Long overdue. I'm anxious to see what the new models have, and what they cost.

SJ: Hey Jon, have you guys decided on the edge bevel for the new iMac?

JI: We're still working on it. While the polished aluminum on top of the bevel reflects the desktop onto the Apple logo above, it seems to attract dust and we're trying to vent the fans out across it to keep the surface clean.

SJ: Hey Rub, have you guys had any luck keeping the RAM from gettiing too hot due to proximity of the G5 processor?

JR: Yeah, I designed a mercury filled heat-sink that moves the heat to the USB cables and disappates over the length of the mouse cable. But Ives wants this thing to be wireless.

SJ: See guys, we have a little problem here. The day Fred retired, he forgot to write a check to the company that ships those Torx-7 screws we need for the internal hard drive in the Mac and they stopped shipping them. Our iMac assembly line is at a complete halt. By the time we get these things ordered again, we should be retooling for the redesigned iMac. Can you hurry it up?

AT: If I can butt in Steve... Should we push Tiger forward so we don't have to retool the line for system software in January?

SJ: Aw screw it. We'll just apologize on the website, promise shipment in September. You guys have until Halloween to get all your stuff together. Who's in charge of web development?

(unknown voice): You fired him last week Mr. Jobs.

SJ: Get me Eisner and Roy Disney on the phone. I'm going to Disneyland.

That's awesome, Guest.

I don't understand why Apple did things like this. They often announce a product and say it won't ship for 2 months or something like that. Think of how much better it would have been for them to make a huge deal about the new iMac. They could have gotten a lot of press, and started taking pre-orders for the hot new machine. But now, they just get people running to other manufacturers to buy machines when they are looking and see Apple is out of iMacs.

Matthew

Haha, hehe, haahaaahaaa.... lol!!

G5 iMac in September! Where do I order one right NOW?

Last year Steve Jobs said the new G5 processor had legs, looks like those were bug legs. The PowerMac G5s have been plagued by bugs (audio noise, runaway windtunnel fan system, and system freezes).

Now Old Steveo is finding out that putting one of those buggy G5 processors on the back of the new Cinema displays to create the new iMac is a real hot potato.

Not good news for Apple stockholders, the new G5 iMacs will miss the back-to-school season. Any bets the "announced and available in September" means available to order, not that anyone will get one in September.

And you just know the new G5 iMac will be another overpriced all-in-one, with a hefty price increase over current iMacs, and just when you thought there's no way Apple can make iMac sales any lower.

Apple's market share currently at 1.7% is headed towards oblivion at increasing speed. The Mac will soon join the going list of computer systems that Steve Jobs has killed.

I don't think releasing new products spells a "death knell" RC. I'm excited to see them. That's all I know.

I am now convinced that your resident 'troll', RC, is really 'Baghdad Bob'.

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RealityCheck wrote:


Not good news for Apple stockholders, the new G5 iMacs will miss the back-to-school season. Any bets the "announced and available in September" means available to order, not that anyone will get one in September.

For the most part the education buying season is over. Apple made education orders a priority back in early spring. The LCD iMac is more popular with consumers than education buyers. Apple's push in education is the eMac and iBook.

Apple will ship the new iMac before the end of September.

All existing orders will be filled and Apple has a chance to clear the channel of all inventory before the introduction of the new iMac.

The new iMac will ship before the end of the reporting quarter. Apple books sales when CPUs are shipped into the channel, not when they are delivered to the customer. This is actually good news for Apple.

The only "bad" thing that might happen is if Apple were to miss the September ship dates. This happened back in '99 with the introduction of the first G4s.

It took Wall Street analysts about a day to figure if the units weren't shipped in the fourth fiscal quarter they would be shipped in the following first fiscal quarter.

Apple will need to relase product information and anticipated unit sales for the new systems for the September quarter.

...COMDEX being cancelled this year, sounds like the death knell for MicroSoft Windows.

Is it wrong for me to want one of... whatever's coming next... already? I have no idea what's in the pipeline yet, but I want it - the likelihood of some sort of meltdown or not!

(Let's face it - something went wrong here. The iMac was either supposed to be ready by now or demand skyrocketed. I'd have to presume the former)

SJ: Get me <unintelligable> at Chiat Day

ring, ring, ring

SJ: Hey, are the iPodYourPrickMobile commercials running yet?

(unidentified): Yeah Steve.

