“Apple’s popular line of iMac personal computers are about to undergo a substantial facelift that will showcase striking new industrial designs,” Kasper Jade reports for AppleInsider.
“People familiar with the matter say the Cupertino-based Mac maker has called upon its award-winning design chief Jonathan Ive and his team to cut the fat from the the current iMac line and outfit a pair of new Core 2 Duo-based models in a form factor that will be both slimmer and sleeker than today’s offerings,” Jade reports. “For Apple, the impending iMac makeover will represent the first major industrial design overhaul to hit its flagship all-in-one consumer desktop line in nearly three years.”
It’s “uncertain is precisely when Apple intends to drop the new iMac line into market. It appears, however, the systems are tracking as hardware-side complements to the company’s next-generation Leopard operating system release which, based purely on conjecture, may not be ready until May at best,” Jade reports.
More in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Adam W.” and “RadDoc” for the heads up.]
Hmmmm,
“A little price drop, now and then, is a good thing. Don’t you think?”
Price drop, revolution? Sometimes I get them mixed up. ref. The Hunt for Red October.
ne
great, we’re in the market for 2 more. I’ll just wait a bit then!!
My prediction is that iPhone look will find it’s way into other products.
Imagine iPhone aesthetic for iMac…black front with some gloss…stainless rounded rim around entire face…wicked thin….aluminum back and base.
Of course I *just* bought one. >.<
Man, I hope they don’t abandon the “sub-$1000” computer market like the article suggests. That’s not only where a lot of schools want to buy but also families who want a second computer for their kids. Plus, marketing wise, it should be pretty easy to “upsell” a $999 computer to a $1199 computer.
Just give us a few more options with the dang VIDEO card and most people wouldn’t care that Apple doesn’ have a “mid-tower.”
On the iMac, I’m guessing a display design more like the Cinema Display without the white chunk underneath.
And a fresh scent emitter in either Apple Cinnamon or Vanilla Breeze.
It’ll be as thin as a pencil like the nano, but fill your entire wall.
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(and smell like Apple Cinnamon)
How can you make the iMac any “slimmer” or “sleeker”?
“How can you make the iMac any ‘slimmer’ or ‘sleeker’?”
Move the optical drive to the base?
I am a fan boy.
But sometimes I wish apple would focus a little less on design and lower the price some.
God, I can’t believe I said that.
My iMac is gorgeous. But to raise the price or to keep it the same just so it can be 1/2 an inch thinner is not cutting it for me.
Apple, we need lower prices with the same power. I will buy pretty much anything you sell, but when talking to my pc friends trying to get them to change, they keep telling me the mac mini is still too pricey.
The base iMac should be below $900 and the base mini needs to be below $500. And by base models, not lower power versions.
I really want to buy my daughters imacs, but the base models are just too much still.
Looks like I’ll be putting off that 24″ model further pass the Leopard release date.
I was wanting an excuse, as I had a feeling they might be doing this.
OK, y’all excuse me while I hold my breath……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….is it here yet?(head slams on keyboard)
MW:coming…..?
DAMN! I just bought my 24″ iMac! That’s okay, it’s amazing!! My AppleTV shipped today! YEAH!!
Tommy Boy, that was exactly what I was thinking – I’ve had my iMac 1-1/2 years now, and it STILL looks beautiful to me.
Unlike the “iLamp”, whose design was fresha and exciting, but became a little stale or “dated” after a while, I was reading this thinking how they were going to make it “significantly” better..
But knowing Jon Ive, I wouldn’t bet against him on it.
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Maybe the whole computer will be the size of a thimble, with a projected hologram for a screen… but where would they put the CD drive?
Synthmeister,
Actually, there are lots of people who would LOVE to see a Mac midi tower. It’s not about price, but SIZE.
If you don’t want an all-in-one Mac the choices are extremely limited:
A.) A MacPro, which is physically HUGE and overkill in terms of expansion.
B.) A Mac mini which is underpowered, has NO expansion possibilities, uses a 2.5″ laptop hard drive and is crippled with the poor integrated Intel graphics card.
Some people NEED a high-end graphics card but NOT 4 drive bays and PCI slots and a case that takes up half the space under your desk… office space in NYC is at a PREMIUM, folks!
A mid-sized Mac with let’s say…
Two PCI slots (one for the graphics card and one extra)
One extra internal drive bay, for either an extra optical drive or hard drive
4 RAM slots
FireWire 800 and the usual array of ports.
$1200 – $1500 would be a good price point.
