Apple is stuck in all in one land, All of its products suffer because of another Mac. Mini is given crapo graphics for sake of iMac, iMac is given no pci slot or upgrade path for PowerMac and PowerMac is priced so high only the rich can get one. Apple is doing a great job running off folks. Ran me off, I bought a Pc that now has a Tv tuner card,Sound card, plays games great and cost....half of what iMac does. Only 1 machine can compete with this PC and thats Powermac but it cost 3 times what my Pc did. See yah Apple.
. . . I bought a Pc that now has a Tv tuner card,Sound card, plays games great and cost....half of what iMac does. Only 1 machine can compete with this PC and thats Powermac but it cost 3 times what my Pc did. See yah Apple.
I understand your pain. Just a little joke there. Sorry.
Personally, I'd have a real problem switching to Windows. My wife use Windows at work, and we have a Dell in the basement, provided by courtesy of her employer. I help her keep things running, Ugh.
I'd rather buy a used G5 Power Mac than run Windows. By the time everything is Universal in a couple years, the Intel Macs will be on eBay at a reasonable price. I'd like to pick up the current Mac Pro at half the price. Way more than I need, but if Apple doesn't have what I want, a Mac Pro will do.
All of its products suffer because of another Mac.
Its called product differentiation. Most every business does it.
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Mini is given crapo graphics for sake of iMac
The mini uses integrated graphics because over 60% of the PC market uses it.
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Apple is doing a great job running off folks. Ran me off
Is that the result when you've sold more computers, made more money, and have a higher stock price than you've ever had before?
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Only 1 machine can compete with this PC and thats Powermac but it cost 3 times what my Pc did. See yah Apple
Soooo.....one of those $399 jobs from Dell is better than the entire Mac lineup except for the MacPro?
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I bought a Pc that now has a Tv tuner card,Sound card, plays games great and cost....half of what iMac does.
That's why its great to have a choice.
Which computer did you buy? I'm always open to a better deal than these over priced under functional Mac's. Especially computers from companies that are barely profitable if profitable at all, whose stock is stagnant, and has break even margins. Makes me feel like they aren't getting over on me.
I see nothing wrong with presenting ideas and saying what we want in a desktop computer. Anyone who is not interest should skip this thread. It's not the longest thread.
Right. Complaints about the thread being long are silly. Ars Technica, in their Macintoshian Achaia forum, has some that are 5000 posts.
I'd rather have it all here than 18 different new threads all speculating about the same thing.
Thread will not be locked, at least not by me, ever.
No they are not. The 2.66 and 2.93 Conroe is more expensive than all Merom choices.
The xMac should roughly be here:
2.4GHz Conroe for $1249
2.66 Ghz Conroe at $1699
2.93 Ghz Conroe at $2499
They need to sit between the iMac and MacPro.
I think TenoBell seems to hit it in the sweet spot here.
Having 2gb of ram in a box like this would be a good for just about anybody in the design/webdesign/creative space. And when pricing peeks into the MacPro line, the specialty areas such as video/3D/production are already covered. That's small business up to large agency-sized places.
Time a product release like this between Vista, Leopard and the upcoming CS3 release and Apple might spark a good initial product run.
I'm holding out for a MacPro for my next purchase since I want want to invest in a good machine but it's taking some time. Figure that the dual/quad core options will affect pricing and other options by the time I get one. I'd be a dead ringer for a mid-range Conroe xMac though.
. . . Time a product release like this between Vista, Leopard and the upcoming CS3 release and Apple might spark a good initial product run.
But what would a bunch of old fogeys want with an xMac? According to an article in the Register today, half of us are 55 and older! Maybe now Apple's desktop strategy is making a little bit of sense. There are the pros and old folks buying desktops. Maybe iMacs sell well into retirement centers? Man, can you imagine what a 24 inch iMac would look like in 640 X 480 resolution? It would be great! Job's strategy finally revealed.
The MacBook and MacBook Pro are for the younger crowd, the other half of Apple's customer base, with good eyesight.
But what would a bunch of old fogeys want with an xMac? According to an article in the Register today, half of us are 55 and older!
I apologize if I've offended some here who are over 55. Hopefully everyone here will reach 55 and way beyond, so in a way I was poking fun at all of us. Currently, I'm about 20 years from age 55, but I intend to be respectful to those of all ages, whether 10 or 100. A few years back I enjoyed reading and exchanging thoughts with a 13 year old Mac enthusiast.
BTW, nobody complained. My post just bothered me a little.
I'm over 55 (62 actually) and use a 20 G5 iMac at home. In the office I use a G4 1.5 PB attached to a 23" display. If I was to buy another Mac in the near future it would be a mid level headless that could work with the 23" display and be significantly faster than the PB. I don't want a Mac Pro - the bloody tower is too big for my needs.
The other thing that comes to mind is all of the Mac mini buyers that went with the mini to give macs a try. Now they want something more, but have no desire to pay for a Mac Pro. Their only choice right now is the iMac line, which might be OK if they don't have a display they like.
Apple does have a hole in their lineup and it's one that could generate very good gross margins. Pity.
No, it wasn't. The PC competitors were several hundred dollars less. Packard Bell and eMachines were very inexpensive. iMacs NEVER were priced as entry level computers and repeated assertions to that doesn't make it a fact. There were even cheaper Macs than the iMac at around $700 or whatever (its in a previous post).
Edit: found it - Performa 450 was $750 and eMachine eTower @ $499 in 1998. The 2006 equivalent to the headless Performa 450 is the Mini. Yes, Apple's pricing hasn't slipped as much as PC pricing has. That's a GOOD thing for Apple and for OSX users. Apple has to maintain an OS while Dell outsources that to Microsoft or perhaps Linux.
What on earth are you talking about?! The Performa 450 was the consumer version of the LC III. It was discontinued in 1993, and it cost $1800! The thing had a 25 MHz 68030 and wouldn't have even been able to run the Mac OS in 1998.
I remember the launch of the original iMac quite well, and there were no cheaper Macs on the market, and hadn't been in recent history, save some by then discontinued UMAX clones. That was part of why that machine was so compelling to so many people despite being extremely crippled - no one had ever seen a machine that cheap from Apple before. It was an entry-level machine, all right, and was extremely limited in what it could do (no high-speed bus, and no way to add one!), but for a Mac it was cheap, cheap, cheap.
The low-end desktop in May 1998 immediately before the iMac's announcement would have been the low-end Power Macintosh G3, IIRC. It would have been around $2000. A little earlier, the Power Mac 65xx started at $1800, but they were already gone by the time the iMac showed up, so this kind of lets the air out of your argument, I think.
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Originally Posted by vinea
Yes, they replaced a $750 with a $1299 one. And it was more popular. Which means price isn't everything nor is Apple required to compete in the entry level market at entry level prices.
They added a new $1299 machine below the $2000 one. It "replaced" an $1800 machine, which had been discontinued for a few months already. And surprisingly enough, it was popular. So maybe price actually is kind of important (imagine that).
According to MacTracker, vinea is correct. The Performa 450 was the consumer version of the LCIII and sold for $750.
Yah, I looked it up on one of the mac history sites. I was a mac owner back then but heck I don't remember the pricing off the top of my head. Other than "man this isn't cheap".
Hmmm...thinking about it I think I had an Amiga 2000 with a Emplant around that timeframe and not a Mac.
