Naw, apple prides itself on planned obsolesence. The machine definitely won't be remotely upgradable.

That should be a pretty good indication of the options that would be available on the new Mac.

I believe that there will be a slot for a memory upgrade, but wouldn't bet on two slots as it might be like the iBook.

A SuperDrive option is definitely possible, as is a larger HD. The only other thing I see is the ability to have a BTO with a wireless keyboard & mouse - just like on the iMacs.

In terms of on the shelf options I believe that initially there will only be one model available and you will have to go BTO to get more goodies. Apple is probably going to want to minimize the number of in stock Macs (looking at the total range) and I only see a second stock model with a SuperDrive being available.

I agree with the matching displays being available - I just can't see Ives designing a new Mac without designing a matching display. I think "package deals" will also be available, either together in a single box or with a mail in rebate.

I'd have a great use for this in my house as a server...

If the internals aren't upgradeable, there is no point in releasing this computer. Sure, it won't run Doom 3, but there are a good many games out there that would do fine on a 1.25 gHz G4 provided you could put something better than a geForce 5200 or 32MB Radeon 9200 in it.

I'm guessing the faceless mac will be revealed at MWSF 2005. Delivery maybe deferred allowing for Tiger Mac os 10.4 to be preloaded. Your thoughts?

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Benton wrote:
I'm guessing the faceless mac will be revealed at MWSF 2005. Delivery maybe deferred allowing for Tiger Mac os 10.4 to be preloaded. Your thoughts?

iDrool? iLemmings?
Somtimes your iWishes come true.

~ Realty Check

Kenaustus, enlighten my ignorance!
BTO?
Before The Orb?
Back To Oz?
Bleach the Opposition?

I don't trust the LCD monitors with my boys, as the oldest is three. They're probably fine, but I'd have to be convinced. We've got a 19" CRT sitting at home that used to be connected to a G3 (that we gave away), so the monitor isn't the issue. Right now we're thinking refurbished Power Mac due to hard drive considerations, so this econo-Mac would have to allow for a good sized hard drive for us to go with it. If it's geared toward the PC crowd, limiting HD size and RAM works better than it would for the Mac crowd. I'm far from being an expert user, but I've got a ton of video sitting on an external drive that's nearly full. My 60 gb drive doesn't hold much when it comes to the video.

Will be a little strange if they release this ~$500 headless Mac and the graphpics card can be upgraded, when the iMac's can't.

I picked up a recon eMac from Apple in '03 for less than $600 and, while it's a great computer, the thing is just too friggin' big and cumbersome to compete anymore (it's a pain to move when there's nothing to grab onto...it's like a 50-lb egg!). Light weight would bring more versatility to such a unit; you could even throw it in your briefcase and hook it up at work or at a friend's house.

There are many of us with a stash of perfectly good CRTs of various vintages hoarded away in the basement or garage.If not, you can scout your neighborhood and find them out on the curb on any given weekend. Not as slick as an LCD, but we're talking CHEAP here. And free stuff is always a Good Thing (TM).

So mark me down for one, or two econo-macs, and as long as somebody (Marathon?) comes up with a 1U rack-ear kit for us mobile-musician-types (a large untapped market I think!), I'll be thrilled!

And yes Vern, it's GOT to have a cool Ive design to set it apart from the pack. As long as it doesn't look like the mutant cousin of the ol' LC, count me in! I don't neeeeeed another Mac, but since when has THAT stopped any of us??!

-Ken P

PS: "...stripped down to its digital skivvies..." ?!!! Eewww!!!!

what I'd like, apart from the technical stuff everybody likes to cover:
- easy tv connection
- zone-free dvd
- dvd-writer
- easy hd recording
- easy pick-up recording (I'm serious, I'm about ready to give up on my records, provided I can easily digitize them)
- and the obvious: easy audio connectivity for itunes streaming and having cool audio with the dvd...
- some wireless options to connect to other PC's in the household (mac/windoze)
- a remote
in short: a REAL home entertainment system that capitalizes on what people already own (records, dvd's, pictures, iTunes songs, cd's, oh and TV's and stereo's and computers ...)

imo the other stuff (running office or iWork) is totally optional, most people have pc's that do that already. But if it can, cool. Why not.

