Yes, it's a pity Macs don't accept any other kind of keyboard.
So does the $899 model offer a choice of keyboard, or does it only ship with the one without numeric keypad? It's not really so great if it ACCEPTS the other keyboard but you have no option to actually get it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny Mozzarella
How many millions of laptops are used every day for mathematical/statistical/ accounting/ finance...and don't have a keypad?
if only they sold this to everyone else, chuck in your own ram for £30 and sorted, would help cut down the rip off price of the current line up. Before people message me about how the current line up is not a rip off having to pay £949 for the "entry level" machine is far too much, sure the £1499 24" iMac can play games well and is a pretty good alround performer but the price is too high for most.
The education model bumped up to 2gb of ram would perform pretty much on par with the £949 iMac, much better deal.
So does the $899 model offer a choice of keyboard, or does it only ship with the one without numeric keypad? It's not really so great if it ACCEPTS the other keyboard but you have no option to actually get it.
Unhappily?
I'm guessing any educational institution ordering a significant amount of these machines can have Apple replace the standard keyboards with the numerical keyboard ones for a marginal cost.
if only they sold this to everyone else, chuck in your own ram for £30 and sorted, would help cut down the rip off price of the current line up. Before people message me about how the current line up is not a rip off having to pay £949 for the "entry level" machine is far too much, sure the £1499 24" iMac can play games well and is a pretty good alround performer but the price is too high for most.
The education model bumped up to 2gb of ram would perform pretty much on par with the £949 iMac, much better deal.
Not saying I don?t see where you?re coming from, I would call it more of an incontinence, rather than disadvantage.
I'm sorry to hear about your lack of bladder control
Even at home I appreciate the numeric keypad so I'm puzzled why Apple has opted to ship all retail iMacs with the reduced size keyboard.
Space is certainly more of a concern in your average classroom than at home or in business so that's one point in favor of shipping the smaller keyboard with education models.
I'm guessing any educational institution ordering a significant amount of these machines can have Apple replace the standard keyboards with the numerical keyboard ones for a marginal cost.
I would hope they'd give them the option of getting the full keyboards for NO extra cost considering both are the same price.
I think it's a little unfair of Apple to only offer these deals to educational institutions. I can understand a discount model given that there would likely be bulk buys but the difference between it and the entry-level consumer model is $300.
This $300 gets you 0.66GHz per core extra, 1GB Ram, 200GB drive space. Now what if a consumer doesn't need this? The lower model is fine and clearly Apple are still making a profit at that price. Even if they offered it at $999 for non-educational buyers.
While I applaud Apple for cutting the price for education, it's still cheaper to buy from MacMall / ClubMac / etc. And I'm sure you could further haggle a price for a semi-volume order. The one thing that I don't believe is easily possible from a place like MacMall is customizing the computer (say with extra memory, keyboard swap).
Yes, it's a pity Macs don't accept any other kind of keyboard.
They don't. I tried a Dell bluetooth keyboard on my Mac and it worked just fine. I was only testing the keyboard because one of our Windows people couldn't seem to pair it up with their pc.
They don't. I tried a Dell bluetooth keyboard on my Mac and it worked just fine. I was only testing the keyboard because one of our Windows people couldn't seem to pair it up with their pc.
I think it's a little unfair of Apple to only offer these deals to educational institutions. I can understand a discount model given that there would likely be bulk buys but the difference between it and the entry-level consumer model is $300.
This $300 gets you 0.66GHz per core extra, 1GB Ram, 200GB drive space. Now what if a consumer doesn't need this? The lower model is fine and clearly Apple are still making a profit at that price. Even if they offered it at $999 for non-educational buyers.
What amount of profit are you willing to allow Apple to make on a computer? I'll be sure to send this info along to them so they know what the limit is.
Let me know the next time you buy 500 computers at once, too.
Their current business model wasn't developed during the great depression.
As the global economy keeps heading south, Apple better have lower priced options available.
Possibly, but they also have a lot of money in the bank and a fair suspicion that downturns don't last forever.
The problem with lowering your pricing structure is that it's all but impossible to raise it again. If Apple migrates its price points downward in response to the current economic climate, they'll have trouble recapturing their margins once things get better.
I'm not saying I'm fond of Apple's prices; just that it probably makes sense for them, given their business model, to just ride it out. I would guess if things get too dire (some kind of complete collapse of desktop or notebook sales) they would feel forced to bite the bullet, but as long as they seem to be holding up reasonably well I can't see the incentive, from Apple's perspective.
Now, to be sure, the PC world seems to be converging on some kind of $100 appliance that isn't very powerful and makes you a nickel per sale, and which relies on the deep pockets of MS and Intel to provide whatever innovation is to be had. Apple can never compete with that, which may be part of the reason why they're not even pretending to try.