MacTracker is using apple-history.com for its source, and apple-history.com does claim it was $750. However, everymac.com says it was $1800. Lowendmac.com claims it was $1350! Obviously, some accuracy has been lost to the mists of time. How to settle this dispute? Well fortunately, there's a very handy service called Expanded Academic ASAP (Infotrac) that lets us search through full-text versions of old magazine articles, so we can see what was written about the Performa 450 at a time when it was actually a new Mac model instead of 13 years later. I did a little search, and here's what I found:
Ito, Russell. "Compact and colorful." MacUser v9.n4 (April 1993): pp100(6).
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The $1,349 Mac LC III is an equal or better value than the Color Classic and much better than the LC II; it has a faster 25-MHz 68030 processor, a 32-bit-wide data bus and room for up to 36Mbytes of RAM.
Ah, so the LC III, which the Performa 450 is based on, cost $1349. That explains lowendmac.com's claim. Now let's see if we can find the price of the actual Performa 450 itself:
Ito, Russell. "New on the menu." MacUser v9.n6 (June 1993): pp33(1).
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The Performa 450, which is expected to sell for about $1,799, is a repackaged LC III, so it's twice as fast as the other 400-series Performas. The 450 comes configured as a 4/120 model, with support for 8-bit color. Unlike its siblings, the 450 can have nearly quadruple the amount of RAM (a maximum of 36 megabytes instead of 10) and double the video bit depth.
Expected to sell for about $1799. Not definite, but getting closer.
Performa 450, priced at $1,799, is based on a 25-MHz '030 and comes with 4 Mbytes of RAM, expandable to 36 Mbytes, and a 120-Mbyte hard drive.
Aha! Here we have a definite, absolute statement on the price of the Performa 450, in April 1993 just as the model was coming out. $1,799. So there you have it. I suspect that what happened was that the price on apple-history.com was a typo, and they left the 1 out of a price that they intended to put as $1750. It still would have been off by $49, but it's a lot closer than $750 is.
And, of course, this price is in 1993, the introduction date of the Performa 450. In 1998, it would probably have cost more like $15 on eBay. But then again, with a 25 MHz 68030, 4 MB of RAM, and a 120 MB hard drive, it probably would have been about as useful in 1998 as it would be today. To the best of my knowledge, the first shipping Mac OS machine that cost under $1000 was made by UMAX during the clone era. Around the time the iMac was released, there was no Mac model shipping that was as cheap, or even in the neighborhood. I'm sure that the iMac probably wasn't cheap compared to Dell (what Mac model ever has been?), but it was extremely dirt cheap compared to any other Mac model available in the summer of 1998.
edit: I bet you'd like some sources to back up that last sentence of mine. Here you go:
"I am incredibly thrilled to tell you that Apple is getting back into the consumer market," interim Apple CEO Steve Jobs said at this morning's news conference, where he unveiled the company's new iMac consumer model.
Getting back into the consumer market. Because they had no consumer offerings at the time.
"The iMac Cometh." Macworld v15.n7 (July 1998): pp17(1).
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Retro is in, and Steve Jobs knows it. He's reached into Apple's past in hopes of blazing a trail back into the hearts of consumers, with a daring new entry-level Macintosh: the iMac. Two years ago, Apple quietly exited the low-cost computing market, citing an inability to compete with manufacturers of Windows-based PCs on price and time-to-market issues. Since that time, the company downsized and, according to interim CEO Jobs, became much more efficient and able to deliver new products faster. As a result, Jobs says, Apple is ready to reenter the consumer market with a dramatic new Macintosh that relies as much on nostalgia as it does on bold technology and design. At $1,299, the iMac offers leading-edge capabilities, a breathtaking design, and a bargain price.
By the way, here's an amusing letter to the editor I found in the May 25, 1998 edition of MacWEEK. Sound like anyone we know?
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Wrong product, price
The iMac isn't cheap enough to attract customers away from cheap PCs, and it's only different enough from a normal Mac to hurt other Mac sales.
Consider a company that uses a mixture of Macs for various purposes: Why use anything other than an iMac for less demanding work? Silicon Graphics Inc. tried selling a cheap-but-not-cheap-enough, fast computer (the O2), hoping to grab sales away from Apple and Wintel; all they did was cannibalize their own premium sales. Now companies that used to use $50,000 workstations use $15,000 workstations, while Mac and PC shops ignore them.
iMac should be cheaper or less Mac-like.
Boy, this prediction sure turned out to be true, didn't it. Yep, by being cheap, the iMac sure did cannibalize the rest of the Mac lineup and cause the death of Apple...
And, of course, this price is in 1993, the introduction date of the Performa 450.
As you say...those sources are from 1993 not 1998. But my bad if Apple History is incorrect. I should have looked for a second reference.
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I'm sure that the iMac probably wasn't cheap compared to Dell (what Mac model ever has been?), but it was extremely dirt cheap compared to any other Mac model available in the summer of 1998.
Dirt cheap is not $1299 in 1998. Dirt cheap in 1998 is $499. Again, that's like saying that a Porsche Boxster is "dirt cheap" at $45K...
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Boy, this prediction sure turned out to be true, didn't it. Yep, by being cheap, the iMac sure did cannibalize the rest of the Mac lineup and cause the death of Apple...
$1299 in 1998 is $1500 in 2005 dollars. Mkay...I have no issue with a consumer mac model selling for $1499 given that's what they are selling for. The Power Macs of the era started around $1500 which is a tad lower than today's Mac Pros but not by that much.
As you say...those sources are from 1993 not 1998. But my bad if Apple History is incorrect. I should have looked for a second reference.
Apple History also says that the model was introduced in 1993. The thing it gets wrong is the price.
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I'm sure that the iMac probably wasn't cheap compared to Dell (what Mac model ever has been?), but it was extremely dirt cheap compared to any other Mac model available in the summer of 1998.
Dirt cheap is not $1299 in 1998. Dirt cheap in 1998 is $499. Again, that's like saying that a Porsche Boxster is "dirt cheap" at $45K...
Read what I said again. The iMac was dirt cheap compared to any other Mac model available in the summer of 1998. I even prefaced it with "I'm sure that the iMac probably wasn't cheap compared to Dell (what Mac model ever has been?)"
At the time the iMac was announced, the cheapest Mac was $2000. By the time the iMac actually shipped, that model had been discontinued and the cheapest non-iMac desktop from Apple was $2400! Compared to those prices, the iMac was indeed dirt cheap.
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$1299 in 1998 is $1500 in 2005 dollars. Mkay...I have no issue with a consumer mac model selling for $1499 given that's what they are selling for. The Power Macs of the era started around $1500 which is a tad lower than today's Mac Pros but not by that much.
The original Mac 128K cost $2500 in 1984 dollars. How much would that be in 2005 dollars? Does that mean it would be a good idea to have the consumer line start at over 3 grand in 2005?
This has already been addressed. Snoopy said: "In 1998 iMacs were priced as an entry level computer for the masses. What you are missing is that computer prices have tumbled considerably, far more than the dollar amount would indicated because of inflation." Yeah, in 1998, you could get a PC for $500. But you'd probably have to sign up for 2 years service with AOL or MSN, or maybe you'd even need to run some software that would periodically show you ads. Don't you remember all that crap that went on in the dot-com bubble days? It was like the "free" cell phones of today - subsidized by something else you have to pay for. Bottom line - in 1998, $1300 was an entry-level price for a computer. Maybe not the absolute rock bottom, but still entry-level. In 2005, it's not, because the prices of computers have decreased faster than inflation would make them increase.
