What do you expect to see at Paris?

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
«13

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 57
    pbg4 dudepbg4 dude Posts: 1,611member
    Ahhh, I love Le Louvre.



    Where's a beret smiley when you need one?
  • Reply 2 of 57
    macsrgood4umacsrgood4u Posts: 3,007member
    Too many McDonalds.
  • Reply 3 of 57
    emig647emig647 Posts: 2,454member
    For sure:

    iMac upgrade



    1.6ghz

    geforce 5200

    256mb

    80gb

    17" lcd

    ------------

    $1,599-$1,699



    Maybe:

    iPod upgrade (20gb - 40gb - 60gb) + Longer life Battery

    Mouse / Keyboard upgrade (PLEASE APPLE)

    XSan release
  • Reply 4 of 57
    the Eiffel tower
  • Reply 5 of 57
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Apple likes the All-In-One computer for various reasons. Although some claim the setup is easier I believe Apple likes it because it allows them to get the revenue on the built in monitor.



    Why not give users clamoring for a headless computer a break. No I'm not saying ship a headless computer but design the iMac3 as a computer with an LCD monitor attached from the factory. The catch is this LCD would be removable with a wee bit of work. This has two nice effects.



    1. Apple gets the revenue that they want.

    2. Users aren't locked into an LCD. The iMac3 LCD would be DVI.

    3. More flexible setup options. Some people like the look of just the LCD sitting on the desktop.



    Yes I'm well aware that if Apple did this they would instantly hear "why can't you just ship it without the monitor?". Well the hell with that. I'm willing to compromise and as long as the iMac3 LCD is DVI selling that puppy is easy greasy on ebay. Therefore my ideal iMac would be as follows.



    PowerPC G5 1.6Ghz

    17" Widescreen LCD with built in speakers.

    256MB RAM/120GB HD

    AGP 8X upgradable graphics(Base 128MB)

    Digital I/O, 10/100/1000

    8X DVD-R burner



    $1599



    PowerPC G5 1.4Ghz

    15" LCD with built in speakers

    256MB RAM/ 80GB HD

    AGP 8x upgradable graphic(Base 64MB)

    Digital I/O, 10/100/1000

    8X DVD Burner



    $1299



    Again a two piece design so that you have flexibilty in placement or you can swap out the LCD someday. Nice coverage between eMac at $799 and $999 segueing to iMac3 15" at $1299 and 17" at $1599. Now these systems would get peoples attention.
  • Reply 6 of 57
    emig647emig647 Posts: 2,454member
    BTW I didn't mean that those specs were for sure... just the announcement of the iMac was for sure.



    2 piece design would be fine with me
  • Reply 7 of 57
    Quote:

    Originally posted by emig647

    BTW I didn't mean that those specs were for sure... just the announcement of the iMac was for sure.



    2 piece design would be fine with me




    I foresee a detachable LCD design that allows for local tablet use...its true
  • Reply 8 of 57
    jcgjcg Posts: 777member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by emig647

    For sure:

    iMac upgrade



    1.6ghz

    geforce 5200

    256mb

    80gb

    17" lcd

    ------------

    $1,599-$1,699



    Maybe:

    iPod upgrade (20gb - 40gb - 60gb) + Longer life Battery

    Mouse / Keyboard upgrade (PLEASE APPLE)

    XSan release




    I honestly hope that the iMac makes it over 1.6 Ghz so that it has a better chance of competing in the consumer market. Apple should have had a 1.4 Ghz iMac out a year ago, even if they had to wait a few months longer for the 7457 chips that would clock that high, or should have released a speed update long since that brought it up to the 1.4 Ghz that the 7457 would allow them to achieve. To really make the iMac 2 the value that the iMac was Apple should be at 1.6 for the low end (below $1000 USD), a 1.8 for med-high end. I would dare to say that since the all the PM's are MP systems now, and with the premium price for the 20" iMac that they should have it toping out at 2.0 Ghz. I don't expect these speeds, too many years of slow and lacluster updates to the iLine have given me a pesamistic outlook for Apple consumer computers. Without a large mhz boost though I do not see Apple's consumer desktops sales making much of a recovery or helping Apple to increase market share through the consumers.
  • Reply 9 of 57
    tofutoddtofutodd Posts: 30member
    Why would the graphics be upgradable? People don't seriously game on an iMac. It's for the casual gamer. They'll play THPS4, Bugdom, etc, might buy Unreal 2004 and still enjoy playing it if they have to turn down the detail just as much if it had FSAA 4x. I just don't care how good the game looks, I get the same enjoyment.



