“The success of the iPod, Apple’s biggest ever consumer hit, was bound to overshadow the company’s mainstay business in 2004. […] In the numbers that really count: revenue, margins and profit, the Macintosh remains Apple’s core business. So where did it go?” Read the editorial at TheRegister.
Whatever happened to… the Apple Mac?
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Maybe we will find out this year. I hope that Apple puts their computer business on the front burner this year and really does remember that this is their core. If they do offer an entry level machine at a $500 price point they better have an advertising campaign to go along with it. With the release of Tiger this year I would hope to see a an OS X desktop in a TV commercial. Their chance to make users aware of all the innovations beyond the iPod is right now. I hope they don’t miss the boat on this opportunity.
… Steve Jobs knows where Apple is going to. 🙂
How can anybody say that Apple is putting the iPod before the Mac? With all the resources Apple is putting into OS and other application development (none of which run on the iPod) there is no doubt that the Mac is still their priority. The iPod only adds money to the coffers and promotes their brand to people who might otherwise have looks past it in a world dominated by Windows. It seems to be paying off; I just convinced a guy I know to buy a Mac last week.
Apple’s marketing didn’t convince that guy you know to purchase their hardware, you did. Have you seen any hardware other than an iPod in the past 12 months in TV advertising? Last thing I saw was an iMac G4 sticking out it’s drive tray in a store window. My whole point about focus is on marketing priorities. Of course Apple has invested far more in their computers than the iPod. Apple has done a great job making the iPod a household name. People know what it is. They also know what Windows is. Now ask the average Joe what OS X is. See my point? I have convinced about six people to buy Mac’s this past year. We need some help don’t you think? Maybe they want Tiger on the shelves before they go after the mainstream. Who knows.
“I have convinced about six people to buy Mac’s this past year. We need some help don’t you think?”
Actually I was sick of having to remove spyware from friends/family’s computers all the time. I am not a fanatic and I have and use Windows machines every day and they work just fine…I just know how to keep them clean.
Same feelings here. If I could just get a PowerMac G5 for around 1K, instead of 2K, I will jump back in a heartbeat.
Or if at least, the so-called $500 Mac have a decent G5, plus either 2 PCI express or one AGP and one PCI slots and space for at least 2 HD, I will also jump on that one.
Elementary my dear dumb dumb.
1) Apple is, and doesn’t it seem like always, is having supply problems from IBM on G5 chips.
2) They are selling all the G5 based computers they can make.
3) Proof of this is that the eMac still uses a G4 chip.
4) Further proof is that there is little hope Apple laptops will have G5 chips until the second half of the year. NO NO NO NO NO the heat issue isn’t the biggest factor. They could just reduce the speed of the chips which would make them run cooler and still faster than the G5 chips. SUPPLY is the issue.
Now if you haven’t figured it out yet. Apple can advertise the G5 Macs all they want but if you don’t have the ability to build more it is a huge waste of money.
Should be “faster than G4 chips.
People have been telling people they wanted a headless iMac as long as there have been iMacs. Apple has not given them up for two reasons 1) they would bring lower margins and some canibalization, and 2) the heart of the Mac community accepted that argument.
As soon as the Apple high-end went to G5s, the canibalization risk was reduced. As apple-watchers have commented before, the low end could be G4 and the high end G5 – priced accordingly.
Even so, I think Apple has been resistent. They still didn’t want to introduce the headless model. They still wanted all of their customers to go for the full-on G5.
So they tried this product cycle with a G5 iMac to see how it would go … and went OK, but not enough to break out into big (remember the first iMac) sales.
Now, maybe, they are going to give us the headless iMac that we’ve been asking for … and if conditions are right (too late?), it might be big in the same way those first iMacs were big.
the Mac mini
“Encased in brushed metal, the new Mac mini features a square shape with rounded edges and is somewhat similar in appearance to an Apple AC power adapter. It features a slot-loading CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo drive, USB 2.0, FireWire 400, DVI and VGA connectivity.
The Mac mini comes in two models — a 1.25GHz, 40GB G4 system for $499 and an 80GB 1.42GHz G4 system for $599.”
Headless systems are those you run without a monitor, that you access without a directly-connected monitor, and ones that you never, ever need a monitor for.
A system sold without a monitor is not a headless system. It is a “system sold without a monitor” or an unbundled system.
An Apple XServer may be useful as a headless system, depending on how much administration can be done to MacOS X via SSH / remote X, but the Mac Mini is *NOT* a headless system.