Apple Computer Inc.’s Senior Vice President of Hardware Product Marketing, Phil Schiller, officially kicked off Apple Expo Paris this week introducing the iMac G5 during his keynote address. Analysts are unanimous in their support for the new consumer machine and the strategic ties Apple has drawn between the iMac and the iPod in marketing the computer. Read the interview here.
Phil Schiller, analysts discuss the iMac G5
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Lacks : a bit of memory and I wouldn’t buy it before MacOs 10.4 is the default OS for it.
In about a year, it’ll be a good buy for people into this sort of machines.
I find it expensive but worth the extra dosh though. Not for the tinkerer (neither OS nor hardware) though.
But my take is that 70% of computer buyers are not tinkerers so given that the price is not outrageous, it’ll find its place on the desktop of many designer flat dwelling people that hate the mess of a regular PC, and even more the idea that they have to fiddle with security configuration on XP.
that went shopping exclusively for an all in one. in fact, all in ones are far from the norm. the original imac is the best example of a successful release. the second model didnt live up to the first models sales figures. apples and the broader markets experience shows that folks most worried about size, weight, footprint, etc are buying desktop replacement laptops.
when folks buy computers they evaluate many things
price
size of whole system
size of monitor (viewing area)
monitors maximum resolution
weight
noise level (more of an issue these days)
feature set
compatability with software
compatability with already owned peripherals
compatability with palms, pocket pcs, and phones
dvd burning capability and speed and dual layer functionality (new)
cd burning speed
compatability with copy protected media (music cds, etc)
dvd special features compatability
ability to use tv tuner card
ability to act as personal/digital video recorder (pvr/dvr)
portability or mobility
gaming ability
number and type of ports
sound capability
expansion options
baseline hardware as understood by the consumer: mhz or ghz, amount of ram, size of hard drive, quality of video card, number and type of optical drives, floppy drive for legacy use, legacy ports, etc
im sure i am leaving dozens off….like some may even pay attention to the amount of power used…
so yes we can compare a dell tower with a 20″ lcd to the new imac. we likewise could compare a tablet pc that is an all in one that goes in a stand and looks and acts just like the new imac….wireless keyboard and mouse on desk but in the case of the tablet you can pick it up and go elsewhere and use it…some with just stylus and others with stylus and a keyboard.
any personal computer can be compared to any other personal computer. and when a buyer evaluates all of the above…including mac buyers, very few end up choosing all in ones. apples numbers for notebooks keep going up and sales of imacs and towers are down.
apple has been building all in ones off and one since the original Mac. some have been more successful than others but overall their sales have trended downwards over that time period as compared to the broader market.
few want all in ones, so showing a consumer how they can compare other options is far from meaningless.
size of whole system ——- imac wins out
size of monitor (viewing area) ——- imac wins
monitors maximum resolution — imac wins
weight ———— imac wins
noise level (more of an issue these days) —– imac definately wins
feature set ———- imac wins
compatability with software – imac wins
compatability with already owned peripherals — imac wins
compatability with palms, pocket pcs, and phones —- imac wins
dvd burning capability and speed and dual layer functionality (new) —- imac wins
ability to use tv tuner card —- imac wins
ability to act as personal/digital video recorder (pvr/dvr) —-imac wins
portability or mobility ——- imac wins
number and type of ports —— imac wins
sound capability —— imac wins
baseline hardware as understood by the consumer: mhz or ghz, amount of ram, size of hard drive, quality of video card, number and type of optical drives, floppy drive for legacy use, legacy ports, etc
Bull shit. Most consumers don’t the difference between the harddrive and the desktop tower. The average PC buyer knows nothing about legacy ports, or quality of video card.
I have talked to a lot of Dell tech support agents and thier call rate indicates that most of the users call thier desktop a “hard drive”, Can’t figure out how to play mp3s of a website and call tech support.
You just keep sneaking in requirements that you know Apple doesn’t have and pass it of as most consumers requirements. Trust me, most consumers have no clue that you can watch TV on a PC or make it a PVR. They just buy a TIVO.