Oh, and the Power Mac line didn't start at $1500 in 1998. It was $2000, and then $2400. You're looking at the G3 All-In-One, which in addition to being an AIO (albeit with PCI slots), was only available to schools - not consumers!
Read what I said again. The iMac was dirt cheap compared to any other Mac model available in the summer of 1998. I even prefaced it with "I'm sure that the iMac probably wasn't cheap compared to Dell (what Mac model ever has been?)"
As I said...that's like saying a Porsche is cheap at $45K. It is inexpensive in comparison to their product line, not to the general market. Snoopy's argument is that Apple has competed in the consumer entry market against the likes of Dell in the past and that the original iMac was inexpensive.
It was not. It doesn't matter how much less it is in comparison to other Mac models it still wasn't inexpensive.
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The original Mac 128K cost $2500 in 1984 dollars. How much would that be in 2005 dollars? Does that mean it would be a good idea to have the consumer line start at over 3 grand in 2005?
Nope. But that still doesn't change the fact that the iMac was never a very affordable machine by the masses.
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This has already been addressed. Snoopy said: "In 1998 iMacs were priced as an entry level computer for the masses. What you are missing is that computer prices have tumbled considerably, far more than the dollar amount would indicated because of inflation.
It wasn't entry level except in the same sense that a Boxster is "entry level". Apple has always been a premium brand. If it makes you happier to say that Apple is a mid-grade premium brand like Acura that's fine but the RSX at $23K isn't "entry level" either.
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Yeah, in 1998, you could get a PC for $500. But you'd probably have to sign up for 2 years service with AOL or MSN, or maybe you'd even need to run some software that would periodically show you ads.
I don't recall if that was part of the deal eith eMachines but Packard Bell didn't do that. I also recall that the ones that required 2 year service were free...not $500.
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Bottom line - in 1998, $1300 was an entry-level price for a computer. Maybe not the absolute rock bottom, but still entry-level. In 2005, it's not, because the prices of computers have decreased faster than inflation would make them increase.
Mmm...you'll have to prove that. I looked around and in 1999 Dell's Precision 210 workstation was only $1668. For the entry level a year ealier to be in the $1300 range is unlikely.
Oh, and the Power Mac line didn't start at $1500 in 1998. It was $2000, and then $2400. You're looking at the G3 All-In-One, which in addition to being an AIO (albeit with PCI slots), was only available to schools - not consumers!
The Blue and White started in the $1500 range in Jan 1999. The G3 AIO that you DQ'd for being edu was $1500 but the Power Mac 6500 started at $1799. The Power Mac 5400 LC and Power Mac 4400 were discontinued sometime in 1998.
There were a plethora of Power Macs during that time period. Some under $2K. Was there a specific model for $1500 in 1998 excluding the edu market? I can't show that but I can show there were models in the general price range from the history sites both before and after 1998.
As I said...that's like saying a Porsche is cheap at $45K. It is inexpensive in comparison to their product line, not to the general market. Snoopy's argument is that Apple has competed in the consumer entry market against the likes of Dell in the past and that the original iMac was inexpensive.
As I said... it's not. I said it was dirt cheap for a Mac, which it was. If the next model up for Porsche was $100,000, then $45K would be pretty damn cheap for a Porsche.
Now, let's see if that's actually the case (that $1,300 was not affordable for a computer in 1998).
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It was not. It doesn't matter how much less it is in comparison to other Mac models it still wasn't inexpensive.
Nope. But that still doesn't change the fact that the iMac was never a very affordable machine by the masses.
Let's see what people at the time thought, without going through the 2005 filter.
"PC Finalist: Apple iMac." PC Magazine (Dec 15, 1998): p166(1).
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Priced under $1,300 at introduction, the iMac is an inexpensive machine that nonetheless redefines traditional concepts of PC aesthetics and ease of use.
"The Lazarus effect." PC Week 15.51 (Dec 21, 1998): p22(1).
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Meanwhile, the iMac's trendy, retro appearance and $1,299 price caught the eye of consumers and Wall Street alike, boosting Apple stock to new heights and drawing in a bevy of new developers for the operating system.
Pope, Tom. "Eyeing the iMac." PC Magazine (Nov 15, 1998): p42(1).
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Price is another pleasing feature of the iMac. For $1,300 (street price) you get a complete computer that can run a large variety of home and office software. It comes with a 233-MHz PowerPC 750 (G3) processor, a good-size 4GB hard disk, 32MB of memory, a fast CD-ROM drive, a 56-Kbps modem, and an Ethernet network connection. The machine also has built-in surround-sound stereo speakers and a 15-inch flicker-free monitor, and it comes with 2MB of memory for its ATI 3-D Rage IIC graphics processor.
Breeden, John II. "Apple's iMac rates high on cool scale but has built-in limitations." Government Computer News (Nov 9, 1998): p32(1).
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Because of the iMac's entry-level price, I expected poor graphics. But I got a big surprise: a built-in Rage IIc 2-D/3-D graphics chip from All Technologies Inc. of Thornhill. Ontario, and 2M of synchronous graphics RAM.
Campbell, Scott. "Apple's new iMac living up to hype." Computer Reseller News 805 (August 31, 1998): p63.
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The iMac, Apple's latest entry in the low-end consumer market and perhaps the first computer to vaguely resemble a warped egg, is an all-in-one system retailing for $1,299.
Jackson, David. "Apple's new crop." Time v151.n19 (May 18, 1998): pp70(1).
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Depending on your point of view, the translucent blue iMac computer introduced by Apple last week is either the coolest or the weirdest-looking personal computer ever made. It's fast, it's cheap, and if you're looking for a cute little PC to go with one of those new Volkswagen Beetles, this is the one.
The analysts said the iMac, despite Apple not positioning it as a corporate box, is in line with the price/performance of sub-$1,000 PCs, due to extras that are included in the price, such as the monitor and Ethernet being built in.
During Jobs' product announcement it was revealed that the iMac outperformed the fastest PC machines on the market in benchmark tests, despite it being Apple's low-end offering.
Some things I'd like to say about these articles:
1. I found these articles doing a search on InfoTrac for articles containing the word "iMac" in the year 1998. I didn't use keywords like "iMac cheap" or "iMac inexpensive" or anything that would get me biased results.
2. I specifically excluded Mac magazines like MacWorld or MacWEEK, as pretty much every article from those publications mentions the inexpensiveness of the iMac.
3. Among all the articles I looked at, I found only one complaining about the iMac's price. Contrast that with all the articles saying the contrary, which I've posted above.
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The Blue and White started in the $1500 range in Jan 1999.
Huh? I thought we were talking about 1998, when the iMac was introduced. The B&W was made after the iMac. It also didn't include a monitor. I'll agree that the B&W was a great machine, though, one for which Apple has no equivalent today.
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The G3 AIO that you DQ'd for being edu was $1500 but the Power Mac 6500 started at $1799.
The 6500 was discontinued in March 1998, several months before the release of the iMac, and half a year before the iMac actually shipped. (link)
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The Power Mac 5400 LC and Power Mac 4400 were discontinued sometime in 1998.
5400 LC - LC designated "edu" in Apple's old naming conventions. Everything after the LC III (the edu version of the Performa 450) with "LC" in the title was an edu machine. Besides that, I can't find a mention of that model anywhere other than Apple-History, which has questionable reliability. Everymac.com says all the Power Mac 5400s were edu-only and were all discontinued by March 1998 before the iMac was released. That jibes because the consumer versions of those machines were the Performa 5400 series, and they were all discontinued by December 1997. In addition to all of this, the 5xxx series were all-in-ones! The iMac was basically re-starting the consumer Performa 5xxx line, which had been dead for quite some time by the time the iMac shipped.