    Foremost, don't listen to an individual's opinion, the vast majority of people buying computers don't give two cents about their game running at maximum detail. The games runs smoothly, that's great.



    Hardcore gamers go buy a G5 Tower, it's exactly what's you're looking for, and nothing extra! let me state that again, for gamers, the G5 tower is exactly the machine for you, APple does not need to sell another machine aimed at gamers that does the exact same thing a G5 does but is smaller, see why the cube failed. those shuttle mini-itx pcs account for a fraction of a percent of PC sales. no one cares about shuttle except for a percentage of people in forums.

    a fraction of apercent of apple's customers obsess about having the latest and greatest just to have it, not beacause they need it apple will not release a machine geared toward a fraction of a percent it's customers.



    Why would I pay more to have a headless iMac vs an iMac with LCD? Even after adding some cheap 3rd party LCD it would cost about the same as the headed iMac. By the time display tech advances enough that I'd want a new display, I'd be ready for a new cpu and gfx card. Therefore I should by either a G5 or a disposable.





    and to make another statement

    a machine not meant for gaming does not need upgrable gfx

    thanks.



    Tony Hawk 4 plays fine on the Geforce 5200. Maybe the increment bump up in numbers to 5500 or 9500 or whatever number convention naming scheme they use, but for sure it'll be whatever part is produced in massive scale for maximum value and performance.





    if apple makes a headless machine, or it has a built in lcd, i could care less about upgradable gfx. I don't want to pay for an agp slot I will never use.



    The games that are most difficult to play on a console, flight sims and strategy, don't need the latest video card.
  • Reply 10 of 57
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Quote:

    Why would the graphics be upgradable? People don't seriously game on an iMac. It's for the casual gamer. They'll play THPS4, Bugdom, etc, might buy Unreal 2004 and still enjoy playing it if they have to turn down the detail just as much if it had FSAA 4x. I just don't care how good the game looks, I get the same enjoyment.



    Todd. OSX 10.4(Tiger) leverages the GPU in so many more ways than any other OS in Apple history. The GPU is now a vital component to the User Experience for Macintosh computers.



    With Tiger we are going to see the new API Core Image/Video infuse its way into almost every technology that Apple makes. The images and how we edit them will funnel through Core Image ..the video of iMove and QT playback will funnel through Core Video. If you don't have a good GPU then these effects fall back to your CPU and your computer slowing you down. If you DO have a good GPU then these effects are pushed off to the GPU which then processes them in realtime or close to it non-destructively and returns the results to your app.



    Therefore, your GPU is going to be working full time now with Tiger. And you will reap the rewards because the GPU will crank through effects that would require a much faster CPU to handle.



    This will make the choice for the consumer that much harder. Do they go with 200Mhz more CPU in one model for $300 more or do they beef up the the lowerend model with a faster GPU for another $200. Depending on what the person plans to do with their computer there is going to be a case for eschewing overall CPU power in lieu of GPU power. Amazing times. Wish I was still in sales so that I could blow peoples feeble minds with this stuff.
  • Reply 11 of 57
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by MacsRGood4U

    Too many McDonalds.



