Future imac designs?

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
i personally hate the current imac designs...i loved the G4's..but the G5's are lame.....Can anybody make a few mockups of future imac designs and please say your favorite imac design (go G4 and fruit colored!!!!!!!!)......so please make some mock ups



And you can just say what your would like in the next imac...and which one was your favorite...
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 43
    dutch peardutch pear Posts: 588member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Danired18

    i personally hate the current imac designs



    I Love the design of my core duo iMac
  • Reply 2 of 43
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    Thinner with less chin. Eventually it will just look and be a thin as the current thinnest moniters. An inch thin etc. With a slot load Superdive.

    They saw they future before everybody else, and they felt they were at a stage technology wise where they could put the whole computer in the display. That wasn't possible in the past, and they were they first to do it! The future will see a very thin display with the whole computer built in to it.
  • Reply 3 of 43
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ireland

    Thinner with less chin. Eventually it will just look and be a thin as the current thinnest moniters. An inch thin etc. With a slot load Superdive.

    They saw they future before everybody else, and they felt they were at a stage technology wise where they could put the whole computer in the display. That wasn't possible in the past, and they were they first to do it! The future will see a very thin display with the whole computer built in to it.




    just i hope they dont make the thing square again...and put less room on the bottom....G4!!!!!!!!!!
  • Reply 4 of 43
    backtomacbacktomac Posts: 4,579member
    The problem with thinner is that eventually it becomes restrictive in the components that can be used. I do not want to see the iMac forced to use notebook components as they are usually slower and more costly. This is form leading function IMO.
  • Reply 5 of 43
    gargar Posts: 1,201member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ireland

    Thinner with less chin.



    Stop complaining about a chin that actually looks pretty good on an iMac.

    You probally don't have an iMac and actually don't even care about the chin either, but mention it here for whiners sake.
    Quote:

    Eventually it will just look and be a thin as the current thinnest moniters. An inch thin etc. With a slot load Superdive.



    Where will you put the 1" high 3.5"HD? In the chin?

    Or do you want the same 2.5" slow-poky HD like the Mac mini has?

    And don't come crying about the fact the superdrive doesn't support 16x DVD±R, because they couldn't fit a fullheight version.
    Quote:

    They saw they future before everybody else, and they felt they were at a stage technology wise where they could put the whole computer in the display. That wasn't possible in the past, and they were they first to do it! The future will see a very thin display with the whole computer built in to it.



    It's fine as it is.



    If you make it thinner some parts have to move anywhere else and I would hate it to have the powersupply out of the box, just like the Cube or Mac mini, just because a desktop computer has, for some obsure reason, to be thinner than it already is.



    I think the current formfactor will stay for a while, maybe a larger screen, maybe a Black One, that's it.



    [edit]

    The iMac G4 design was flawed by nature:

    Too expensive to build with it's chrome gimmick arm.

    Powerless.

    Too extrovert (lookatme, lookatme) design. (chrome Apple, anyone)

    Too much a Cube in disguise.



    And because of this its sales were pretty poor.

    Apple had to sell the eMac to consumers to gain some desktop sales.



    It failed miserably and will not be missed.

    [/edit]
  • Reply 6 of 43
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    @ "gar" I said eventually!
  • Reply 7 of 43
    luvosxluvosx Posts: 50member
    Guys/Gals:

    Rather than see its shortcomings, look at the positive side of the imacG4's design. It was unique in that it had a circular motherboard. They could fit a full size hdd and a full size superdrive there. And the monitor arm is very flexible and reasonably sturdy - i have a 6 year old and an 8 year old pounding on it from all sides day after day for about 2 years now and it seems to take it all well - still doesn't show a sign of slack. The belly gives the imac incredible stability so that my brats dont knock/tip it off the table.



    On the other hand, the imac G5 is totally rad.



    My vision of a cool machine, not necessarily the imac, would be a mac the size of a small pda (er, shall we say mu-mac - as in micro-mac ) and you buy the monitor where you dock the mu-mac on a special docking station and work on it - when you go out take the mu-mac out instead of a laptop and plug it into your office monitor which has another such beast.