As for the 4400, it was discontinued in 1997. (linkylinky)
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There were a plethora of Power Macs during that time period. Some under $2K.
All of them edu-only. The only Power Macs available to non-edu consumers were the Power Mac G3s. The marketing at the time was "Pro, Go, Whoa." "Pro" being Power Macintosh G3, "Go" being PowerBook, and "Whoa" being iMac.
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Was there a specific model for $1500 in 1998 excluding the edu market?
Nope. Also, was there a specific model for $1300 including the monitor, excluding the edu market? Not since the death of the clones in 1997, the UMAX SuperMac C500 line being the only Mac OS machines ever to go below $1000 until the 350 MHz iMac in October 1999.
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I can't show that but I can show there were models in the general price range from the history sites both before and after 1998.
Unfortunately, you're out of your league here. You admit you weren't following Apple at the time the iMac came out - I was, and I can assure you that there was nothing like it in its price range at the time it came out.
Why do you think Jobs would have admitted to not having a consumer offering at all before the iMac's release if it weren't true? Is it typical for CEOs to criticize their own companies baselessly? The fact: two years before the iMac came out, Apple quit selling consumer machines, leaving that market to the clones. After the death of the clones, there was nothing until the release of the iMac. Hence the re-entrance of Apple into the consumer market in 1998.
As I said... it's not. I said it was dirt cheap for a Mac, which it was. If the next model up for Porsche was $100,000, then $45K would be pretty damn cheap for a Porsche.
Mmm...as it happens you pretty much go from Boxster to 911...which is a $100K car. I suppose you could do a Cayenne now but it is a SUV.
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Now, let's see if that's actually the case (that $1,300 was not affordable for a computer in 1998).
Well it was nice debating someone that could actually do some research for a change. I will conceed the battle but not the war.
I still contend that the current iMacs aren't much worse price wise than the original iMac. If $1,300 was affordable in 1998 then $999 is affordable in 2006. Likewise, I still believe that Apple should continue to concentrate on the laptop vs desktop markets in 2007 and seek to introduce new tablets and UMPCs over extending their desktop lines though a prosumer Mac Pro for around $1600-$1700 would be nice.
Well it was nice debating someone that could actually do some research for a change. I will conceed the battle but not the war.
Wise decision.
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I still contend that the current iMacs aren't much worse price wise than the original iMac. If $1,300 was affordable in 1998 then $999 is affordable in 2006. Likewise, I still believe that Apple should continue to concentrate on the laptop vs desktop markets in 2007 and seek to introduce new tablets and UMPCs over extending their desktop lines though a prosumer Mac Pro for around $1600-$1700 would be nice.
I don't think that anyone is claiming that $999 isn't affordable, although it's certainly not low-end anymore. However, let's look at a few things.
You've been claiming that PCs could be had for under $500 in mid-1998 when the iMac debuted. However, all the articles I found mentioned "sub-$1000 PCs", not "sub-$500 PCs". You can actually see this in the last article I quoted in my previous post. However, here are a few more articles on the subject:
From around the time the iMac was announced, we have:
Brandt, Andrew and Robb, Joanne. "SUB-$1000 Bargains, 333-MHz Beasts." PC World v16.n5 (May 1998): pp227(3).
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What about these sub-$1000 PCs that you've heard so much about? Well, you'd better lower your expectations. Sub-$1000s use older technology to keep prices low--we're talking MMX processors, 2GB hard drives, and 14--or 15-inch monitors. Most of these systems are ill-equipped to make our Top 20 charts. However, two sub-$1000 PCs--without monitors, that is--from HP and IBM make this month's Top 10 Home PCs chart.
Sub-$1000 PCs were pretty much the bottom of the barrel in mid-1998. Are you wondering what those two PCs from HP and IBM on the Top 10 Home PCs chart were? So was I:
Silvius, Susan. "Top 10 Home PCs." PC World v16.n5 (May 1998): pp252(2).
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The HP Pavilion 3260 pops up at number four. Priced at $799 ($1198 with monitor), it's the least-expensive system ever on the budget chart. It's also by far the chart's slowest. Still, the price is astonishingly good for a Pentium-level computer, and the Pavilion's customized online support and system wizard make it easy to use.
Least-expensive ever, eh? And with a monitor, it's a whole $100 less than an iMac.
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Finally, the $999 IBM Aptiva E26 ($1348 with monitor) steals the last spot on the chart from its lower-end cousin, the Aptiva E16 (number four last month). An average performer for a budget computer, the E26 comes bundled with Lotus SmartSuite 97. Based on Advanced Micro Devices' K6-233 processor, this system is underpowered for video--or CPU-intensive applications like 3D games, but it's a great choice for managing your household finances or helping your kids write letters and do homework.
And this one costs more than the iMac with a monitor. The other three on the "budget" section of PC World's list had prices of $1829, $1769, and, in the case of the Gateway G5-233, it was "all for a modest $1499." Hmm, so even $1829 was still "budget" in 1998.
Of course, HP, IBM, Gateway, et al. were relatively reputable vendors. eMachines didn't exist yet until Sept. 1998 according to Wikipedia, but Packard Bell was around, and might have had cheaper stuff. However, this article from half a year later, in December 1998 says this:
Graves, Lucas. "Welcome to The Land of the Free PC." MC Technology Marketing Intelligence 18.8 (August 1998): p36.
Quote:
We're calling it "The Land of the Free PC" but you might be tempted to refer to it as "Future Imperfect" Along with Yahoo's stock price and Dell's marketshare, PC prices have captured imaginations and a fair number of headlines over the last year. Yet the sub-$1,000 desktop computer, now morphing into the sub-S700 desktop computer, is no matter for idle amazement. A PC you can get for the price of a decent bicycle represents a fundamentally different kind of purchase than one that costs as much as a used car. As such, cheap PCs will leave a radically different industry in their wake--one in which world-class strategic marketing is more important than ever.
...
Like the Internet, the saga of the now-in-famous "sub-$1,000 PC" is one of those stories that generates volumes of ink and yet may still be under-hyped. Plummeting price points constitute without a doubt the most significant trend in the PC market today, and that's not likely to change over the next year. IntelliQuest's Michael Gale predicts that by next Christmas, on the eve of the year 2000, the industry could be contending with price tags at or below $500 for a reasonably well-equipped home computer system.
Now, you'll notice this article is from December 1998, quite a while after the iMac was announced. At the time this article was written, $700 PCs were just starting to come out - before that, they cost more than that - and the article indicates that $500 PCs still didn't exist in Dec. 1998, which again was later than the iMac, and that this publication expected them to show up about a year later.
So anyway. At the time the iMac was introduced, there were no $500 PCs, and sub-$1000 was the norm for cheap PCs without monitors, making the iMac quite competitive with even the low end of the PC range. You cannot deny that the general prices in the PC industry have plummeted since then - nowadays, you can get a tower for $450 - and from Dell, not some eMachines crap that never works right. So while $999 would have been very cheap in 1998, it is not anymore, even when taking inflation into account, because computer prices have dropped much faster than inflation has raised them. So let's look at the B&W G3, introduced somewhat later than the iMac in 1999. That machine was nicely expandable, and started at $1500. In 2005 dollars that would be about $1710, so due to the falling prices of the computer market, Apple should provide a tower in 2005 that is significantly cheaper than $1710 just to match what they had in 1998. In fact, due to the fact that prices have dropped far enough that the dollar amounts have decreased despite inflation, the price should actually be significantly cheaper than the $1500 price of the B&W G3, because what was normal in 1998 and 1999 is expensive now.
as apple continues to 'gadgetize' their consumer oriented products, i would expect the prices to keep falling - cool stuff and low prices (but not necessarily the lowest) is gadget-jukies are looking for...