SJ: Great. Hey, is RC still in the office? Could you have him post some FUD on TMO? We're having a little trouble with our Torx screw supply lines and we were, uh, forced to let supplies go to zero until we revamp the product in September. Know what I'm getting at here?

(unidentified): Yeah, I'm with you Steve. Maybe we could turn this into a speculation cycle, where people will want whatever it is they don't know exists yet?

SJ: Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.

(unidentified): So what is it?

SJ: No idea, but all the guys are registering to sell stock by the end of August.

(uniidentified): Haha. OK, I get you and I will have Reality Check on this post-haste!

(click)

SJ: Guys, it looks like we have this all straightened out now. The trolls are out thinking they are trashing us. Our lapdogs are anticipating something great. Ivey, make that bevel perfect. They will be [CENSORED] all over themselves over that and not even notice that we slipped back to 800 MHz G3s. Damn were good!

AT: Oh Steve, can I send a check to the Konfab guys for $100 to settle things with them?

SJ: Yeah, and add $10 to their iTMS allowances. Night all. See you tomorrow after lunch.

July through Sept there will be no iMacs to be sold. 3qtr sales for iMac will be very low. How could Apple run out of iMacs due to poor planning? Granted poor planning is something that can happen, but not likely, not with all the gurus they have running around at Cupertino. Something smells fishy. Very fishy!

Market Share by Oct 04 will have tanked with no iMacs to sell, that plus poor G5 sales.

I think we are witnessing the first casualty of Apple's computer line up. In this case the iMac "milked dry" !

The 970 did not scale as planned so no processor for the iMac plus poor unit sales, so time to decommission the iMac.

Apple goes this route, to keep the aapl from nose-diving. Break it to the Mac faithful gradually.

SJobs recently had lunch with BGates, something is up, but maybe something good with xBox. XBox may have something to do with joint venture between Apple and MS. Pretty wild speculation.

I think death knell counter go wild in nest few months, but I don't think it is end of Apple. Bill Gates he is Apple Fan Boy more than you think! so this all very interesting!

I hope it has the snake-y thing.

OK, all you guys just simma-dow-now. You're going nuts over nothing.

They're working on a new iMac. It's not ready to ship yet and they don't want to sell a 2.5 year-old machine any more. Big deal. Especially since iMac sales were pretty lethargic anyway. I mean, the eMac took the place of the iMac and everybody else bought towers. The iMac just wasn't cutting it. Why sell them for 3 more months and tick everbody off.

Y'all should be glad Apple is "opening up." There are a lot of complaints about Apple's secrecy - well, here ya go...


P.S. I heard the new iMac cures cancer!

Now we actually know why 15 minutes were cut from Steve J's keynote. In fact it is what most people thought.

In terms of basic design, I think that is solid - probably having started before the G5 PM was announced and worked to a final stage after getting samples of the 970FX.

So what happened? We know that test production runs were made. That means all parts were available and (G5?) iMacs were put together.

It also means that something came up when those new iMacs were turned on. My bet is that one of the components which worked well in the prototype stage did not perform the same when put into production. As there have been a lot of PRODUCTION 970FX chips to work with I don't think that this is the problem. My best 2 bets are graphics or mother boards. The key is that it appears that the problem presented itself on the initial test production iMacs.

So where are we now? One supplier is up to their ass in alligators trying to solve the problem. Apple is going to loose a lot of sales, and that supplier might be paying for some of that loss. Also, Apple has broken their silence and a lot of people are going to start saving their pennies like mad.

We are also going to find out what the specific problem is no later than the 14th when Apple presents the last quarter's performance. You KNOW that there are going to questions asked and they are going to need to be answered - and answered big time.

We can also assume that Apple made the announcement today to take some of the heat off the stock before the 14th. It makes the bad news on the 14th less of a hit on the stock because no one is going to be expecting good news. It also allows time for a lot of people to speculate about something fantastic coming very soon, which makes it very difficult for brokers to issue a Sell recommendation.

With all the problems this year I have to give Steve J a major pat on the back for his performance in the keynote. You know that was a tough one to get through when he was probably as pissed (and frustrated) as a person can get.

Next week is going to be an interesting one. Lots of questions from the press AND Wall Street - it's going to be difficult NOT to answer the questions. My belief is that Apple needs to work with their best contacts (like TMO), letting a little bit out each day or so. It's time to rally the faithful and to look towards something exciting next week.

