Actually, rjung, there’s some validity to CNet’s supposition. The G3 iMac is going to be phased out shortly. The price of LCDs, instead of falling, as it has for 18 months, has been rising since January, so Apple will not be able to move the iMac G4 to the sub-$1,000 range by the all-important Christmas season, so they need a new, snazzy G4-based product to be the “low end” Mac.
Luckily, they had one: their education-oriented eMac. The eMac was designed for education, but it will do quite well as the new “economy” Mac. In 6 months, Apple should be able to lower the price for this model to the $799 or so range, which is the “sweet spot” for name-brand Windows and Apple entry level systems.
I’ll just have to agree to disagree here, Kirkland. I think the G3 iMacs make a better entry-level consumer machine, because of their smaller size and consumer-familiar looks. Sure, it doesn’t have the horsepower of a G4, but for an entry-level machine, that’s pretty much the kind of performance one would expect. And with economies of scale, the G3 could go down even further in price, IMO.
Not that I’m disparaging the eMac, mind you – just CNet’s contention that the only reason it was made available to non-educational buyers was because of a need to shore up the low end. Apple management these days is very responsive to their customers, and I can easily imagine that several thousand folks writing to Cupertino saying “I want to buy an eMac too!” simply changed their mind.
I checked out a few Macs today. Specifically, I looked at the new iMac, eMac, and iBook.
The emac has a 17" screen, built in speakers, and is a few hundred bucks cheaper (roughly $1100 with stand)
The iMac is pretty damn neat. (Biting my tongue over my earlier ‘it looks ass-nasty’ bit). But it does cost more. The iMac I want is about $1800, with the super-duper combo drive and external speakers.
The 12.1" iBook is damn cheap for a notebook (~$1100). That being said, I am not much of a mobile person. Also, it is the only G3 of the trio, the iMac and eMac both being G4 700’s.
Fairly cheap powermacs are available on ebay. But then I have to get a monitor. Hrmmmm.
*I haven’t a fucking clue which one I would get. I think I will sell off the PC, then flip a coin or draw straws.
Except people have been griping for years about wanting a bigger screen, which both the new iMac and eMac provide. Plus, the old iMacs are borderline for OS X, will not be compatible with Quartz Extreme, have only 2 USB ports, and a mushier looking screen.
Plus the old iMac doesn’t match the 2001-2002 look for Apple products: sleek metallic for the pro, sleek and white for the consumer. The colors have gotten old, even the tried and true dark blue.
What the hell does it being nonstandard have to do with usability?
If your toaster is pink instead of chrome and is front loading rather than top loading is it unusable?
A toaster isn’t part of a larger “Kitchen GUI.” In a GUI environment, all programs and windows should have common widgets and interface concepts so that what you learn in one program about how Windows programs work is immediately employable in the next program you use. A common interface is one of the main reasons for GUIs instead of the mix-and-match nightmare of CLI programs, where the commands are never the same, the programs don’t work alike, etc etc.
Well, just speaking for myself, I don’t find the G3 iMac’s screen to be uncomfortably small. I use mine at 1024 x 768 for hours without any problems (though I’d be lying if I didn’t say I dream of a Cinema Display someday ).
As for the other points, (1) running MacOS X on a 350-450 MHz G3 is reportedly fine if you have a lot of RAM (at least 256 MB), (b) Quartz Extreme is optional, and (c) the G4 iMacs only have 1 more USB port than the G3s. None of these issues are deal-breakers for computer newbies anyway, at least IMO.
An interesting feature… essentially, OSX eliminates any sort of organization or cataloguing you do to your files. Although I trust there’s an option to turn that feature off.
Uh… I’m saying how I wouldn’t use the bundled software of ANY OS, Windows or Mac.
Take it easy, Champ, no need to be so defensive.
A matter of taste. Namely… I have it, you don’t.
Yeesh, take some valium. I was pointing out what I already have. If I wanted to play games with what I wish I DID have… well, I want a Ferrari, and a space station, and a pony… :rolleyes:
And who was making a comparison? Certainly not I. I was simply pointing out how silly it is to point to all the extra bells and whistles that a program comes with and claim it to be the superior program. Using logic like that, we would conclude that the Edsel was the greatest car in history (well, okay, I DO think that the Edsel was the greatest car in history, but that’s beside the point)…
Well, here’s my take. I built my PC for about $1400.
It is:
AthlonXP 1800+ (1.54 GHz)
Soyo Dragon Plus motherboard
GeForce 3 ti 500 video
512MB DDR RAM
100GB HD (1x20GB, 1x80GB)
19" Viewsonic Monitor
SB Live
modem,
built in NIC
built in RAID controller
40x/12x/48x CD-RW
16x slot load DVD-ROM
WinXP Pro
all my peripherals, which would be the same cost on the mac.
That was in January. The same machine now would likely be $150-$300 cheaper.
A similarly configured G4 (and I take issue with the speed issue…my PC is still faster than this machine…Alti-Vec or not, but I’ll consider them ‘equal’ for this comparison) With the same monitor (since I can’t compare mine with a flatpanel studio display that’s twice as expensive.
The G4 is:
933MHz G4
512MB RAM
80GB HD
SuperDrive
GeForce 4 MX (which is the same speed or slower than a GF3ti500)
Modem
Built in NIC
19" Viewsonic (for comparison)
OS X
Cost: $2,799.
Now, I’ll take the $1300 I saved on my computer, and put it towards the professional software, and we now have a valid comparison, wouldn’t you say?
