New iMacs Get Good Compliments and Superior Rating From PC Magazine

[FlameFlash]

Fez, flaming Apple is one thing, talking constructivly about it like Asher does is another. (And enlightening us as to what Apple Marketing does is just stretching the truth.)

And last I heard, Apple's Switch Marketing sceme was actually working better than they expected, so for their share to be dropping doesn't make much sense. (Could you provide some kind of quotes?)

It won't take AMD long, you're right, and I haven't even heard Asher counter the benchmark tests on Adobe Photoshop with the G4s (okay, so maybe he's just looking for data to prove me wrong on this one, but he hasn't yet), so blanketly stating that Apple is slower all around without showing benchmarks that say so is just asking for a fight.

Windows, as I said, to my logic circuits doesn't make sense... it means my personality is the type that desires a little more intuitive OS (like OS X). There's nothing wrong with that, and blanketly trolling against Apple is uncalled for.

At least when you buy hardware that says "Mac compatible" you know you're not going to have to bend over backwards when some company like Creative makes lousy drivers to get the supposedly "compatible" crap to actually work. It'll work, period.

[FemmeAdonis]

I have one of the new iMacs....I wouldnt trade it for ANY PC...I'll buy a PC to go along with it, but I will never be without a mac again.

its an awesome piece of machinery...a bit overpriced..but fu(( it.

[Carver]

Originally posted by FlameFlash
There's some kind of magic to Apple and Macintosh...

Yes, it seems that way. Kudos to the Apple PR staff.

However, it looks like the Macs won't get Civ v1.29, so Macs are out.

[FlameFlash]

Thanks Femme. I know exactly how you feel, and when it comes time that I might actually need a Windows computer, I still will never get rid of my Apple OS.

And if you compare the iMac with Sony's latest "digital lifestyle hub" marketed, the iMac beats that hands-down for being cheaper!

Yes, Asher, it's just comparing marketing schemes (misspelled it earlier) but unfortunately the public isn't always as enlightened those of us here. They'll see that Sony and Apple are both producing "digital lifestyle hubs" and see the price tag on the Sony computer being double the iMac and decide against the extra few MHz and go with the iMac.

[Giancarlo]

Flameflash: I will provide something flameflash... revenues dropped 48% in the first quarter. A measling $32 million. How can Apple afford to build anything new with such low revenue?

http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/020716/tech_apple_earns_5.html

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020114/cover2.html

But Apple's annual revenues have dropped from $8 billion to less than $6 billion, and the company continues to lose market share to the Microsoft-Intel-dominated world. A little more than 4% of new PCs sold in the U.S. are Macs. (Don't ask about worldwide sales, where Apple has actually slipped to less than 3% of the market, from 5.2% five years ago.)

Convinced now?

[FlameFlash]

Well, Carver... personally I'm thinking Civ III is a little overpriced for the type of game it is anyway, so I really don't care nor have been planning on getting it until the price goes down. By that point they'll get this so-called 1.29 patch... once more Apple users actually buy the game.

[FlameFlash]

Convinced on the market share thing from the quote... but that was rather old. I remember getting that copy of TIME when it first came out.

And if you haven't been paying to the economic news in the US... the entire country is having trouble making as large of profits as they used to... in other words gasp you could say that about almost any company!

Besides, at that market share, 32 millions certainly doesn't sound bad at all!

[Giancarlo]

$32 million is very low and is plunge from the $62 million or so expected. Nearly half of Apple's revenues for that time period was wiped out. The PC market though hit fared much better than that.

$32 million is pathetic to what a company AMD or Intel would make even with recent problems.

[FlameFlash]

*nods* However, those "recent problems" to use your own article:

Anderson, in a conference call, portrayed Apple as a victim of the same forces stalking the rest of the moribund personal computer industry.

Apple is getting hit harder because they have a smaller share and high prices...

...as well as the broader industry downturn.

I do agree with the article though (at the end of it)... and Apple's eMac is the answer to that quandry, it just hasn't been marketed very well yet.

So Jobs, as usual, isn't very good at being a businessman... no surprise there. Just because they're being hit harder by what is hitting the tech world doesn't mean they make a sub-standard product, it means they need to work on cost diferentiation even more.

And comparing Apple to AMD or Intel is unfair, if you were to compare Motorola to those other chip-makers that would be...

The article also points to Dell vs. Apple. Dell lost 4% as opposed to Apple's 18%, however Dell also makes cheaper products that have to be serviced more often

[Asher]

Originally posted by FlameFlash
I take it Intel just isn't taking in the average computer geek that will see 64-bit and go, "I want that! Just THINK of how much RAM I can drop in now!"

AMD is at least letting the public decide (though dangerously) it's probably my favorite chip company. If they made Apple clones I'd go with them in a heartbeat (or if I ever actually bought anything Windows.)

The problem is using x86-64 is the cheap/lazy way to go about getting 64-bit chips. x86 is way too old, and huge chunks of modern x86 processors exist just to get around the limitations of x86 itself. It was never meant to last this long, and technology has advanced so much that we need a clean break from x86 (IMO).

