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Apple iMac 2010 - What would you like to see changed?

eelpout said:
Apple seems to have little interest in satisfying we who would prefer a more standard desktop box when the Apple-shippers are buying iMac's in droves. This way they force people to upgrade their computer more often too as the non-upgradeable iMac goes out of date very quickly. Their marketing people may be a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them.

For me, since Apple has become yet another PC clone maker (after the Intel switch), it's all about the OS. And one can't get run their OS without the hardware (Hackintosh aside) so you're stuck with Apple's scatter-shot, inflated price boxes. I wish they'd start offering the OS on its own and not tie it to hardware, but that's not going to happen either.
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most people don't upgrade

my desktop is a home built PC and i rarely upgrade. every few years i'll buy a new motherboard, CPU, RAM and graphics card. this time i might buy a new case and last year i bought a new power supply that wasn't as noisy.

Apple's problem is economies of scale. they are small fry when looking at total numbers and Dell spent years learning how to customize PC's and do it profitably.

Apple's solution is to sell laptop parts in everything except the workstations. less inventory costs, bigger discounts from Intel, etc.

and i doubt they will license the OS. MS might cut off ActiveSync and it will kill the iPhone and maybe MobileMe. doesn't really matter since computer sales are no growth and just a source of cash. just like Vista and Office is with Microsoft. iPhone is the growth driver and everything else is secondary.

Just look at OS X and Windows. Not much innovation with both of them in the last 8 years. just support for new hardware and solutions for problems as they come up. i don't really care which one i use, but you can only have my iphone after you pry it from my cold dead hands.

it's going to be interesting to see what Apple does. on the one hand they have to work with MS on the iPhone and Microsoft seems to support them in taking some market share from Dell and HP. i couldn't believe there is going to be native Exchange 2007 support in SL. on the other MS needs Windows revenue until they grow their online business some more and will they allow Apple to poach more of their customers.

HP and Dell don't seem to care about the consumer space at all. Almost like Apple doesn't seem to care about servers. It's almost like Coke and Pepsi using supermarket shelf space just for branding and making the real profits somewhere else.
 
MacAndy74 said:
I guess we're about half way to a new iMac release, so what would you like changed or improved in iMac 2010?

Here's my list:

- LED Backlit LCD Panels,
- 30" Model,
- Quad Core Processors,
- Faster Onboard nVidia Graphics,
- >1TB HD Options,
- Updated Mighty Mouse,
- Black keyed / backlit Keyboard,
- Aluminium Build - File the sharp edges.

That's my wishes please Mr :apple:
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Let's pick apart this fallacy of a list.

LED backlit panels are probably gonna happen.
30" probably not gonna happen (the 24" are already HUGE)
Quad core processors probably not gonna happen (too much power draw, too much heat)
Graphics? WHO CARES. You don't use the graphics EXCEPT for displaying stuff on the screen. 3D render? CPU does that. Video encode? CPU does that too. Games (FPS)? GPU only. Most people don't know that, but it's 100% true.
>1TB HDs not gonna happen, no room, no need.
Mighty Mouse and Keyboards? Very likely (black, aluminum colored maybe backlit)
Aluminum already and edges ARE NOT sharp. I tried cutting myself with it. I just got tired from rubbing my finger so hard.

Also, to the person quoted above that complains of high pricing and not able to upgrade, no one upgrades anymore. The vast majority don't. Because tinkering wastes time, money, and is pointless. Hardware is cheap these days, and building PCs costs more than buying from a vendor, and wastes time. And, the iMac is actually much much cheaper than a comparable PC AIO. Not their computer boxes, but all-in-one PC vs all-in-one iMac. Factor in the OS, the iMac is actually a very cheap computer compared to competitors.
 
Haven't read the thread but I would really like to see a new bold design. The iMacs still look the same as the G5s in terms of shape. Wish Apple would get inventive with it again.
 
Hellhammer said:
There are 2TB 3.5" HDs and iMac would use them. Apple already offers 1TB....
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Apple seems to have no problem charging $500-1000 dollars for its SSD drives, so why not give iMac customers the option of a 2TB drive...for Apple, it would probably be a $200/$250 upgrade.

