Gosh I must be easy to please because your "basics" look pretty good to me. I think that you are expecting too much. Why not add in a stage demo where Steva Balmer does his monkey dance while Steve Jobs unloads some buckshot into him? I mean, we can always dream.
Agreed, my Basics are perhaps a bit much...The point is that I expect something completely new at WWDC this year, not just an OS/Hardware update. WWDC seems like the right place to introduce a new platform, and it's a critical time for Apple to keep the ITMS momentum going and to continue to push market share.
I see a big opportunity and I believe Apple has the ability to serve it. If not, they really need my help
[recently there's been talk of a need for a set-top device to replace bulky and awkward HTPCs]
I guess what I'm getting at is that while I would be first in line to buy one of these Apple living room boxes, Apple would have to market it as "show your iMovies, iPhotos, and iTunes in your living room." - a problem already partially solved by Roku.
You focus too much on the VIDEO portion of the equation, the real focus will be MUSIC. Yes, ROKU, and others have solutions to stream iTunes, but they can't play Protected AAC's, rendering the ITMS a Mac/PC only solitary shopping experience...Apple knows there is an opportunity to get people buying while watching MTV etc.
In fact, just last night my wife and I had one of our "bottle of wine & music nights" and it confirmed my belief that the need is there...I have an old Powerbook that connects to my Home Theater, and my wife (the DJ) spent most of the evening standing up at the Enteratinment center queuing up Music, searching for and buying new stuff etc.; it would've been much easier and nicer to have a remote in hand and to use my 50" TV to do those things.
As for Video, don't forget that Netflix and others plan on offering downloadable films soon, and Apple has invested heavily in Pixlet and other quality-keeping compression schemes. There may be room for an ITMovie Store soon.
I personally think something big will come from WWDC. Why do I say that you ask?
Because Apple called me, someone with just an online (free) student ADC developer account, to see if I was going to WWDC this year. This is the first time ever that I've received a call from Apple. I think they're trying to get as large a crowd as possible to unveil something.
Either that or they just aren't getting people to sign up and go to WWDC *shrug*.
I personally think something big will come from WWDC. Why do I say that you ask?
Because Apple called me, someone with just an online (free) student ADC developer account, to see if I was going to WWDC this year. This is the first time ever that I've received a call from Apple. I think they're trying to get as large a crowd as possible to unveil something.
Either that or they just aren't getting people to sign up and go to WWDC *shrug*.
From what I've heard, they already have more people signed up than they had signed up at this time last year. Of course many will sign up the day of, etc.
I think last year was a big one and showed developers that apple is very serious. I have a feeling this one is going to be HUGE. If it isn't then 2004 will be an extremely weak year for apple. After the MWSF disaster I really hope apple has something to show the world. Otherwise, there is always next year for big announcements.
You focus too much on the VIDEO portion of the equation, the real focus will be MUSIC. Yes, ROKU, and others have solutions to stream iTunes, but they can't play Protected AAC's, rendering the ITMS a Mac/PC only solitary shopping experience...Apple knows there is an opportunity to get people buying while watching MTV etc.
In fact, just last night my wife and I had one of our "bottle of wine & music nights" and it confirmed my belief that the need is there...I have an old Powerbook that connects to my Home Theater, and my wife (the DJ) spent most of the evening standing up at the Enteratinment center queuing up Music, searching for and buying new stuff etc.; it would've been much easier and nicer to have a remote in hand and to use my 50" TV to do those things.
As for Video, don't forget that Netflix and others plan on offering downloadable films soon, and Apple has invested heavily in Pixlet and other quality-keeping compression schemes. There may be room for an ITMovie Store soon.
This hole movie download thing is big bandwidth, and takes extremely long times for downloads. It's way too early to call even if Netflix says they are thinking of trying it. I personally don't think it's going to get that big just because of the time it takes to get a movie at 400K download is an eternity in comparison to the alternative method already being used today. I think Apple will watch it closely, but to jump right into this is a little fool hearty.
Ask your self this. - If you had not seen ROTK would you sit, and download 6GB's of movie file for over a 3 to 4 hour period (maybe more), or just stop off after work at the video store. (you'll get a better quality picture from the DVD anyway.)
There are other things to take into consideration.