Comments
. . . I bought a Pc that now has a Tv tuner card,Sound card, plays games great and cost....half of what iMac does. Only 1 machine can compete with this PC and thats Powermac but it cost 3 times what my Pc did. See yah Apple.
I understand your pain.
Personally, I'd have a real problem switching to Windows. My wife use Windows at work, and we have a Dell in the basement, provided by courtesy of her employer. I help her keep things running, Ugh.
I'd rather buy a used G5 Power Mac than run Windows. By the time everything is Universal in a couple years, the Intel Macs will be on eBay at a reasonable price. I'd like to pick up the current Mac Pro at half the price. Way more than I need, but if Apple doesn't have what I want, a Mac Pro will do.
All of its products suffer because of another Mac.
Its called product differentiation. Most every business does it.
Mini is given crapo graphics for sake of iMac
The mini uses integrated graphics because over 60% of the PC market uses it.
Apple is doing a great job running off folks. Ran me off
Is that the result when you've sold more computers, made more money, and have a higher stock price than you've ever had before?
Only 1 machine can compete with this PC and thats Powermac but it cost 3 times what my Pc did. See yah Apple
Soooo.....one of those $399 jobs from Dell is better than the entire Mac lineup except for the MacPro?
I bought a Pc that now has a Tv tuner card,Sound card, plays games great and cost....half of what iMac does.
That's why its great to have a choice.
Which computer did you buy? I'm always open to a better deal than these over priced under functional Mac's. Especially computers from companies that are barely profitable if profitable at all, whose stock is stagnant, and has break even margins. Makes me feel like they aren't getting over on me.
I see nothing wrong with presenting ideas and saying what we want in a desktop computer. Anyone who is not interest should skip this thread. It's not the longest thread.
Right. Complaints about the thread being long are silly. Ars Technica, in their Macintoshian Achaia forum, has some that are 5000 posts.
I'd rather have it all here than 18 different new threads all speculating about the same thing.
Thread will not be locked, at least not by me, ever.
No they are not. The 2.66 and 2.93 Conroe is more expensive than all Merom choices.
The xMac should roughly be here:
2.4GHz Conroe for $1249
2.66 Ghz Conroe at $1699
2.93 Ghz Conroe at $2499
They need to sit between the iMac and MacPro.
I think TenoBell seems to hit it in the sweet spot here.
Having 2gb of ram in a box like this would be a good for just about anybody in the design/webdesign/creative space. And when pricing peeks into the MacPro line, the specialty areas such as video/3D/production are already covered. That's small business up to large agency-sized places.
Time a product release like this between Vista, Leopard and the upcoming CS3 release and Apple might spark a good initial product run.
I'm holding out for a MacPro for my next purchase since I want want to invest in a good machine but it's taking some time. Figure that the dual/quad core options will affect pricing and other options by the time I get one. I'd be a dead ringer for a mid-range Conroe xMac though.
. . . Time a product release like this between Vista, Leopard and the upcoming CS3 release and Apple might spark a good initial product run.
But what would a bunch of old fogeys want with an xMac? According to an article in the Register today, half of us are 55 and older! Maybe now Apple's desktop strategy is making a little bit of sense. There are the pros and old folks buying desktops. Maybe iMacs sell well into retirement centers? Man, can you imagine what a 24 inch iMac would look like in 640 X 480 resolution? It would be great! Job's strategy finally revealed.
The MacBook and MacBook Pro are for the younger crowd, the other half of Apple's customer base, with good eyesight.
No they are not. The 2.66 and 2.93 Conroe is more expensive than all Merom choices.
The xMac should roughly be here:
2.4GHz Conroe for $1249
2.66 Ghz Conroe at $1699
2.93 Ghz Conroe at $2499
They need to sit between the iMac and MacPro.
Works for me. I'd buy one tomorrow if such a machine existed.
But what would a bunch of old fogeys want with an xMac? According to an article in the Register today, half of us are 55 and older!
I apologize if I've offended some here who are over 55. Hopefully everyone here will reach 55 and way beyond, so in a way I was poking fun at all of us. Currently, I'm about 20 years from age 55, but I intend to be respectful to those of all ages, whether 10 or 100. A few years back I enjoyed reading and exchanging thoughts with a 13 year old Mac enthusiast.
BTW, nobody complained. My post just bothered me a little.
The other thing that comes to mind is all of the Mac mini buyers that went with the mini to give macs a try. Now they want something more, but have no desire to pay for a Mac Pro. Their only choice right now is the iMac line, which might be OK if they don't have a display they like.
Apple does have a hole in their lineup and it's one that could generate very good gross margins. Pity.
No, it wasn't. The PC competitors were several hundred dollars less. Packard Bell and eMachines were very inexpensive. iMacs NEVER were priced as entry level computers and repeated assertions to that doesn't make it a fact. There were even cheaper Macs than the iMac at around $700 or whatever (its in a previous post).
Edit: found it - Performa 450 was $750 and eMachine eTower @ $499 in 1998. The 2006 equivalent to the headless Performa 450 is the Mini. Yes, Apple's pricing hasn't slipped as much as PC pricing has. That's a GOOD thing for Apple and for OSX users. Apple has to maintain an OS while Dell outsources that to Microsoft or perhaps Linux.
What on earth are you talking about?! The Performa 450 was the consumer version of the LC III. It was discontinued in 1993, and it cost $1800! The thing had a 25 MHz 68030 and wouldn't have even been able to run the Mac OS in 1998.
I remember the launch of the original iMac quite well, and there were no cheaper Macs on the market, and hadn't been in recent history, save some by then discontinued UMAX clones. That was part of why that machine was so compelling to so many people despite being extremely crippled - no one had ever seen a machine that cheap from Apple before. It was an entry-level machine, all right, and was extremely limited in what it could do (no high-speed bus, and no way to add one!), but for a Mac it was cheap, cheap, cheap.
The low-end desktop in May 1998 immediately before the iMac's announcement would have been the low-end Power Macintosh G3, IIRC. It would have been around $2000. A little earlier, the Power Mac 65xx started at $1800, but they were already gone by the time the iMac showed up, so this kind of lets the air out of your argument, I think.
Yes, they replaced a $750 with a $1299 one. And it was more popular. Which means price isn't everything nor is Apple required to compete in the entry level market at entry level prices.
They added a new $1299 machine below the $2000 one. It "replaced" an $1800 machine, which had been discontinued for a few months already. And surprisingly enough, it was popular. So maybe price actually is kind of important (imagine that).
According to MacTracker, vinea is correct. The Performa 450 was the consumer version of the LCIII and sold for $750.
Yah, I looked it up on one of the mac history sites. I was a mac owner back then but heck I don't remember the pricing off the top of my head. Other than "man this isn't cheap".
Hmmm...thinking about it I think I had an Amiga 2000 with a Emplant around that timeframe and not a Mac.
Vinea
Ito, Russell. "Compact and colorful." MacUser v9.n4 (April 1993): pp100(6).
The $1,349 Mac LC III is an equal or better value than the Color Classic and much better than the LC II; it has a faster 25-MHz 68030 processor, a 32-bit-wide data bus and room for up to 36Mbytes of RAM.