Showing the new iMac and accepting orders will probably happen as soon as the problem component is delivered in a properly working form and pre-production runs test as they should. Everything else is ready to go.

And I'm saving my pennies.

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kenaustus wrote:
With all the problems this year I have to give Steve J a major pat on the back for his performance in the keynote. You know that was a tough one to get through when he was probably as pissed (and frustrated) as a person can get.

Do you suppose that problems realizing the G5 iMac might have contributed to spinning off the iPod division? I mean, perhaps Steve realized the company was just too taxed with all the iPod furor and they needed a "wall" between the teams in order to get them functioning properly?

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Billy K wrote:

Do you suppose that problems realizing the G5 iMac might have contributed to spinning off the iPod division? I mean, perhaps Steve realized the company was just too taxed with all the iPod furor and they needed a "wall" between the teams in order to get them functioning properly?

No. If there were a problem between the iMac and iPod teams, they'd follow the example of the Lakers and fire Phil [Steve].

Apple has chosen not to accept any more iMac orders on the first day of the calendar quarter. This means the channel has sufficient inventory to meet the previous quarter's results.

The iMac has been losing sales momentum since a couple of quarters following its release. This is not a big deal. It's almost funny. It's time for Apple to open up, explain any apparent delay and deliver a decent product roadmap.

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kenaustus wrote:
Now we actually know why 15 minutes were cut from Steve J's keynote. In fact it is what most people thought.

Interesting. And when you consider that Tiger's new 64-bit features were touted at the conference, it would have made sense to introduce the 64-bit consumer product along with it.

Honestly, folks, I am with Joe Wilcox on this one. It's a publicity stunt, and it's a fabulous one. This sort of move is somewhat unprecendented, and is already garnering enormous PR for Apple. Enormous.

Now, it's possible that the stunt was made necessary by some idiotic planning on someone's part, or perhaps some huge unforeseen problem somewhere, but even if that's the case, the folks at 1 Infinite Loop have made sweet lemonade from a pile of lemons.

Again, though, I think it more likely to be a deliberate move. After all, it would be easy-peasy Japanesy (or Taiwanesy, as the case may be) to simply crank up some factory time and roll out another 50,000 units to satisfy demand until September.

Time will tell, of course.

Why is everybody so certain it will be a G5 iMac? It would make sense to include a G5 (higher GHZ than G4), but we may discover it is only a 1.5 GHZ G4 after all. Which would be a downer!

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DawnTreader wrote:
The iMac has been losing sales momentum since a couple of quarters following its release. This is not a big deal.

It is a big deal when you are selling over 200'000 iMacs per quarter. This is a lot of revenu lost (or at least deferred)

Suppose that it is a PR stunt and on the 4th of July they announce that the new iMacs are in the stores.

If Apple were merely pulling a "stunt," or if they surprised everybody with a new iMac after the holiday, or any of the other wild speculation going on, they'd be subject to shareholder lawsuits.

The miscalculated how long the existing iMac inventory would last, and ran into some design and manufacturing difficulties with the next iMac. They screwed up, pure and simple. Things happen.

Apple may try to make lemonade from all this, but it's ridiculous to think this was an intentional or wanted happening.

I really think this was an engineering issue. Apple has done the "build suspense until the unveiling" thing before but this doesn't feel like that. It feels more like a "oh, S*** the production units run too hot" or something like that. I applaud them for being honest about the delay but I have to believe that if they had any way of getting these units out now they would. For that matter it is very possible that the new iMac could be available before September. This might be a worst case date and they are burning the midnight oil to get it resolved ASAP.

If iMac sales are down so much, then how would they have miscalculated the remaining inventory by such a huge margin? If iMacs were selling fast then I could understand them running out a month or two early.

They must have stopped making them quite a while ago. They were probably expecting them to run out around now. And they did. They were obviously all ready to unveil the new iMac and then BLAM something horrible delayed the release. But this does also mean that if they can fix the issue sooner we will see the iMacs sooner.

And as far as educational sales go, RC, thats what iBooks and eMacs are for. As the above poster said, the educational buying season is already well underway if not almost over. You'll notice that the new eMac's were released in plenty of time for this! My girlfriend's little sister needs a new computer for college and she's gonna be getting an eMac. First Mac in the family. I doubt it will be the last.

for those worrying about the loss of educatonal orders, schools would have already placed orders for the upcoming year. Most schools begin in mid to late august. Not taking anymore orders as this point would hardly hurt k-12 sales at this late date. However, a new product launched in sept. has plenty of time in the fall to creat buzz and hype for the upcomong christmas season. This really is not a huge crisis as many are saying.

