The obvious problem here is price. I would NEVER buy a PowerMac G5. You want to know why? Because for less than $2000 I can buy a top of the line (or pretty damn close to it) PC.
For $1851 on newegg look what I get:
A quality all aluminum case (that looks like the G5's) -Lian-Li v-1000
An Athlon 64 3000+ (2.0 Ghz)
1 gb of ram (1x1024)(400mhz) Corsair
Radeon X800 Pro (256mb) video card
2x 74gb Western Digital Raptor hard drives (10000 rpms, 8mb cache)
An 8x (single layer) and 2.4x (dual layer) DVD writer/CD writer
A chaintech motherboard (N-force 3-250 chipset)
and a 470 watt power supply (enermax noisetaker)
The closest thing that apple offers is the $1999 powermac G5 which has the specs:
Dual 1.8ghz G5's
256mb ram
80gb hard drive (7200 rpms I assume)
8x single layer dvd writer
and a geforce 5200 ultra (with a whole 64mb of video memory)
Besides the fact that it runs OSX why would anyone want to buy that compared to what you can get in a PC for just as much!
you get 1/4 the ram
about 1/2 the hard drive space (with MUCH slower drives)
and a video card that competes with what most PC users had 3 generations ago
Its all about price. Apple needs something that can compete with a PC of the same price. I realize that you cannot directly compare the speeds of PC components to mac components for the most part (particularly processors) but there are equivilants.
Powermac g5s match up very well with equivalent high-end machines...and they are priced fairly for what they are...but here is what you can get from HP for the price of a 15" imac
AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3200+ operating at 2.0GHz
Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Professional Edition
256 MB DDR / PC3200 (1 DIMM)
160 GB 7200 rpm Ultra DMA Hard Drive
8X DVD+RW/+R drive (DVD writer & CD-writer combo)
1 USB 2.0, 1 Firewire, 9-in-1 card reader + WinDVD (in the front)
128MB DDR NVIDIA GeForceFX(TM) 5200XT, TV-Out
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS with front audio ports
HP pavilion VF15 15" flat panel display
HP Internet Keyboard, HP Optical Mouse
Harman-Kardon 2-Piece Active Speakers
Microsoft(R) Works 7.0/Money 2004/MSN Encarta Plus
edit
Norton Antivirus 2004 (1 yr subscription)
For a mere $15 more than the imac. And about 5 more minutes of set up time. Which one to pick????
Jade's comparison is even more deadly than zpapasmurf's, because we always knew we could build something cheaper (and newegg's shipping and service are top-notch), but HP hasn't been sleeping, and their LCD displays are very good.
As for Apple's displays starting at $1299, nobody would recommend such a thing for a consumer purchase. FTM, I can't believe they'd think that every PowerMac purchaser is going to spend over a kilobuck on a monitor.
But Apple's been warming up to the notion of third-party hardware lately. Why couldn't stores show a headless Mac with a Samsung 15" display? Maybe a Formac or Sony 17" display as a step up? How about offering some LaCie CRT monitors for graphics professionals?
Now that Apple's in the retail business, they are going to be confronted with the fact that what they want to make is never going to exactly match what people want to buy. Retail and manufacturing are two different businesses: Manufacturers want to keep their lines simple; retailers want to offer a wide variety of products.
I'm a big advocate of the headless iMac (or PowerMac Express, or however you want to package it.) I believe that for whatever assortment of reasons, people want such a thing. Some will always find the AIO appealing, and be willing to go that route, but others just can't get comfortable with sinking that much money into a monitor hard-wired to the computer.
That being said, I'm in agreement that the new line of monitors makes it a slam-dunk that a new headless machine is nowhere in sight, because *clearly* you can't market monitors starting at $1299 to your consumers, and it would be financial suicide for Apple to send people's monitor money elsewhere.
They could of course throw us a knuckle curve and come out with a line of consumer displays, topping out at 17" or 19", to match up with a consumer headless machine. But that would really shock me.
So I expect a new line of AIO iMacs, similar in concept to the current one. And I hope they *do* keep a 15" model, as long as it's priced under $1000.