And my machine rarely ever crashes. Every once in a while, an app will crash, but not very often at all. My computer goes down only when I reboot it. It has currently been running at 100% load for 4 days 16 hours. I rebooted to install new hardware. I keep an uptime monitor just to log how often I have to reboot. It also keeps track of system crashes, and the last crash was on April 9.
Back to the OP, I think that the commercials are horrible. There is some excellent software for the Mac, and if I had the cash, I’d like to get a Dual G4 workstation with Final Cut for DV editing. My PC can do DV editing, but I hear that Final Cut is the best app there is for doing DV. That sort of angle should be used to promote the Mac, not these “I was just so confused…” commercials.
The line that pisses me off the most is the stupid idiot writer lady who says “I could never figure out how to do anything, how to move a window…” WHAT??? You move a window in Windows the EXACT SAME WAY you do on a Mac. What a fucking idiot.
Hello, that’s not what I said at all. You can still organize your pictures into folders, but you also have a “global” view. That global view is lacking in Windows my Pictures.
Your loss. Well, not much of a loss on windows, but it would be a major mistake not to use iPhoto to organize your digital photos on a Mac, or iTunes for your music playback, because they are better than the alternatives.
And comparing the prosumer software to what comes with a Mac for free. Not a fair comparison.
When discussion the pros and cons of two operating system, discussing the bunlded software that comes with the OS is not silly.
Apple’s market doesn’t really include people who are the types who build their own machines. I’ve never done it with their pro systems, which are overpriced, but I compared my iMac G4 800 to a similarly-equipped Dell Dimension 4100 (added FireWire, more RAM, more HDD, a DVD-burner and flat panel to their mid-range stock model, IIRC), and the total Dell price advantage, after shipping costs, was $57. Which wouldn’t even buy me Warcraft III.
Whatever. I’m off in four hours to study at Oxford for six weeks. You all have fun.
I don’t know what kind of half-baked software SPOOFE has seen, but the bundled Mac software from Apple tends to be high-end stuff. I’m not that wild about iTunes, and only slightly more thrilled with iPhoto, but iMovie is easily a “buy this computer so you can run this program” application – it’s that good. And if you’ve got a Superdrive DVD burner, iDVD + iMovie is better than sex.
And how lame is Windows Movie Maker XP, by comparison?
Number of transitions:
iMovie: 13 Movie Maker XP: 1 Number of special effects:
iMovie: 12 Movie Maker XP: 0 Number of title options:
iMovie: 17 Movie Maker XP: 0
That’s not a movie-editing program, that’s a joke…
No, I’d say not. You neglect to mention if you got a gigabit ethernet card, a winmodem or a real modem, firewire, a locking case, or the ability to just add a cheap card for wireless networking.
I personally think that comparisons are pointless. You can’t run classic or X apps on Windows, but you can run Windows on the mac. If you’re going to be buying video editing and mp3 wrangling software, I think many users would be better off with the mac. Especially if you use an education discount.
I typing this on my PC, by the way, while my two year old mac G4 runs distributed.net at an absurd speed.
Frankly, I am amazed that it took this long for the PC person to trot out all the geeky computer specs and stats and talk about how they save so much money by getting a PC instead of a Mac. I always hear this. I am sick of it.
Let me speak for myself here: If I wanted to use a PC, I would use a PC. (Well, actually, I already own a PC, but that’s not my point here…) Macs have qualities that PCs don’t, and will never have. There are tangible and intangible reasons why I love working on my Mac. Throwing geeky stats at me won’t change that. I LIKE working on my Mac more than I like working on my PC. I LIKE the way my Mac runs, I LIKE the Mac OS better than Windows, I LIKE how easy it is to install hardware. I LIKE all of this, and all the geeky lists of PC hardware won’t change that.
You get what you pay for. If Macs are indeed more costly (and some Mac people will contend that they aren’t, when you factor in extras, ease of use, less tech support, etc.) then they are WORTH IT TO ME. The same way that many people feel that an expensive wine or expensive car is worth it to them. They know they are paying more, they know what they are getting for the extra price, and they are TOTALLY OK with it.
With a 3rd party app (Virtual PC, for one) you can run many flavors of Windows. I believe there are some very limited Mac emulators for Windows (I’ve looked into installing one on my PC) but they are not near as good as Virtual PC, etc.
I believe one Mac emulator for Windows requires some special ROM (you can tell I’m not a techie) that can only gotten from a Mac. That can be a huge hassle, especially for someone who doesn’t have access to a Mac! Also, I believe (though it’s been about a year since I checked) that the Mac emulators can only go up to OS 7x or maybe OS 8.1. Very limited. (If anyone has any new information about the Mac emulator for the PC, I’d be very interested—I really do want to install it on my PC!)
So, in a nutshell, yeah, you CAN run Windows software on a Mac, but you really can’t do much with Mac software on a PC. One of my friends (a die-hard Mac addict) had to run a Windows-only app for a college course. Thanks to VirtualPC, she was all set.
I thought that was the case. Thank you for clarifying.
I’ve used Virtual PC before, and it is indeed nice software. (I’ve used it on a Sun machine at school, not on a Mac, but I’d guess it’s probably pretty much the same.)
It does appear as though Mac emulators only go up to around 7x for the free ones. I don’t know how advanced cost-ware Mac emulators are.
Still, one can run MacOS (and therefore Mac apps) on Windows. Therefore, is it safe to say that Wikkit was incorrect when he / she said “You can’t run classic or X apps on Windows, but you can run Windows on the mac”?
).