I do architectural design and know that for small design offices smaller boxes like this would be perfect.Yes, they might eat into MacPro sales a bit, but I bet they’d be hugely popular for people and companies that already have monitors and need powerful, yet reasonably sized machines.
I don’t want an iMac, a MacPro is too much/too BIG and the mini is a joke… so I use a MacBook Pro with an external monitor. I’d love a mid-sized mac and share the monitor with my MBP. I could leave rendering jobs to the midi and still work on the MBP.
We were having this same debate at a client’s office last week. They bought a couple of iMacs (to replace old eMacs) for the clerical staff and are waiting, reluctantly, for octo-core MacPros or maybe new MacBook Pros. Mac midis and Apple 23″ monitors would have been a no brainer.
I hope so….that Chiclet on a stick iMac design just did not excite me…
As far as price, I believe Apple has given up the notion of ever getting a large market share with its computers. It will go after the 5% of the market that is willing to pay a little more upfront for the design, coolness and OS.
So start saving your pennies, folks!
> sometimes I wish apple would focus a little less on design and lower the price some
Sometimes I wish they would focus a little less on design and lower the temperature some!
Your friends are cheap sobs who would just find an even cheaper PC. Never mind the fact that the PC will cost much more to own. Apple doesn’t (and shouldn’t) compete on price. They compete with quality from the hardware through the software, and anybody looking only at the price is not a potential customer.
Tell your cheap PC friends to stay away from the Mac. Mac users don’t need them or want them. They would be bad for the platform.
Apple could certainly make the iMac body thinner. Good point about the optical drive. They probably would have to go for a laptop drive for that. Having nothing but the monitor visible from the front would also be cool.
@Mr.Reese…
You are right on. You are describing just what I am hoping for. You left out one item though…
Give us Core2Duos in the mid-tower instead of the MacPro’s Xeons.
And one last thing: As THE company known for music, why doesn’t Apple supply keyboards with more robust multimedia control. I am amazed that five years after the intro of iTunes that I have to go buy a Microsoft or Logitech keyboard to fast forward or skip songs from the keyboard. How about a better keyboard Apple?
LEAVE THE CHIN!!!!!!!!!!
Spark, try Salling Clicker, much better than tacking ‘media keys’ onto a keyboard.
MW: volume. You can’t make this shit up.
Two Dual Core 2 chips inside an iMac? Holy crapola, that thing would fly…
If/when they do this, I’ll be the first in line to buy one.
Hopefully, for Rob Enderle’s sake, this one will be better designed for earthquakes and other natural disasters. Jobs knows we don’t want his family having to worry about all that broken glass anymore…
Put video inputs and tuner on it and you hace a flatscreen HDTV and computer in one..
Mr. Reese—
Hey, I agree with you, but I don’t think they are going to do that. However, a few more video card options would at least get us half-way there. (Not to mention a couple more Firewire/USB2 ports.) At least those options could be offered without having to crank up an entirely new line of Macs.
Slim them down? How about COOLING THEM PROPERLY!!!! I am an admin at a university on the east coast who suffered through a 55%–yes I said 55%–failure rate on the 1st gen iMac G5’s. We purchased almost 200 of them and it has been a revolving door of repair nightmares. We’ve had somewhat better luck with the 3rd gen G5’s & Intel’s but…Apple’s shoddy QC has really shaken my confidence. We also bought five first gen MBP’s. Guess how many have eventually needed repair? You guessed it, ALL OF THEM!
And yes, I know that there was a “Repair Extension”. Not too helpful when you reach upwards of a 55% failure rate.
Kasper Jade and Apple Insider owe some payback to Apple over the disclose your source lawsuit.
What better way than a false rumor to delay iMac sales for a couple of months.
Take this with a huge grain of salt.
@Leroy Jenkins – Amen!
I love the iMac, but Apple’s best-known brandname isn’t being leveraged properly. As the best known Mac, it should be more affordable to more people … and no I don’t consider the education iMac or the Mini worth the money, since plenty of more powerful Wintels and WinAMDs are available for the same prices & equally spec’d machines can be had for much less.
I’m sure Apple’s looking to make a splash with the new redesign. Yet they (IMO) also need to keep a more capable entry level computer on the market. So I think it would be smart for Apple to keep the current 17″ iMac w/the graphics card in service and push it as far down into the <$1000 price point as possible. Maybe give it some new colors or something, but otherwise keep reusing the 4 year old case design (which still looks fresh) in order to keep driving costs down, thus giving those now looking to move to Mac from Windows (which is to say, most people) something hip and yet cost effective to jump on. Lower the barrier of entry – that sort of thing – and watch the market share numbers go through the roof.