I've heard that there is a proposed plan to start broadcasting HD digital films directly into theaters through satellite, and if it can be regulated they will offer a similar pay service to the home. Personally I think if Apple gets into alternate cable solutions they should think about something along the lines of this service rather than the direct downloading. Downloading video seems like dead end in comparison. Don't forget Apple is a hardware company. They could design a really cool box for such a service, and easily integrate iTMS with the home user using a wi-fi system, ethernet, firewire, whatever. It would also remain cross-platform which is a must for Apple to enter into such a venture.
Needless to say. I'm not sold on the hole movie downloading thing knowing that there are other technological advancements, and a slew of proposals coming around the corner that will just drowned it out knowing time, and quality comparisons will probably kill it off in heartbeat.
Onlooker I agree. And considering how cool Comcasts Video on Demand system is and how people are jazzed about it I'm not sure netflix is going to be able to make waves here.
AVC is going to be able to take a typical DVD of 9GB and compress it down to probably 400-600MB but that's still a hefty bit of bandwidth to toss around. Dunno if my ISP is going to be too keen on that.
Downloading movies is DEFINITELY not going to happen any time soon. You know the US is 5th in the world for adopting broadband? We are still around 40% of the US internet subscribers using broadband. 39% of that are DSL subscribers. DSL 2 is still only around in a few areas... so most of these broadband users download around 768kbit or 1500kbit. Maybe when we are up to 4-6mbit all over the place then maybe download 400-600 mb movie will be ok. The cost in resources to pipe out that much bandwidth is going to be a HUGE chunk of cash. Its a lot cheaper for EVERYONE to walk to blockbuster and rent or buy the movie.
As for Video, don't forget that Netflix and others plan on offering downloadable films soon, and Apple has invested heavily in Pixlet and other quality-keeping compression schemes. There may be room for an ITMovie Store soon.
Good lord, do you have any idea what kind of bandwidth we're talking about for Pixlet? 25MB/s... 1500MB/min... 63GB/hr! I don't know about you, but I'm not up for a 180GB LotR download.
<This message approved by the local 5th grade grammar teacher>
-upgraded g5s (it's almost been a year already....it's time for an upgrade...this isnt a 'maybe' situation)
-updated Apple displays to match the Powermacs
-upgraded iPods..... the video out option would be absolutely amazing....along with the ability to use it with the iSight to record DV video would be awesome. (not sure if the processing power in the iPods can handle this sort of thing, but im sure the interface(FireWire) can handle the transfer rates.
Agreed 100%... it would have happened along side the eMac, nice and quietly.
Not quite sure on that. Don't forget that, for some reason, the iMac Flat Panel had until now a rather slow update cycle, roughly one speed bump per year. This is perhaps the result of some scheduling-ahead in Apple's part as far as processor supplies are concerned, but it does not change the fact that the iMac has progressed slowly from its very introduction and that its next update may sport the new 7447A G4s.
[B]As for OS X on x86, back before OS X was released, Apple was said to have it running on x86 computers."
My reasoning was not based on PC's running osx ( see pear PC ) but was based on the fact that apple still makes its $ in hardware and Sj knows this and would never allow the mac osx to be run officially on a little beige box apple's all about brand these days. Thats why i go never.
-upgraded g5s (it's almost been a year already....it's time for an upgrade...this isnt a 'maybe' situation)
-updated Apple displays to match the Powermacs
-upgraded iPods..... the video out option would be absolutely amazing....along with the ability to use it with the iSight to record DV video would be awesome. (not sure if the processing power in the iPods can handle this sort of thing, but im sure the interface(FireWire) can handle the transfer rates.
-Tiger
Is this really in the realm of possibilities? All of this?
I'm rather ignorant of past WWDC offerings, so have they ever released such a wide variety of big products? You just listed the four "biggest" products they make (excl. PBs) and these also happen to be the four that I want.
Could these all be updated in one event? Is it likely?
ps- I heard that there are no new hard drives being bought up, meaning that 4th gen iPods aren't likely...?
Just because those languages don't take advantage of it doesn't mean that they can't integrate them into XCode. I'll reiterate my point of apple pushing perl developers to the Cocoa API... how can they ask this if they don't have an environment (besides pico, vi, emacs, etc) to write their code?
Also I don't believe true ANSI 89 C can take advantage of Live Linking (if thats the name, I know what you're talking about if it isn't).
I agree completely with that, and I guess my point was as clear as mud. What I was trying to get at was that for those kind of languages, I feel you would need something more than just syntax coloring. After all, everyone does that (BBEdit, UltraEdit, EmEditor, etc.)
I think that Project Management could be a huge bonus to those languages. That is something that I would look for from a IDE. Project Management for PHP would be awesome, especially to the Web Development community.