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Guest wrote:
Why is everybody so certain it will be a G5 iMac? It would make sense to include a G5 (higher GHZ than G4), but we may discover it is only a 1.5 GHZ G4 after all. Which would be a downer!

It's all speculation of course, but my speculation is based on Apple no longer offering single-G5 PowerMacs. It's reasonable to expect Apple to soon offer single G5 processor computers, and we know new iMacs are coming up. So it's not too crazy to believe that the new iMacs will have a G5 chip in them.

Hey, you idiot "how could apple bungle this so badly" naysayers... do you have any freaking idea what is going on in the economy right now? All sorts of manufacturing companies are getting orders that are beginning to outstrip CAPACITY. They didn't make a mistake in forcasting, it's that the market has f'ing started taking methamphetamines... not relly a whole lot a company can do about that... my guess is it went something like this...

Some time around jan, SJ & Execs got the current good market forecast, couted up stock parts, added some buffer and then told the MB and graphics cards suppliers, okay, pull the trigger and change over to the new stuff we're going to use... then by the june, the demand for imacs was showing no sign of slowing, then they had to make the hard decision of... do we tell the suppliers to go back to the old tooling? (which means they would take it in the a$$ for not having supply when they launch) or just issue an honest statement to the public?

which would you choose?

Things are looking so good not selling iMacs, Apple is expanding the program and will not sell any Macs for six months.

This will generate even more enormous PR for Apple, everyone will be wondering what the blazes is up with Apple. If PR goes through the roof as expected, Apple may consider canceling Mac sales for good.

*N/T*

-PontiMacX

Actually, RC stands for Paul Thurrott. He's just too cowardly to sign his name.



Bryan
Editor
TMO

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Bryan wrote:
Actually, RC stands for Paul Thurrott. He's just too cowardly to sign his name.

Really? The only Paul Thurrott I've heard of is a public Windows shill. I can't imagine a person who spends so much time talking up Windows would be wasting time with moronic posts in a Mac forum community.

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DawnTreader wrote:

Quote

Bryan wrote:
Actually, RC stands for Paul Thurrott. He's just too cowardly to sign his name.

Really? The only Paul Thurrott I've heard of is a public Windows shill. I can't imagine a person who spends so much time talking up Windows would be wasting time with moronic posts in a Mac forum community.

I wouldn't rule it out. Just surf on over to his silly little "Internet Nexus" blog and you'll see an uncanny similarity between what RC spews forth and what Paul, who fancies himself a "technology reporter," says. For someone who is supposed to be writing about Windows, the fixation that the guy has with Apple is amazing. To add to this amazing case study in bizarre behavior, the guy actually owns and uses some Apple products.

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John F. Braun wrote:
I wouldn't rule it out. Just surf on over to his silly little "Internet Nexus" blog and you'll see an uncanny similarity between what RC spews forth and what Paul, who fancies himself a "technology reporter," says. For someone who is supposed to be writing about Windows, the fixation that the guy has with Apple is amazing. To add to this amazing case study in bizarre behavior, the guy actually owns and uses some Apple products.

Yikes. Out of the exactly 100 posts on the front page, I counted at least 48 posts that were primarily about a topic Apple-related. Holy obsession, Batman!

And for being such a huge Windows fan, he sure advocates Firefox/Thunderbird a lot. Hmm. (Although, I guess advocating the use IE/OE is a whole new level of psychosis...)

Wow!

I can't imagine that kind of inner conflict (closet Mac wanna-be, public Microsoft shill), but I wouldn't mind all of that free time!

Imagine that! Preaches Windows by day, Mac obsessed by night!

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DawnTreader wrote:
Wow!

I can't imagine that kind of inner conflict (closet Mac wanna-be, public Microsoft shill), but I wouldn't mind all of that free time!

Imagine that! Preaches Windows by day, Mac obsessed by night!

Yep.

I betcha the guy slinks around an office in Hush Puppies during the day, disguising his latent Mac tendencies, only to come home to home filled with Macs and a room plastered with iPod and Seal posters.

What a shocker!

I bet there are tens of thousands of Windows system administrators just like him. He'll just be one of the first to fall.

You know the old saying, "Once you go Mac, you never go back!" Anyone want to crash his Mac "coming out party" with me?