What continues to amaze me is that Apple takes no serious price action to move a hideously stagnant product line. Over and over Apple demonstrates that they could give a crap about market share as long as they protect their precious margins. Not healthy for the long term, as market share continues to dwindles away. I just don't get it, frankly.
Here's hoping that Apple really pulls a rabbit out of their hat with the next iMac. They could sure use it.
What if apple offered a headless imac with a new line of monitors that could be stand-alone but also have the ability to "screw onto" or somehow attach to the headless imacs.
That way people who want the AIO look can have it, those who dont dont have to have it.
What if apple offered a headless imac with a new line of monitors that could be stand-alone but also have the ability to "screw onto" or somehow attach to the headless imacs.
That way people who want the AIO look can have it, those who dont dont have to have it.
Apple made it pretty clear this week that they don't want to sell a (new) monitor under $1299. However, if the monitors you suggest actually would NOT work stand-alone, but merely be an optional attachment for a headless Mac, that might work. "Get your iMac with or without a display." This would satisfy those who already have displays and want a new consumer Mac.
Perhaps since the new displays are professional, high-end, aluminum, and expensive (as well as huge), Apple is working on a consumer line of displays that are smaller, cheaper, and of the familiar white/shiny plastics of consumer Macs. After all, a 17" aluminum display sure wouldn't look too good with a white, headless iMac.
Perhaps these displays will have attachment/detachment capabilities to the iMac, hence it has to match the consumer appearance.
Regardless, I'd rather just see a PowerMac Express described at the start of this thread.
Apple made it pretty clear this week that they don't want to sell a (new) monitor under $1299. However, if the monitors you suggest actually would NOT work stand-alone, but merely be an optional attachment for a headless Mac, that might work. "Get your iMac with or without a display." This would satisfy those who already have displays and want a new consumer Mac.
It just came to me! What if the top of the *new* iMacs had a spot to screw on an *optional* monitor. If you want to add your own monitor, you screw on another piece if you want to use your own monitor. The *new* piece would just give you a vga or dvi out.
Then, the apple monitor that *could* screw on to the imac would also come with its own base that you would screw it onto that would give you the video inputs and the power plug thingy. It would also act as a base to stabilize the monitor. Basically it would look like an empty base to an imac.
I agree. Apple has introduced a line of lovely looking displays.
And although they are not cheap - it will make money selling the displays.
Apple is not making money selling an AIO system which bundles display and CPU.
AIOs do offer convenience - but the high price point is daunting for many,
So having the ability to *upgrade-the-display* by snapping on a CPU unit is attractive. Because it has all of the end-user convenience of an AIO - but allows a dramatically lower price point on the entry level system.
I can feel a design coming on.....
A system unit which would replace the L-shaped "foot" of the new cinema display with an L-shaped system unit. Power switch and horizontally mounted optical drive would be in the bottom part of the foot. - while the CPU and HD would be mounted vertically in back.
Of course it would have to look attractive *without* the cinema display too.
Cheaper to make. Flexible. Easier to use industry standard components.
Easier to use POWERFUL standard parts without pain.
Easier to cut prices on it would seem.
Hey, you even get...CHOICE!
But don't take my word for it. 97.5 % of the market can't be wrong, can they?
Or you can sit in the isolated AIO Apple camp with sales of 100K per quarter and slowing...heh.
Niche of a Niche of a Niche. By the RDF Sisters. In three part harmony...sing it..., 'There's nothing intrinsically wrong with the AIO concept.'
Okay. Just Apple's implementation of it then?
Hey (part 2), just put you fingers in your ears, sing la, lah, la and ignore the deafening ding for headless Macs (well, at prices that won't cripple your bank balance or offer industry relative value, performance or flexibility...)
A system unit which would replace the L-shaped "foot" of the new cinema display with an L-shaped system unit. Power switch and horizontally mounted optical drive would be in the bottom part of the foot. - while the CPU and HD would be mounted vertically in back.
Those feet are different sizes for the various sizes of displays. How are you going to solve that problem and still make it look good without a display? Except for that problem, I like your idea.