Is this really in the realm of possibilities? All of this?
I'm rather ignorant of past WWDC offerings, so have they ever released such a wide variety of big products? You just listed the four "biggest" products they make (excl. PBs) and these also happen to be the four that I want.
Could these all be updated in one event? Is it likely?
ps- I heard that there are no new hard drives being bought up, meaning that 4th gen iPods aren't likely...?
Well last year they came out with a slew of things,
iSight, iChatAV, new powermac g5's (that was HUGE), Panther, AirPort Extreme, safari 1.0... If they can announce that they can announce the above list.
The only thing I'm not completely sure about is the iMacs... PB was right... they used to be "about" yearly updates. But they have to be updated. They are way overpriced compared to everything else. Gee, a 1.2ghz ibook for 1495 or a 1.25 iMac 17" for 1795. Or we can go with the 1ghz iMac 15" for 1295 or a 14" 1ghz ibook for 1295. Same price and one has many more features.
At the same time you can go out and buy a 1.25ghz 17" eMac for 794!!! So basically the only thing the iMac has going for it is its looks. Even that has faded big time. I would like to see sale #'s on just iMacs... anyone have any? I would bet my life savings its not very high.
Basically they need to update it asap. I'm not saying it is going to be at WWDC... but that is a likely place for them to quickly go over it.
After looking at the keynote from last year, Basically all they really had was announcements and statistics. Spending about 1/2 the time on Panther. Developers like hearing about these things, it keeps them interested in producing software.
Also, from what I have been seeing Apple has been purchasing one bigger drive, 50 or 60. This could simply mean a bump in iPods... maybe 20,30,50?? I think 20 would be perfect for their lowend if they could bump up the battery life.
At the same time you can go out and buy a 1.25ghz 17" eMac for 794!!! So basically the only thing the iMac has going for it is its looks. Even that has faded big time. I would like to see sale #'s on just iMacs... anyone have any? I would bet my life savings its not very high.
Basically they need to update it asap.
Exactly. The only way the stagnation of the iMac makes any sense at all is if they plan to upgrade it to a G5 and keep the same prices, or even lower them.
We are all a product of the "group think" mentality. Everyone here tries to persuade everyone else and then the most "reasonable" conclusion becomes the widespread fact or most likely scenario that Apple will develop.
I am bored by some of these predictions, the iMac is Apple's bread and butter, it is the iPod times ten, it is the single unit that saved Apple. The iPod is not the new iMac, it is the new music player. Apple will do something with the iMac to bring it back to yesteryear status. It will once again sell in excess of 400,000 units by itself in a single quarter, and Apple will sell well over 1 million macs and iPods in the same quarter-count on it.
We are all a product of the "group think" mentality. Everyone here tries to persuade everyone else and then the most "reasonable" conclusion becomes the widespread fact or most likely scenario that Apple will develop.
I am bored by some of these predictions, the iMac is Apple's bread and butter, it is the iPod times ten, it is the single unit that saved Apple. The iPod is not the new iMac, it is the new music player. Apple will do something with the iMac to bring it back to yesteryear status. It will once again sell in excess of 400,000 units by itself in a single quarter, and Apple will sell well over 1 million macs and iPods in the same quarter-count on it.
I hope you're right. Thats why I'm saying they need a BIG change. I like your point of the "group think" mentality. That is true.
The iMac is losing popularity it gained a few years ago. People I talk to hear iMac and think of it when it was different colors. A lot of those computers were sold at that time. It was a consumer's computer finally, being a choice in colors. Normal consumers felt warm with the computer for once, and I think thats why it was so popular.
If apple can rejuvenate that feeling and make it powerful enough to keep up with today's standards then the iMac will finally gain popularity again. But jacking up the price to 1900 dollars for the high end version is NOT going to persuade anyone. The price was a big part of it's success. No one cares about a 20" lcd except pro users. I don't think pro users want a machine that isn't expandable. If they are going to pay that much then why not buy a g5.
The 17" iMac is a loser IMO too. 1795 usd. Many consumers will never pay that kind of a price. You can count on the iMac being sold in the 150k-200k range until that price is adjusted. It is a consumer machine, not a pro machine, but apple seems to think otherwise.
I also understand that lcd's aren't cheap and that's why the iMac is so expensive. This excuse doesn't justify anything though. I would like to see how many 17" & 20" iMacs have been sold compared to the 15".