Ah, so the LC III, which the Performa 450 is based on, cost $1349. That explains lowendmac.com's claim. Now let's see if we can find the price of the actual Performa 450 itself:
Ito, Russell. "New on the menu." MacUser v9.n6 (June 1993): pp33(1).
The Performa 450, which is expected to sell for about $1,799, is a repackaged LC III, so it's twice as fast as the other 400-series Performas. The 450 comes configured as a 4/120 model, with support for 8-bit color. Unlike its siblings, the 450 can have nearly quadruple the amount of RAM (a maximum of 36 megabytes instead of 10) and double the video bit depth.
Expected to sell for about $1799. Not definite, but getting closer.
Swartz, Jon. "Apple revamping Performa line, adding new models." MacWEEK v7.n15 (April 12, 1993): pp13(1).
Performa 450, priced at $1,799, is based on a 25-MHz '030 and comes with 4 Mbytes of RAM, expandable to 36 Mbytes, and a 120-Mbyte hard drive.
Aha! Here we have a definite, absolute statement on the price of the Performa 450, in April 1993 just as the model was coming out. $1,799. So there you have it. I suspect that what happened was that the price on apple-history.com was a typo, and they left the 1 out of a price that they intended to put as $1750. It still would have been off by $49, but it's a lot closer than $750 is.
And, of course, this price is in 1993, the introduction date of the Performa 450. In 1998, it would probably have cost more like $15 on eBay. But then again, with a 25 MHz 68030, 4 MB of RAM, and a 120 MB hard drive, it probably would have been about as useful in 1998 as it would be today. To the best of my knowledge, the first shipping Mac OS machine that cost under $1000 was made by UMAX during the clone era. Around the time the iMac was released, there was no Mac model shipping that was as cheap, or even in the neighborhood. I'm sure that the iMac probably wasn't cheap compared to Dell (what Mac model ever has been?), but it was extremely dirt cheap compared to any other Mac model available in the summer of 1998.
edit: I bet you'd like some sources to back up that last sentence of mine. Here you go:
Rothenburg, Matthew. "News: Jobs unveils consumer iMac." MacWEEK v12.n18 (May 11, 1998): pp99(1).
"I am incredibly thrilled to tell you that Apple is getting back into the consumer market," interim Apple CEO Steve Jobs said at this morning's news conference, where he unveiled the company's new iMac consumer model.
Getting back into the consumer market. Because they had no consumer offerings at the time.
"The iMac Cometh." Macworld v15.n7 (July 1998): pp17(1).
Retro is in, and Steve Jobs knows it. He's reached into Apple's past in hopes of blazing a trail back into the hearts of consumers, with a daring new entry-level Macintosh: the iMac. Two years ago, Apple quietly exited the low-cost computing market, citing an inability to compete with manufacturers of Windows-based PCs on price and time-to-market issues. Since that time, the company downsized and, according to interim CEO Jobs, became much more efficient and able to deliver new products faster. As a result, Jobs says, Apple is ready to reenter the consumer market with a dramatic new Macintosh that relies as much on nostalgia as it does on bold technology and design. At $1,299, the iMac offers leading-edge capabilities, a breathtaking design, and a bargain price.
By the way, here's an amusing letter to the editor I found in the May 25, 1998 edition of MacWEEK. Sound like anyone we know?
Wrong product, price
The iMac isn't cheap enough to attract customers away from cheap PCs, and it's only different enough from a normal Mac to hurt other Mac sales.
Consider a company that uses a mixture of Macs for various purposes: Why use anything other than an iMac for less demanding work? Silicon Graphics Inc. tried selling a cheap-but-not-cheap-enough, fast computer (the O2), hoping to grab sales away from Apple and Wintel; all they did was cannibalize their own premium sales. Now companies that used to use $50,000 workstations use $15,000 workstations, while Mac and PC shops ignore them.
iMac should be cheaper or less Mac-like.
Boy, this prediction sure turned out to be true, didn't it. Yep, by being cheap, the iMac sure did cannibalize the rest of the Mac lineup and cause the death of Apple...
And, of course, this price is in 1993, the introduction date of the Performa 450.
As you say...those sources are from 1993 not 1998. But my bad if Apple History is incorrect. I should have looked for a second reference.
I'm sure that the iMac probably wasn't cheap compared to Dell (what Mac model ever has been?), but it was extremely dirt cheap compared to any other Mac model available in the summer of 1998.
Dirt cheap is not $1299 in 1998. Dirt cheap in 1998 is $499. Again, that's like saying that a Porsche Boxster is "dirt cheap" at $45K...
Boy, this prediction sure turned out to be true, didn't it. Yep, by being cheap, the iMac sure did cannibalize the rest of the Mac lineup and cause the death of Apple...
$1299 in 1998 is $1500 in 2005 dollars. Mkay...I have no issue with a consumer mac model selling for $1499 given that's what they are selling for. The Power Macs of the era started around $1500 which is a tad lower than today's Mac Pros but not by that much.
Vinea
As you say...those sources are from 1993 not 1998. But my bad if Apple History is incorrect. I should have looked for a second reference.
Apple History also says that the model was introduced in 1993. The thing it gets wrong is the price.
I'm sure that the iMac probably wasn't cheap compared to Dell (what Mac model ever has been?), but it was extremely dirt cheap compared to any other Mac model available in the summer of 1998.
Dirt cheap is not $1299 in 1998. Dirt cheap in 1998 is $499. Again, that's like saying that a Porsche Boxster is "dirt cheap" at $45K...
Read what I said again. The iMac was dirt cheap compared to any other Mac model available in the summer of 1998. I even prefaced it with "I'm sure that the iMac probably wasn't cheap compared to Dell (what Mac model ever has been?)"
At the time the iMac was announced, the cheapest Mac was $2000. By the time the iMac actually shipped, that model had been discontinued and the cheapest non-iMac desktop from Apple was $2400! Compared to those prices, the iMac was indeed dirt cheap.
$1299 in 1998 is $1500 in 2005 dollars. Mkay...I have no issue with a consumer mac model selling for $1499 given that's what they are selling for. The Power Macs of the era started around $1500 which is a tad lower than today's Mac Pros but not by that much.
The original Mac 128K cost $2500 in 1984 dollars. How much would that be in 2005 dollars? Does that mean it would be a good idea to have the consumer line start at over 3 grand in 2005?
This has already been addressed. Snoopy said: "In 1998 iMacs were priced as an entry level computer for the masses. What you are missing is that computer prices have tumbled considerably, far more than the dollar amount would indicated because of inflation." Yeah, in 1998, you could get a PC for $500. But you'd probably have to sign up for 2 years service with AOL or MSN, or maybe you'd even need to run some software that would periodically show you ads. Don't you remember all that crap that went on in the dot-com bubble days? It was like the "free" cell phones of today - subsidized by something else you have to pay for. Bottom line - in 1998, $1300 was an entry-level price for a computer. Maybe not the absolute rock bottom, but still entry-level. In 2005, it's not, because the prices of computers have decreased faster than inflation would make them increase.
Oh, and the Power Mac line didn't start at $1500 in 1998. It was $2000, and then $2400. You're looking at the G3 All-In-One, which in addition to being an AIO (albeit with PCI slots), was only available to schools - not consumers!
Read what I said again. The iMac was dirt cheap compared to any other Mac model available in the summer of 1998. I even prefaced it with "I'm sure that the iMac probably wasn't cheap compared to Dell (what Mac model ever has been?)"