I can’t keep up with all the differnet DVD writtable media formats. My colleague writes CD/DVD burning software and we talk every day. NEw formats crop up every other day. An average consumer is for sure not going to know what the latest format DVD+/- rw media is.
All the points you made are useless. People buy iMacs in the hunderds of thousands. Apple has marketshare only less than IBM (5.6) in the US. It is the third largest market share in the US.
Apples revenues and unit sales have been going up year over years. So obviously they are doing things right. As the economy improves watch as it goes higher.
of course you can but often you decide on other things first.
if you alredy decided to get a peformance computer you wouldnt
look twice at the imac. and if you alredy decided that you need a small system you wouldnt look att the dell tower.
those comparissons make sense if you have no clue on wath kind of system to get or if formfactor dosent matter.
but if you where intrsed in the imac in the first place you probobly fall in to a few catogories.
1. you want a cheap machine to run osx (wont happen)
2. you got little space and want a small machine (imac laptop shuttle)
3. you want osx and cant afford the powermac
those in group2 comparisons make most sense cus they want to know wath to get.
those in 3 would probobly never buy a pc anyway
and those in group 1 is only wasting time since it wont happen
ive never met anyone
Not suprising. The amount of time you spend here on OSNews. I am sure your circle of aquaintances isn’t much.
Also did you just repond to your own post regarding “Wether Apple would lower the cost of it’s macs becuase of falling LCD prices”?
to justify apples system building as being ok because the average consumer is an idiot is mighty demeaning.
people have varying degrees of understanding, sure some are utterly clueless. many are quite adept. many that dont know what they are doing ask people for help…whether it be a sales person, a friend, or a family member.
“Trust me, most consumers have no clue that you can watch TV on a PC or make it a PVR. They just buy a TIVO.”
that is quite ill informed. add in tv tuner cards have sold 50 million units worldwide. considering that apple claims a worldwide installed base of 20-25 million, that is 2x the whole mac market.
if you go to nearly any computer builders website you will see a tv tuner card as an option on all models capable of an add in card. it isnt an option for any mac made coming direct from apple. no choice.
without just reason:
huh? comparing against the dell above?
size of whole system ——- imac wins out…yes
size of monitor (viewing area) ——- imac wins…no, the dell is 20.1″ and has higher res
monitors maximum resolution — imac wins, no the dell does: 1600×1200 puts more pixels on the screen than 1680×1050
weight ———— imac wins, yes
noise level (more of an issue these days) —– imac definately wins, yes
feature set ———- imac wins, no not even close
compatability with software – imac wins, no not even close the number of windows software choices dwarfs the macs choices
compatability with already owned peripherals — imac wins, that depends on user but more third party devices are made for windows based pcs than macs… even older adb and scsi devices on mac are problematic.
compatability with palms, pocket pcs, and phones —- imac wins, no more devices work better on windows pcs
dvd burning capability and speed and dual layer functionality (new) —- imac wins, no the imac does one standard (-) at only 4x, the dell does one standard (+) at up to 16x and also does dual layer
ability to use tv tuner card —- imac wins, no the imac cannot add an internal tv tuner card, and the number of choices for external is much lower, few work on macs
ability to act as personal/digital video recorder (pvr/dvr) —-imac wins, nope see above and pvr software choices abound on windows but there are few choices on mac
portability or mobility ——- imac wins, yes
number and type of ports —— imac wins, not even close, the imac has no agp slot, no pci slots, not as many other ports, etc
sound capability —— imac wins, no the imacs sound doesnt compare to a sound blaster audigy 2…go check out the specs on both. its not even close. right off the imac doesnt do dolby 5.1 natively…has to output digital signal to an external decoder. the sb audigy also does dvd audio. the audigy has dozens more features.
sound capability —— imac wins, no the imacs sound doesnt compare to a sound blaster audigy 2…go check out the specs on both. its not even close. right off the imac doesnt do dolby 5.1 natively…has to output digital signal to an external decoder. the sb audigy also does dvd audio. the audigy has dozens more features.