But, when do we get our $500 Peripheral Mac with touch screen option for +$200. Basically a 12-17 LCD with a graphics card and possibly a slot loading DVD drive, firewire and some option for a media reader. And Bluetooth, Airport and a recharchable mount. It's time for the networked clients to come home.

Give the capability to be served by any new Mac, even the mythical $500 headless Mac, and upsells to a dual processor PowerMac that would be better at serving a household of MediaMacs would be a sinch.


Apple should be selling a headless iMac and Media Mac (w/out hardrive/RAM). Apple could go from a $500 entry level mac to a $1000 entry home network to a $8000 family of 5 network with PowerMac and Peripheral Macs.

MacTitan

- 1 Ghz PPC G4
- 133 Mhz Bus
- 256 MB RAM
- 32 MB ATI card
- Integrated audio
- 30 GB HDD 4200 RPM
- CD ROM Drive
- 2 USB 1.1 port
- 1 Firewire 400 port
- 56k Modem
- Ethernet
- Keyboard
- Third party mouse
- Loads of software
No bluetooth
No Airport Express

The rumored G4 headless Mac might be a proof-of-concept or to be released later in the year. What we might see is a sexy looking iMac mini with the same specifications as the 17" 1.6GHz iMac G5 less monitor. Price? Probably $799.

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Bookman wrote:
If the internals aren't upgradeable, there is no point in releasing this computer. Sure, it won't run Doom 3, but there are a good many games out there that would do fine on a 1.25 gHz G4 provided you could put something better than a geForce 5200 or 32MB Radeon 9200 in it.

Quote

zpok wrote:
what I'd like, apart from the technical stuff everybody likes to cover:
- easy tv connection
- zone-free dvd
- dvd-writer
- easy hd recording
- easy pick-up recording (I'm serious, I'm about ready to give up on my records, provided I can easily digitize them)
- and the obvious: easy audio connectivity for itunes streaming and having cool audio with the dvd...
- some wireless options to connect to other PC's in the household (mac/windoze)
- a remote
in short: a REAL home entertainment system that capitalizes on what people already own (records, dvd's, pictures, iTunes songs, cd's, oh and TV's and stereo's and computers ...)

imo the other stuff (running office or iWork) is totally optional, most people have pc's that do that already. But if it can, cool. Why not.

I've been reading about how this iMac mini would be a great media machine or whatever, but the true potential of this machine is being completely missed: any location where deployment of multiple computers makes sense. iMac mini == instant cluster.

All the pieces are there: xSan, xGrid, and Rendezvous (or whatever they're calling it these days). All you need is the cluster node to tie it all together. Get a network of these in the office and a reasonably fast network and all of a sudden, your so-called low-powered Mac is borrowing cycles from its neighbor to get its work done. Roll a site license of Microsoft Office or some other Office-compatible application suite, and you have an installation strategy that can compete with Dell. For educational institutions that need a nice little computational cluster without the budget that would allow them to buy a stack of xServes these would be a god-send. Heck, for public schools looking to replace their misguided Windows purchases these would be perfect.

The sleeper market isn't in Media Centers. Let Tivo and Microsoft duke it out over that low-profit space. The real market for these is volume deployment in education and businesses. I truly hope these units come to pass. These boxes will replace my company's white-box Linux thin client strategy in a heartbeat.

Pretty good thoughts overall, although I don't agree that they necessarily need to dump the eMac. Refresh or revamp the line, maybe, but remember it was designed for a specific market -- education, where they value less-fragile CRT displays and big heavy all-in-one units which can't walk off very easily -- and was only released the the general public because, hey, they're already being built, if someone else wants to buy one, why not?