I believe the iMac 3 will be a pizza box, to be mounted at the back of the new range of monitors. Size and design looks like the xServe.
The new monitors alle have a common VESA-adapter. If they wanted the monitors to be industri-standard, the four holes of VESA would be very easy to integrate into the design of the desktop stand. The mount for the adapter obviously has another function, the mount of the iMac. This also prevents the iMac from use of monitors from other producers.
The iMac connects to the monitor via a direct connector into the port of new multicable, eliminating the need for both USB and FW on the box.
BTO option of graphics cards, enabling support for the whole range of apple-monitors from 20" to 30". Removeable desktop stand, VESA-adapter. A new 17" monitor may be introduced.
Bluetooth mouse (mini iPod scroll weel) and keyboard, both Al-design. Standard Airport Extreme. No modem. Gigabit ethernet (BTO?). No speakers, sound is distributed via Airport Express. TV-tuner may be BTO, but this is maybe to early. One external connection, the external power adapter.
Integrated iPod dock on top. G5 processor. Expensive but cool.
I believe the iMac 3 will be a pizza box, to be mounted at the back of the new range of monitors. Size and design looks like the xServe.
G5 processor. Expensive but cool.
I reckon Apple simply has to be working on a project like this. Its a no brainer. Imagine how cool the thing will look.....The thing is, I doubt whether such a cool and groovy box will be end up being called iMac.
To me the "iMac" brand implies a simple-to-use, entry level machine. Precisely like the iBook. The iBook and the first iMac were basic, functional, generic, simple & perfect. They were cheap.
The second generation iMac simply did not achieve that goal. It was *too* stylish - and in this market that can count against you. That was a mistake and Apple will not rectify it by making upping the spec of the low end machine.
If Apple is smart it will introduce two lines; A new iMac which has a most agressive pricing of any previous Mac. A no-frils OSX machine good enough for Web, Email (namely 90% of what people use computers for)
And an all-new Mac classic - which is like we are describing above. Designed for media and loaded with G5 and GPU goodness.
Powermac g5s match up very well with equivalent high-end machines...and they are priced fairly for what they are...but here is what you can get from HP for the price of a 15" imac
AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3200+ operating at 2.0GHz
Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Professional Edition
256 MB DDR / PC3200 (1 DIMM)
160 GB 7200 rpm Ultra DMA Hard Drive
8X DVD+RW/+R drive (DVD writer & CD-writer combo)
1 USB 2.0, 1 Firewire, 9-in-1 card reader + WinDVD (in the front)
128MB DDR NVIDIA GeForceFX(TM) 5200XT, TV-Out
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS with front audio ports
HP pavilion VF15 15" flat panel display
HP Internet Keyboard, HP Optical Mouse
Harman-Kardon 2-Piece Active Speakers
Microsoft(R) Works 7.0/Money 2004/MSN Encarta Plus
edit
Norton Antivirus 2004 (1 yr subscription)
For a mere $15 more than the imac. And about 5 more minutes of set up time. Which one to pick????
You could have stopped with the Amd 64 athlon. it takes 2 g5s at 2.0 to match a Athlon at 2.2.( see MacWorld & MacAddict) so imagine how unfair it is for iMac to have 1- 1.25 G4 That chip is about the same as a P4 at 2.0 Sure the other specs matter the fx5200 are both garbage for anyone who likes games and or performance. I agree the high end Macs match up good but anything below the duals is Hammered by the otherside. Apple is only competitive at the high end. Mid and low end stuff is way out of date cpu performance wise.
I still dont know why Apple didnt come out with a machine with same philosophy as aluminum powermac at 1/2 size using a dual componets divided by 2 with a agp slot. I would think it would be a awesome consumer machine. configure as you like and they could even have a cheapo G4 board for those grandma's outthere. But then the stupid tier. cant have something take away from gigantic dual G5 now can we? Apple is killing themself with that one. have for years. They have catered to the pro's so much they killed off 100s of consumers for the one pro buying a Powermac. they should be selling 10 consumer machines for each pro machine but they are selling 1 pro to 1 consumer. Thats a crime. sorry for the rant.\
For awhile, Apple was doing great for the consumer with the original iMac. Then they got boutiquey with the iMac 2 and the cost of parts was so high they couldn't sell them for a good price or put higher-end parts in them. Hopefully they've learned a lesson and will get back to a good consumer iMac with decent specs.