My denon reciever which cost $800 then, now probably any $400 receiver, has more features than an audigy ever will and has an excellent Amp to boot.
You can have a jack of all trades PC or a high quality single use device. I think my home theatre far out does any PC interms of Audio/Video features and quality. It cost me less than the standard highend media PC.
The iMac is computer first and it does that job extremely well, in a simple and easy way, while beng pleasing to look at.
That was why the first iMac was a success and that is why the ipod was a runaway hit. The new iMac is being marketed as the iPod of PCs. Do one thing, do it well and look sexy doing it.
So please give us all a break and stop trying to tell us what we are missing out if we buy an iMac.
number and type of ports —— imac wins, not even close, the imac has no agp slot, no pci slots, not as many other ports, etc
Slots are not ports. The iMac has more than enough, USB, Firewire ports than the average PC. firewire is an addon on most PCs.
Also with USB and most of the serial interfaces one or two ports are more than enough, coz you can use a hub to get more. Also Apple keyboards have an extra USB port on them to connect day to day peripherals.
dvd burning capability and speed and dual layer functionality (new) —- imac wins, no the imac does one standard (-) at only 4x, the dell does one standard (+) at up to 16x and also does dual layer
Dual layer media cost atleast $11.50 a piece. Your average home user isn’t going to be using it anytime soon.
Anyway with blue-ray DVDs on the horizon, the dual layer drives of today are already obsolete. All I need to do is connect a firewire blue-ray DVD drive to the iMac.
Also slot loading drives are always behind standard format drives. That is why laptops always ship with older technology drives. It is a tradeoff between form factor and functionality. iMac users are willing to make that trade off.
some quibbles:
“My denon reciever which cost $800 then, now probably any $400 receiver, has more features than an audigy ever will and has an excellent Amp to boot.”
ever is a very long time. a denon receiver from 1985 does not have the feauture set that a current top end audigy has.
“I think my home theatre far out does any PC interms of Audio/Video features and quality.”
that may well be true, but there are some really extravagant devices that can incorporate with a pc for this type of thing. but anyway, a pc is not always a stand alone theatre system…it can be just a part of your theatre:
tv out to lcd tv or plasma or high def or whatever
mp3 and sound file storage and streaming
video streaming (including compressed video file formats like divx)
pvr/dvr
optical or component sound out to surround sound, 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 etc
thx sound quality
eax effects
24-bit DVD-Audio Playback
media streaming to other pcs in the home
media streaming via web server to remote locations when you are on the road
but yes, the consumer can decide based on need if they need a jack of all trades pc or they can determine if they want to incorporate it with other equipment. or they can buy a different piece of equipment for every type of thing they do
some are wealthy enough to have a windows pc for gaming, a mac for photo editing, a linux box for their home server, etc etc etc
others just have one device to do all things.
oh, one thing i did fail to point out:
size of whole system ——- imac wins out…yes
weight ———— imac wins, yes
portability or mobility ——- imac wins, yes
those remain yes unless the person making the purchase (like a college student in a small dorm room) chooses to get a tv tuner card and then goes without a large tv set. in that case they save the money by not having to buy a tv and they also end up with a total package that is smaller, lighter, and easier to move about.
“Slots are not ports. The iMac has more than enough, USB, Firewire ports than the average PC. firewire is an addon on most PCs.
Also with USB and most of the serial interfaces one or two ports are more than enough, coz you can use a hub to get more. Also Apple keyboards have an extra USB port on them to connect day to day peripherals.”
no slots arent ports but they are a means of connecting devices to a computer and fit the same bill. dont be anal. at a minimum a pci slot can be used to add ports with an add in card.
firewire is fairly well mainstream on PCs today. my most recent pc and laptop came with them standard. if they dont come with one you can add a firewire card for as little as $5.
on one hand you say there are plenty of ports, on the other you talk about adding a hub that kills the all in one experience of the imac. yes there are enough ports for some folks. others have more devices and would have no choice but to add a hub. it all depends. generally the more ports the better.
