“The new Intel Core Duo chipset-sporting iMac is just like the old one. Only faster,” Wilson Rothman writes for Time Magazine’s online “Gadget of the Week” feature. “The first thing you notice about Apple’s new iMac — running the Intel Core Duo chipset rather than an older PowerPC chip — is that it’s almost identical to the iMac that the company introduced in October. The second thing you notice, though, is that it is noticeably faster. It only takes around 30 seconds to restart the entire system. On the outside, the only feature that distinguishes this iMac from the last one is the video output. With the right adapter, you can now plug in one of Apple’s 20-in. or 23-in. displays and extend your desktop into that space. (Previously, any external monitor simply mirrored what was on the iMac’s own screen.)”
“Apple’s new product line, both hardware and software, offers a lot to digest but don’t worry. We’ll revisit it again soon when the MacBook Pro, a sort of iMac on wheels, ships next month,” Rothmans writes.
Full article here.
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I wouldn’t mind an iMac on wheels.
A dash mounted 20″ iMac on a swivel mount. Surfing at 70 mph.
And they thought cell phones were dangerous.
Yes, but how much faster is it really?
Not much faster actually, it uses a 32 bit processor instead of a 64 bit, no Firewire 800 in MacBook Pro and the Core Duo performance doesn’t even beat a PowerMac 2Ghz dual processor from a few years back.
We are being dumbed down to Intels inferior processors and 32 bit roadmap.
“Consumers don’t need 64 bit” – Intel CEO
So much for innovation, now some stagnation.
Apple could sell a lot of Mac’s with a abundant Intel supply, but no one will need to upgrade and Apple will stagnate like so many PC companies.
When writing an article for general public consumption saying things like “…its faster.”, and “…it takes about 30 seconds to restart the entire system.”, doesn’t mean anything because there is absolutely no reference point.
Please…
Why exactly do you want 64-bit? The main advantage was that it could address large amounts of memory for memory-intensive tasks. (I believe it was over 2 GB, or something like that.) But you couldn’t put that much memory into an iMac G5 anyway. For the Power Mac, 64-bit processing is a real advantage for certain applications IF the user buys that much memory. For the consumer machines, it was mostly MARKETING hype.
Jake
Hey, MacDude
The 64-bit-ness of any G5 allows larger memory chunks to be loaded into the processor on one cycle. Even if you are only using iDVD, you get a performance boost from having a 64-bit system.
MacDude again as the ray of sunshine.
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The fun thing with transitions is that they take time. Let’s say it all together now… “transitions take time.”
The whole 64 bit stuff with the Powermacs is totally hype. I love my G5 dual 2ghz (1st gen!) and my other Macs but the OS didn’t even make use of the 64 bit-ness until Tiger and then only at the command line. Until then, the ONLY advantage was that it allowed more memory to be addressed – but that is only important if you had the freakin’ memory. No commercial apps for the Mac run in 64 bit – because the OS doesn’t. Get it? A lot of apps won’t even address the memory that is there. For example. Photoshop CS would not even allow assigning any more that 1gig of memory until version CS2. I spent over a year with 3.5 gigs of memory and PS could not even directly use more than 1 gig except for overhead (which helps – a little). Now that CS2 addresses as much as I want it to it is a good bit faster. But it STILL does not operate in 64 bit. If OS X did it would be dramatically faster – see the difference that PCs running on 64bit AMD processors and Windows XP 64bit edition show over 32bit. Do some research online about this before you imagine anymore benefits to the OS X/G5 64bit equation. You can even find some documents on Apple’s own Developer site that comment on this.
Its not really that much faster according to reviews. What I would like to see is a comparison of Photoshop on a MacBook Pro versus Photoshop on a Powerbook. We all know that Photoshop on a G5 is faster, but is it worth getting a MacBook Pro and replacing a PowerBook now?
Gadget is such a demeaning word
gadg·et
A small specialized mechanical or electronic device; a contrivance.
30 seconds to restart is good to hear – because everyone knows they have enough time to make a cup of coffee when you reboot Windows…
I’m happy hearing its faster…perception is reality…and I really fancy one on wheels.
I thought the Creative Zen Vision:M was THE gadget! No wait, that was soooo last week.
Don’t tell the guys at CES.
It’s not like Tiger is 64-bit yet.
Macaday is right. It’s the little things that the Windoze-using public thinks are important – boot time, chip speed, speed of surfing the internet.
These are the computer illiterates that make up the mass market that Apple is trying to get to switch.