rylin said:
While a upgradable (more so than the current iteration, at least) iMac would go a long way to solve our particular needs, I'll have to question the reasoning behind tying people in to a *very* locked down peripheral setup.
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Yes, the iMac is a "integrated solution"; but integrated isn't good enough!
Why did Apple release their first personal computer if there were already good-enough solutions available?
If I want to connect a 24" monitor to an iMac, I won't be able to do proper spanning (such has having a document covering both screens - but I could agree that that's a minor annoyance; depending on how you utilize your workspace).
Could you describe what you mean by that? Is it just that the menubar gets in the way? I have a dual-monitor setup on my G4 and I have occasionally extended a document to cover both screens, excepting the space taken up by the menubar (rarely necessary but certainly doable in my setup). Is there something specific to the iMac that prevents this from working?
I guess what I'm trying to say at this stage is that companies do not want one or two years of worth from their computers. They want five.
That means that I want/"need" something I can upgrade somewhat along the line - more memory, new harddrives, a bigger monitor; perhaps someone will be fired, and the next qualified person has a few special requirements?
Yeah, but if you're only going to be buying once every five years, they want to make as much money from you as possible. And they want you coming back, not just to whichever PC maker offers the best price and expandability at that particular time that you must get a new PC, but to the *one* PC maker who offers OS X -- if they can make you dependent on it, they've got you by the balls, pretty much. Hence easy, flexible upgradeability is left to the Mac Pro. That said, I do wish the iMac and mini were physically *easier* to upgrade with RAM and HDD, but there's nothing stopping you from doing so if you have to (indeed, I have done so, and any corporate IT guy worth his salt should be able to as well). Besides, for most people, adding peripherals has become a matter of plugging the external doohickey they got at Best Buy into a USB port, not installing a PCI card. Up and down the product line, Macs have no issues with that.
So really, the only expandability issue I can see that rule out the iMac completely apply only to that class of consumers who need to install their own GPU, or need a monitor above 24". The latter, certainly, remains a relatively rare breed even amongst PC-folk (as much as I personally would like one). Apart from the inevitable ramping up of processor speeds, I see no reason why an iMac can't last four or five years if you want it to.
While I'm not going to go Dvorak on you, I'll gladly say that Apple needs to take more big steps, instead of the gradual baby-steps.
The only real step they've taken recently was the start of the "I'm a PC" ads.
Intel transition means nothing; that was just the need for a new platform which would enable them to grow.
Thanks for not going Dvorak, as I suspect the result would be unintelligible on an MS 4000
I certainly agree about Intel. But I'll put it this way -- I'd eventually like to upgrade to a 30" monitor. Right off the bat that makes me unusual, so it's not like they're going to design a Mac just for me. A mini or an iMac won't cut it, though the latter is for the most part fine specs-wise. To some of the folks on this thread, the conclusion drawn is that there's a hole in the lineup. Certainly makes sense from the "prosumer"'s perspective. That, however, is not the conclusion I think Apple would draw: In my situation, if I must have OS X + that peripheral, I must therefore at some point purchase one of their "Pro" models. Sucks for me, maybe, but
good for Apple. That's the whole idea; their ad campaign isn't "Buy from Apple", but "Get a Mac". They're selling the
platform and using their control of it to justify more limited (and for them, more profitable) hardware choices. And if they can get you thinking that way, that it's not just a choice between Apple and 80 gazillion other PC makers' offerings, but between their platform and the other one, then that strategy has worked. If people find Macs and PCs *too* interchangeable, then it fails. This seems just as true of their behavior when it comes to companies as consumers, even though you certainly can make a case (and have) that that's no way to gain marketshare. Nevertheless, I've seen no evidence that they want to sell to corporate customers just to compete with Dell on hardware. Even with something like the XServe, it's all about the OS and the software.
As Apple is trying to cater to the people normally hanging out in their safe PC world, they need to take steps to ensure that people are comfortable in their new environment.
Among other things, it means that you should be able to connect your own keyboard, your own mice, your own monitors and what not.
Keyboards are a bloody glaring example of a step Apple need to take (and yes, I realize I'm sliding away on a tangent again!) - my MS 4000 Keyboard does not work "as advertised" (meaning \ is alt+shift+7, instead of what keyboards in my country has been displaying for the past 15 or so years).
I agree there should not be glaring and unsolved issues with peripherals, though that seems less a matter of policy than lack of adequate attention from Apple. I was unaware 3rd party keyboards didn't work that well with Macs. Certainly for mice and monitors I've had no problems whatsoever with 3rd party stuff -- in fact, I've never used anything BUT 3rd party mice and monitors with my Macs. And it's not even stuff tailored for Macs either. Are you sure the keyboard issue's not just an oversight on Apple's part rather than a deliberate policy to give the short shrift to non-Apple peripherals? I always figured most of that stuff worked just fine, you just had to buy it yourself and ignore the BTO options Apple offers.
One can't say they've been entirely reticent to address the needs of switchers who bring with them their old habits, expectations, and hardware, though; for one thing, they've made the OS itself *much* more compatible with standards common to users of other operating systems (making .zip the default archive type, for example, rather than the execrable Stuffit; moving away from the old, weird, Classic Mac file/creator type system in favor of the more common filename-extension system; and other things), and of course, the whole OS being UNIX based makes it much more attractive and familiar to developer types (that is one of the main reasons I switched in the first place). The key here is that the things they've changed all help with interoperability between computers running different OS's, rather than just between "my old way of doing things" and "the Mac way". They
haven't made things so comfortable for the new-to-Mac crowd that switching requires no changed habits or re-learning, because, think of it: if they did, switching *back* because this or that HP or Gateway was cheaper might be just as easy.
with minor problems, you can hook up a friggin cesna to your generic PC setup.
Hmmm.. I.. wouldn't recommend that, but ok..