I think the biggest factor speaking for the iMac upgrade is the disparity in price between it and the eMac... If you remember when they came out, there was only about a $200 difference between the iMac and the eMac with similar CPU/optical configs. so why then the much larger price disparity? Certainly 15 and 17 inch LCDs haven't gone up that much in price, and they are basically the same as far as internals go, in fact I suspect the eMac guts are probably harder to pack in there. I suspect you will find the price goes to bring it more on par with the eMac, while getting more PowerBook like internal specs.
Comments
Originally posted by Yevgeny
Gosh I must be easy to please because your "basics" look pretty good to me. I think that you are expecting too much. Why not add in a stage demo where Steva Balmer does his monkey dance while Steve Jobs unloads some buckshot into him? I mean, we can always dream.
Agreed, my Basics are perhaps a bit much...The point is that I expect something completely new at WWDC this year, not just an OS/Hardware update. WWDC seems like the right place to introduce a new platform, and it's a critical time for Apple to keep the ITMS momentum going and to continue to push market share.
I see a big opportunity and I believe Apple has the ability to serve it. If not, they really need my help
Originally posted by ubertweek
[recently there's been talk of a need for a set-top device to replace bulky and awkward HTPCs]
I guess what I'm getting at is that while I would be first in line to buy one of these Apple living room boxes, Apple would have to market it as "show your iMovies, iPhotos, and iTunes in your living room." - a problem already partially solved by Roku.
You focus too much on the VIDEO portion of the equation, the real focus will be MUSIC. Yes, ROKU, and others have solutions to stream iTunes, but they can't play Protected AAC's, rendering the ITMS a Mac/PC only solitary shopping experience...Apple knows there is an opportunity to get people buying while watching MTV etc.
In fact, just last night my wife and I had one of our "bottle of wine & music nights" and it confirmed my belief that the need is there...I have an old Powerbook that connects to my Home Theater, and my wife (the DJ) spent most of the evening standing up at the Enteratinment center queuing up Music, searching for and buying new stuff etc.; it would've been much easier and nicer to have a remote in hand and to use my 50" TV to do those things.
As for Video, don't forget that Netflix and others plan on offering downloadable films soon, and Apple has invested heavily in Pixlet and other quality-keeping compression schemes. There may be room for an ITMovie Store soon.
Wee.
Originally posted by msantti
If there was just an iMac G4 update, it would have already happened.
Wee.
Agreed 100%... it would have happened along side the eMac, nice and quietly.
Because Apple called me, someone with just an online (free) student ADC developer account, to see if I was going to WWDC this year. This is the first time ever that I've received a call from Apple. I think they're trying to get as large a crowd as possible to unveil something.
Either that or they just aren't getting people to sign up and go to WWDC *shrug*.
Originally posted by PBG4 Dude
I personally think something big will come from WWDC. Why do I say that you ask?
Because Apple called me, someone with just an online (free) student ADC developer account, to see if I was going to WWDC this year. This is the first time ever that I've received a call from Apple. I think they're trying to get as large a crowd as possible to unveil something.
Either that or they just aren't getting people to sign up and go to WWDC *shrug*.
From what I've heard, they already have more people signed up than they had signed up at this time last year. Of course many will sign up the day of, etc.
I think last year was a big one and showed developers that apple is very serious. I have a feeling this one is going to be HUGE. If it isn't then 2004 will be an extremely weak year for apple. After the MWSF disaster I really hope apple has something to show the world. Otherwise, there is always next year for big announcements.
Originally posted by Sport73
You focus too much on the VIDEO portion of the equation, the real focus will be MUSIC. Yes, ROKU, and others have solutions to stream iTunes, but they can't play Protected AAC's, rendering the ITMS a Mac/PC only solitary shopping experience...Apple knows there is an opportunity to get people buying while watching MTV etc.
In fact, just last night my wife and I had one of our "bottle of wine & music nights" and it confirmed my belief that the need is there...I have an old Powerbook that connects to my Home Theater, and my wife (the DJ) spent most of the evening standing up at the Enteratinment center queuing up Music, searching for and buying new stuff etc.; it would've been much easier and nicer to have a remote in hand and to use my 50" TV to do those things.
As for Video, don't forget that Netflix and others plan on offering downloadable films soon, and Apple has invested heavily in Pixlet and other quality-keeping compression schemes. There may be room for an ITMovie Store soon.
