Apple morning roundup, few Mac products left unscathed
By Paul Miller 
posted Mar 3rd 2009 5:20PM
posted Mar 3rd 2009 5:20PM
The best:
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Apple debuts new iMacs, including cheaper 24-incher Apple just announced new 24-inch and 20-inch iMacs, with some friendlier pricing and Mini DisplayPort video out. |
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Apple announces Nehalem-based Mac Pro Apple has announced a new Nehalem based Mac Pro with a starting price of $2,499. |
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Apple refreshes Mac mini lineup with GeForce 9400M graphics We suppose the expected five USB ports will be a boon for homebuilt RAID enthusiasts, and the Mini DisplayPort and DVI plugs make for some nice dual monitor support. |
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Apple axes the numeric keypad on iMac's standard wired keyboard Apple has swapped out the standard wired Apple Keyboard for a new model lacking a numeric keypad. |
wow, a round up for these itty bitty changes? but ok, its apple. and at least it aint "breaking". anymore.
Be happy they weren't put into 10 other posts like usual :p
But I have to say, the Mac Pro was very disappointing, iMac could have been better, Mini is very good just needs to have it's price cut down a bit.
but they _had_ their ten (ok, like four) articles!
Hey, come on now! Minor product upgrades are exciting which is why we get multiple articles everytime HP upgrade the CPUs on their dv range or Dell their Inspirons.
Oh wait.
But seriously though, how disappointing was this release?
didnt expect much, so im not (more) disappointed (than ever with apple).
yeah, this really didn't merit 6 different stories and a round-up... when any other computer manufacturers announces upgrades, or even brand new models, they all get lumped together in one post.
Minor changes?
Seriously...
Let's see
iMac:
Faster processors
Faster Ram
MORE ram
New Videocards
Seems to be phasing out the 20"
More ports
Mac Pro
New processors
DDR3 ram instead of FB-DIMMS
New Videocard options
new chipset
Mac Mini
Faster processor
Faster RAM
MORE RAM
Better Videocard
More ports
Yeah... minor update
@ liquidmark
What... you expected them to come out with no updates at all?
Of course there are spec increases across the board, but there's really nothing huge that Apple came out with. In fact quite the opposite. In most cases they are finally introducing chips that have been around for a while to their lineups, and as always, gouging every customer for RAM or HDD space upgrades. It's downright sickening to see those prices - and you can't argue for a second that any of the RAM or HDD price points are reasonable. Cost today is about $10 per 100GB (1TB for $100), not to mention the RAM prices..... *sigh*
So yeah - a minor day for Apple, and in-fact its less than underwhelming to see that they're going about their "i" gouging as usual in this economy. Just another rubber stamp that confirms what i've known for a while now - NEVER will i buy an Apple desktop or utility. I'll just build my own machine and buy my wife a diamond ring / vacation to cancun for the same amount.....
And dont try to challenge the fact that I can build a system that rivals their workstations and have money left over for that....
Oh and WTH is up with Engadget and the Breaking news button? Apple = breaking news all the time?
It's fookin CeBit and 7 of the 10 breaking news atm are Apple-related? So you make an individual post for each and then a summary? and ASUS launches a gammit of BRAND NEW NEVER SEEN hardware and they get one story lumped in a post (was it even breaking?) - Engadget - get your stuff together and lets not get Apple-happy - that's what mac-phan-boi blogs are for. I'm here for news - not Mapple advertising......
@liquid
I might give you the Mac Pro on account of it being an architectural change to i7 but the rest are about as minor as you can get.
@Phenoum
Do you know how much that RAM actually costs? It ain't cheap. ESPECIALLY since it is LAPTOP RAM. Look that ram up. It retails for about 6-10 times what you THINK it is worth.
"And dont try to challenge the fact that I can build a system that rivals their workstations and have money left over for that...."
Good luck building a computer to rival the new Mac Pro for less. Those parts are quite expensive. Some of them, you can't even buy yet.
BEFORE the update, if you built a PC to match spec with a Mac Pro, you would save about $500. Now, no freaking way. All the parts retail for too much.
As for building a PC to match spec with a iMac. Match form-factor too, then you've done something to brag about. Otherwise, you can shut up.
@Mark Anderson
Like I said, they've upgraded practically everything about the machines, how is THAT minor?
