Apple says 17-inch iMac still available; more hardware tidbits

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Apple Inc. this week confirmed a stay of execution for its previous-generation 17-iMac all-in-one desktop, which will remain available for order and purchase by educational institutions. Meanwhile, several other tidbits regarding the company's latest hardware introductions have surfaced.



17-inch iMac left to linger for EDU



In a note to channel partners this week, Apple said that its late-2006 17-inch iMac will remain available for educational institutions indefinitely, confirming earlier speculation on the matter.



Only authorized schools and universities may purchase the $899 white-clad systems, however, meaning that students will remain restricted in their purchase options to the firm's latest 20- and 24-inch aluminum models (with educational discounts).



The 17-inch educational iMac remains unchanged from last year and will continue pack a 1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 2MB shared L2 cache, 512MB memory, 160GB Serial ATA hard drive, 24x Combo drive, and an Intel GMA 950 graphics processor with 64MB of DDR2 memory.



Mighty Mouse gets its tail trimmed



Meanwhile, Apple also confirmed that it is shipping a slightly modified Mighty Mouse alongside its new aluminum iMacs. Although the mouse appears visually the same, its side buttons are colored white and its cord is significantly shorter than previous versions.



In order to reduce desktop clutter, the new iMacs ship with a Mighty Mouse whose cord has been trimmed from 30 inches down to 18.5 inches, Apple said. At this time, it appears that the only way to obtain the revised mouse is by purchasing one of the new iMacs. The retail version of the Mighty Mouse maintains the longer cord.



iMac retail configs with wireless package



Apple in recent days has also informed members of its retail team that it will soon begin offering special iMac retail configurations that will be available with wireless versions of the Apple Mighty Mouse and Apple Keyboard.



These retail-only configurations will be available exclusively from Apple stores once the company starts manufacturing its new wireless keyboard. Although announced along side the new iMacs earlier this month, the wireless keyboard has yet to ship. Checks with the Apple online store continue to reflect lead times of 4- 6 weeks for the peripheral, which should be available for the holiday rush.



Existing iMac retail configurations ship with wired versions of the Apple Mighty Mouse and Keyboard.



Mac mini



Separately, Apple this week also informed channel partners that its latest 'refresh' to the Mac mini includes more memory, larger hard drives and Core 2 Duo processors, but otherwise saw no developmental changes from the models introduced a year ago.



The mini, which is believed to be ailing, saw no changes to its Intel GMA 950 graphics controller and AirPort Extreme 802.11 wireless support, which remains limited to just 802.11g.



"Apple does not provide a solution for upgrading the Mac mini to 802.11n," the company said in a separate note to partners.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 49
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    I wish they would hurry up and release a NEW mouse because the current offering is quite unsatisfactory.



    Primarily my complaint is, the scroll ball is always getting clogged up with dust and there is no suitable way to clean it other than turning it upside down and violently scratching across a clean cloth surface such as your jeans. It is worse than the old days of track ball mice.



    Secondly, the side buttons are constantly triggering when least expected - right when I'm concentrating on cutting a path around an image in Photoshop. An actual right button not withstanding, the whole thing is quite inferior to even Microsoft's mouse.
  • Reply 2 of 49
    buckbuck Posts: 293member
    Huh? I was pretty sure Mighty Mouse tail was really short already? Certainly less than 30 inches...
  • Reply 3 of 49
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    The mini, which is believed to be ailing...



    I cannot understand why anyone would want to cancel the Mac mini.



    The iMac is nice and all, but face it: it forces you to throw away your beautiful display when you scrap your computer. Or worse, if your display goes bad, your computer is junk.



    For home buyers, the iMac makes a nice package, but for business buyers who don't need the stunning overkill horsepower of the Mac Pro, the Mac mini is an ideal computer.



    It fits wonderfully in the smallest cubicle, it has an attractive pricepoint, it is feature-rich (making the lack of expansion slots irrelevant), it is quiet, it is easily transported, and it drives both DVI and VGA.