This hole movie download thing is big bandwidth, and takes extremely long times for downloads. It's way too early to call even if Netflix says they are thinking of trying it. I personally don't think it's going to get that big just because of the time it takes to get a movie at 400K download is an eternity in comparison to the alternative method already being used today. I think Apple will watch it closely, but to jump right into this is a little fool hearty.
Ask your self this. - If you had not seen ROTK would you sit, and download 6GB's of movie file for over a 3 to 4 hour period (maybe more), or just stop off after work at the video store. (you'll get a better quality picture from the DVD anyway.)
There are other things to take into consideration.
I've heard that there is a proposed plan to start broadcasting HD digital films directly into theaters through satellite, and if it can be regulated they will offer a similar pay service to the home. Personally I think if Apple gets into alternate cable solutions they should think about something along the lines of this service rather than the direct downloading. Downloading video seems like dead end in comparison. Don't forget Apple is a hardware company. They could design a really cool box for such a service, and easily integrate iTMS with the home user using a wi-fi system, ethernet, firewire, whatever. It would also remain cross-platform which is a must for Apple to enter into such a venture.
Needless to say. I'm not sold on the hole movie downloading thing knowing that there are other technological advancements, and a slew of proposals coming around the corner that will just drowned it out knowing time, and quality comparisons will probably kill it off in heartbeat.
AVC is going to be able to take a typical DVD of 9GB and compress it down to probably 400-600MB but that's still a hefty bit of bandwidth to toss around. Dunno if my ISP is going to be too keen on that.
Originally posted by Sport73
As for Video, don't forget that Netflix and others plan on offering downloadable films soon, and Apple has invested heavily in Pixlet and other quality-keeping compression schemes. There may be room for an ITMovie Store soon.
Good lord, do you have any idea what kind of bandwidth we're talking about for Pixlet? 25MB/s... 1500MB/min... 63GB/hr! I don't know about you, but I'm not up for a 180GB LotR download.
<This message approved by the local 5th grade grammar teacher>
-upgraded g5s (it's almost been a year already....it's time for an upgrade...this isnt a 'maybe' situation)
-updated Apple displays to match the Powermacs
-upgraded iPods..... the video out option would be absolutely amazing....along with the ability to use it with the iSight to record DV video would be awesome. (not sure if the processing power in the iPods can handle this sort of thing, but im sure the interface(FireWire) can handle the transfer rates.
-Tiger
Originally posted by emig647
Agreed 100%... it would have happened along side the eMac, nice and quietly.
Not quite sure on that. Don't forget that, for some reason, the iMac Flat Panel had until now a rather slow update cycle, roughly one speed bump per year. This is perhaps the result of some scheduling-ahead in Apple's part as far as processor supplies are concerned, but it does not change the fact that the iMac has progressed slowly from its very introduction and that its next update may sport the new 7447A G4s.
[B]As for OS X on x86, back before OS X was released, Apple was said to have it running on x86 computers."
My reasoning was not based on PC's running osx ( see pear PC ) but was based on the fact that apple still makes its $ in hardware and Sj knows this and would never allow the mac osx to be run officially on a little beige box apple's all about brand these days. Thats why i go never.
Originally posted by Hawkeye_a
WWDC 2004 will bring:
-upgraded g5s (it's almost been a year already....it's time for an upgrade...this isnt a 'maybe' situation)
-updated Apple displays to match the Powermacs
-upgraded iPods..... the video out option would be absolutely amazing....along with the ability to use it with the iSight to record DV video would be awesome. (not sure if the processing power in the iPods can handle this sort of thing, but im sure the interface(FireWire) can handle the transfer rates.
-Tiger
Is this really in the realm of possibilities? All of this?
I'm rather ignorant of past WWDC offerings, so have they ever released such a wide variety of big products? You just listed the four "biggest" products they make (excl. PBs) and these also happen to be the four that I want.
Could these all be updated in one event? Is it likely?
ps- I heard that there are no new hard drives being bought up, meaning that 4th gen iPods aren't likely...?
Originally posted by emig647
Just because those languages don't take advantage of it doesn't mean that they can't integrate them into XCode. I'll reiterate my point of apple pushing perl developers to the Cocoa API... how can they ask this if they don't have an environment (besides pico, vi, emacs, etc) to write their code?
Also I don't believe true ANSI 89 C can take advantage of Live Linking (if thats the name, I know what you're talking about if it isn't).
I agree completely with that, and I guess my point was as clear as mud. What I was trying to get at was that for those kind of languages, I feel you would need something more than just syntax coloring. After all, everyone does that (BBEdit, UltraEdit, EmEditor, etc.)