As I said...that's like saying a Porsche is cheap at $45K. It is inexpensive in comparison to their product line, not to the general market. Snoopy's argument is that Apple has competed in the consumer entry market against the likes of Dell in the past and that the original iMac was inexpensive.
It was not. It doesn't matter how much less it is in comparison to other Mac models it still wasn't inexpensive.
The original Mac 128K cost $2500 in 1984 dollars. How much would that be in 2005 dollars? Does that mean it would be a good idea to have the consumer line start at over 3 grand in 2005?
Nope. But that still doesn't change the fact that the iMac was never a very affordable machine by the masses.
This has already been addressed. Snoopy said: "In 1998 iMacs were priced as an entry level computer for the masses. What you are missing is that computer prices have tumbled considerably, far more than the dollar amount would indicated because of inflation.
It wasn't entry level except in the same sense that a Boxster is "entry level". Apple has always been a premium brand. If it makes you happier to say that Apple is a mid-grade premium brand like Acura that's fine but the RSX at $23K isn't "entry level" either.
Yeah, in 1998, you could get a PC for $500. But you'd probably have to sign up for 2 years service with AOL or MSN, or maybe you'd even need to run some software that would periodically show you ads.
I don't recall if that was part of the deal eith eMachines but Packard Bell didn't do that. I also recall that the ones that required 2 year service were free...not $500.
Bottom line - in 1998, $1300 was an entry-level price for a computer. Maybe not the absolute rock bottom, but still entry-level. In 2005, it's not, because the prices of computers have decreased faster than inflation would make them increase.
Mmm...you'll have to prove that. I looked around and in 1999 Dell's Precision 210 workstation was only $1668. For the entry level a year ealier to be in the $1300 range is unlikely.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...10/ai_54717390
Oh, and the Power Mac line didn't start at $1500 in 1998. It was $2000, and then $2400. You're looking at the G3 All-In-One, which in addition to being an AIO (albeit with PCI slots), was only available to schools - not consumers!
The Blue and White started in the $1500 range in Jan 1999. The G3 AIO that you DQ'd for being edu was $1500 but the Power Mac 6500 started at $1799. The Power Mac 5400 LC and Power Mac 4400 were discontinued sometime in 1998.
There were a plethora of Power Macs during that time period. Some under $2K. Was there a specific model for $1500 in 1998 excluding the edu market? I can't show that but I can show there were models in the general price range from the history sites both before and after 1998.
Vinea
As I said...that's like saying a Porsche is cheap at $45K. It is inexpensive in comparison to their product line, not to the general market. Snoopy's argument is that Apple has competed in the consumer entry market against the likes of Dell in the past and that the original iMac was inexpensive.
As I said... it's not. I said it was dirt cheap for a Mac, which it was. If the next model up for Porsche was $100,000, then $45K would be pretty damn cheap for a Porsche.
Now, let's see if that's actually the case (that $1,300 was not affordable for a computer in 1998).
It was not. It doesn't matter how much less it is in comparison to other Mac models it still wasn't inexpensive.
Nope. But that still doesn't change the fact that the iMac was never a very affordable machine by the masses.
Let's see what people at the time thought, without going through the 2005 filter.
"PC Finalist: Apple iMac." PC Magazine (Dec 15, 1998): p166(1).
Priced under $1,300 at introduction, the iMac is an inexpensive machine that nonetheless redefines traditional concepts of PC aesthetics and ease of use.
"The Lazarus effect." PC Week 15.51 (Dec 21, 1998): p22(1).
Meanwhile, the iMac's trendy, retro appearance and $1,299 price caught the eye of consumers and Wall Street alike, boosting Apple stock to new heights and drawing in a bevy of new developers for the operating system.
Pope, Tom. "Eyeing the iMac." PC Magazine (Nov 15, 1998): p42(1).
Price is another pleasing feature of the iMac. For $1,300 (street price) you get a complete computer that can run a large variety of home and office software. It comes with a 233-MHz PowerPC 750 (G3) processor, a good-size 4GB hard disk, 32MB of memory, a fast CD-ROM drive, a 56-Kbps modem, and an Ethernet network connection. The machine also has built-in surround-sound stereo speakers and a 15-inch flicker-free monitor, and it comes with 2MB of memory for its ATI 3-D Rage IIC graphics processor.
Breeden, John II. "Apple's iMac rates high on cool scale but has built-in limitations." Government Computer News (Nov 9, 1998): p32(1).
Because of the iMac's entry-level price, I expected poor graphics. But I got a big surprise: a built-in Rage IIc 2-D/3-D graphics chip from All Technologies Inc. of Thornhill. Ontario, and 2M of synchronous graphics RAM.
Campbell, Scott. "Apple's new iMac living up to hype." Computer Reseller News 805 (August 31, 1998): p63.
The iMac, Apple's latest entry in the low-end consumer market and perhaps the first computer to vaguely resemble a warped egg, is an all-in-one system retailing for $1,299.
Jackson, David. "Apple's new crop." Time v151.n19 (May 18, 1998): pp70(1).
Depending on your point of view, the translucent blue iMac computer introduced by Apple last week is either the coolest or the weirdest-looking personal computer ever made. It's fast, it's cheap, and if you're looking for a cute little PC to go with one of those new Volkswagen Beetles, this is the one.
Walsh, Jeff. "Apple releases innovative design PC." InfoWorld v20.n19 (May 11, 1998): pp17(1).
The analysts said the iMac, despite Apple not positioning it as a corporate box, is in line with the price/performance of sub-$1,000 PCs, due to extras that are included in the price, such as the monitor and Ethernet being built in.
During Jobs' product announcement it was revealed that the iMac outperformed the fastest PC machines on the market in benchmark tests, despite it being Apple's low-end offering.
Some things I'd like to say about these articles:
1. I found these articles doing a search on InfoTrac for articles containing the word "iMac" in the year 1998. I didn't use keywords like "iMac cheap" or "iMac inexpensive" or anything that would get me biased results.
2. I specifically excluded Mac magazines like MacWorld or MacWEEK, as pretty much every article from those publications mentions the inexpensiveness of the iMac.
3. Among all the articles I looked at, I found only one complaining about the iMac's price. Contrast that with all the articles saying the contrary, which I've posted above.
The Blue and White started in the $1500 range in Jan 1999.
Huh? I thought we were talking about 1998, when the iMac was introduced. The B&W was made after the iMac. It also didn't include a monitor. I'll agree that the B&W was a great machine, though, one for which Apple has no equivalent today.
The G3 AIO that you DQ'd for being edu was $1500 but the Power Mac 6500 started at $1799.
The 6500 was discontinued in March 1998, several months before the release of the iMac, and half a year before the iMac actually shipped. (link)
The Power Mac 5400 LC and Power Mac 4400 were discontinued sometime in 1998.
5400 LC - LC designated "edu" in Apple's old naming conventions. Everything after the LC III (the edu version of the Performa 450) with "LC" in the title was an edu machine. Besides that, I can't find a mention of that model anywhere other than Apple-History, which has questionable reliability. Everymac.com says all the Power Mac 5400s were edu-only and were all discontinued by March 1998 before the iMac was released. That jibes because the consumer versions of those machines were the Performa 5400 series, and they were all discontinued by December 1997. In addition to all of this, the 5xxx series were all-in-ones! The iMac was basically re-starting the consumer Performa 5xxx line, which had been dead for quite some time by the time the iMac shipped.