As I said in another thread though, my media needs far exceed even 2TB (especially once this Blu-Ray ripping gets going under OS-X, which is finally happening...albeit a little buggy at the moment), so I really just want a fast SSD drive. I'll stick with my Drobo as my iTunes drive anyway, but many people would love 2TB's in the iMac.
 
zedsdead said:
Apple seems to have no problem charging $500-1000 dollars for its SSD drives, so why not give iMac customers the option of a 2TB drive...for Apple, it would probably be a $200/$250 upgrade.

As I said in another thread though, my media needs far exceed even 2TB (especially once this Blu-Ray ripping gets going under OS-X, which is finally happening...albeit a little buggy at the moment), so I really just want a fast SSD drive. I'll stick with my Drobo as my iTunes drive anyway, but many people would love 2TB's in the iMac.
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1.5TB was available when desktops got updated but Apple didn't use it, not even in Mac Pro. 2TB is Seagate crap with 5900rpm, so Apple won't use it. I chose 640GB HD but I knew I need terabytes so I bought externals. Very easy way in my opinion
 
Hellhammer said:
1.5TB was available when desktops got updated but Apple didn't use it, not even in Mac Pro. 2TB is Seagate crap with 5900rpm, so Apple won't use it. I chose 640GB HD but I knew I need terabytes so I bought externals. Very easy way in my opinion
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The 1.5 TB were the Seagate Drives that had high failure rates.

The 2.0 TB are Western Digital 7200RPM Green Caviler Drives and so far I have not heard about any problems. No reason for Apple not to include them in both the iMac and Mac Pro.
 
zedsdead said:
The 1.5 TB were the Seagate Drives that had high failure rates.

The 2.0 TB are Western Digital 7200RPM Green Caviler Drives and so far I have not heard about any problems. No reason for Apple not to include them in both the iMac and Mac Pro.
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Oh, sorry, forgot that those are already out. They are still expensive, over 200€.

The 1.5TB I meant was Western Digital Caviar Green and I've heard nothing bad about it.

If Apple uses them, they'll be in Mac Pros first
 
zedsdead said:
The 1.5 TB were the Seagate Drives that had high failure rates.

The 2.0 TB are Western Digital 7200RPM Green Caviler Drives and so far I have not heard about any problems. No reason for Apple not to include them in both the iMac and Mac Pro.
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maybe in the next refresh, but it depends on who supplies the current drives. if they use hitachi or fujitsu then Apple isn't going to add another supplier
 
alent1234 said:
maybe in the next refresh, but it depends on who supplies the current drives. if they use hitachi or fujitsu then Apple isn't going to add another supplier
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Current 640GB is WD, just looked from "About this Mac". I think 1TB is as well. Samsung makes SSDs what Apple uses, I guess
 
If Blu-Ray isn't added in the next generation iMac - that is just stupid. Not even because of it being something I want. Why on earth would that not include it, at least as an option. It just would honestly be DUMB. And to be honest I have nothing to justify my reasoning it just would be. I mean, think about it, they say at the end of 2010 they are going to start slowly fading DVD's and having limited releases only, Apple already left it out of the last refresh and people were pissed. And just to be redundant, if Apple leaves out Blu-Ray in the next generation iMac, that is plain ass stupid.
 
wdaleherring said:
If Blu-Ray isn't added in the next generation iMac - that is just stupid. Not even because of it being something I want. Why on earth would that not include it, at least as an option. It just would honestly be DUMB. And to be honest I have nothing to justify my reasoning it just would be. I mean, think about it, they say at the end of 2010 they are going to start slowly fading DVD's and having limited releases only, Apple already left it out of the last refresh and people were pissed. And just to be redundant, if Apple leaves out Blu-Ray in the next generation iMac, that is plain ass stupid.
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It's more than just putting it into iMac. OS X doesn't have Blu-Ray support yet so Apple would have to update it's apps. Okay, that's not hard but takes time. Also there's some licensing crap what must be done before Apple could use BR.

Honestly, what do you do with BR? Single layer disk costs over 10€ and BR players goes for less than 200€. BR is something that people wants because it's "future" but how they use it?

