“It’s been years since I made a fool of myself by publicly predicting what we might see from Apple in the coming year,” Bob ‘Dr. Mac’ Levitus writes for The Houston Chronicle. “But, having scoured the rumor sites and probed the minds of Mac-savvy friends…”
“I predict Apple will expand its iPod product line in 2005, adding lower-priced models with desirable new features. And a year from now, Apple will dominate the entire portable music player market, just as it dominates the hard disk-based segment of it today… New PowerBook and iBook models that offer improved performance, new features and aggressive pricing…. This is my longest shot, but I predict Apple will introduce a full-featured Mac model in 2005 that costs under $600,” Levitus writes.
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
RUMOR: Apple to debut $499 ‘headless iMac’ at Macworld Expo on January 11 – December 29, 2004
Inexpensive ‘Headless iMac’ could hook Windows users who love their iPods on Mac OS X – December 29, 2004
Headless iMac for $499? Please, Apple, let it be true! – December 29, 2004
under $600, doc? no more free pill samples for you!
Yeah Doc – I think that’s a pretty stretched prediction. I mean, the eMac is a pretty thinly stretched/equipped mac, not what I would call a “full-featured Mac” – and the eMac is no where near $600 or less.
Plus, Apple “…is the BMW of the computer world” – would BMW every offer a cheap car?
Maybe, but it’d be pretty crummy and would ruin the reputation of BMW only making quality cars. It’d become “Some quality, some cheap”.
You get what you pay for.
I think they have to do it. Despite having a better product, their market share keeps dropping. And I know all of the arguments against the market share stat as well as any Mac guy, but the bottom line is it matters.
The average PC price is dropping, and with China becoming a major player, we are going to see home PC’s in the $300-500 range. Consumer buying habits for home PC–excluding gamers, techies, and techophiles–is treating a PC like a commodity. And I know these are stripped down machines, but most corporations and families could care less.
Apple won’t compete at the very bottom, but they will need an offering in the 600-800 USD range. We really need to see those market share numbers increase. They have dropped quarter over quarter for years now.
BMW… Have you not seen the mini cooper from BMW.
and Mercedes Smart car
fantastic, a dude with predictions
that wasn’t a prediction.. that was a wish list of sorts.. he basically said, yea this is a long shot.. the other stuff he said is pretty much a lock.. the iPod Phone.. or a flash iPod… a no-brainer..
Apple has already said they wouldn’t bother looking for those low-end margins..
Cannibalize eMac sales..
Powerbooks and PowerMacs sales are twice of the combined iMac’s eMac’s and iBooks sales for Apple.
Lets face it, the lower you go in the price, the less profits and the less support a company can offer.
Support costs a company a ton, that’s why Apple charges for AppleCare. People are retarted, in various stages of a learning curve or not technical savvy.
I owned a eMac, it sucked seappy bill gates hershy squits on rotten dumpster drippings.
Now I got me a real PowerMac and she’s a beutiful powerful machine.
An eMac is close to that price range. Perhaps a headless eMac could come about.
a couple years from now..
120GB iPod + Dumb Client eMac=?
This would be the Home on iPod feature…
Thoughts on a dumb client Mac?
Owning BOTH an eMac and a G5 PowerMac, I can say that the eMac bashers are in serious need of counseling. The fact is that for Joe/Jane average the eMac is not a bad machine. The vast majority of Mac users DO NOT own a copy of Adobe CS, write websites, edit broadcast-grade video or play Halo.
Joe/Jane average want to browse the ‘net, e-mail, IM, edit and print Digital Photos, run iTunes, run Office (mostly Word Processing), run Quicken and play some low level games. For that market the eMac is just fine and I’m sure the next revision will make it even better.
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0412expo2.html
Steve Jobs has said that the Mac is the BMW or Mercedes of computers. BMW 325i Sedan: $29,300 according to http://www.bmwusa.com. Mercedes C230 Kompressor Sport Sedan: $29,970 according to http://www.mbusa.com. Now, nearly $30K isn’t exactly cheap, but when you have a choice between a that and a $24,000 Ford Taurus, I’d be willing to bet that the Benz and BMW will still outclass and outperform the Taurus. So yes, it IS possible for Apple to make a cheaper, full-featured computer; it just has to be done right.
Has no one read ThinkSecret tonight?
Doc may not be popping pills, Carl. I have no idea whether or not Mr. Levitus or the rumor website author are speculating or leaking accurately, but it sure is intriguing.
What would the naysayers (Dvorak, et. al.) were Apple to trade some profit margin for marketshare?