It's the magical morphing headless iMac argument! If one tack doesn't work, try the exact opposite!
Quote:
Cheaper to make. Flexible. Easier to use industry standard components.
Easier to use POWERFUL standard parts without pain.
Easier to cut prices on it would seem.
Of those, only the "flexible" is true, narrowly (in terms of configurability, not actual use).
But here's an exercise for you: What are the disadvantages?
Quote:
But don't take my word for it. 97.5 % of the market can't be wrong, can they?
97.5% of what market? "Market share" is only the percentage of PCs sold, not a percentage of the entire potential market; not a measure of the installed base.
PC vendors target enterprise heavily. Enterprise, as Fred Anderson gleefully pointed out, is only 30% of the overall potential market. However, since it's a very specialized and lucrative market, they're geared to it. IT managers want to configure the desktop they'll install on 250,000 desktops to a nicety, because even a $50 option will cost them millions of dollars in aggregate. Hardly anyone else goes to the same extremes, because they're only buying one desktop. PC vendors don't do so well in the consumer space if you consider the entire consumer market, and that's because all they sell are enterprise desktops with whatever random "consumer" software they could throw together and no regard for whether or how well any of it actually works.
And, of course, the final measure of the value of a PC is whether or how well it actually works. 3GHz means jack if your software sucks.
Quote:
Or you can sit in the isolated AIO Apple camp with sales of 100K per quarter and slowing...heh.
I've already addressed this issue, but I understand that one can't let logic get in the way of a good soundbite. A few years ago the "isolated AIO Apple camp" was managing 400K per quarter and growing, and the "headless iMac" arguments were exactly like the ones in this thread. Often verbatim.
If there's no correlation between the AIO factor and poor sales, then AIO isn't contributing to poor sales, and you have to look somewhere else.
Here are more things for you to chew on: If everything you've said is true and desirable, why were there boxes from HP in my local Staples that included - all in the same big box - a monitor, a PC and a printer, for $799? No configuration options at all, just pay the price and wheel it out the door. How come, if you go to the site of any major PC vendor, they offer bundled systems with very few obvious options, and you have to hunt for detailed configuration options? If commodity parts are so cheap, how come historically (and currently) low-end PCs don't use them? Dell uses their own power supplies. Compaq was infamous for wildly non-standard systems at the low end.
OK, back on track: Since is the PowerMac G5 Express thread, I'd like to revive the topic by asserting that such a beast would be a PowerMac. Not an iMac.
When the Cube came out, there were lots and lots of business owners imagining a room full of 50 or 100 or 500 quiet, powerful little workstations... if only the Cube didn't cost so much. But really, you don't need the latest and greatest video card, or PCI, or zillions of internal drives, to run PS and Illustrator and Quark and InDesign in a corporate setting. As the PowerMac is drifting up toward $2K at the low end, there's a big hole where this market is. Now, Apple might be banking on the fact that their next iMac addresses this market nicely. If it has a G5 and a high-bandwidth architecture, it should be able to come pretty close. But there are pro needs, like dual monitors, specialty CRTs and gobs of RAM, that the iMac will probably not satisfy, so I still see an opportunity for a machine to fill the niche that the Cube could have. Audio engineers would also appreciate a small, completely quiet workstation, especially now that FireWire is most of the way there as a PCI replacement.
But this is a pro machine, not a headless iMac or a game machine or a cheap third machine that you can hook up to the old MultiSync you have lying around. It's a PowerMac. And I think it'd sell really well.
Here are more things for you to chew on: If everything you've said is true and desirable, why were there boxes from HP in my local Staples that included - all in the same big box - a monitor, a PC and a printer, for $799? No configuration options at all, just pay the price and wheel it out the door. How come, if you go to the site of any major PC vendor, they offer bundled systems with very few obvious options, and you have to hunt for detailed configuration options?