    Surely the French have sued them out of existance in that part of the world...
  • Reply 12 of 57
    macsrgood4umacsrgood4u Posts: 3,007member
    They sued to have the word "French" removed from the fries. The French, they look down on Americans while wearing their Levis, NY Yankees and Detroit Tigers baseball caps and their iPods!
  • Reply 13 of 57
    jcgjcg Posts: 777member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by TofuTodd

    Why would the graphics be upgradable? People don't seriously game on an iMac. It's for the casual gamer. They'll play THPS4, Bugdom, etc, might buy Unreal 2004 and still enjoy playing it if they have to turn down the detail just as much if it had FSAA 4x. I just don't care how good the game looks, I get the same enjoyment....



    There is a lot more of a market for headless Macs than the gaming market. print production (not design) computers tend to be lower-end towers. The current low end tower is priced at the mid level G3 tower of 1999, and well above the $1599 entry price that Apple had for most of the G4 PM production. When you need to upgrade 30 production computers that extra $400/each makes a huge impact on your budget. It also proces most of the "Pro-sumers" and gamers out of the PowerMac line as well. Apple really needs a computer to address this market, becouse the print production field is part of their core market, as was evedent in their continuation of the dual-boot G4 computers long past the time when Steve said OS 9 booting would be eleminated.



    This year would be a good time to intro one becouse the publishing industry (large book publishers) are finaly moving to OS X and switching to Quark 6 and InDesign. I would imagine that once the software switch is paid for there will be a push for updating hardware on a large scale. These purchases will be slower coming if Apple does not have a computer that meets the needs of this industry at an affordable price. A single 1.6 Ghz or 1.8 Ghz would be a good production computer in the price range of $1499-1599, or better yet a "Cube" level computer at $1299, since most of these computers will never have a single PCI card added to them, but may have a graphics card added during their life-time.



    Why a headless for this purpose you might ask? Because LCD's are a lot more expensive than a CRT in the 20"+ range and are not as color acurate. Also in the 9 years that I have been with my current company doing production and design I have had over 5 computer upgrades, but only have had 3 monitors . One becouse I switched departments, one becouse it "died", and the third is still in use gand going strong after over4 years. I see no indication that the company will look into LCD Monitors for the Design department, let alone for the 50 computers in the production department, any time in the near future.
  • Reply 14 of 57
    emig647emig647 Posts: 2,454member
    HAHAHAHA
  • Reply 15 of 57
    tofutoddtofutodd Posts: 30member
    Murchison:

    I just don't think that the QE affects will tax a 9800, let alone a 9000. A X800 or 9800 can crank through graphics like there is no tomorrow, and I just can't compare the interface of the OS no matter how pretty to any game that would demand one of the above cards. I think the CPU utilization of a 5200 vs a 9800 in the same machine will be close to zero.



    I do think that some people try and leverage QE as an excuse to justify spending more on a gfx card, when deep down they just want the better card because it represents more power, bragging, whatever.



    For that matter, does anyone know of any CPU utilization benchmarks for gfx cards is OS X?



    JCG:

    Like it or not I think that's what apple expects the MDD G4 to occupy. $1299 for a headless and very expandable mac is a fair deal. Why does does print software need a good gfx card? Looks like the MDD machines are on their way out, are they going to replace them? The refurb 1.6 G5s shine a lot of light I think, what are they, $1299?? There is your headless rectangle. A smaller computer is inversely proportional to the cost is many cases. Would your print firm rather have a 1.6 G5 tower for $1299 or a cube 1.6 G5 fo $1499?
  • Reply 16 of 57
    emig647emig647 Posts: 2,454member
    Cinebench 2003 is a good one.
  • Reply 17 of 57
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Quote:

    Murchison:

    I just don't think that the QE affects will tax a 9800, let alone a 9000. A X800 or 9800 can crank through graphics like there is no tomorrow, and I just can't compare the interface of the OS no matter how pretty to any game that would demand one of the above cards. I think the CPU utilization of a 5200 vs a 9800 in the same machine will be close to zero.



    QE won't but with the shipment of Tiger now QE will running in conjunction with Q2D extreme and Core Image and Core Video effects. Your GPU has just gone from a single serving of data to a whole buffet.