    Any takers ?
  • Reply 8 of 43
    k_munick_munic Posts: 357member
    I've written here often:

    I believe, the road leads to the "invisible" computer...



    we've lost cables (keyboard, mouse, LAN, Airport express audio/video?)

    we've lost case (integrated into monitor)



    so, what else can vanish?



    location



    I'm pretty sure, on the long run, we do have many monitor/display/beamers/whatever in our household; that is all "connected", leaving your reallife desktop, going to living room will "transfer" project to that display (besides: that was a very old project at MIT's medialab, using a server and some "tags/batches"...); so, maybe, we see in the future a black-box with some terabytes in the cellar, and some tiny "plugs" which will rendezvous/bonjour all "displays"...

    and, for sure, we will see a "mobile display"/docPod with some kind of input ability (anyone ink? voice-recog? Scottie!!)
  • Reply 9 of 43
    gargar Posts: 1,201member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by luvosx

    Guys/Gals:

    Rather than see its shortcomings, look at the positive side of the imacG4's design.




    It looked gorgeous...







    that's it
  • Reply 10 of 43
    mrtotesmrtotes Posts: 760member
    I'd like to see an iMac Pro and an iMac Nano.



    The iMac Pro would have the beautiful LCD mounting arm (using any other computer feels restrictive to me) and desktop sized (fast, cheap) components in a base which supports the weight of the 20/23" screen. Available in Black or Brushed Metal. With 2 Accessible DIMM slots and an ExpressCard/54. Two USB2 and 1 FW400 and the card slot would be mounted on the front of the machine. The wired Keyboard provided would also have 2 USB2 ports included.



    The iMac Nano would be a very slim laptop component based machine which looks like a reduced chin version of the current iMac in 17 and 20" versions. It may be VESA mounted if required. To offset the low speed of the small hard disk the iMac Nano would have 4Gb flash memory for the OS to be stored in and would be a step towards the thin-client model that broadband connectivity/.Mac offers. Available in Black or White. This may be marketed as the eMac. It would be offered as BTO with or without drives and Airport 802.11n to keep costs down for educational establishments who would probably have large servers and wired networks.



    Both models can be controlled by a bluetooth enabled remote with click wheel. iSight would of course feature in both models. In addition both machines would ship with iWorks (like the old days of the consumer machines having Claris or Apple Works)
  • Reply 11 of 43
    gargar Posts: 1,201member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by mrtotes

    [snip]

    The iMac Pro would have the beautiful LCD mounting arm (using any other computer feels restrictive to me) and desktop sized (fast, cheap) components in a base which supports the weight of the 20/23" screen.

    [/snip]




    If you think it needs the components in the base to support the weight of the screen, the screen can certainly not be mounted on an arm, don't you think.



    Why mess with something that's already perfect?



    Keep it simple, stupid
  • Reply 12 of 43
    luvosxluvosx Posts: 50member
    Thinking aloud, the imac G4 looked gorgeous of course and served more like a "home" pc niche. How else can one justify a 15" lcd at 1024x768 resolution on a desktop ? And the G4 peaked out at 1.25GHz (the 1.42s didn't make it to imac ?) that made it slow for serious work - try a 20" costing close to $1800 - probably even less justifiable



    Well, [gar] certainly has a point there. But it served its purpose in the days where there was no "today's" proliferation of multimegapixel digital cameras, i guess so may be they didn't need the box - probably this is their way of persuading you to upgrade every couple of years



    Definitely the imac G5 is a much faster machine - and Apple are being more aware of the fact that the imacs are considered for serious use as well - hence the mainstream core duos and plans to do core2 duos ?



    Interestingly, virtual computing has been on many people's radars for a while now - but our bandwidths can't even take HD streaming on a dedicated cable line ~ 30Mbps ? - I wonder how realtime computing can fare where people expect high resolution pictures etc. to be edited and hd movies to be streamed.