Uh, well, PC vendors want you to buy not only a computer, but a monitor as well, just like Apple. They make it difficult (or costly) not to, just like Apple. That doesn't mean you can't buy a (reasonably priced) computer by itself from those vendors, unlike from Apple.
Comments
For $1851 on newegg look what I get:
A quality all aluminum case (that looks like the G5's) -Lian-Li v-1000
An Athlon 64 3000+ (2.0 Ghz)
1 gb of ram (1x1024)(400mhz) Corsair
Radeon X800 Pro (256mb) video card
2x 74gb Western Digital Raptor hard drives (10000 rpms, 8mb cache)
An 8x (single layer) and 2.4x (dual layer) DVD writer/CD writer
A chaintech motherboard (N-force 3-250 chipset)
and a 470 watt power supply (enermax noisetaker)
The closest thing that apple offers is the $1999 powermac G5 which has the specs:
Dual 1.8ghz G5's
256mb ram
80gb hard drive (7200 rpms I assume)
8x single layer dvd writer
and a geforce 5200 ultra (with a whole 64mb of video memory)
Besides the fact that it runs OSX why would anyone want to buy that compared to what you can get in a PC for just as much!
you get 1/4 the ram
about 1/2 the hard drive space (with MUCH slower drives)
and a video card that competes with what most PC users had 3 generations ago
Its all about price. Apple needs something that can compete with a PC of the same price. I realize that you cannot directly compare the speeds of PC components to mac components for the most part (particularly processors) but there are equivilants.
Originally posted by zpapasmurf
Its all about price. Apple needs something that can compete with a PC of the same price.
Not gonna happen. Never has. Apple attempts to compete with quality, design and better software, not price.
AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3200+ operating at 2.0GHz
Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Professional Edition
256 MB DDR / PC3200 (1 DIMM)
160 GB 7200 rpm Ultra DMA Hard Drive
8X DVD+RW/+R drive (DVD writer & CD-writer combo)
1 USB 2.0, 1 Firewire, 9-in-1 card reader + WinDVD (in the front)
128MB DDR NVIDIA GeForceFX(TM) 5200XT, TV-Out
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS with front audio ports
HP pavilion VF15 15" flat panel display
HP Internet Keyboard, HP Optical Mouse
Harman-Kardon 2-Piece Active Speakers
Microsoft(R) Works 7.0/Money 2004/MSN Encarta Plus
edit
Norton Antivirus 2004 (1 yr subscription)
For a mere $15 more than the imac. And about 5 more minutes of set up time. Which one to pick????
As for Apple's displays starting at $1299, nobody would recommend such a thing for a consumer purchase. FTM, I can't believe they'd think that every PowerMac purchaser is going to spend over a kilobuck on a monitor.
But Apple's been warming up to the notion of third-party hardware lately. Why couldn't stores show a headless Mac with a Samsung 15" display? Maybe a Formac or Sony 17" display as a step up? How about offering some LaCie CRT monitors for graphics professionals?
Now that Apple's in the retail business, they are going to be confronted with the fact that what they want to make is never going to exactly match what people want to buy. Retail and manufacturing are two different businesses: Manufacturers want to keep their lines simple; retailers want to offer a wide variety of products.
That being said, I'm in agreement that the new line of monitors makes it a slam-dunk that a new headless machine is nowhere in sight, because *clearly* you can't market monitors starting at $1299 to your consumers, and it would be financial suicide for Apple to send people's monitor money elsewhere.
They could of course throw us a knuckle curve and come out with a line of consumer displays, topping out at 17" or 19", to match up with a consumer headless machine. But that would really shock me.
So I expect a new line of AIO iMacs, similar in concept to the current one. And I hope they *do* keep a 15" model, as long as it's priced under $1000.
What continues to amaze me is that Apple takes no serious price action to move a hideously stagnant product line. Over and over Apple demonstrates that they could give a crap about market share as long as they protect their precious margins. Not healthy for the long term, as market share continues to dwindles away. I just don't get it, frankly.