Then come out with this ‘new iMac’ design – whatever it’s gonna be – as something in the $1000-1800 consumer sector (anything above that starts to get too rich for any but the hardcore). And, in order to differentiate it further, call it something else. That may sound dumb (didn’t I just say “iMac” was the best known brand they had?), but trust me – a new name is warranted. It gives people a target to shoot for when they upgrade later, or somewhere to go if they want to be different from the plebes in the first place. No matter how tricked out the more expensive ones are, if you can get a cheaper iMac in name & face already (and you can), that tends to be more off-putting to the status conscious. And like it or not, those types make up a huge segment of any market (computers, cars, what have you). Plus … and more relevant to Apple … they’re willing to spend more on something that’s obviously identified as more upscale from your lower priced offerings.
Call it OmniMac, UltraMac, MacAttack … I don’t know – I don’t care. Apple’s better at that stuff than I am (of course MacBook/MacBookPro seems to say even they screw up). The point is to open a new ‘mid-range’ space where this new design can go, while at the same time aggressively entering the low end. Both moves will make them money, but the latter is what’s most important at the moment. People are hating Vista like mad right now. So BEFORE M$ has a chance to improve it in any way shape or form, Apple should strike the iron while it is smoking hot – steal that share away while it’s being offered on a platter to them. But Apple only slows that process down without a more capable desktop offering in the sub$1000 range, and an entry level notebook in that range as well.
A massive shift in the tech landscape is possible – instead of just grabbing most of the headlines, Apple could be grabbing most of the actual PEOPLE buying computers right now. All they have to do is stop being so elitest – give people what they can better afford in addition to the higher end stuff – then sit back and enjoy being hailed as conquering heros.
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Hey Leroy, why do you think they moved quickly away from the IBM (BBQ) chip and went with the far more efficient Intel chips? They have dealt with cooling.
Have you checked here?
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=B22223D1&nclm=Certified
– Roberto
OOOps,
that should be:
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/6954003/wo/wl4FhJRA0cFY3aXEui2xvmgerMD/1.0.0.21.1.0.8.7.1.0.1.1
“Apple iMac makeover to feature slimmer, sleeker redesign.”
I could use one of those.
I still sport a legacy floppy. My number of slots is o.k., though. And I also run hot.
If Apple uses a 2.5″ hard drive in there (like it already does for laptops and Mac mini’s), Apple could make the iMac half as thick as it is now. I think iMacs already use laptop style “slim” optical drives. Plus all that “white” space under the LCD could be reduced.
I think Apple should keep the current 17″ models as is (it’s pretty much perfect for that size and price category) and give us new versions of the 20″ and bigger (up to 30″).
Hey Ivy, How about creating a 27inch iMac with a replaceable computer cartridge.
With the LED backlighting tech coming out it will make sense to replace only the computer end of things. It would be great to udate your iMac by buying a new computer for it. Included are the optical drive HD enclosure cpu and graphics. Just pull out the old one and drop in the new oh for lets say $750us.
MW “never” as in it’ll never happen.
i’m still using my 800 mhz lamp top iMac and still satisified.
I am an admin at a university on the east coast who suffered through a 55%–yes I said 55%–failure rate </b>on the 1st gen iMac G5’s.</b>
Never buy version 1.0 of anything, particularly in early-run production. Even the best vendors have trouble out of the gate, including Apple.
E caveat emptor. Some things never change…
I reckon they’ll redesign the imac and have it as the tablet thing everyones been talking about…
with a docking station and a battery…
and then release the headless mac to go for sub-$1000 as a new product to draw in more customers.
That would be wicked.
If this is true, it’ll be VERY interesting to see how Apple pulls it off.
And they said the PowerBook G5 would’ve been the mother of all design challenges…
Apple, if you really need to thin the iMac, PLEASE figure ample cooling into the design. Don’t run the temps at the very limit, just because you can. If we wanted short-lived, self-melting computers we’d buy Dell.
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Hey Odyssey67,
“People are hating Vista like mad right now. So BEFORE M$ has a chance to improve it in any way shape or form, Apple should strike the iron while it is smoking hot – steal that share away while it’s being offered on a platter to them. But Apple only slows that process down without a more capable desktop offering in the sub$1000 range, and an entry level notebook in that range as well.”
Vista is not about the machines, it’s about the OS and until Leopard is released ( and yes I know we are all chomping @ the bit to get it) nothing can happen. Apple could build 15 different types of machines and someone would get left out. Apple spends alot of time deciding what they will charge for their machines and it is usually a little high, so then u save up. If the difference is between $949 and $1199 then u really have other issues. Apple is not Dell, HP, Etc. and I don’t think Apple believes that they are competing with them because of their machines and their prices. Some people say Apple build this machine you’ll sell a bunch, lower your prices you will sell a bunch. Apple doesn’t and they are still doing great.
