Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Apple Archive

The Next Generation iMac and Newton's Missing Successor

- 2003.12.12

Yet more speculation. This time it was caused by a Taiwanese newspaper, DigiTimes, that leaked the story that Apple will be using a magnesium alloy instead of a stainless steel and zinc alloy in its next iMac.

This might be good news or bad. It would end up reducing the cost to manufacture iMacs, so perhaps there will be a price drop when they are released. A price drop would be good news - and hopefully convince those looking into purchasing an eMac to jump to the next level and buy a low-end iMac instead.

The quality might suffer, however.

If this rumour is true, the new iMacs will most likely feature faster processors as well - after all, who doesn't want more speed?

But if there is a new iMac coming out soon, should you wait until then to buy a new computer? Or should you buy the iMac that's currently being offered?

The current iMac is a nice machine; we've got the older 1 GHz 17" models at my school. It runs great - startup is fast, applications load quickly, and the 17" screen is excellent for watching DVD videos. I would imagine that the 20" screen is even better.

If you're looking into purchasing an iMac and need a computer now, by all means buy one now. If you can wait, you'll most likely be able to find a very good deal on a leftover "old model" iMac when the new ones are released. Such was the case when the "classic" G3 iMacs were discontinued.

Either that or you'll be able to get one of the new iMacs, which you may not end up wanting if the quality ends up suffering from these manufacturing changes.

Newton's Successor?

The next rumour that's been floating around on the Internet is that Apple was working on a tablet computer but decided to halt the project. Why? Were they concerned that the market for a tablet Macintosh would be small? Or was it a cost cutting measure, like the planned change in case materials for the iMac?

I'd like to see a tablet Mac. My 12" PowerBook G4 is very small, light, and convenient, but it doesn't have a feature where you can draw directly on the screen, which is something I think many people - especially graphic artists - would appreciate.

What I would like to see from Apple in this category is something that is essentially a fully featured laptop, but where the screen can fold over the keyboard to become a tablet computer when desired. This would allow you to instantly add diagrams to word processing documents and draw on presentations in order to point out key ideas.

The concern I'd have about this would be heat. The 12" G4 gets pretty hot. It's not unpleasant, but it's enough to cause your hands to sweat. If a tablet PC got this hot, there is the possibility that the heat could damage the screen. Apple would need to work out the details in order to make sure that this doesn't happen.

Apple's products (as wonderful as the overall designs are) are well known for small design flaws that later seem obvious, such the cable on the 13.3" G3 PowerBook running through the hinge (of course it's going to bend and break in the future), and the iMac and PowerMac G3 with the slightly hard to use circular mouse that caused difficulty for many users.

I think that Apple's tower systems have generally gotten better over the past few years. The overall quality has been good, performance was good (aside from the point where the G4 was stuck at 500 MHz), and the price was fairly reasonable compared to what a tower cost back in 1998 (a desktop G3 was $1,599) whereas for a while, minitower G4's were selling for the same price.

The iMacs haven't been quite as reliable it seems, but I think the newer ones are generally a bit better. Since Apple will be reducing the cost of manufacturing them by switching case materials, it remains to be seen what the quality will be like.

As for a tablet Mac, we may end up not seeing one for a couple of years, if ever.

Recent Apple Archive articles

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Apple Archive articles copyright ©2000-07 by Adam Robert Guha. Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.