Here's hoping that Apple really pulls a rabbit out of their hat with the next iMac. They could sure use it.
That way people who want the AIO look can have it, those who dont dont have to have it.
Originally posted by zpapasmurf
What if apple offered a headless imac with a new line of monitors that could be stand-alone but also have the ability to "screw onto" or somehow attach to the headless imacs.
That way people who want the AIO look can have it, those who dont dont have to have it.
Apple made it pretty clear this week that they don't want to sell a (new) monitor under $1299. However, if the monitors you suggest actually would NOT work stand-alone, but merely be an optional attachment for a headless Mac, that might work. "Get your iMac with or without a display." This would satisfy those who already have displays and want a new consumer Mac.
Perhaps these displays will have attachment/detachment capabilities to the iMac, hence it has to match the consumer appearance.
Regardless, I'd rather just see a PowerMac Express described at the start of this thread.
Here's to hoping.
Apple made it pretty clear this week that they don't want to sell a (new) monitor under $1299. However, if the monitors you suggest actually would NOT work stand-alone, but merely be an optional attachment for a headless Mac, that might work. "Get your iMac with or without a display." This would satisfy those who already have displays and want a new consumer Mac.
It just came to me! What if the top of the *new* iMacs had a spot to screw on an *optional* monitor. If you want to add your own monitor, you screw on another piece if you want to use your own monitor. The *new* piece would just give you a vga or dvi out.
Then, the apple monitor that *could* screw on to the imac would also come with its own base that you would screw it onto that would give you the video inputs and the power plug thingy. It would also act as a base to stabilize the monitor. Basically it would look like an empty base to an imac.
And although they are not cheap - it will make money selling the displays.
Apple is not making money selling an AIO system which bundles display and CPU.
AIOs do offer convenience - but the high price point is daunting for many,
So having the ability to *upgrade-the-display* by snapping on a CPU unit is attractive. Because it has all of the end-user convenience of an AIO - but allows a dramatically lower price point on the entry level system.
I can feel a design coming on.....
A system unit which would replace the L-shaped "foot" of the new cinema display with an L-shaped system unit. Power switch and horizontally mounted optical drive would be in the bottom part of the foot. - while the CPU and HD would be mounted vertically in back.
Of course it would have to look attractive *without* the cinema display too.
Where's my Photoshop?
Carni
Headless consumer computers are the rule
That's right.
Cheaper to make. Flexible. Easier to use industry standard components.
Easier to use POWERFUL standard parts without pain.
Easier to cut prices on it would seem.
Hey, you even get...CHOICE!
But don't take my word for it. 97.5 % of the market can't be wrong, can they?
Or you can sit in the isolated AIO Apple camp with sales of 100K per quarter and slowing...heh.
Niche of a Niche of a Niche. By the RDF Sisters. In three part harmony...sing it..., 'There's nothing intrinsically wrong with the AIO concept.'
Okay. Just Apple's implementation of it then?
Hey (part 2), just put you fingers in your ears, sing la, lah, la and ignore the deafening ding for headless Macs (well, at prices that won't cripple your bank balance or offer industry relative value, performance or flexibility...)
Lemon Bon Bon
Originally posted by Carniphage
I can feel a design coming on.....
A system unit which would replace the L-shaped "foot" of the new cinema display with an L-shaped system unit. Power switch and horizontally mounted optical drive would be in the bottom part of the foot. - while the CPU and HD would be mounted vertically in back.
Those feet are different sizes for the various sizes of displays. How are you going to solve that problem and still make it look good without a display? Except for that problem, I like your idea.
I believe the iMac 3 will be a pizza box, to be mounted at the back of the new range of monitors. Size and design looks like the xServe.
The new monitors alle have a common VESA-adapter. If they wanted the monitors to be industri-standard, the four holes of VESA would be very easy to integrate into the design of the desktop stand. The mount for the adapter obviously has another function, the mount of the iMac. This also prevents the iMac from use of monitors from other producers.