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DawnTreader wrote:
Wow!

I can't imagine that kind of inner conflict (closet Mac wanna-be, public Microsoft shill), but I wouldn't mind all of that free time!

Imagine that! Preaches Windows by day, Mac obsessed by night!

The psychobabble term for this is "cognitive dissonance." The more shrill he gets, the greater the likelihood that, one of these days, his head will blow up.

This info is courtesy of my lovely bride, who has a degree in psychobabble.

Apple didn't announce the new iMac at WWDC, but was running out of old models fast. They can't just stop selling them without any explanation. "Uhhh, sorry, we ran out." That would be stupid. Rumors and analysis of rumors would overshadow any September announcement, which by the way, is the *only* time to release a new consumer product (look for the new iPod then, too).

So the next best thing is to offer a specific, yet vague, explanation of what's going on. Yes it produced some buzz, but the timing of the announcement is more important here.

They sent the email to reporters and analysts late Thursday, just in time to write a quick article for Friday's news, but not enough time to write a more in-depth analysis of it. Not to mention getting buried beneath tons of July 4 stories before the weekend editions hit the stand.

Saturday, people are grilling brats n' burgers; Sunday, everybody goes to watch the fireworks; and Monday is the officially observed holiday. Come Tuesday, nobody will talking about it.

It wasn't a publicity stunt; it was sneaky timing to get the story out without much uproar--it's a classic PR trick. It's all about timing the press release, and again, Apple pulled a fast one.

Jon

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Jonovitch wrote:


It wasn't a publicity stunt; it was sneaky timing to get the story out without much uproar--it's a classic PR trick. It's all about timing the press release, and again, Apple pulled a fast one.

Jon

I understand what you are saying

Still I don't think it's bad news. It would be an issue if the new Macs were not shipped in the current quarter. Apple's usual practice is to announce new products beginning to middle of a fiscal quarter and fill inventory (and pre-release advance sales) before the end of the fiscal quarter. Apple books sales upon shipment to dealers and into the channel, not when units are sold to the consumer.

I do think if Steve Jobs had announced a new iMac would be available in September and orders on the current iMacs were being halted it could have be seen as good news as he explained manufacturing was being changed over and inventory worked down in advance of the new product.

There's really little if any news here.

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Guest wrote:
Why is everybody so certain it will be a G5 iMac? It would make sense to include a G5 (higher GHZ than G4), but we may discover it is only a 1.5 GHZ G4 after all.

A G4 iMac refresh would have been done before WWDC since the eMac, PowerBook, and Power Mac had already been refreshed.

The informal September announcement of the iMac now means no commitment to pricing until it's formally announced. That may give Apple an opportunity to hit the $1K sweet spot for the entry model.

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Anonymous wrote:


The informal September announcement of the iMac now means no commitment to pricing until it's formally announced. That may give Apple an opportunity to hit the $1K sweet spot for the entry model.

I dunno. I think Apple would be more apt to reduce the price of the G4 eMac upon the release of a G5 iMac than to offer a new G5 desktop for $1,000.

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RealityCheck wrote:
Things are looking so good not selling iMacs, Apple is expanding the program and will not sell any Macs for six months.

This will generate even more enormous PR for Apple, everyone will be wondering what the blazes is up with Apple. If PR goes through the roof as expected, Apple may consider canceling Mac sales for good.

Kill the FUD, buddy.

And why exactly would Apple kill the Mac? It's still the company's cash cow, making up nearly 3/4 of the company's revenue. What kind of business would kill their biggest-grossing product line?

Think before you type!

I took people's advice and went and looked at this man's blog. He's completely bonkers, isn't he?

Rod

I only recnetly purchase the imac 201nch and they now decide to release this unbelievable g5 for cheaper, very dissapointed,

Don't kid yourself: Thurrott is paid to do this. Just like the Enderles are. Just like those spies M$ put in that Linux forum. These are stupid things but consider what Bill Gates has done in the past: had people astroturf graveyards to bring petitions before the DOJ to stop prosecuting his company; telling the press that the DOJ trial was a danger to US security; going out himself and with Ballmer and telling everyone Linux is a cancer; commissioning a research project (the Halloween Documents) to figure out how to disparage Linus and open source because they're so superior; the AARD code, the SMAARD code, all the pre-teen pranks... This is the world of Microsoft and yes, people do things like this.