    I buy nothing but Mac minis for my company's desktop computers. If Apple were to discontinue the mini, they would be scrapping any chance they have of getting a better foothold in any market other than home, graphics, and audio. And if they discontinued it... I would keep buying them from second-hand channels.



    I read the whole AI article on why Apple would want to discontinue the mini, and it is not at all compelling. Just because they don't hype their low-end, low-margin, low-wow-factor machine doesn't mean that they intend to kill it. Will they also kill the iPod Shuffle then?
  • Reply 4 of 49
    k.c.k.c. Posts: 60member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TheToe View Post


    I cannot understand why anyone would want to cancel the Mac mini.




    We don't know that anyone does, but we do know that AppleInsider is trying to save face since he was completely wrong about the Mini's demise.
  • Reply 5 of 49
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Buck View Post


    Huh? I was pretty sure Mighty Mouse tail was really short already? Certainly less than 30 inches...



    Yes--but apple's mighty mouse has quite a longer tail than the cartoon
  • Reply 6 of 49
    Take that Edukaten







  • Reply 7 of 49
    All the iMacs, even the new ones, are lousy for labs in schools. Why?



    It's a pain in the ass to replace the hard drive.



    You have to do a MAJOR disassembly of the machine to change the disk. The disk is the PRIMARY component to fail in labs, simply because the raw number of systems knocks the MTBF way down. Disks in lab machines need to be easy to replace. Companies like Dell understand this. Apple does not.



    On average here we replace a hard drive every couple of months. Having to do a major disassembly every few months to change a borked drive is NOT pretty. This will keep us from adopting the iMac in our labs, other than a token few to appease the Mac users.



    They made memory easy to upgrade, but how often do you do that, compared to changing failed disks in a lab environment?



    Apple really needs to make their systems easier to service if they expect to catch on in open lab settings. For a home user it's no problem; I don't mind doing that disassembly maybe once or twice in the life of a machine. But for a school? Sorry, Apple fails.



    Fix this. Please. I had hopes for the new iMacs but Apple failed us again.
  • Reply 8 of 49
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mrpiddly View Post


    Take that Edukaten













    Pleeze lurn how two spel!



    Its apozed ta bee EDJUMACASHUN!
  • Reply 9 of 49
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by zorinlynx View Post


    Having to do a major disassembly every few months to change a borked drive is NOT pretty.



    'Borking' of drives on a regular basis? Those drives are supposed to have 100k-300k hour mean time to failure rating. What are you doing to them to cause them to fail so quickly?



    m
  • Reply 10 of 49
    mgkwhomgkwho Posts: 167member
    So the lack of "n" upgrades suggests that Apple does not intend this computer to be formidable in the future.



    This is the first bit of evidence I'll take that suggests the mini really is headed towards EOL status.



    I wish it were smaller :/.



    -=|Mgkwho
  • Reply 11 of 49
    vinney57vinney57 Posts: 1,162member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by zorinlynx View Post


    All the iMacs, even the new ones, are lousy for labs in schools. Why?



    It's a pain in the ass to replace the hard drive.



    You have to do a MAJOR disassembly of the machine to change the disk. The disk is the PRIMARY component to fail in labs, simply because the raw number of systems knocks the MTBF way down. Disks in lab machines need to be easy to replace. Companies like Dell understand this. Apple does not.



    On average here we replace a hard drive every couple of months. Having to do a major disassembly every few months to change a borked drive is NOT pretty. This will keep us from adopting the iMac in our labs, other than a token few to appease the Mac users.



    They made memory easy to upgrade, but how often do you do that, compared to changing failed disks in a lab environment?



    Apple really needs to make their systems easier to service if they expect to catch on in open lab settings. For a home user it's no problem; I don't mind doing that disassembly maybe once or twice in the life of a machine. But for a school? Sorry, Apple fails.