Seriously guys. Let's compare All-In-Ones
the BEST All-In-one that dell has ($1,899)
Processor / Display
XPS One™ with 24-inch widescreen display and Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q8200 processor (2333 MHz, 2x2mb of cache)
Operating System
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Service Pack 1
Optical Drive
8X Slot load CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW)
Memory
4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800Mhz - 2 DIMMs (That's the Max)
Hard Drive
750GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
Video Card
512MB2 NVIDIA® GeForce® 9600M GT
Sound Card
SoundBlaster® Audigy™ Software and Premium JBL speakers with integrated subwoofer (25W total)
Hardware Support Services
1Yr Ltd Hardware Warranty,5 InHome Service after Remote Diagnosis6
That's the BEST config
The BEST stock imac has:
3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB memory (Upgradeable to 8)
1TB hard drive (7200 rpm)
8x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce GT 130 with 512MB memory
For only $300 more
For the SAME Price as the Dell (well, actually $50 more, but after shipping on the Dell and free shipping on the Mac, it balances out), you can get:
2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (MUCH FASTER PROCESSOR)
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB (MUCH FASTER RAM)
640GB Serial ATA Drive (7200 rpm FASTER HARD DRIVE, all be it smaller)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 130 512MB (FASTER/BETTER GPU)
And there are a variety of upgrade options, unlike the Dell.
Minor Update?
Behind the times?
I THINK NOT! Apple is way ahead of the curve in the fields that they compete in.
Just *some* people are too myopic and ignorant to see this.
*looks at Phenoum and Mark Anderson*
One crazy morning? lol
If by "crazy" you mean "several boring and annoyingly overpriced letdowns, one after the other," then sure... crazy.
Is this what we can expect from a post-Steve Jobs Apple?
Pathetic.
hey guys, wait a little, im sure theres "one more thing"!!!
well, the best "one more thing" would be apple reduced the prices by, say, 30%. that would be more cracy.
I had an exciting morning, no-one seems to understand my happyness at the mac mini in my workplace...
I've just ordered one, going to hook it up to dual 22" monitors :)
If you decide to open it up, let me know what chipset the motherboard is running. If I could upgrade it myself with a faster processor, I'd buy the cheaper of the two and deck it out.
200 bucks for a gig of ram and 200 more gigs of hard drive space? That's just re-fucking-diculous, even for Apple Tax standards.
I'll fill everyone in, hell maybe Engadget will host it as breaking news....
I pushed the previous base one to 3Gb and 250Gb @7200rpm.
Wasnt feeling adventurous enough to upgrade that CPU...
Oli, I'm a PC (Windows) user, is the Mac Mini a good buy or is it much more expansive than, lets say, a Dell Studio Hybrid?
Its more expensive than the studio hybrid, but its got so much more soul.
I love mine, ive had it for over a year and its never let me down.
the specs are not far off, and theres more variety with the dell, but i would go with the base Mini.
You will be able to pick up some sick bargains on the previous generation ones on ebay soon, pop them open and upgrade them past the new spec for less than the list price :)
Oli, I just checked Dell's website and found out that the Studio Hybrid comes with a keyboard and a mouse by default, 3 GB of RAM and 13 in 1 built-in card reader with the same other specs of the Mac Mini, and is still $150 less than the comparable Mac Mini!! Plus I can get a nice color (Red is sexy) for the Hybrid; that aluminum look is really boring nowadays.
Anyway, as a windows user, I think I will go for the Hybrid, better options for less the price, and thank you for the information though, appreciate it.
@Cash
http://www.macminicolo.net/macmini2009.html
Not sure if that helps though, but check it out anyway. I think iFixit will have a better disassembly photoshoot
Thanks Kizor. Appreciate the heads up.
really wish the mac mini headline had been "Mac Mini Updated, still a horrible rip-off"
and i say this as a macbook owner
MacMini updated, still a horrible rip-off, but still 1000% appealing to people with a fascination with small form factor stuff.
Mini ITX just cant cut it for me anymore.
It's certainly a less impressive machine than the original Mac Mini was when it first launched.
Agreed... A properly upgraded Mac Mini (so it doesn't suck) costs about as much as an iMac. Might as well get the iMac then... a lot more horsepower, better graphics, and a screen to boot...
*sigh* still no updated apple TV. Now I don't know whether to buy one or not when my birthday rolls around next week!
what a depressing comment.
"Microwave dinner for one, £3 bottle wine for 2"
"Happy birthday, self :("
MacWorld was way more exciting...I think Apple could have at least joined CeBIT. This is boring.
Basically, someone needs to give a presentation to create excitement..just shelling out some updates doesn't seem nice.
I think they were clever, they completely stole CEbits thunder by doing this update early.
oli, no they did not ;)
Yawn....
Hey! This is EXCITING!