The iMac connects to the monitor via a direct connector into the port of new multicable, eliminating the need for both USB and FW on the box.
BTO option of graphics cards, enabling support for the whole range of apple-monitors from 20" to 30". Removeable desktop stand, VESA-adapter. A new 17" monitor may be introduced.
Bluetooth mouse (mini iPod scroll weel) and keyboard, both Al-design. Standard Airport Extreme. No modem. Gigabit ethernet (BTO?). No speakers, sound is distributed via Airport Express. TV-tuner may be BTO, but this is maybe to early. One external connection, the external power adapter.
Integrated iPod dock on top. G5 processor. Expensive but cool.
Originally posted by newton
The iMac will be a headless AIO.
I believe the iMac 3 will be a pizza box, to be mounted at the back of the new range of monitors. Size and design looks like the xServe.
G5 processor. Expensive but cool.
I reckon Apple simply has to be working on a project like this. Its a no brainer. Imagine how cool the thing will look.....The thing is, I doubt whether such a cool and groovy box will be end up being called iMac.
To me the "iMac" brand implies a simple-to-use, entry level machine. Precisely like the iBook. The iBook and the first iMac were basic, functional, generic, simple & perfect. They were cheap.
The second generation iMac simply did not achieve that goal. It was *too* stylish - and in this market that can count against you. That was a mistake and Apple will not rectify it by making upping the spec of the low end machine.
If Apple is smart it will introduce two lines; A new iMac which has a most agressive pricing of any previous Mac. A no-frils OSX machine good enough for Web, Email (namely 90% of what people use computers for)
And an all-new Mac classic - which is like we are describing above. Designed for media and loaded with G5 and GPU goodness.
Carni
Originally posted by jade
Powermac g5s match up very well with equivalent high-end machines...and they are priced fairly for what they are...but here is what you can get from HP for the price of a 15" imac
AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3200+ operating at 2.0GHz
Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Professional Edition
256 MB DDR / PC3200 (1 DIMM)
160 GB 7200 rpm Ultra DMA Hard Drive
8X DVD+RW/+R drive (DVD writer & CD-writer combo)
1 USB 2.0, 1 Firewire, 9-in-1 card reader + WinDVD (in the front)
128MB DDR NVIDIA GeForceFX(TM) 5200XT, TV-Out
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS with front audio ports
HP pavilion VF15 15" flat panel display
HP Internet Keyboard, HP Optical Mouse
Harman-Kardon 2-Piece Active Speakers
Microsoft(R) Works 7.0/Money 2004/MSN Encarta Plus
edit
Norton Antivirus 2004 (1 yr subscription)
For a mere $15 more than the imac. And about 5 more minutes of set up time. Which one to pick????
You could have stopped with the Amd 64 athlon. it takes 2 g5s at 2.0 to match a Athlon at 2.2.( see MacWorld & MacAddict) so imagine how unfair it is for iMac to have 1- 1.25 G4
I still dont know why Apple didnt come out with a machine with same philosophy as aluminum powermac at 1/2 size using a dual componets divided by 2 with a agp slot. I would think it would be a awesome consumer machine. configure as you like and they could even have a cheapo G4 board for those grandma's outthere. But then the stupid tier. cant have something take away from gigantic dual G5 now can we? Apple is killing themself with that one. have for years. They have catered to the pro's so much they killed off 100s of consumers for the one pro buying a Powermac. they should be selling 10 consumer machines for each pro machine but they are selling 1 pro to 1 consumer. Thats a crime. sorry for the rant.
The iMac will be a headless AIO.
I believe the iMac 3 will be a pizza box, to be mounted at the back of the new range of monitors. Size and design looks like the xServe.
It's easy, Apple.
Mini-Tower the G5. Single G5s from 1.8-2.5.
Price: £895-£1395
iServe Pizza.
Metal-alu.
One agp slot.
1.6-2.0 G5
X-serve mini-pizza in design.
£495-£895
Both fill th cube, tower, emac, iMac segments.
Flexible. Works great with the flexible monitors.
