsu like Monitor 'floating' LCD/arm unit...attached to a docking statiion for a 'Cube' to sit on. Pick up yer cube to a Quake party...dock her there... Portaloo Cube. 'Floating' swingy arm LCD unit...comes in 17, 20, 23 inch flavours.
On the subject of iMac2s in business. I've watched a bit of tv lately. I'm seeing iMac2s spring up in Newspaper offices, tv news backroom offices...Harrods are picking them up (check out macworld.co.uk for the story...significant UK announcement for sure...) I'm beginning to see Apple have the visibility they had with the original iMac. Surprisingly. This imac2 isn't everywhere. It should be. Maybe its coming.
Lemon Bon Bon
PS. Y'know when the rumours for the Cube were first rife...I seem to remember one of the ideas for the Cube was access to more modular elements that could turbo boost the Cube's rendering/cpu/graphic power. That the cube of only the first step as part of a bigger design.
Looking at the way the iMac2 can sit on 3rd party components...I kinda know what I mean...heh. Like a modern kettle sitting on the dock/power plug in rather than a flex that enters the side... (Sorry, minds gone on...thinking about all the Cube possibilities...)
[ 02-20-2003: Message edited by: Lemon Bon Bon ]
[ 02-20-2003: Message edited by: Lemon Bon Bon ]</p>
There ARE things macs do better, but they just won't ever reach more people than they currently do if they don't find a way to keep their advantages while adding some of the advantages of the wintel machine.
Cables? uh un, no points. We've got a new lab with what looks like 200 Dell desktops (not towers) with 15" LCD's on top of them. They take up very little room. No more than an eMac, scarecly more than an iMac. Cables are ALL neatly routed to behind/through the tables. I cleaned up a grade school computer lab once, one that suffered from the idiotic things children do. 5 dollars worth of zip-ties had it looking neat and kept them from prying things apart for the whole year. The teacher wasn't thinking. Those kids would have murdered iMacs in similar fashion. And those machines I fixed up were fairly ugly bulky towers not the little black AT style Dells or phonebook HP's that take up hardly any room at all. Cable management is evenb less of an issue there.
The best cable management thing Apple does is put a short mouse cord on the keyboard, where it should be, but it that great of an advantage. Monitor and box power cords and interconnect aren't an issue. They don't have to be moved unless something's getting replaced -- Zip ties, I tell yeah, a coule of strategicaly placed zip ties will cure ALL your cord problems and keep them from coming back, even in a public lab.
<strong>
Cables? uh un, no points. We've got a new lab with what looks like 200 Dell desktops (not towers) with 15" LCD's on top of them. They take up very little room. No more than an eMac, scarecly more than an iMac. Cables are ALL neatly routed to behind/through the tables. I cleaned up a grade school computer lab once, one that suffered from the idiotic things children do. 5 dollars worth of zip-ties had it looking neat and kept them from prying things apart for the whole year. The teacher wasn't thinking. Those kids would have murdered iMacs in similar fashion. And those machines I fixed up were fairly ugly bulky towers not the little black AT style Dells or phonebook HP's that take up hardly any room at all. Cable management is evenb less of an issue there.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That is why the eMac is better for lower end education even though they should have made it $300 cheaper.
Anyway, back to topic,
I think a removeable tablet monitor is the future for the Mac. Need to do media work, plug in your station and you are ready to roll. Need to surf the web, grab your tablet and sit on the couch eating donuts...