Engadget is subtly hinting (nudge nudge wink wink) at an Apple/Toshiba linkup!
Check the color scheme!
http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2009/03/03/toshibas-tg01-brings-gluck-to-germany-with-o2-exclusivity/
no new mouse? I've been waiting so long for them to fix that...maybe next year
that scroll ball, when it jams up....
Scrolling using the side bar is for chumps
Meh, dedicated Apple guy for quite some time. I've gained immunity from the reality distortion field. I have a unibody because they are sick, but sold my desktop mac to build a Quad Core hackintosh for much cheaper than a mac pro. Once your boner dies down from the aesthetics you realize that software makes the mac.
And theres also the irrational hatred of Microsoft, thats a big factor.
I dig the mini but it gets no respect from Apple, and is seriously overpriced. I'd like to see some dual hard drive over super drive options, and dedicated graphics of course. Then I could see forking out $600, this new model shouldn't retail for more than $400. Seriously consider a sub $500 price for an entry level machine Apple. You are missing large market share, and would make for happy consumers.
apple makes awesome laptops and not-so-great desktops
the imac is beautiful and honestly a machine with great potential, but their obsession with thinness and cost-cutting measures means the imac has to make sacrifices it shouldn't have to
So what exactly were the few Macs that were "left unscathed"?
Macbook
Macbook Pro 17
Macbook Air
OK. Apple took away my numeric keypad. That is cold.
you can still have a numeric keypad, unless you're in a country with no Apple Store, physical or online, like here in Brazil. :-(
@ Oil D
Your iBoner is out of control, please go rub one out.
haha, i just realised that i have almost commented on every post.
for that reason, i accept your comment.
Does anybody want to explain why it costs $1,000+ to upgrade to 8gb of memory on the iMacs? I literally can't believe what I'm seeing.
4 GB DDR3 Ram sticks are crazy expensive at the moment, Apple's price is quite competitive I was checking the prices of manufacturers and these are all +1000 dollars. DDR3 needs some time to become more mainstream and drop in price.
for someone like me, who really wants to get an iMac, this was a huge disappointment, not a good day at all.
they need to completely remake the iMac from the ground up, hopefully with the Core i5/i7 mobile out at the end of the year, they will do just that.
If by "+1000 dollars" you mean "about $600," then yes. Your larger point, however, may be correct -- charging about twice the retail price for memory upgrades seems to be something of a bargain for Apple...
http://www.buy.com/prod/crucial-8gb-ddr3-sdram-memory-module-8gb-2-x-4gb-1066mhz-ddr3-1066-pc3/q/loc/101/210477887.html?dcaid=15890
It is $1000 to upgrade the 24" iMac from 4gb of memory to 8gb, not $600. And it is $1100 to upgrade the 20" iMac from 2gb of memory to 8gb. Not $600.
And of course, I realize that the memory is available for around $600 elsewhere, and I realize that DDR3 is expensive at the moment.
So when I said that it costs $1000+, I was referring to the price gouging that Apple is trying to get away with. I've never seen them try to rip people off by such a huge margin.
Paul Miller sucks at Photoshop
So what are they doing March 24? A song and tap dance?
When I heard about the new Mac Pros having Nehalem Xeons this morning, the first thing I wondered was, "aren't the Nehalem Xeons coming out at the end of this month?" So I guess the Mac Pro will actually be the first desktop to have them.
Also, the graphics options are nice for Macs, but on the PC side, people don't expect anything less than three PCI Express x16 slots, and the ability to use three Nvidia GTX 295's, which are currently the fastest cards on the market.
Also also, some of the memory configs are weird. The Mac Pro should be using triple channel memory only, since it's the fastest. But I'm seeing 8, 16, and 32GB options which are not triple channel.
this really is a worthless comment. What does your boyfriend think of this ?
This upgrades sucks
I am prety wonder if new mac pro will have beter performance at some price point as it predecesor.
also there is no dedicated cart in base level imac that suck...
and I am macbook pro owner
All this talk of 24-inchers, yet no comments lending themselves to a "That's what she said."
+1 i lol'd
Thanks.
But it turns out there was: http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/03/apple-debuts-new-imacs-including-cheaper-24-incher/comments/17441227/
OVERPRICED...nuff said!
Anyone else notice that in the educational store apple care is not offered for the imac? I wonder whats up with that.
Cheaper?
In Sweden, the new low-end iMac 24" costs about $150 more and has a slower CPU than the old model.
The low-end Mac mini also received a $200 higher price tag, while the high-end model costs a whopping $1000 USD.