    Fix this. Please. I had hopes for the new iMacs but Apple failed us again.



    They are clearly not fit for the purpose that you have. Don't buy them.



    Next...
  • Reply 12 of 49
    bommaibommai Posts: 24member
    I have owned 2 Macs over the past 12 years and have owned at least 20 Hard drives. I have 3 external now and four inside the PowerMacG4. I have never had anyone of them fail on me. Modern hard drives are pretty reliable when used with macs. I have seen many of my friends' HDs fail regularly on Windows.
  • Reply 13 of 49
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


    'Borking' of drives on a regular basis? Those drives are supposed to have 100k-300k hour mean time to failure rating. What are you doing to them to cause them to fail so quickly?



    m



    Ditto! Every couple of months replace a hard drive??? No way, except maybe in one random case but not as a whole... anyway, if you also have the Applecare warranty, which every school should have (and is very inexpensive on the iMac), a service technician will come to you next day and do the repair/replace the drive. But something is really wrong if your drives are going that fast.
  • Reply 14 of 49
    thetoethetoe Posts: 84member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gumashow View Post


    Ditto! Every couple of months replace a hard drive??? No way, except maybe in one random case but not as a whole... anyway, if you also have the Applecare warranty, which every school should have (and is very inexpensive on the iMac), a service technician will come to you next day and do the repair/replace the drive. But something is really wrong if your drives are going that fast.



    Depends. If they have a thousand Macs, then that's not a bad replace rate. I'd say for every hundred Macs, you're going to need to replace 1-3 drives per year.



    As for Applecare, it isn't necessarily a good deal, especially for a large quantity. Computers are cheap enough that AC often doesn't make economic sense in an institutional setting. And AC only lasts 3 years. In a school, you may be forced to use computers for 5 years or more.



    All of that said... the original poster should get Mac minis. They're not as cool as iMacs or as nice in a lab, but they are perfectly acceptable. To replace the drive, all you need is a filed down putty knife and a little practice.
  • Reply 15 of 49
    citycity Posts: 522member
    private
  • Reply 16 of 49
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bommai View Post


    I have owned 2 Macs over the past 12 years and have owned at least 20 Hard drives. I have 3 external now and four inside the PowerMacG4. I have never had anyone of them fail on me. Modern hard drives are pretty reliable when used with macs. I have seen many of my friends' HDs fail regularly on Windows.



    I suppose it's possible that OS X uses a drive in a different way that makes it less likely to fail, but it's doubtful.



    Apple, Dell, Gateway, etc. all use the same hard drives. There's nothing "special" about the drive in a Mac other than Apple putting a logo on the OEM sticker. If we have several thousand Dells, each with one hard drive, I expect the failure rate to be about the same as if we have several thousand iMacs, each with one hard drive.



    Unless someone shows me hard evidence that drives fail less often on Macs, I won't believe it though. Much as I like Apple, when it comes to hard drives everyone drinks from the same wells.
  • Reply 17 of 49
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mgkwho View Post


    So the lack of "n" upgrades suggests that Apple does not intend this computer to be formidable in the future.



    This is the first bit of evidence I'll take that suggests the mini really is headed towards EOL status.



    I wish it were smaller :/.



    -=|Mgkwho



    The lack of "n" upgrades indicates to me that they don't want people to buy Mini's to replace or complement the Apple TV. Product differentiation.
  • Reply 18 of 49
    Why do Americans call 'titbits' 'tidbits'?



    It just doesn't make sense!

  • Reply 19 of 49
    Apple, pleeease put GMA X3100, 800FSB, 'rosa boards in the MacBooks and Minis (or at least a bottom-rung ATI) !!!!!
  • Reply 20 of 49
    applepiapplepi Posts: 365member
    Just because AppleInsider believes the mini is on it's way out doesn't mean Apple does. Sounds to me like it isn't. It got a nice little refresh.



    Oh and what is a "titbit"?
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