Just saw an old friend the other day who recently bought an eMac that he shares with his 2 and 4-year-old sons, and he absolutely loves it.

"We all know that is not possible. Perhaps you'd like it to come with a little baggy of cocaine too? Moron."

Ah the cut and thrust of debate, the exchange of intelligent insight... Don't know under which rock you live, but here in France the sun is shining and while there aren't any roses to smell yet, I can hearthily reccomend lifting your head out of the toilet bowl. As for what's not possible, I've bought three zone-free DVD's so far, all legitimate machines, doing as advertised. But keep your little baggies, I think you can use them.

Cheers

I've said it before - a cut down barebones iMac could be a hit in the corporate world for telesales boiler-rooms, generic office duties etc - but for this sector Apple need 100% compatibility with the existing Windows-world, which means IE and ActiveX and .NET; without this it just doesn't sell to the medium-sized corporates let alone the big boys.

Maybe Apple need to develop 3 threads of OSX: "Business" [designed to run on bargain-basement hardware so comes with the iApps etc stripped out - can't have staff watching movies when they're meant to be working - and with MS-Office really tightly integrated], "Creative" - with the iApps and all the eye-candy stuff for top-end systems, and finally "Home" with optimisation for gaming, general email/web-surfing etc.

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Anonymous wrote:
... Maybe Apple need to develop 3 threads of OSX: "Business" [designed to run on bargain-basement hardware so comes with the iApps etc stripped out - can't have staff watching movies when they're meant to be working - and with MS-Office really tightly integrated], "Creative" - with the iApps and all the eye-candy stuff for top-end systems, and finally "Home" with optimisation for gaming, general email/web-surfing etc.

C'mon, just because Microsoft has yet to gain traction with it's media pc concept it doesn't mean other companies can't have a go. And think of it this way -- a "media centre" mac could be the base station for purchasing/downloading video online and syncing with a video iPod. Or a machine that can not only record digital tv, but it can also seamlessly convert files optimised for a video iPod. Apple's got the hardware smarts, they've got the codec, and they've got the cred to convince Hollywood to try a movie version of iTMS. Bandwidth is getting cheaper (even here in Australia, arguably the broadband backwater of the developed world, thanks to communications minister that thought broadband was "the same thing, just faster". But, I digress) and while I don't think this will happen this year, maybe the next couple years after. Anyway, let's not ditch the media pc thing -- it's early days yet.

IF there is a sub $500 (or even sub $600) headless mac then it needs to have more appeal than just a low-end headless system.......people can get PC's and refurb Macs for that price....

If, however, the box has TV inout/outputs....code-free DVD player and some sort of Tivo-lite software then we are looking at a real computing/media revolution.

And Apple is all about revolution.....

Biff.....

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Biff wrote:

I think you posted in the wrong thread, yo. This is the cheap iMac thread. Not the OS X media center edition thread. But FYI: considering that in a Windows-dominated world, MS has sold about 3 media center PCs, don't hold your breath for Apple to jump on that bandwagon! And why even waste space typing in something like "region free dvd"? We all know that is not possible. Perhaps you'd like it to come with a little baggy of cocaine too? Moron.


Before you call someone a moron, check your facts.

Code-free DVD players are widely available (I have 2) and they are a god-send.

zpok hit the nail on the head. People who have cheap PC's have them for convenience and price. Changing OS's and programs isn't convenient and the paramount thread of this discussion is price.

If this box has what zpok states (or even a subset thereof) and would fit in my entertainment center, I'd buy it in a heartbeat (provided it was under $600)

This may be getting a tad off-topic, but try VLC for DVD playback. It doesn't care which region your drive is set to. http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

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Anonymous wrote:
I've said it before - a cut down barebones iMac could be a hit in the corporate world for telesales boiler-rooms, generic office duties etc - but for this sector Apple need 100% compatibility with the existing Windows-world, which means IE and ActiveX and .NET; without this it just doesn't sell to the medium-sized corporates let alone the big boys.