A new 17 inch alu monitor would be nice too!
Game, set and match to Apple and the Consumer desktop!
Lemon Bon Bon
Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon
That's right.
It's the magical morphing headless iMac argument! If one tack doesn't work, try the exact opposite!
Cheaper to make. Flexible. Easier to use industry standard components.
Easier to use POWERFUL standard parts without pain.
Easier to cut prices on it would seem.
Of those, only the "flexible" is true, narrowly (in terms of configurability, not actual use).
But here's an exercise for you: What are the disadvantages?
But don't take my word for it. 97.5 % of the market can't be wrong, can they?
97.5% of what market? "Market share" is only the percentage of PCs sold, not a percentage of the entire potential market; not a measure of the installed base.
PC vendors target enterprise heavily. Enterprise, as Fred Anderson gleefully pointed out, is only 30% of the overall potential market. However, since it's a very specialized and lucrative market, they're geared to it. IT managers want to configure the desktop they'll install on 250,000 desktops to a nicety, because even a $50 option will cost them millions of dollars in aggregate. Hardly anyone else goes to the same extremes, because they're only buying one desktop. PC vendors don't do so well in the consumer space if you consider the entire consumer market, and that's because all they sell are enterprise desktops with whatever random "consumer" software they could throw together and no regard for whether or how well any of it actually works.
And, of course, the final measure of the value of a PC is whether or how well it actually works. 3GHz means jack if your software sucks.
Or you can sit in the isolated AIO Apple camp with sales of 100K per quarter and slowing...heh.
I've already addressed this issue, but I understand that one can't let logic get in the way of a good soundbite. A few years ago the "isolated AIO Apple camp" was managing 400K per quarter and growing, and the "headless iMac" arguments were exactly like the ones in this thread. Often verbatim.
If there's no correlation between the AIO factor and poor sales, then AIO isn't contributing to poor sales, and you have to look somewhere else.
Here are more things for you to chew on: If everything you've said is true and desirable, why were there boxes from HP in my local Staples that included - all in the same big box - a monitor, a PC and a printer, for $799? No configuration options at all, just pay the price and wheel it out the door. How come, if you go to the site of any major PC vendor, they offer bundled systems with very few obvious options, and you have to hunt for detailed configuration options? If commodity parts are so cheap, how come historically (and currently) low-end PCs don't use them? Dell uses their own power supplies. Compaq was infamous for wildly non-standard systems at the low end.
When the Cube came out, there were lots and lots of business owners imagining a room full of 50 or 100 or 500 quiet, powerful little workstations... if only the Cube didn't cost so much. But really, you don't need the latest and greatest video card, or PCI, or zillions of internal drives, to run PS and Illustrator and Quark and InDesign in a corporate setting. As the PowerMac is drifting up toward $2K at the low end, there's a big hole where this market is. Now, Apple might be banking on the fact that their next iMac addresses this market nicely. If it has a G5 and a high-bandwidth architecture, it should be able to come pretty close. But there are pro needs, like dual monitors, specialty CRTs and gobs of RAM, that the iMac will probably not satisfy, so I still see an opportunity for a machine to fill the niche that the Cube could have. Audio engineers would also appreciate a small, completely quiet workstation, especially now that FireWire is most of the way there as a PCI replacement.
But this is a pro machine, not a headless iMac or a game machine or a cheap third machine that you can hook up to the old MultiSync you have lying around. It's a PowerMac. And I think it'd sell really well.
Originally posted by Amorph
Here are more things for you to chew on: If everything you've said is true and desirable, why were there boxes from HP in my local Staples that included - all in the same big box - a monitor, a PC and a printer, for $799? No configuration options at all, just pay the price and wheel it out the door. How come, if you go to the site of any major PC vendor, they offer bundled systems with very few obvious options, and you have to hunt for detailed configuration options?
Uh, well, PC vendors want you to buy not only a computer, but a monitor as well, just like Apple. They make it difficult (or costly) not to, just like Apple. That doesn't mean you can't buy a (reasonably priced) computer by itself from those vendors, unlike from Apple.