“Dual layer media cost atleast $11.50 a piece. Your average home user isn’t going to be using it anytime soon.”
here is dual layer media for $9.99
http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/U…
if you have forgotten, when apple started putting superdrives in macs the media was $10 each as well. now they are .50 each. give it a few months. looks like dvd-r caught on pretty well id say.
“Anyway with blue-ray DVDs on the horizon, the dual layer drives of today are already obsolete.”
by that logic the dvd burner in a mac is obsolete as well. but of course that is absurd. just because something better is coming doesnt take away the functionality i have today.
“Also slot loading drives are always behind standard format drives. That is why laptops always ship with older technology drives. It is a tradeoff between form factor and functionality.”
no the imac is just using old dvd burners. here is a dell laptop that has a slot loading dvd burner that is 8x instead of the imacs 4x and it also does dual layer burning.
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&…
ever is a very long time. a denon receiver from 1985 does not have the feauture set that a current top end audigy has.
How did you come up with 1985? Did you just pull that out of your nether regions?
I assure you my receiver is a lot newer. It has a 7 channel Amp that no PC speaker system can touch. The preamp section on my denon has far superior DACs than any sound card manufacturer can put on a PCI card.
The 20 inch iMac with an elgato tv tuner/PVR system connected to my denon reciever, though the optical out will make for a far more compeling home theater with the 20 inch 16:9 ratio screen than the 20.1 4:3 format Dell display. It will have less wires and be whisper quiet allowing me to enjoy my movie and Audio better than any PC with a pentium 4 chip.
I have a PC with a TV tuner card and a 6.1 audio system. I have tried to do the whole hometheatre PC thing and it is far inferior to my standard hometheatre. You have to spend huge amounts of money to get anything decent. That amount of money can get you better A/V components.
The home PC cannot do everything well. The iMac, once again, has a bueatiful philosophy. Simple, elegant and do onething do it right.
The iMac with one of these will offer a better college student souliton than a desktop tower with a TV tuner:
http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyetvmain
add to that wireless, bluetooth keyboard and mouse. And you have the perfect mobile PC with excellent TV capabilities and best of all only a power cord going to the iMac.
Listen, I have better things to do than argue on pointles relegious PC vs Mac wars.
I have given my 0.02 cents. Adios.
on one hand you say there are plenty of ports, on the other you talk about adding a hub that kills the all in one experience of the imac. yes there are enough ports for some folks. others have more devices and would have no choice but to add a hub. it all depends. generally the more ports the better.
Care to show me how five USB ports aren’t enough? The iMac has 3 USB 2.0 ports, 2 USB 1.1 ports.
Care to show me a PC with moree than five USB ports? Over that one that doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb in the industrial design of the system?
by that logic the dvd burner in a mac is obsolete as well. but of course that is absurd. just because something better is coming doesnt take away the functionality i have today.
What that means is that with the DVD rewriteable format wars
Average consumers are confused enough that a Dual Layer DVD writer doesn’t matter to most consumers, barring a few pro users.
Also the Dell DVD burners only support the DVD+R/RW formats so they aren’t anybetter in format support than the Apple.
For the best compatibility one should look for dual format drives.
So your point about DVD drives is moot both Apple and Dell lose.
Also the time differnce to burn a 4.7 GB DVD between a 8X and 4x is only 5 minutes. 8x in 10 mins and 4x in 15.
no the imac is just using old dvd burners. here is a dell laptop that has a slot loading dvd burner that is 8x instead of the imacs 4x and it also does dual layer burning.
Dell’s slimline DVD is not slot loading. Powerbooks and the new iMac have slot loading drives. There is not CD tray in a slot loading drive. The Dell slimlines have trays.