But once everyone has a "good enough" netbook or whatever, what happens to the entire PC ecosystem? How does MS sell OS upgrades? How do developers leverage every more powerful machines to sell apps that do new things, better?
My impression is that the PC commodification game is close to having run its course; "most people" settle on email/web/word processing devices that they get as cheaply as possible, leaving almost no room for value added sales in the space.
Apple knows this, which is why they're feverishly pouring resources into the emergent platform, the iPhone and its siblings.
Does anyone know the part number for the new 20" school iMac?
I tried contacting Apple Japan and they tell me they don't know of any special school mac, but if I had the part number they could find out if it was coming to Japan.
While I applaud Apple for cutting the price for education, it's still cheaper to buy from MacMall / ClubMac / etc. And I'm sure you could further haggle a price for a semi-volume order. The one thing that I don't believe is easily possible from a place like MacMall is customizing the computer (say with extra memory, keyboard swap).
As an educator and education technology specialist in a very large (400,000+ students) district, I can say that Apple has exceptional customer service for my district-- including providing custom-installed software configurations, with backup images (a tremendous time and TCO savings when rolling out large numbers of computers across a relatively huge geographical area...) I haven't asked MacMall nor ClubMac if they can do that sort of service for us (and negotiating that sort of deal is handled by my central office, anyway), but I kind of doubt it...
As an educator and education technology specialist in a very large (400,000+ students) district, I can say that Apple has exceptional customer service for my district-- including providing custom-installed software configurations, with backup images (a tremendous time and TCO savings when rolling out large numbers of computers across a relatively huge geographical area...) I haven't asked MacMall nor ClubMac if they can do that sort of service for us (and negotiating that sort of deal is handled by my central office, anyway), but I kind of doubt it...
Very fair point. I would expect nothing less from Apple. Thanks for the sharing your experiences.
You know, I'd be willing to bet they'd match any third-party seller's price. They do so at least on the consumer / individual sale.
And I agree, Macmall would be computer only, although at a very good price.
Comments
Do school computers really need more than 1GB?
Nowadays I'd say 1 gig is an absolute bare minimum on any OS. I wouldn't want that little.
Yes, it's a pity Macs don't accept any other kind of keyboard.
So does the $899 model offer a choice of keyboard, or does it only ship with the one without numeric keypad? It's not really so great if it ACCEPTS the other keyboard but you have no option to actually get it.
How many millions of laptops are used every day for mathematical/statistical/ accounting/ finance...and don't have a keypad?
How do they do it?
Unhappily?
The education model bumped up to 2gb of ram would perform pretty much on par with the £949 iMac, much better deal.
I would call it more of an incontinence, rather than disadvantage.
That could get messy.
So does the $899 model offer a choice of keyboard, or does it only ship with the one without numeric keypad? It's not really so great if it ACCEPTS the other keyboard but you have no option to actually get it.
Unhappily?
I'm guessing any educational institution ordering a significant amount of these machines can have Apple replace the standard keyboards with the numerical keyboard ones for a marginal cost.
if only they sold this to everyone else, chuck in your own ram for £30 and sorted, would help cut down the rip off price of the current line up. Before people message me about how the current line up is not a rip off having to pay £949 for the "entry level" machine is far too much, sure the £1499 24" iMac can play games well and is a pretty good alround performer but the price is too high for most.
The education model bumped up to 2gb of ram would perform pretty much on par with the £949 iMac, much better deal.
Macs are not "entry level" machines.
Not saying I don?t see where you?re coming from, I would call it more of an incontinence, rather than disadvantage.
I'm sorry to hear about your lack of bladder control
Even at home I appreciate the numeric keypad so I'm puzzled why Apple has opted to ship all retail iMacs with the reduced size keyboard.
Space is certainly more of a concern in your average classroom than at home or in business so that's one point in favor of shipping the smaller keyboard with education models.
I'm guessing any educational institution ordering a significant amount of these machines can have Apple replace the standard keyboards with the numerical keyboard ones for a marginal cost.
I would hope they'd give them the option of getting the full keyboards for NO extra cost considering both are the same price.
This $300 gets you 0.66GHz per core extra, 1GB Ram, 200GB drive space. Now what if a consumer doesn't need this? The lower model is fine and clearly Apple are still making a profit at that price. Even if they offered it at $999 for non-educational buyers.
Yes, it's a pity Macs don't accept any other kind of keyboard.
They don't. I tried a Dell bluetooth keyboard on my Mac and it worked just fine. I was only testing the keyboard because one of our Windows people couldn't seem to pair it up with their pc.