Downloading is today and future.
 
for blu-ray apple will have to add the drives which are still very expensive and write the software for playback which will also involve license fees and dev time. and it will compete with ITunes movie purchases.

i can see a BD option for a mac mini because you can put it near a TV and use as a media PC. don't see the point of putting it on an iMac or a MBP.
 
alent1234 said:
for blu-ray apple will have to add the drives which are still very expensive and write the software for playback which will also involve license fees and dev time. and it will compete with ITunes movie purchases.

i can see a BD option for a mac mini because you can put it near a TV and use as a media PC. don't see the point of putting it on an iMac or a MBP.
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Actually, Final Cut Pro 7 has BR support. Maybe we get BR drives with next update!
 
Hellhammer said:
Actually, Final Cut Pro 7 has BR support. Maybe we get BR drives with next update!
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that's because it's a video editing program used by people to make BR disks. it's probably a different license for playback.

MS didn't have DVD playback support for something like 6 years until after DVD came out. I don't remember if XP had it or if Vista was the first one to have it. MS didn't want to pay the license fee.

For all big releases like this companies wait until a technology hits a large installed base. For BR i think it will probably be when players run $100 at retail and the drives are dirt cheap as well. I used to read MaximumPC back in the late 1990's and they were hyping DVD drives when they first came out for PC's and how you had to get one. Bought one for $120 and it broke a few years later before software started to come out on DVD. Dell started shipping DVD drives standard when they hit around $30 retail.

Same here, it's still an expensive niche product that only a few people will use. I can see Apple shipping them on Mac Pro's, but not consumer level computers.
 
- ATI graphics (they have better drivers)
- SSD option (would really help with the iMac's quietness)
- Anti-glare screen option
- As good a quality screen as is practical for the price
- Blu-ray drive
- Built-in iPhone dock (would save a USB port for a lot of people)
- Optional 2nd internal HD for Time Machine (smaller SSDs may make this possible)
- Replaceable HDs (maybe slide out the left)
 
The wishlist game. Ranked by desire not sensiblity.

-All new design in Al&Glass. looses Chin but adds Ears (more TV like).
-Ears contain 4+ speaker system. plus provide large vent area for large
-new case has three cooling zones with large vents for low speed high air volume cooling. i.e. Quite cooling.
-Quad Core (it's time, the software is just about ready, and not just SL)
-Nice GPU with lots oh RAM, favour nVidia they work better with Pro Apps.
-24 & 30 inch models.
-Inbuild UPS battery, say 20+min run so in the event of blackout you get the chance to save nicely and a few hours sleep so the machine has almost zero power draw sleep. also lets you move desk. Not a laptop but a true Lugable.
-Dual HD or eSATA connection.
-Keyboard with Gesture Pad (trackpad like but numeric keypad mode but main keyboard is real keys) should have powered usb2 ports.
-Blu-Ray player (with bag of hurt licensing issues sorted and dedicated support in most GPU's it's time (unlike to support screen sharing))
-SD Card Slot
-otherwise much the same as now for ports and the like.
 
zedsdead said:
A redesign is not likely, especially since Apple matched the laptops recently to match the iMac.
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Well yes and no.
Materials yes, but i think there has been a lot of thinking about how those materials come together that could in turn be applied to the iMac.

The Al iMac is basically the same white iMac in new clothes, the same really can't be said of the MacBookPro's to it's previous generation.
 
I doubt a major facelift is going to happen anytime soon. Apple pretty much just finished getting all their products to look like the alu iMac!

Maybe we'll see an SD slot like on the notebooks.
 
queshy said:
I doubt a major facelift is going to happen anytime soon. Apple pretty much just finished getting all their products to look like the alu iMac!

Maybe we'll see an SD slot like on the notebooks.
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All the more reason to reset the cycle. Although that would suggest early 2010 instead of late 2009.
 
Hellhammer said:
I doubt it. iMacs don't have ExpressSlot so I can't see SD slot in iMac. ES was much better than SD by the way
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ExpressCard Slot needs much more hardware and software support to handle the PCIe bus associated yet 90% of cards only use the USB bus of card so for the most part express card slot would be a waste of engineering where for what really will be treated as a glorified USB port.

Any chipset they use will have spare SATA connections so eSATA could be done easier that way than via ExpressCard Slot as well. SD card is a pretty simple add to the USB bus.

Any way Steve's other little business interest has started bundling its product on to SD cards as and alternative distribution model to disk. So who to say how that might effect the Apple product range.
 
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