    Ideally that would be great - I guess we are inching forward towards that - While they crack this nut open, in the short term, i wouldn't mind some slick boxes for sure
  • Reply 13 of 43
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    What's the betting we see a Black version too in slightly redesigned iMac @ Macworld '07. (ignore the keyboard etc. and it would be matte not gloss)











    In a few years we'll see an iMac similar design to this one but roughly 1/3 this thickness. (obviously a few hurdles will have to be overcome, but it will happen eventually. OLED, flash, very low watt/heat chips etc.) I think the form factor is right though, and we'll start to see alot more copy-cats soon!









  • Reply 14 of 43
    reganregan Posts: 474member
    I LOVE LOVE LOVE the G5/intel imac design. Its my first imac, and although I understand the slow resistance to when apple changes form factors...they really do get better.



    We get attached to apple designs. I didnt even HAVE a G4 imac(lamp style), and when the G5 imacs came out, I remember feeling kinda bummed. I had WANTED and lusted for the G4 imac for so long.



    But after getting the G5 imac, I couldnt imagine ever getting the G4 imac. I think its the perfect evolution of design. It has no clunky heavy base like the G4. Its really a marvel of aesthetic appeal.



    I know that whenever Apple decides to change the imac form factor again, I may initially resist....but I will most likely warm up to it just as quickly.



    For now though, I am VERY happy with my G5 imac. :-)
  • Reply 15 of 43
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ireland

    What's the betting we see a Black version too in slightly redesigned iMac @ Macworld '07. (ignore the keyboard etc. and it would be matte not gloss)









    Badass!
  • Reply 16 of 43
    mrtotesmrtotes Posts: 760member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by gar

    If you think it needs the components in the base to support the weight of the screen, the screen can certainly not be mounted on an arm, don't you think.



    Why mess with something that's already perfect?



    Keep it simple, stupid




    Apple made the iMac G4 20" heavier in the base to support the adjustable screen on an arm - I can see how the design works about 60 cms in front of me! ;-)



    I don't believe either iMac design is perfect and certainly not the iMac G5/ICD the ports are hidden out of reach - especially USB ports for flash drives etc; and the screen height and azimuth are much more difficult to set to differing user's perfection without the use of a Yellow Pages! However the iMac G5/ICD is far far better for upgrading or maintaining the machine as anyone who has cracked an iMac G4 will admit to.



    I'd probably be happy with the iMac G5/ICD design if the wired keyboard had a FW/USB2 hub (& a flash card reader? - too much to ask for!) in it. The current iMac design wouldn't work in how I have my work/home space set up. I need to be able to push the screen back and twist it repeatedly for different tasks - something that would require the iMac G5 to be moved bodily around the desk to achieve.



    kind regards



    mrtotes
  • Reply 17 of 43
    gargar Posts: 1,201member
    If you only knew the machine...
  • Reply 18 of 43
    imacfanimacfan Posts: 444member
    The G4 iMac was great while it lasted, but there are reasons why we won't have anything like that again. Both the amazing anglepoise arm and the round base cost far too much money to make the machine competitive price wise. The curves also seem to cause a nightmare in design and manufacture. Just look at a clamshell iBook - the ports are all at different angles, while newer designs put them in a straight line.



    David
  • Reply 19 of 43
    coreycorey Posts: 165member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ireland

    What's the betting we see a Black version too in slightly redesigned iMac @ Macworld '07. (ignore the keyboard etc. and it would be matte not gloss)











    In a few years we'll see an iMac similar design to this one but roughly 1/3 this thickness. (obviously a few hurdles will have to be overcome, but it will happen eventually. OLED, flash, very low watt/heat chips etc.) I think the form factor is right though, and we'll start to see alot more copy-cats soon!







    That's sweet! Would prefer that the keyboard was black with light up keys though...



  • Reply 20 of 43
    nijiniji Posts: 288member
    wont buy until it loses its chin

    absolutely needs a wireless keyboard and a BT mighty mouse.
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