    Games have progressed well over the years. The Geforce cards brought the Transform and Ligh(T&L) onto the cards and away from the control of the CPU. Todays games attempt to abstract the CPU as much as possible but the CPU is still utilized for the AI engine and other parts of the game that don't deal with directly drawing the image or texturing. I wish CPU utilization was zero but if it was then there would be absolutely no speed increase in games as we purchased faster CPU. We all know that's not the case. Gamers still require the fastest Athlons and Pentium4s to max out frame rates.



    Quote:

    I do think that some people try and leverage QE as an excuse to justify spending more on a gfx card, when deep down they just want the better card because it represents more power, bragging, whatever.



    All I ahd to do was see Apple's app Motion running and I knew everything had changed. I watched 720P High Definition video looping while Motion added and animated text, moving graphics and particles and even in beta it didn't slow down.



    You think iMove isn't going to get a huge boost from this? What about iPhoto? Don't be suprised on the next iPhoto being able to assign non destructive effects to your Photos. Now think about this. You haven't changed the actual effect just added a small command to the file that says "Add a motion blur at n% to this photo". I would venture to say that eventually Apple will have it so that the Image Unit or Video units are metadata encapsulated in the file format. If the photo plays on a computer with an unsupported GPU it falls back to processing using the CPU.



    Man the possibilities are endless. The 2005 Mac lineup with capable video cards are going to perform like much faster computers in certain areas. This is the megaherz myth all over again. Tiger and eventually Longhorn are going to make it even harder for consumers to understand the metrics involved in assessing which systems are faster. Two computers will have identical specs until we get to the GPU..the one with the faster GPU will be faster in actual use. That's going to bake a lot of peoples brains because they never saw this coming.
  • Reply 18 of 57
    @homenow@homenow Posts: 998member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by TofuTodd

    ....Like it or not I think that's what apple expects the MDD G4 to occupy. $1299 for a headless and very expandable mac is a fair deal. Why does does print software need a good gfx card? Looks like the MDD machines are on their way out, are they going to replace them? The refurb 1.6 G5s shine a lot of light I think, what are they, $1299?? There is your headless rectangle. A smaller computer is inversely proportional to the cost is many cases. Would your print firm rather have a 1.6 G5 tower for $1299 or a cube 1.6 G5 fo $1499?



    That computer is no longer bieng made, it is bieng sold while supplies last if you haven't noticed. Refirbs are not a consistant enough supply to rely on, and most companies probably won't consider them. As to the Cube, when we made our first major computer purchase after y2k, which was delayed 6 months, they had approval for Cubes for most of the Design and Production (some 60 Cubes, in fact they were preparing the PO when I say it and told them that the Cube was no longer available) computers ready but Apple discontiued the Cube 3 months earlier, so Yes they would consider Cubes.



    Based on that last order, and past orders the Design department would probably only have 3 PowerMacs (duals, top of the line), 10 Cubes, and one PowerBook today if the Cube was for sale when we last upgraded. The production department would have had about 50 Cubes split between two locations, and the Imaging department would have had 2 or 3 as well. The Cube was plenty powerfull for most print production, Illustrator, and minor photoshop work in comparison to the PM's available at the time, and the likelyhood of any of these computers needing a PCI card added is minimum to not existant.
  • Reply 19 of 57
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Quote:

    Why does does print software need a good gfx card?



    Do you realize that one of the many benefits of Quartz over Quickdraw is that it "Rasters" files for printing. Quartz just isn't an API that your video but OSX's whole printing architecture is based on the same imaging model. The "RIP" is built right in. I hate to always sound like an Apple honk but OSX has tech that is just mind blowin compared to what we had before. It really is a great OS that is very extensible and powerful and with Tiger the hits just keep coming.
  • Reply 20 of 57
    ibook911ibook911 Posts: 607member
    Why do consumer computers usually come with such a ridiculously low amount of RAM? I feel bad that people do not know the true potential of his or her machine.
Sign In or Register to comment.