iMacs Freshened with 2.0 GHz G5, Bluetooth, WiFi 790
amichalo writes "Apple has updated the popular consumer level Mac, the iMac G5.
So better support the now standard Mac OS X Tiger, Apple has made significant improvements to all standard configurations including 512MB RAM, Radeon 9600 128MB graphics, and on 2.0 GHz models (17" and 20"), a slot-loading dual-layer 8x SuperDrive is standard. The 1.8 GHz 17" model includes a slot-loading Combo Drive.
Also standard are Apple's AirPort Extreme 802.11g WiFi and Bluetooth. Pricing remains at $1300, $1500, and $1800 respectively for 1.8 GHz 17", 2.0 GHz 17", and 2.0 GHz 20", though 2.0 GHz models include additional upgraded features.
These improvements are significant as this line has not seen a refresh in about a year and the upgrade to a Radeon 9600 graphics card will allow the new iMac to take better advantage of Tiger features such as Core Image, which is significant because the video card cannot be upgraded. Lastly, Apple is continuing the interactive chat and QuickTime support program for the iMac G5."
That's Bluetooth 2.0 (Score:5, Informative)
don't forget the emac (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Any other Mozilla users... (Score:0, Informative)
Nearly a year? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:looks like the end of the PowerMac (Score:5, Informative)
I would agree that the low end Powermac is abit... MMhhh weak, but then the advantage of it is that you can expand it more, another HDD, GFX, more memory.
So for a "family" the Powermac really isn't the right machine but if you need an entry level Workstation for grafic work I'd say the Powermac is still the way to go.
Memory Prices (somewhat) improved (Score:5, Informative)
It leaves me puzzled why they are still shipping 256 Mb on the Power Macs (why, why?). However, this looks like a very sensible feature improvement which should provide the perfect all in one home machine and stop the iMac from having their sales canibalised by Mac Minis at the lower end. Sadly my previous generation iMac, which is now 4 years old, is still running perfectly, especially now it has Tiger, so this may still be a hard sell to buy this year.
Re:One significant thing about the iMac (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not interested, however... (Score:0, Informative)
Now stop trolling the Apple stories.
Not bad... (Score:1, Informative)
The video chipset is still a bit jokey, but this whips the Powermac refresh like the family pig.
Still, I'm pretty sure I'm building a new box by hand this time 'round, I don't feel like waiting another year for Apple to get its PCIe act together...
Re:game (Score:2, Informative)
"The confusing thing about PC's is you go to the store, and there are just SO MANY games. EVERYWHERE you look! But on the mac... there are just six."
Re:don't forget the emac (Score:4, Informative)
Re:don't forget the emac (Score:4, Informative)
According to http://www.apple.com/support/store/postpurchase.h
Re:don't forget the emac (Score:2, Informative)
Re:looks like the end of the PowerMac (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I see a trend .. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:looks like the end of the PowerMac (Score:3, Informative)
Windows XP Home: $199 Windows XP Professional (Much closer to OSX): $299
So, now your $1095.00 computer just became $1394. Add in the other little things you forgot such as bluetooth, gigabit ethernet, and case and you've got a machine about on par with the Powermac.
Re:Low level design flaws? Hold off buying. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:One significant thing about the iMac (Score:1, Informative)
Or disingenuous, even.
Re:looks like the end of the PowerMac (Score:4, Informative)
Now Update The Mini! (Score:4, Informative)
A "sub $500" mac looses it's luster real quick when you have to stuff memory on top of it just to get decent performance. When they almost never leave stock 1.25/Gh/40Gb models at 256MB in the Apple stores, Best Buy, and Comp that says something about the performance.
Re:One significant thing about the iMac (Score:1, Informative)
I've got Doom3 on an AMD box with a Radeon 9600 and it runs just fine.
And while Doom3 tends o run a bit slower on macs with equivalent GPUs, the gap is much wider on high end hardware (that benchmarking geeks tend to obsess over) than it is on something like a 9600, as Aspyr chose to spend their resources optimizing for middle of the road machines like this.
Re:Now Update The Mini! (Score:4, Informative)
What's included - Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger
The Mac mini comes with Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger, Apple's powerful yet easy-to-use operating system that's as stable as only a UNIX-based system can be. Today thousands of software applications and peripherals take full advantage of its power and versatility.
Maybe they will upgrade the capacitors? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid
I don't think they were using "quality" capictors.
I also have an entire series of imacs where I work that almost every one has had a hard disk failure. Granted they are 5 years old, purchased in 2000 and are only 400mhz. But started failing one by one after we purchased them, 1 or 2 every month until almost all 60 had hard drives replaced.
Both Xserves I had purchased has had bad slot loading cdrom drives that I had Apple replace. I tried the firmware update that supposidly fixes the problem, but the drives still did not work.