They don't. I tried a Dell bluetooth keyboard on my Mac and it worked just fine. I was only testing the keyboard because one of our Windows people couldn't seem to pair it up with their pc.
I guess you mean they do?
And I think he was being sarcastic.
Interesting ideas, all of them.
However, if Apple implemented these, they'd be creeping into the mid to low-end market which is contrary to their current business model.
Their current business model wasn't developed during the great depression.
As the global economy keeps heading south, Apple better have lower priced options available.
What kind of profit margins would there be on 10-packs of 15" iMac thin client machines?
Not much but thin clients don't run in a vacuum.
They will make the profit on XServes and the accompanying service contracts.
Apple has a great thin client solution and no thin clients to sell...go figure.
Browser today like Firefox can eat up 200MB easily, especially when running several Web 2.0 apps or running the useless Flash at the same time.
So you're saying that a school computer DOESN'T need more than 1 GB, right?
I think it's a little unfair of Apple to only offer these deals to educational institutions. I can understand a discount model given that there would likely be bulk buys but the difference between it and the entry-level consumer model is $300.
This $300 gets you 0.66GHz per core extra, 1GB Ram, 200GB drive space. Now what if a consumer doesn't need this? The lower model is fine and clearly Apple are still making a profit at that price. Even if they offered it at $999 for non-educational buyers.
What amount of profit are you willing to allow Apple to make on a computer? I'll be sure to send this info along to them so they know what the limit is.
Let me know the next time you buy 500 computers at once, too.
Their current business model wasn't developed during the great depression.
As the global economy keeps heading south, Apple better have lower priced options available.
Possibly, but they also have a lot of money in the bank and a fair suspicion that downturns don't last forever.
The problem with lowering your pricing structure is that it's all but impossible to raise it again. If Apple migrates its price points downward in response to the current economic climate, they'll have trouble recapturing their margins once things get better.
I'm not saying I'm fond of Apple's prices; just that it probably makes sense for them, given their business model, to just ride it out. I would guess if things get too dire (some kind of complete collapse of desktop or notebook sales) they would feel forced to bite the bullet, but as long as they seem to be holding up reasonably well I can't see the incentive, from Apple's perspective.
Now, to be sure, the PC world seems to be converging on some kind of $100 appliance that isn't very powerful and makes you a nickel per sale, and which relies on the deep pockets of MS and Intel to provide whatever innovation is to be had. Apple can never compete with that, which may be part of the reason why they're not even pretending to try.
But once everyone has a "good enough" netbook or whatever, what happens to the entire PC ecosystem? How does MS sell OS upgrades? How do developers leverage every more powerful machines to sell apps that do new things, better?
My impression is that the PC commodification game is close to having run its course; "most people" settle on email/web/word processing devices that they get as cheaply as possible, leaving almost no room for value added sales in the space.
Apple knows this, which is why they're feverishly pouring resources into the emergent platform, the iPhone and its siblings.
I tried contacting Apple Japan and they tell me they don't know of any special school mac, but if I had the part number they could find out if it was coming to Japan.
Thanks!
While I applaud Apple for cutting the price for education, it's still cheaper to buy from MacMall / ClubMac / etc. And I'm sure you could further haggle a price for a semi-volume order. The one thing that I don't believe is easily possible from a place like MacMall is customizing the computer (say with extra memory, keyboard swap).
As an educator and education technology specialist in a very large (400,000+ students) district, I can say that Apple has exceptional customer service for my district-- including providing custom-installed software configurations, with backup images (a tremendous time and TCO savings when rolling out large numbers of computers across a relatively huge geographical area...) I haven't asked MacMall nor ClubMac if they can do that sort of service for us (and negotiating that sort of deal is handled by my central office, anyway), but I kind of doubt it...
How many millions of laptops are used every day for mathematical/statistical/ accounting/ finance...and don't have a keypad?
How do they do it?
We're talking desktops. How many desktops in the corporate, financial, & scientific worlds do not have a number keypad section?
A numeric keypad on a laptop is not only infeasible but highly impractical.
As an educator and education technology specialist in a very large (400,000+ students) district, I can say that Apple has exceptional customer service for my district-- including providing custom-installed software configurations, with backup images (a tremendous time and TCO savings when rolling out large numbers of computers across a relatively huge geographical area...) I haven't asked MacMall nor ClubMac if they can do that sort of service for us (and negotiating that sort of deal is handled by my central office, anyway), but I kind of doubt it...
Very fair point. I would expect nothing less from Apple. Thanks for the sharing your experiences.
You know, I'd be willing to bet they'd match any third-party seller's price. They do so at least on the consumer / individual sale.
And I agree, Macmall would be computer only, although at a very good price.