“Apple may be gearing up to take a big bite out of the mass computer market. Following the overwhelming success of its iPod music player, which flew off the shelves this holiday season, Apple is getting set to bring those customers back around with a cheap new personal computer, followers of the company said,” Tom Van Riper writes for The New York Daily News.
“According to Think Secret, a website dedicated to following Apple’s products, the company will unveil a $500 version of its iMac computer at its next [Macworld] trade show on Jan. 11, and make it available for sale sometime before April. Apple’s current Macintosh lineup sells for between $799 and $1,899,” Van Riper writes.
MacDailyNews Note: Macintosh computers currently sell for prices between US$799 and $2999 – base prices for the entry-level eMac and the top-of-the-line Power Mac G5 Dual 2.5GHz.
“To some avid Macintosh users, adding another machine to the lineup means more of a good thing. A contributor to ‘MacDailyNews’ who wished to remain anonymous aside from the pen name SteveJack, said he loves using [Macs] because of filters that block out annoying spyware and adware programs that are always popping up on Windows-based machines,” Van Riper writes.
SteveJack’s Note: The reporter seemed surprised that Mac users don’t have problems with viruses, but also asked if we suffer from junk mail spam. Well, I tried to explain that Mac users get email spam, too, and how the junk mail filter works in Apple’s Mail application to spare Mac users from a lot of unsolicited email spam. Unfortunately, I went into it right after talking about the lack of viruses, adware, spyware, and other malware for the Mac. I probably confused the issue. My mistake – I’ll try to speak more clearly next time.
“‘This [rumored $500 Mac] would make it easier for people leaning toward a Mac but don’t want to pay the $800 minimum price,’ SteveJack said. And while the new cheap version is still just in the rumor stage, the idea makes sense to company followers who have watched the flamboyant Jobs make big splashes at the annual trade show in the past,” Van Riper writes. “The popular PowerMac G5 was unveiled there in 2003. ‘This is the big event of the year, where they often make new product introductions,’ SteveJack said.”
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Rumored ‘Headless iMac’ would be radical departure from Apple’s usual high margin strategy – December 30, 2004
Piper Jaffray: ‘Headless iMac would appeal to many potential Windows to Mac switchers’ – December 30, 2004
Headless iMac for $499? Please, Apple, let it be true! – December 29, 2004
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
Gee, won’t ThinkSecret be embarassed if the RUMOR they started turns out to not be true? So will a lot of analysts and “journalists” who write stories based on blog rumors.
I would love this to be true, but now that this RUMOR has somehow morphed into fact, a lot of people will be pissed and dissapointed when all we get from Santa Steve is a new flash based iPod Mini.
Keep it real folks.
Apple sues people over releasing info about some music hardware and is quiet as a church mouse over this. strange.
Well we didnt hear about apple suing the last lot of loud mouths until a month after the event so I guess there is still time ….
Personally i think they leaked the rumour themselves. If I were Steve Jobs, and I wanted to get a lot of people saying “Did you hear what they are gonna have at the trade show?” “YEAH!” And then you have more coverage by media n reporters everything, and then this thing gets good advertising from the start. Word of mouth can be a powerful tool, i’m pretty sure its how ALL of us found a MAC.
Won’t happen. Jobs will have pulled off another coup. What he’ll introduce will make an ass out of Think Secret and all the other come alongs. Can’t wait
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
I really do hope this RUMOR turns out to be true. But I also remember being excited about an Apple PDA, DVR, G5 PB, etc. Just remember folks, how more often than not, these RUMORS never live up to reality, and all we usually end up with is an announcement about speed bumps, and some new wiz bang feature in the next OS version. Keep it real.
I hope we do see a $500 Mac. However, at billpalmer.net he says that it is NOT going to happen.
A $500 mac would be easy to make.
Come out with a G5 Emac, but continue to make the G4 Emac. The G4 Emac would be lowered to $500. Simple.
I use a 1.25ghz Emac, and it works great. I love this computer.
I can’t help it. I so badly want this to be true… yet, I can’t help but side with “macster” on this one.
I’m not saying that this won’t happen, just that I think the rumor is being a bit overblown.
Just because it is a Rumor that many people want to believe, does not make it any more than a rumor.
The problem is, now with this rumor being widespread (and the iPod Dash rumor), everyone will be dissapointed at the convention no matter what they release, even if it is something cool.
I so badly want to beleive…
Ed, sure a $500 would be easy to make, so would a PDA, or a media center DVR….the question remains what does Steve P. Jobs think is the right thing to make right now. I fear he is so iPod/iTunes obsessed these days that the most likely developments will be new iPods, some new iTunes feature that is way cool and maybe that GarageBand thing that is rumored. If I were in charge, I’d push for the entry level, monitorless Mac. But alas, we all must wait and see once again how wrong RUMOR blogs always are. Actually, what I really want more than anything is the iPhone, which I fear will not materialize either.
Uh, the PowerMac G5 was introduced at WWDC 2003 not MacWorld 2003. We got the 12” and 17″ PowerBook. (We also got iLife and some other software goodies, but for Hardware we only got updated PBs and the dual 1.42 PowerMac Right?)
Will they call it the “LC IV (A New Hope)”?
Now wouldn’t it be too funny if these rumors were leaked by Apple only to discover who the mole is giving info to think secret and appleinsider. Now that would be hilarious.
Ed;
Brilliant!
However, a small inexpensive standalone box that sits inconspicuously under the receptionists desk is what we’re told is going to be seen though. Something to get OSX into more hands regardless of how creative those hands are.
Making high-profile high-profit-margin machines is great, but the bottom line is that if the OS fails to garner widespread support you can’t sell boxes either.
If this rumored headless thingy turns out to be another – well, rumor, then we can still be confident that Steve will be in a “stay the course” mood.