I have no idea why Apple kept the prices on the MacBooks as they were.
Relatively minor spec bumps to justify steep price hikes. iMac low end just jumped from AU1599 to AU$1999 here in Oz. 8 core MacPro was AU$4999, now starts at AU$5499. Cynical Apple ....
Nothing minor about those speed bumps.
DDR3 ram ain't cheap, neither are the nethalim processors in the new Mac Pro
Yah we'll ignore the fact that as always Apple is late to the tech game by about 6 months or more and realistically nehalem is the only architecture that really takes advantage of DDR3. You get negligible boosts on anything with a FSB. But hey....better late then never Apple.
John, Apple was one of the first manufacturers to make ddr3 a standard on their laptops.
You say Apple is LATE, but they are the first manufacturer with nethalim AFAIK.
All the other potential updates were negligible at best.
Not as bad in Canada 2620$ usd for high end mac pro with exchange rate.
Any word on the 30" LED Cinema?
wtf mac mini is still same price i was waiting that thing to be under $400 sorry for the late respond i was on a flight and no wifi
So where do we stand? 12 posts about Apple today. Engadget. Just get it over with, and rebrand yourself Macgadget....you know you all want too.
I have to say though...only 1 post on this page.....wow...restraint. Now if we could only get ONE post about Apple here, and the rest as individual dumps on on your sister site TUAW...but that would make WAY too much sense.
as a mac user, i have to say tuaw is unreadable garbage
also, TECH WEBSITE COVERS APPLE. SHOCKING
I agree about TUAW.
As far as posts regarding Apple - take note on how many comments they get. Why wouldn't Engadget post about them? If you love Apple or (supposedly) hate them, everyone is interested enough to click through the article & comment. Like it or not, Apple is the biggest celebrity in the tech world.
Looks like I'll be getting the Mac Pro.
Apple could of at least throw in the GT 130 like in the iMacs instead of the 120 (aka Geforce 9000 series).
Sydney Morning Herald reports on the new Macs
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/biztech/apples-price-hike-on-new-mac-range/2009/03/04/1235842465726.html
Points
*iMac have gone up for Australians $400 (down for Americans $300) due to our dollar falling???
*when our $ was almost equal to the US$ at the end of 2008 for 3 months they refused to lower the prices because they felt the market dictated the price and people accepted the current costs as reasonable
Crazy, I think I'll stick to Windows just please someone release a decent MP3 player so I can ditch my 60GB iPod and delete itunes forever! Even a Zune (not available in Oz).
Mac fanboys are a special breed.
I'm not sure what everyone is bitching about. Maybe it's all to do with expectation levels. Apple released some spec bumps to several (most) of their machines. No fan fair, no massive launch, no big press shindig. Just a store take down and (probably) press-release.
While the spec bumps are welcome (and in some case {cough}Mini{cough} well overdue, what more did people expect? In the current climate, rocking the boat is not a great idea. This is no time to be releasing a Cube replacement.
I think that people over the years have grown used to Apple having big product launches, and when something relatively minor happens, people are upset and disappointed. I don't see this much bile when Dell give a spec bump to their machines.
The real downer for me is the price rises that seem to have occurred outside of the US. Apple didn't exactly pass on the savings when the Dollar was weak against other currencies (I bought 2 160GB Apple TVs last year in NY for about the price of 1 160GB Apple TV in the UK), so now that the Dollar is (relatively) strong, we non-USers really ought not to be hit so hard. Still, no-one can argue that Apple don't seem to know what they're doing at the moment. Compared to the likes of Dell, HP, etc. they seem to be doing very nicely indeed.
Who knows, maybe this rumoured March 24th event will release something of real interest.
That is all.
I don't know... in Canada Apple adjusted their pricing to reflect the rising Canadian dollar to a limited extent (I think the closest they got was a 10% difference). They adjusted prices for new product releases, but didn't go back and lower prices for older products. I suspect this is what they have done in other countries as well.
Based on the pricing of the new machines, there was only a partial increase - up to 1.15. It didn't fully reflect the drop in the C$, which is now closer to 1.30.
So overall, I'm happy with the machine I got and the price I paid for it. The key with these machines was that a spec bump, particilarly RAM and storage, was long overdue. The previous models were simply not competitive; the new ones are.
Question for all the smart people. I noticed that the Mac Pro has 8 memory slots, but it's DDR3 memory. Isn't better to only use 6 slots? Or is DDR3 different from how DDR2 works? Thanks in advance.
DDR3 is sitll dual data ram just third gen look it up
Mmm, that middle one makes me hungry for cheese...