Powerbooks with the same type cdrom seemed to be having similar problems. Ended up sending the drives in to be replaced.
We have had several other Macintosh Computers that could not keep time even after firmware resets and battery replacements.
I have had lots of bad memory, capicitors, and power supply failures -- much higher than all other computers combined (PCs, PPC IBM Servers). Failure has increased with newer models.
Apple used to produce quality computers back in the early 90's that would last for years. Now they are on par with emachines or packard bell.
We purchase many computers and it is not uncommon to see entire series of Macintosh Computers to have to same failure again and again. That does not mean a consumer can see this because he or she may have the "lucky" computer that is not the lemon.
APPLE, PLEASE GET BACK TO QUALITY!
Re:looks like the end of the PowerMac (Score:3, Informative)
As for whether XP Pro or OSX is better, that depends on what you do. And that's a different discussion.
OEM XP Pro from Newegg $139
(Adjusted Price $1234)
Gigabit Eth WAS included. As for bluetooth, I own an adapter for my PC (costs $10-20) and have yet to use it.
($1234+$20 = $1254) Still much cheaper than the Mac.
And before anyone flames me, I love Macs. Personally, I prefer OSX to XP, but that's because I do a lot of work with my Linux servers and like having something very similar to Linux at the command-line level while having a GUI that looks great. If I just wanted to play games and do basic thing, I'd probably pick Windows because there are far more programs/games available.
Re:Memory Prices (somewhat) improved (Score:4, Informative)
Besides, the RAM thing is always a tightrope for us. Yes, the iMacs need to have more RAM in their base configurations than the Power Macs do because market research tells us that only something like one iMac owner in 10 ever opens his computer, while five out of six Power Macs get upgraded in some way during the first year of ownership. Our iMac customers want more RAM in the Mac, while our Power Mac customers want less RAM in the G5 (because our RAM is naturally more expensive than third-party RAM; it's a volume issue). But at the same time they don't want the iMac to ship with more RAM than the Power Mac because then Power Mac buyers feel ripped off. "This expensive computer only came with 256 MB of RAM! Cheapskates!"
So it's a tightrope. Bottom line is, no matter how we configure the RAM in our SKUs, a third of our customers are gonna complain about it. And 100% of Slashdotters.
Re:One significant thing about the iMac (Score:5, Informative)
This is a marketable point given that the 9600 will take full advantage of Quartz 2D extreme GUI acceleration, whereas the video card below this one will not. So it's a matter of Quartz 2D Extreme support or not. Quartz 2D extreme should make a very large difference in GUI speed, which being a place that OSX has lagged, is a big deal.
macgamestore.com also launched today (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Thats cool (Score:1, Informative)
The difference is with this version they appear to have upped it to gigabit ethernet. That's a major boon for using the iMac in a design studio as increasingly the iMac is used there. For Photoshop/InDesign and web work it's easily powerful enough with PowerMacs becoming increasingly less needed.
Re:Midplane PSU & Inverter Defect in iMac (Score:5, Informative)
Considering that drive and LCD failures are unlikely to be heavily seen in any computer's first 6 months on the market, it's not surprising that most of the failures we hear about are the Midplane or PSU. PSU is an easy one - "won't power on/won't stay on." Inverter typically presents itself as a "no backlight" issue. That leaves a laundry list of problems that all reside on the midplane: Fans stop spinning, unit overheats. Fans spin too fast constantly, too loud. No AirPort signal. Bluetooth not recognized. Video scrambled. Ethernet port not working. Memory not recognized. Kernel panics on startup. Bad FireWire port. No sound. ALL of these require replacing the midplane.
My point? Not all iMac midplane failures are equal, and unless they are all failing for the same reason at the same point, there is no larger issue. Apple simply chose to put "the whole computer" on the midplane, so yes it gets replaced more frequently than many other parts (there are hardly any other parts to replace!), however from a customer service standpoint it makes repairing your own computer a heck of a lot easier. There are really only so many parts to go bad in an iMac, and surprise, a few of them have. Also realize that this computer has been flying off the shelves since day 1, so there's going to be a larger number of reports than usual. Add to this people who were shipped a PSU to replace and really needed a midplane, or vice versa, but consider the problem a 'dual failure' because both parts ended up being replaced (I've seen this case a lot online). This was a failure on Apple's support end to accurately identify the problem, but nonetheless does not constitute a dual-failure epidemic. The iBook G3 logic board recall, on the other hand, represents a specific widespread failure that manifests itself in the exact same way every time.
Sorry to go on a bit of a tirade, but I really feel that - like with the iPod 'battery issue' - the majority of iMac owners are happily enjoying their purchases and the fact that anyone with a sad story and no technical knowledge can post to a website really tends to have a run-away effect in the Mac community. It would be nice to see more people address these failures with some consideration for how the thing is built.