A mood he appears to be in pretty much perpetually.
Apple is floating this. They are still trying to determine the price. People are so excited by this that Apple will now go for 599 instead of 499. Calm down people. Or at least say over and over….
if it is more than 499 I will not buy one….
My opinion:
1. ThinkSecret/Nick DePlume is Apple’s (un)official port for leaking info.
2. Apple leaked this piece of information to protect its stock price.
Why? Because analysts are likely to trash Apple’s stock when Apple’s upcoming financial report fails to show evidence of the much anticipated Halo Effect. This product announcement was probably going to be a secret but now must be revealed before MacWorld expo to stop an adverse over reaction.
As I have said before I hope this is true to get switchers. Although I probably won’t buy one myself it will be good to have the option for some applications.
Too bad the guys at New York Daily news got it confused about viruses. I am always amazed that windozers don’t even realize there are ZERO OS X viruses. For windows user this just seems to not compute (pun very much intended
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”cheese” style=”border:0;” /> )
On an aside my remaining windozer sister told my new Mac user little sister that she thinks there will be just as many Mac Viruses as windoze viruses in 5 years. Man is she lost. Her family used to be on Macs too. What a shame. I feel for her that she has to go thru what she does and grin and bear it and try and pretend that it doesn’t suck. Oh well, her choice.
I think they sued over Asteroid, because an unbelievably accurate sketch got to AppleInsider or someone indicating that there was a real leak.
However, all of this stuff about a budgetMac has – apart from one interesting visualisation on MacRumors – been a lot of talk with no real substance, such as model codes, drawings, etc.
With the best will in the world, AAPL isn’t going to give us MacZealots oxygen by coming down hard on us whilst we we’re wittering about the number of USB ports this system might have as a) we’re always going to be “in the ball park”, b) a judge is simply going to laugh and c) simply doing that validates the whole “rumour”.
So until someone does a really drawing, or comes up with a photo of a motherboard, Apple are just going to take a “don’t explain, don’t complain” posture.
mytwocents
Why? Because analysts are likely to trash Apple’s stock when Apple’s upcoming financial report fails to show evidence of the much anticipated Halo Effect. This product announcement was probably going to be a secret but now must be revealed before MacWorld expo to stop an adverse over reaction.
Possible.
I think there will be evidence of the halo effect, I think it’s been going on for awhile, I just don’t think it’s big enough yet to satisfy the overhyped expectations that have been unrealistically setup around it. That might result in a hit to Apple’s stock price. I don’t think Apple spends half their day worrying about thier share value, however, I think they have better things to do with their time.
Windows has been in a steady decline over the past 2 years, it’s just so overwhelmingly ahead of everyone else that no one has noticed.
The miniMac may come for a simple reason: there will be no G5 Powerbooks, only a G4 speed bump. But iSteve needs some hardware items to make a big splash.
A G4 in a small box is a very easy thing to do, Ive can do the design of the casing on a notepad during a short recess on the john. Everything else is already sitting on the shelves. Minimum hassle, maximum effect.
At least we get something to gossip about other than iPod and iTMS.
ABQ Peter
Apple only gets upset and when photos, drawings or in the case of Tiger, screen shots are published of upcoming products. In the case of Tiger, the people receiving advanced information violate their NDA and are subject to legal action. Writing a rumor about an upcoming product is what one calls freedom of speech. Apple cannot stop this nor does it ever do so.
MiniMac will never be the name. Makes it sound like a sub-standard computer. Remember IBM tried that way back with the IBM Jr. label and people didn’t buy.
We certainly are affected by spam. Those of us with a domain name rather than just an email address suffer more.
Mail’s junk filtering is pretty good, but I have to manually move about 10 messages a day to the junk folder. It’s getting maybe 90% of the junk mail though, so it’s not bad.
We we don’t get is the payload associated with those mails. They may have adware/spyware/viruses/trojans attached, but they don’t do anything.
When Blaster hit, I was getting 4,000 junk mails a day. A lot of other domain owners would have been getting similar numbers, clogging up and slowing down the whole internet. Using windows is like being a smoker. Blaster was like coming home from a smoke-filled bar next to a developersdevelopersdevelopers conference and having to change clothes because of the stink. We were being sort of passively blasted.
So while it’s nice being in the minority where there’s a certain amount of security through obscurity (I know it’s not the whole story, but it’s a big part of it), having a bigger market share in the domestic arena would certainly lessen the passive affects of the windows attacks.
It is amazing how the media takes a rumor and blows it up into fact that MDN repeats and repeats and repeats trying to make the rumor a fact.
If this does not come to be MDN is just a giant rumor collection mill fanning the flames of fantasy in the hopes of getting more hits on its website.
I was about to write, “You’re all (incl. MDN) totally full of crap!”, until I saw Grinnie’s post. Grinnie has it dead on correct!
What’s the purpose of bringing out a headless Mac if its price is at/near an iMac after you buy a monitor?! Apple isn’t going to let some third-party piece-o-crap monitor make their computer look like sh-t, as well as adding more cables and a more confusing monitor preferences software/drivers. NONE OF IT MAKES ANY LOGICAL OR BUSINESS SENSE!! …unless you like the Wintel way of doing things.
In terms of history, Apple has always shocked and amazed the industry. To be Dell-like and produce a castrated version of existing technology is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what Apple does best. I would expect to see a G5 in every computer in the Apple line and thus being the first computer company to offer a 64bit-only line before I see a lame mini-Mac.
At this point, look back on the MDN postings. Someone has a rod for stupid and completely unfounded rumors. I would suggest stop false advertising this place as “News” and rename themselves “Rumors about Apple Technology, Stories And Stupid Sh!t”, abbreviated as “RATSASS”.