“Care to show me a PC with moree than five USB ports? Over that one that doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb in the industrial design of the system?”
the dell listed above has 8 usb ports on the tower…all usb 2.0 (depending on the keyboard you end up getting you might have another 2 as well..usb 1 likely)
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/dimen_…
the monitor has additional four usb ports
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/ProductDetail.aspx?TabPage=techs…
that makes a total of 12!
“Care to show me how five USB ports aren’t enough? The iMac has 3 USB 2.0 ports, 2 USB 1.1 ports.”
5 ports
so i have a printer—thats one port
i have a scanner—thats two
i have usb speakers—thats three
i have usb keyboard—thats four
i have usb mouse—thats five
so two devices come with the imac that take up 2 of the 5 ports
i have no place left to attach my usb camera, my usb palm, my usb hard drive, usb dvd burner, etc etc etc.
the imac has 3 open ports after connecting the mouse and keyboard. 3 open usb ports is not enough for many many people.
“Also the Dell DVD burners only support the DVD+R/RW formats so they aren’t anybetter in format support than the Apple.”
no they support + and they support + dual layer. that is more capable than the imac. it is also a 16x drive. 4x faster. faster is better. claiming that it only takes so many minutes less is no arguement. people like to get their work done. speed matters.
“What that means is that with the DVD rewriteable format wars
Average consumers are confused enough that a Dual Layer DVD writer doesn’t matter to most consumers, barring a few pro users.”
again this defense of apple using an old and slow standard but it doesnt matter because consumers are idiots and wont know any better. nice defense.
“Dell’s slimline DVD is not slot loading. Powerbooks and the new iMac have slot loading drives. There is not CD tray in a slot loading drive. The Dell slimlines have trays.”
sorry about that, failed to pay attention to that detail. of course apple could choose to use a tray loading drive and get better choices but they choose slot.
this model supports the + format and dvd-ram but same speeds as the imac. is it the same drive but apple just removes the dvd-ram and + support?
http://www.panasonic.com/industrial/computer/storage/multi/index_sl…
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=27-133-00…
(those slot loading drives are real handy if you get any mini discs too)
“ever is a very long time. a denon receiver from 1985 does not have the feauture set that a current top end audigy has.
How did you come up with 1985? Did you just pull that out of your nether regions?
I assure you my receiver is a lot newer. It has a 7 channel Amp that no PC speaker system can touch. The preamp section on my denon has far superior DACs than any sound card manufacturer can put on a PCI card.”
no i wasnt saying your denon was from 1985, my example is that saying yours today is better than a pc sound card will “ever” be is a bit of hyperbole. you dont know that, and in fact it is almost assuredly wrong. my point was that even a very high end component from a few years back can quickly be surpassed by low end materials down the road.
“The 20 inch iMac with an elgato tv tuner/PVR system”
there goes the all in one design with more gadgets on the desk. more cables. and substantially more expensive versus pci based options that can go in the dell.
but i have seen never ending tales of woe with the el gato solution anyway:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/eye_tv_review.html
“(added 8/31/2004)
” EyeTV USB
Absolutely unreliable
Made the mistake to buy an EyeTV USB some weeks ago and tried hard to make it work. Got “No Signal” all the time. Downloaded half a dozen software versions from the Elgato website, nothing worked. Elgatos email support is nice, fast and useless. EyeTVs USB driven tv tuner simply seems to be garbage. My cable signal is great (I had it tested), but the software is absolutely unreliable. The device sometimes works great for an hour and then dies again. You record a show, burn it on cd, and everything is great, and the next moment, the whole thing crashes and it takes you a day to make it work again. You know, like the first automobiles, 120 years ago. Maybe it works, maybe not.
The set up is a joke – EyeTV sometimes finds all the channels; the next day it finds no channels or just a few channels. Did you know it’s a german product? Forget everything you ever heard about german quality. Man, I’ve never seen something so terrible on a Mac. My second Mac was a Performa 5200 with built-in tv tuner. Worked great, and that was eight years ago. Right now, I’m working with a 12″ PB 1 GHz and external monitor, OS 10.2.8. TV on my Mac? Forget it! Best regards from good ol’ Europe.
