By Jo Best, 31 August 2004 12:55
NEWS It's bulbless, it's quieter than a whisper, and, according to Apple execs, you're going to wonder where the computer went. The new iMac is here.
With over 7.5 million Macs sold in the last six years, the Mac Mafia have been crying out for a new generation of desktop. Phil Schiller, Apple's senior VP of worldwide product marketing, unveiled the highly anticipated iMac at the Apple Expo in Paris today.
Indicating what seems to be an image makeover at Cupertino, the company that once made an MP3 player on the side is now plugging the new iMac as a desktop 'from the creators of the iPod', according to the ads for the new machine.
"What would the creators of the iPod do for their next computer?" was the rationale behind the latest addition to the Mac family, Schiller said.
The new Mac itself has undergone something of an image makeover too. The plastic 'bulb' that supported the monitor has gone, to be replaced by a 45-ish degree aluminium foot. It's been on something of a diet too, with the 17-inch version less than two inches thick.
Tangible speakers have been done away with in favour of invisible, integrated speakers on the underside of the machine that bounce sound off the user's desk.
And what else has gone? Well, most of it. "Everyone is going to be asking 'where did the computer go?' The entire computer [now] floats in the air," said Schiller. Apple is aiming for a machine users will be "proud to have in their den, their living room or in the front of small business".
And, in a reflection of the full-size iPods, the new iMac has shed its pastel ice cube look for all white.
But what's inside the box? Faster system architecture. The 17-inch iMac will be based on the G5 chip, with processing speeds of up to 1.8GHz. It will come with 400MHz DDRRAM memory, as well as three USB and two FireWire ports and a 600MHz frontside bus.
The 17-inch 'mini-Mac' version will ship for £919, $1299 or 1399, or, for those with a bigger budget, Apple is doing another version with a faster processor and a SuperDrive (a CD/DVD burner) for £1049, $1499 or 1629.
For Mac devotees who really want to splash the cash, the 20-inch, 2.2-inch thick version will be on sale for £1349, $1899 or 2059.
The new machine will begin shipping worldwide from mid-September, Schiller confirmed.
Comments
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1. Nico Macdonald
Schiller asks 'where did the computer go?'. He clearly wasn't paying attention when Apple VP of design Jonathan Ive conceived the 20th Anniversary Mac (http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=anniversary), which was launched in 1997, and included a TV/FM Radio System. This seems like an obvious omission in the G5 iMac, which is positioned as a home entertainment/media centre. That said, he is right when he notes that only Apple seems to be able to get this form factor right. Even the Sony Vaio W Series PC/TV/HiFi seems awkward by comparison.
2. Roy Corneloues
It's a laptop... On a stand...