As for the 4400, it was discontinued in 1997. (linky linky)
There were a plethora of Power Macs during that time period. Some under $2K.
All of them edu-only. The only Power Macs available to non-edu consumers were the Power Mac G3s. The marketing at the time was "Pro, Go, Whoa." "Pro" being Power Macintosh G3, "Go" being PowerBook, and "Whoa" being iMac.
Was there a specific model for $1500 in 1998 excluding the edu market?
Nope. Also, was there a specific model for $1300 including the monitor, excluding the edu market? Not since the death of the clones in 1997, the UMAX SuperMac C500 line being the only Mac OS machines ever to go below $1000 until the 350 MHz iMac in October 1999.
I can't show that but I can show there were models in the general price range from the history sites both before and after 1998.
Unfortunately, you're out of your league here. You admit you weren't following Apple at the time the iMac came out - I was, and I can assure you that there was nothing like it in its price range at the time it came out.
Why do you think Jobs would have admitted to not having a consumer offering at all before the iMac's release if it weren't true? Is it typical for CEOs to criticize their own companies baselessly? The fact: two years before the iMac came out, Apple quit selling consumer machines, leaving that market to the clones. After the death of the clones, there was nothing until the release of the iMac. Hence the re-entrance of Apple into the consumer market in 1998.
As I said... it's not. I said it was dirt cheap for a Mac, which it was. If the next model up for Porsche was $100,000, then $45K would be pretty damn cheap for a Porsche.
Mmm...as it happens you pretty much go from Boxster to 911...which is a $100K car. I suppose you could do a Cayenne now but it is a SUV.
Now, let's see if that's actually the case (that $1,300 was not affordable for a computer in 1998).
Well it was nice debating someone that could actually do some research for a change. I will conceed the battle but not the war.
I still contend that the current iMacs aren't much worse price wise than the original iMac. If $1,300 was affordable in 1998 then $999 is affordable in 2006. Likewise, I still believe that Apple should continue to concentrate on the laptop vs desktop markets in 2007 and seek to introduce new tablets and UMPCs over extending their desktop lines though a prosumer Mac Pro for around $1600-$1700 would be nice.
Vinea
Well it was nice debating someone that could actually do some research for a change. I will conceed the battle but not the war.
Wise decision.
I still contend that the current iMacs aren't much worse price wise than the original iMac. If $1,300 was affordable in 1998 then $999 is affordable in 2006. Likewise, I still believe that Apple should continue to concentrate on the laptop vs desktop markets in 2007 and seek to introduce new tablets and UMPCs over extending their desktop lines though a prosumer Mac Pro for around $1600-$1700 would be nice.
I don't think that anyone is claiming that $999 isn't affordable, although it's certainly not low-end anymore. However, let's look at a few things.
You've been claiming that PCs could be had for under $500 in mid-1998 when the iMac debuted. However, all the articles I found mentioned "sub-$1000 PCs", not "sub-$500 PCs". You can actually see this in the last article I quoted in my previous post. However, here are a few more articles on the subject:
From around the time the iMac was announced, we have:
Brandt, Andrew and Robb, Joanne. "SUB-$1000 Bargains, 333-MHz Beasts." PC World v16.n5 (May 1998): pp227(3).
What about these sub-$1000 PCs that you've heard so much about? Well, you'd better lower your expectations. Sub-$1000s use older technology to keep prices low--we're talking MMX processors, 2GB hard drives, and 14--or 15-inch monitors. Most of these systems are ill-equipped to make our Top 20 charts. However, two sub-$1000 PCs--without monitors, that is--from HP and IBM make this month's Top 10 Home PCs chart.
Sub-$1000 PCs were pretty much the bottom of the barrel in mid-1998. Are you wondering what those two PCs from HP and IBM on the Top 10 Home PCs chart were? So was I:
Silvius, Susan. "Top 10 Home PCs." PC World v16.n5 (May 1998): pp252(2).
The HP Pavilion 3260 pops up at number four. Priced at $799 ($1198 with monitor), it's the least-expensive system ever on the budget chart. It's also by far the chart's slowest. Still, the price is astonishingly good for a Pentium-level computer, and the Pavilion's customized online support and system wizard make it easy to use.
Least-expensive ever, eh? And with a monitor, it's a whole $100 less than an iMac.
Finally, the $999 IBM Aptiva E26 ($1348 with monitor) steals the last spot on the chart from its lower-end cousin, the Aptiva E16 (number four last month). An average performer for a budget computer, the E26 comes bundled with Lotus SmartSuite 97. Based on Advanced Micro Devices' K6-233 processor, this system is underpowered for video--or CPU-intensive applications like 3D games, but it's a great choice for managing your household finances or helping your kids write letters and do homework.
And this one costs more than the iMac with a monitor. The other three on the "budget" section of PC World's list had prices of $1829, $1769, and, in the case of the Gateway G5-233, it was "all for a modest $1499." Hmm, so even $1829 was still "budget" in 1998.
Of course, HP, IBM, Gateway, et al. were relatively reputable vendors. eMachines didn't exist yet until Sept. 1998 according to Wikipedia, but Packard Bell was around, and might have had cheaper stuff. However, this article from half a year later, in December 1998 says this:
Graves, Lucas. "Welcome to The Land of the Free PC." MC Technology Marketing Intelligence 18.8 (August 1998): p36.
We're calling it "The Land of the Free PC" but you might be tempted to refer to it as "Future Imperfect" Along with Yahoo's stock price and Dell's marketshare, PC prices have captured imaginations and a fair number of headlines over the last year. Yet the sub-$1,000 desktop computer, now morphing into the sub-S700 desktop computer, is no matter for idle amazement. A PC you can get for the price of a decent bicycle represents a fundamentally different kind of purchase than one that costs as much as a used car. As such, cheap PCs will leave a radically different industry in their wake--one in which world-class strategic marketing is more important than ever.
...
Like the Internet, the saga of the now-in-famous "sub-$1,000 PC" is one of those stories that generates volumes of ink and yet may still be under-hyped. Plummeting price points constitute without a doubt the most significant trend in the PC market today, and that's not likely to change over the next year. IntelliQuest's Michael Gale predicts that by next Christmas, on the eve of the year 2000, the industry could be contending with price tags at or below $500 for a reasonably well-equipped home computer system.
Now, you'll notice this article is from December 1998, quite a while after the iMac was announced. At the time this article was written, $700 PCs were just starting to come out - before that, they cost more than that - and the article indicates that $500 PCs still didn't exist in Dec. 1998, which again was later than the iMac, and that this publication expected them to show up about a year later.
So anyway. At the time the iMac was introduced, there were no $500 PCs, and sub-$1000 was the norm for cheap PCs without monitors, making the iMac quite competitive with even the low end of the PC range. You cannot deny that the general prices in the PC industry have plummeted since then - nowadays, you can get a tower for $450 - and from Dell, not some eMachines crap that never works right. So while $999 would have been very cheap in 1998, it is not anymore, even when taking inflation into account, because computer prices have dropped much faster than inflation has raised them. So let's look at the B&W G3, introduced somewhat later than the iMac in 1999. That machine was nicely expandable, and started at $1500. In 2005 dollars that would be about $1710, so due to the falling prices of the computer market, Apple should provide a tower in 2005 that is significantly cheaper than $1710 just to match what they had in 1998. In fact, due to the fact that prices have dropped far enough that the dollar amounts have decreased despite inflation, the price should actually be significantly cheaper than the $1500 price of the B&W G3, because what was normal in 1998 and 1999 is expensive now.