You want a Porche, BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Corvette, Viper, Etc Etc. Save up and one day u may get one cause they probably won’t come down to your price level.
Most of this really isn’t aimed @ u just the vista part. Vista is our greatest MS asset I thank them for it and don’t woory about them fixing Vista, it took them how many years to build this hunk of grabage.
Apple is the tortoise and MS i the hare to bad all the other box makers are stuck with MS. Leopard should be the deal but only time will tell.
Thank u, come again
@ Walk away Bill: “Vista is not about the machines, it’s about the OS and until Leopard is released (and yes I know we are all chomping @ the bit to get it) nothing can happen. Apple could build 15 different types of machines and someone would get left out. Apple spends alot of time deciding what they will charge for their machines and it is usually a little high, so then u save up. If the difference is between $949 and $1199 then u really have other issues. Apple is not Dell, HP, Etc. and I don’t think Apple believes that they are competing with them because of their machines and their prices. Some people say Apple build this machine you’ll sell a bunch, lower your prices you will sell a bunch. Apple doesn’t and they are still doing great.”
This is pretty rambling, but I’ll do my best …
I don’t know why you’re focusing on only the OS’s in question, cause Apple sure doesn’t. They develop software, and they build computers. DELL builds computers. HP builds computers. When industry analysts gage how well the industry players are doing, one of the main things they measure is how many … wait for it … computers each manufacturer is selling. Then they measure the relative popularity of OS’s, as this too indicates what types of … computers will be sold. Apple makes about 50% of it’s money off of … computers. No matter how you want to slice it, Apple selling more computers is fundamentally a good thing for Apple.
No one snuck into my previous post and said ‘Apple should build 15 different machines’ for me. I said build an entry level system that doesn’t suck. I said offer a midrange-to-high end consumer system to appeal to the more status conscious. And the pro end is well in hand. Maybe my math is wrong, but even if you include laptops you’re looking at 6 main product lines. Right now Apple offers 5. So yeah, I can see where you believe I’m being so radical. Bozo.
The difference between $949 and $1199 is $250 bucks. If you don’t think that’s enough money to get someone to say “Eh, I’m gonna buy the cheaper one with the same specs”, then “u really have other issues”.
“You want a Porche, BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Corvette, Viper, Etc Etc. Save up and one day u may get one cause they probably won’t come down to your price level.”
How old are you dude? You talk like someone just out of high school who still hasn’t a clue about the value of a dollar. Newsflash for you: The majority of people in the US – the middle class – actually don’t make enough money to afford those cars. And even many who do will still buy a more ‘cost effective’ car, as they will never see the purpose of blowing money on the ‘artifical dick-inflators’ you mention anyway.
Maybe you should move out of your parent’s basement, junior – or perhaps try making your way without the trust fund. Whichever best describes your present circumstances, I have a feeling living in the real world for a while will be a real eye-opener for you.
“Most of this really isn’t aimed @ u just the vista part. Vista is our greatest MS asset I thank them for it and don’t woory about them fixing Vista, it took them how many years to build this hunk of grabage. Apple is the tortoise and MS i the hare to bad all the other box makers are stuck with MS. Leopard should be the deal but only time will tell. Thank u, come again”
You’re welcome. Hopefully I’ve been of some assistance, as your logic is as bad as your spelling. OSX does come with a dictionary built in – you really should learn how to use it.
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patience:
Industry standard for hardware failure is commonly held to be between 3-5%.
FIFTY-FIVE PERCENT.
I have been working in the computer sci/IT field for over ten years. I have worked exclusively on Apple equipment for the past 4 years. I’ve seen recall-worthy issues with many types, brands, generations, etc. of computers.
Caveat emptor? No. This is not a swap meet. This is a systemic issue that was halfheartedly band-aided with a “repair extension” that appies to an ever-shrinking number of machines.
I haven’t always had the luxury of waiting for “newer” versions of hardware to come out. Design departments at the college I am employed by wanted the iMacs when they first came out; I can RECOMMEND not purchasing first gens of anything (which I usually would do), but based upon the slavish devotion (well deserved, IMHO) that certain departments have for Apple products, coupled with the first rave reviews that came out, the purchase was made, the die was cast, blah blah blah.
FIFTY-FIVE PERCENT. That’s not caveat emptor. Laws are written to protect people against this. But it’s Apple, right? The good guys, right?
mmmm… Apple cinnamin