I predict a headless eMac, a Macintosh two button Mouse, and video out for the iPod with viewing glasses so you can have full screen anywhere. They may also add a FM Tuner and built-in recording to a high end iPod. They will come up with a video equivalent of ITMS for this new iPod so you can buy content online in a new better compressed codec so download times will be shorter.
A Flash iPod is already a gimme. Same with a Motorola/Apple phone – the devil is in the details though which we won’t know til MacWorld in SF.
The powerbook line is due for an update. I predict they will continue to have problems getting the G5 in a powerbook so will go to a Dualcore G4 to tide them over.
Way out on a limb would be more media center peripherals like a way to record TV on your Mac and then stream it to your TV with an Airport Express with video out.
I think a killer currently undersold feature of Tiger will be greatly enhanced voice commands.
There. Now lets see Apple come out of left field and take everyone by surprise again like they usually do.
Tilted..
WOW.. Apple just said at the last Financials that they were not interested in the low end.. what.. the.. hell?
iLife o5 is fscking sweet.. When I get my first Digicam, wow.. it’s gonna be amazing…
Please don’t let ThinkSecret get sued.
PowerPod would be nice, no display, keyboard (and HD), just USB, DVI,Firewire, Bluetooth, WLAN/LAN. Why? I don’t know, I just have couple of old LCD panels and thought it would be cool to velcro one in the back and use it as a garage computer. The price $199, not including the keyboard, mouse or display. Would be Apple make money on it, no, but it’s nice.
BMW just recalled 75,000 of its cars.
Apple can�t go high end for lack of faster processors so they might as well get something cheap to attract PC owners. A cheap headless mac would enitice pc owners try it out while utilizing their old crt monitor that is sitting in the closet and replaced by flatscreen monitor…
A headless iMac in the form of a nice white “cookies” box and a freescale Ppc G4+ etc. is very well possible for around 5 or 600 $ !
Just wait another fortnight …
Sorry no cheap headless Mac’s.
No profit in them and you wouldn’t like the slow G4 processors I would have to put in them to break even.
You’ll just bitch it’s slow and won’t buy.
Go buy a glorified Playstation and a Web TV , hook it to your TV and leave me alone.
I’m rebuilding my house right now, the old historic one got torn down finally. Darn preservationists.
Wait till you see my new home, it will make Bill Gates jealous. 😀
Steve Jobs
A note on the eMac…
I just wanted to defend the eMac. It was the first Mac I ever bought (not counting the iBook I got my wife for work) and I didn’t want to spend too much since I wasn’t familiar with the system. Yes I know it’s not the most powerful Mac and I would agree that it is not the prettiest machine Apple currently makes, but after using pc’s for years, I love my eMac.
My wife is a newspaper editor (big town/small city pop. 50,000) and she uses Quark and Photoshop all the time when working from home.
The eMac has impressed me because even as the “entry level” Mac, it can be used to lay out an entire medium-sized newspaper with no problems. Granted, she would love a PowerMac (so would I) and I’ll get her one (hopefully soon), but she never complains about the eMac being too slow or incapable (she has a dual G5 PowerMac at work, so she knows how good they are).
Also, I can still run multiple movies at one time and impress my pc friends and family with a demo.
With 1GB of memory and cable internet on an AirPort Extreme system, the eMac does all I ask (and it’s still better looking than any pc I ever had).
~M
ThinkSecret is reporting a $499 headless iMac is on the way. Take the components of the iBook – except replace the power supply and use a cheaper standard desktop hard-drive, remove the keyboard and screen (the most costly of the components) and viola! you’ve got a computer for $499. And there’s a profit in it…. the $999 iBook is profitable. It won’t be a loss leader and it will convert and get PC users and many Mac users will purchase it as a second computer. It’s doable with today’s component prices and Apple needs very little R&D. All they need is to design a case and have the computer assembled by the same OEM that do the iBook and current iMac.
A mac for under $600.00? World PC domination is forthcoming for Apple.
Buy that Apple stock now.
PCers are stupid. Look at the bug ridden piece of crap OS they buy from me and use by the hundreds of millions. They don’t care how fast a PC is or how bug ridden the OS is, they just care about how cheap it all is. Steve, wake up, just throw a G3 chip in a box and sell it for $199.00, you’ll sell millions of em. Running an OS that actually works and is spyware and virus free will make PCs convert by the boatloads if they can buy a cheap piece of hardware to run it.
Hey Steve old buddy, let’s do lunch.