I think that Project Management could be a huge bonus to those languages. That is something that I would look for from a IDE. Project Management for PHP would be awesome, especially to the Web Development community.
Originally posted by Soire
Is this really in the realm of possibilities? All of this?
I'm rather ignorant of past WWDC offerings, so have they ever released such a wide variety of big products? You just listed the four "biggest" products they make (excl. PBs) and these also happen to be the four that I want.
Could these all be updated in one event? Is it likely?
ps- I heard that there are no new hard drives being bought up, meaning that 4th gen iPods aren't likely...?
Well last year they came out with a slew of things,
iSight, iChatAV, new powermac g5's (that was HUGE), Panther, AirPort Extreme, safari 1.0... If they can announce that they can announce the above list.
The only thing I'm not completely sure about is the iMacs... PB was right... they used to be "about" yearly updates. But they have to be updated. They are way overpriced compared to everything else. Gee, a 1.2ghz ibook for 1495 or a 1.25 iMac 17" for 1795. Or we can go with the 1ghz iMac 15" for 1295 or a 14" 1ghz ibook for 1295. Same price and one has many more features.
At the same time you can go out and buy a 1.25ghz 17" eMac for 794!!! So basically the only thing the iMac has going for it is its looks. Even that has faded big time. I would like to see sale #'s on just iMacs... anyone have any? I would bet my life savings its not very high.
Basically they need to update it asap. I'm not saying it is going to be at WWDC... but that is a likely place for them to quickly go over it.
After looking at the keynote from last year, Basically all they really had was announcements and statistics. Spending about 1/2 the time on Panther. Developers like hearing about these things, it keeps them interested in producing software.
Also, from what I have been seeing Apple has been purchasing one bigger drive, 50 or 60. This could simply mean a bump in iPods... maybe 20,30,50?? I think 20 would be perfect for their lowend if they could bump up the battery life.
Originally posted by emig647
At the same time you can go out and buy a 1.25ghz 17" eMac for 794!!! So basically the only thing the iMac has going for it is its looks. Even that has faded big time. I would like to see sale #'s on just iMacs... anyone have any? I would bet my life savings its not very high.
Basically they need to update it asap.
Exactly. The only way the stagnation of the iMac makes any sense at all is if they plan to upgrade it to a G5 and keep the same prices, or even lower them.
I am bored by some of these predictions, the iMac is Apple's bread and butter, it is the iPod times ten, it is the single unit that saved Apple. The iPod is not the new iMac, it is the new music player. Apple will do something with the iMac to bring it back to yesteryear status. It will once again sell in excess of 400,000 units by itself in a single quarter, and Apple will sell well over 1 million macs and iPods in the same quarter-count on it.
Originally posted by Messiahtosh
We are all a product of the "group think" mentality. Everyone here tries to persuade everyone else and then the most "reasonable" conclusion becomes the widespread fact or most likely scenario that Apple will develop.
I am bored by some of these predictions, the iMac is Apple's bread and butter, it is the iPod times ten, it is the single unit that saved Apple. The iPod is not the new iMac, it is the new music player. Apple will do something with the iMac to bring it back to yesteryear status. It will once again sell in excess of 400,000 units by itself in a single quarter, and Apple will sell well over 1 million macs and iPods in the same quarter-count on it.
I hope you're right. Thats why I'm saying they need a BIG change. I like your point of the "group think" mentality. That is true.
The iMac is losing popularity it gained a few years ago. People I talk to hear iMac and think of it when it was different colors. A lot of those computers were sold at that time. It was a consumer's computer finally, being a choice in colors. Normal consumers felt warm with the computer for once, and I think thats why it was so popular.
If apple can rejuvenate that feeling and make it powerful enough to keep up with today's standards then the iMac will finally gain popularity again. But jacking up the price to 1900 dollars for the high end version is NOT going to persuade anyone. The price was a big part of it's success. No one cares about a 20" lcd except pro users. I don't think pro users want a machine that isn't expandable. If they are going to pay that much then why not buy a g5.
The 17" iMac is a loser IMO too. 1795 usd. Many consumers will never pay that kind of a price. You can count on the iMac being sold in the 150k-200k range until that price is adjusted. It is a consumer machine, not a pro machine, but apple seems to think otherwise.
I also understand that lcd's aren't cheap and that's why the iMac is so expensive. This excuse doesn't justify anything though. I would like to see how many 17" & 20" iMacs have been sold compared to the 15".