The new iMac's are out. Take a look. (http://www.apple.com/imac/)

Looks like a laptop on a stand?! I guess the G5 Powerbook will be coming soon....it's the iMac without the stand!

Murph

I hope so, but it will have to go on a diet. The 17 inch weighs 18+ pounds. Of course the includes the power supply and stand, which would be eliminated from a PB. A smaller 15 inch screen will save a little also, but I don't see it getting to 5 pounds real soon. I'm also told that heat and power consumption have been real issues in the PB design. It would seem at least the heat issue has been solved for the iMac.

Wow, that is very cool. Looks a lot more attractive to my eyes than the old iMacs with that ugly domed base. Nice value at $1,299 for the 17" model as well. I continue to be glad that I held onto my AAPL stock :-)

Now it will be interesting to see if IBM can really provide them with G5's in the quantity that they need. I'll also be surprised to see a G5 laptop anytime soon. They barely solved the heat issues with the G4 - have you ever tried to use one of those powerbooks on your lap while wearing shorts?

I just got my daughter a 12" iBook with a 1ghz G4 processor and must say that it's an impressive little machine for the money. I went all over town and tried several online vendors but they were backordered everywhere. It finally arrived after almost a two week wait.

Apple is certainly on quite a run these days... it's about time!

Speaking as a PC person, I think it's cool. At under $2k, the price is surprisingly low, especially for Apple. Now if it came bundled with FCP for that price, I could almost overcome my aversion to Macs, and go to the other side.

One question- The Apple site mentioned a 16:10 aspect ratio... Is that a stretched 16:9? Why that ratio?

Not sure of the origin of 16:10, but their other wide panels have been like this for awhile, and so are some other LCD's. I think my 15" powerbook would also work out to this aspect ratio.

What? You didn't hear that if you buy the 17" iMac they throw in FCP for free? And if you buy the 20" model they also include a free Hummer to transport it. ;-)

(just kidding, for the humor-impaired amongst us)

SO will these things run Motion?

Boyd- Thanks! I was looking at the 20" model anyways!

hehehe...

But seriously, FCP has always peaked my interest. If I'm ever going to use it, I'd have to either switch to Mac, or wait for the PC version. Hmmm... Anyways, how well would this system work for editing and compositing?

> or wait for the PC version

Jjajajjaja speaking to the humor-challenged too?

It always seems like I'm speaking to the humor challenged, but I try to have fun anyways ;)

Is this computer good for editing on AE, and FCP????

Another question- Will it do HD?

the 20" doesnt have that much RAM, so an upgrade will be needed when you buy the computer. I really want to get it.

The new iMacs do have G5s but the bus is much slower than the G5 towers, so while they are probably much more powerful than G4 iMacs, they are still less power than the towers. For those interested in Motion, the video card is "NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra". So it meets the minimum requirements, but that might not be the best for it.

They only come with 256 MB of RAM (which is just silly these days) but can be upgraded to 2 GB. The two base models have 80 GB serial ATA and the 20" has 160 GB. So these aren't bad machines after a RAM upgrade.

They have built in stereo speakers, but I'd guess they aren't all that great. They have analog/digital audio out and analog in so you can hook it up to a nice system if you'd like.

They are VESA (or whatever) compliant so you can get a wall mount and put it on your wall, completely off your desk. Add the Airport Extreme and Blue tooth and this machine could be almost completely wireless with a wireless keyboard and mouse. That would be a pretty cool set up I think...

Yet another remarkable design from Apple. I loved the quote in the keynote address, "Our computers look better from the back than most do from the front."

I wonder when they will release a G5 E-Mac? I would like to get a nice “light” FCP HD rig for at home and something like this looks like a perfect compromise.

Keep up the great work Apple,

Alex

I wouldn't expect one until next summer. The "e" is for education and it's release will be timed for that market.

I wonder whether we will ever see a G5 eMac? When the original eMac was released it was only available to schools and wasn't even advertised to the public. When they saw some demand they added it to their regular line, which was a smart move since it gave people a low cost entry point to the Mac. At $800 it still is pretty attractive, but the cost of the iBooks and iMacs has fallen so the gap has narrowed. The eMac is also the only CRT in Apple's line and I wonder how long they will want to support that?

Who knows what they have up their sleeves, but personally I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for an eMac with a G5. Like Jeff said, if it comes at all it's probably a year away. In Apple's mind, I really don't think they see the eMac as a platform for FCP or other high end applications and the G4 probably already meets the needs of its target audience. If I were a betting man I'd guess they'll just keep selling the existing models until demand drops off and then they will discontinue them. But it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong about Apple's strategy either...

Apple still views the education as important. They'll use the G4 chip as long as Motorola makes the chip and it remains compatible with the OS. I think Apple would like to move to all G5's by summer 2006, assuming development of the G5 continues as well as the G6.

Just have to echo the sentiment - as a PC person, if Apple included Final Cut Pro with these new iMacs I'd definitely get one. Final Cut Pro 4, HD or whatever the heck current version is ...

The design isn't really portable, but it sure is luggable, and I could certainly use that.

They have a new education/production bundle that includes FCP HD, DVD Studio Pro 3 and Motion for only $499. Motion would be a little slow, but other than that the user could expect good performance. I think Apple will need to sell a few gizzlion more iPods before FCP is free.

It is very unlikely that Apple would ever have all their product line based on a single CPU: using chips with difference prices allows them to cater to a wide range of market segments, this is a known principle in marketing: technically, it would make sense and even lower costs for a company to have a single multi-purpose product, but by catering to somewhat more personalized needs they make more money out of each customer. Just take a look at the Walkman, it's a great example: we could all use the same one but they throw in little luxuries or strip it to the basics so that some of us, who are willing to spend a little more money for, say an extra LED or something, have the chance to do so.

Apple is only using the Motorola product (G4) in the portable products and eMac. This is because of heat and power consumption issues. Apple would love to have the PowerBooks on the G5 chip for greater performance. I suspect the iBooks and eMac will transition to the G5 when the G6 becomes available.

You guys are forgetting one possiblity - a new mac - a tablet running on the g4, will keep the g4 viable & sooo cool to be running fcx- concerning the new imac - the only downside is the expense of getting to 2g's of ram- if you can live with 1 gig , the processors and bus is fast enough for real-time on fcx or fcp. If you want to use motion , you should probably put that 2 grand into the dual 1.8. Of course the 20" imac only cost $600 if you deduct the price of the monitor and as mentioned earlier, should have nice, portable carrying cases available soon as they appear to be designed for " lugging around "- the ultimate presentation tool.

Jobs has said in several interviews that Apple will not make a PDA, cell phone or tablet. Apple's version of a tablet is the 12" iBook in my opinion.

Jeff- appleinsider had a little story about a month ago about an apple memo that leaked and contained a concept drawing for a tablet and there's been other stories about an ipod video machine- maybe it's the same kernal of truth and maybe not.. Whatever the future holds , for me , it's always going to be the choice between one mac or another , never a pc ( not because of the machine -but because of the os ) even though at times I think Jobs is full of himself ! and that comes from a modest Apple shareholder, too.