Re:Maybe they will upgrade the capacitors? (Score:2, Informative)
I have a bondi blue iMac from 1996, a lime iMac from 1999 or so, a PowerMac G4 from 2000, Xserve G4 version1 (with tray loading CD), and Xserve G4 version 2. Hell, I have a NeXTStation Turbo Color from 1991.
My friends and relatives have iMacs from 1999, 2002, 2004, 2005 iBooks from 2001, 2004, 2005, and powerbooks from 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005.
My current computer is a Powermac G5 purchased in 2003, among the first batch shipped. The internal DVD drive has started being a little flaky, but I think it just needs to be cleaned with compressed air.
The point is, they all work fine. My experience with all apple hardware has been exactly the opposite of what you describe.
<sarcasm>
Maybe I'm just lucky.
</sarcasm>
Re:Firewire 800? (Score:3, Informative)
What a load. (Score:3, Informative)
I've had caps on supposedly "quality" PC motherboards blow, from Soyo, Abit, and Asus. I've had ECS boards die. We've gotten hardware from Sun that was defective.
To say that Apple is on par with Packard Bell or eMachines is just ridiculous. Computer stuff can and will fail.
We've had excellent luck with the Apple stuff.
Re:Slashdot: Schills for nerds, stuff that matters (Score:2, Informative)
Refresh rate (Score:2, Informative)
Re:game (Score:3, Informative)
Also might want to check out:
http://www.pangeasoft.net/index2.html [pangeasoft.net]
http://www.udevgames.com/ [udevgames.com]
http://www.apple.com/games/ [apple.com]
http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/cat/games [versiontracker.com]
http://www.macupdate.com/games.php [macupdate.com]
As a side note, the Mac platform has never been known for a wide range of shrink-wrapped software; the main place to find software has always been "online", even before the internet was popular, and people got their software from BBSes.
Bad Capacitors - Known Problem (Score:3, Informative)
References:
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Feb/bch2003
http://home.earthlink.net/~doniteli/index27.htm [earthlink.net]
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/feb
Re:Refresh rate (Score:3, Informative)
Re:One significant thing about the iMac (Score:3, Informative)
In any case, it doesn't really matter one way or the other. Because Adobe doesn't use Quartz 2D at all. They use QuickDraw. And we're hardly going to stop supporting QuickDraw. We've deprecated it, sure, but it's not going away, specifically because there are thousands of applications out there that depend on it.
Long story short, a fancy-ass graphics card is not going to make Illustrator any faster.
(On a sidebar, I'd be careful about taking things that Siracusa says as gospel. He's certainly one smart cookie, but there are some things he's written lately that are just plain wrong. His fascination with extended attributes is an example. He concluded that it was part of some bizarre filesystem-dependent metadata scheme. It's not. It's something we added at the API level to support POSIX ACLs. So just let the buyer beware regarding his stuff, okay?)
Re:One significant thing about the iMac (Score:3, Informative)
And it ~was~ a typo, 'i' is right beside 'u' on the keyboard.
Re:Memory Prices (somewhat) improved (Score:1, Informative)
This locks every one into a contract for the same price. Which means if a plant or two catches on fire, which results in a sudden supply shock to RAM prices. Apple is still locked in on their RAM prices. And there are disincentives written into the contract that most likely the RAM manufacturer doesn't want to incur.
Also inetresting but too low-level for Slashdot (Score:3, Informative)
In general Slashdot could have a story of Tiger incompatibilities but that seems a little off-target for Slashdot. Those kind of stories are more a thing you'd go to Macslash for, or mentuion it in the context of some other article as you've done.
Re:game (Score:5, Informative)
Compare Processor "Speeds" at this site (Score:3, Informative)
Worth bookmarking.
Re:game (Score:2, Informative)
Re:not in my experience (Score:4, Informative)
And yes, the HD and RAM are standard parts, not proprietary Apple stuff. The Airport card is proprietary though.
Re:My Problem With iMacs (Score:1, Informative)
Actually, as a DVD player (using Apple's DVD Player software), the iMac sucks ass. I'm sure this will be fixed in the future, but the scaler and de-interlacer are horrible. Since the iMac's native resolutions are 1440x900 and 1680x1050, scaler performance is very important.
Here's Anand's take on Apple's DVD player:
Re:One significant thing about the iMac (Score:2, Informative)
There has been discussion that you are just a troll sucking down mod points, I tend to believe them since you have no clue about this technology.
For the uninitiated, its a lot like offloading graphics rendering (and not just compositing) to the GPU, rather like NeXT used to do in some of their more expensive systems.
Re:One significant thing about the iMac (Score:1, Informative)
Which doesn't actually mean anything, because you're employed by Apple the same way I'm employed by Apple - as an end user, and nothing more.