Rolf P.
Zurich, Switzerland “”
so i have a printer—thats one port
i have a scanner—thats two
i have usb speakers—thats three
i have usb keyboard—thats four
i have usb mouse—thats five
Ever heard of a USB hub? iMac users can connect thier printers/scanners wirelessly over Airport Express.
the imac has 3 open ports after connecting the mouse and keyboard. 3 open usb ports is not enough for many many people.
3 is more than enough for a lot more people.
Please stop this illogical comparison of a desktop unit with an All-in-one.
Take the dell 4600c for comaprison.
The iMac is a form factor machine. The dell is a huge mid-size tower monstrosity. Most people can keep the iMac in thier living room with bluetooth and wireless (no wires expect powercord), wirelessly transmit thier music to thier stereo.
but i have seen never ending tales of woe with the el gato solution anyway:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/eye_tv_review.html
from the site, conviniently cut that out didn’t you:
“This is the first USB EyeTV report I’ve had for many months (there are many USB model reports much farther down the page though)”
One bad feedback for the USB model and you extrapolate that to the whole brand. There are a lot of statisfied users of the entire line. Also that forum is meant for discussing problems.
I can assure that Dell’s forums have worse feed back.
Anyway, I am done with this discussion. Compare a dell AIO to the iMac and we can continue this discussion. The price of the 4600c is comparable and it is the only dell, barring the optiplex model that one can compare to the iMac.
for a very interesting comparison to the new imac all in ones…
try this
buy a stand, a bluetooth keyboard and mouse setup, and an averatec c3500 tablet pc convertible:
stand $30
nice logitech wireless keyboard/mouse combo (Logitech® Cordless MX™ Duo) from $45
or bluetooth (Logitech® Cordless Desktop® MX™ for Bluetooth®) from $89
add in bluetooth module if going bluetooth, belkin bluetooth pc card f8t002 from $22
case for tablet pc from $30
averatec c 3500 http://averatec.com/notebooks/C3500.htm
# Mobile AMD Athlon™ XP-M 2200+ with PowerNow!™ 2.0 Technology and QuantiSpeed™ Architecture
# Microsoft® Windows® XP Tablet PC 2005 Edition
# Full Featured Notebook PC and Tablet with Stylus Pen
# 12.1” High Contrast XGA TFT Screen (1024×768 res)
# Built-in DVD + CD-RW Drive
# Built-in 802.11 b/g Wireless LAN
# 60 GB Hard Drive
# 512MB DDR333 (1GB Max)
# Wired LAN 10/100
# Modem 56k
# 4 USB 2.0 Ports
# Built-in Mic
# VGA and S-Video out ports
# 1 Type II PC Card Bus Slot
# Audio Out/Mic In Ports
# 87 Key Keyboard and Touchpad with two way scroll
# DimensionsWxDxH) 11.6″ x 9.8″ x 1.6″
# Weight (lbs.) 5.5 lbs.
# Microsoft® Office OneNote 2003 ($100 at retail…was $200 up until just a few weeks ago)
# Cyberlink Power DVD XP 5.0
# Roxio Easy CD Creator 6
# Norton Anti-Virus 2004
# 1 Year Warranty
regularly $1349 but on sale for $1149 this week at Staples ($100 mail in rebate)
so imac starts at $1300
the above is
$1149 tablet
$30 case
$30 stand
$45 wireless mouse and keyboard or
$111 bluetooth mouse, keyboard, and bluetooth pc card
total is either $1254 or $1320 depending on whether you go with bluetooth or not.
what you get:
a setup that is smaller and lighter than the imac
takes up less space
includes wireless or bluetooth keyboard and mouse
includes wireless 802.11 b/g networking
double the ram
on the down side it has a smaller screen and smaller hard drive
dvd burning is not an option internally
the big plus is you get an all in one that pops out of its stand for you to take wherever you like for portable dvd playing, wireless use on the road, etc… and it even has tablet pc functionality as well.
an amazing setup at a solid price.