Intel and HP spent the last ten years developing something called IA-64, which is a totally and completely new instruction set and design philosophy that actually significantly outperforms Apple's G4 at the same clockrate (the 1GHz Itanium 2s score 8-10x higher in the SPEC benchmarks than Apple's G4). The problem is, the technology is still being "perfected" in the high end server and workstation market, and it's not expected to trickle down to the consumer market for a couple more years.

It is also pretty slow emulating old x86 programs right now, which is a main problem for consumer PCs as well.

Apple is for more of those people who want something simple, slow, and expensive.

Oh, believe me, Apple would kill for a fast processor. The problem is, Motorola is a huge company that mostly makes its processors for the embedded market. That is, their CPUs are designed around a "low power" type approach rather than speed. There simply aren't enough G4s sold to warrant all of the R&D spent on one single chip like Intel and AMD can afford to do. There were talks a year or two ago about AMD making Apple's next chip, but AMD couldn't afford to spend so much money developing an architecture for such a limited market.

It won't take AMD long, you're right, and I haven't even heard Asher counter the benchmark tests on Adobe Photoshop with the G4s (okay, so maybe he's just looking for data to prove me wrong on this one, but he hasn't yet), so blanketly stating that Apple is slower all around without showing benchmarks that say so is just asking for a fight.

TechTV benchmarked 6 Adobe Photoshop filters of a G4 vs. Pentium 4, and the Pentium 4 won on 5 of those, the G4 on the other. It's quite a mystery why Apple won on the color conversion one, and it's speculated that it has AltiVec enhancements and not SSE/SSE2 (Photoshop is, after all, native to PowerPC). http://www.techtv.com/callforhelp/pr...339307,00.html

$32 million is pathetic to what a company AMD or Intel would make even with recent problems.

AMD lost $9M in that same period.
Intel made $936M in that same period.
AMD doesn't have much of an idea on how to run a business. It's a shame, really, since they finally have decent engineers.

[FlameFlash]

And I knew Asher wouldn't let me down!

That is odd about the color converstion... is that, then, what Apple Marketing always flashes around when they "show off" their benchmarks?

Wow, I would love to see AMD make Apple's next chip... but you're right, it probably won't happen.

*nods* Knew that stuff about Motorola... so all Apple can really do is try to get their marketing engine up and running so there will be more interest and therefore Motorola will do more R&D... the only paradox is that more people would be interested if Motorola did more R&D rather than waiting for the interest to rise and then do it.

*sighs* Though I can't wait until home electronics actually use that BlueTooth (was that the name of the IR tech where your computer talks to your home appliances?) stuff... Motorola should start making some money and maybe be willing to speed up their chips some more after that.

[Asher]

Originally posted by FlameFlash
That is odd about the color converstion... is that, then, what Apple Marketing always flashes around when they "show off" their benchmarks?

Yep, it's the odd filter like that that outperforms the Pentium 4, and they'll just generalize it as "faster in Photoshop*", then at the bottom put "* in certain filter(s).". It doesn't matter that it would be outpaced in the vast majority of filters, it takes just one to satisfy them. And the filter it does win in is most likely optimized for AltiVec and not for SSE/SSE2. Certainly not SSE2, as far as I know Photoshop 7 only uses SSE, and only sometimes. Not to sound like a man in a tinfoil hat, but I think Apple might give Adobe some "incentive" to leave the odd filter AltiVec optimized and not SSE, for benchmarking purposes.

*sighs* Though I can't wait until home electronics actually use that BlueTooth (was that the name of the IR tech where your computer talks to your home appliances?) stuff... Motorola should start making some money and maybe be willing to speed up their chips some more after that.

Bluetooth was developed by 3Com, Agere, Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia and Toshiba, I don't think any one company is going to be making lots of money off of it unless they specifically build Bluetooth devices and sell those (MS is going to sell Bluetooth keyboards and mice this year).

[FlameFlash]

You're probably right on the "incentive."

*nods* Didn't know it was a joint project (bluetooth) though for some reason I'm not surprised MS is going to try and do the keyboards and mice. I'd actually like to have a wireless mouse and keyboard... get a Video out card on my tower and then just sit on my couch to work on the computer.

[Asher]

MS also has these things codenamed "Mira" coming out. It's essentially a small LCD panel with a pen (I think the size of the screen goes from 7" up to 10" or something for now), and it uses your home PC as the computer. It's essentially a portable display and a remote desktop, but touchscreen and wireless (same range as AirPort).

We live in a cool time for wireless technologies.

Edit: There's a Mira preview here: http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/mira_preview.asp

They also are releasing something called Freestyle this year, which turns the home PC into an entertainment center (also pretty cool, preview here: http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase...le_preview.asp)

[FlameFlash]

Yeah, we really do. Those little gadgets almost sell me to convert to MS... almost...

Just saw some new pics from Apple on their new desktop tower... strange new design... looks more metallic. Whole new motherboard. (Hopefully they'll finally go with a faster system bus.)

I'd post them, but I don't want 'poly getting in trouble for me posting them (the site I got them from was contacted by Apple Legal to take the pics down. )