Yikes: Apple's iMac hits 3.06 GHz

re: Yikes: Apple's iMac hits 3.06 GHz

subzerohitman721 — Fri, 02 May 2008 21:11:19 GMT

"Expandability for the consumer market is a dead issue. Almost nobody upgrades their machines beyond RAM and maybe harddrive. They just buy new machines."

Man, have you ever been to a local Fry's Electronics, MicroCenter, Best Buy, or any other PC retailer? Because I seen and know people on a regular basis purchasing PC upgrade way beyond just memory and HDD. People regularly especially on the Windows side of the spectrum regularly upgrade optical drives, sound cards, video cards (PC gaming industry, CAD programs), power supply's, networking cards, RAID, etc. Thats right, some of us PC users actually open and do installation and upgrade work on our machines. Matter of fact, I've spent over $300 dollars in video card and processor upgrades in the last year. So your assertion that its dead really does not hold weight. If that were true, both MicroCenter and Fry's Electronics would be out of business. Infact, I know guys and family members in the IT field who need their PC's at tip top condition and often do work. Regular people simply hire or call guys like Waeth and me to do their upgrading for the.

"His business is building white-box PCs so he has a personal financial motivation for bashing Apple and the mac."

That is complete and utter BS! This shows that you know NOTHING about the IT industry. I worked for several IT companies that offered a multi-prong technical solutions for customers including Windows Desktop, Windows Server, OS-X desktop, Mac OS-X Server, Red Hat Linux, SUSE, Ubuntu, Solaris, and other IT environments. One our biggest customers was none other than the Dallas Independent School District who regularly ordered small numbers of iMac's for the art and design studios. But we also sold Dell PowerEdge servers for simulating aerodyamic, space, underwater, and other environment for magnet schools. Since we sold HP, Dell, and other PC manufactuers to all of our customers, NOT A SINGLE PC CAME IN A WHITE CASE! Only Mac's were sold in white. Infact, my home PC is black with grey trim and an AMD logo. Many of our executive clients custom ordered specialty cases and colors. Multicolor and clear cases have been around for years and your assertion that we only deal in "white" cases is 10 years out of date. The majority of Macs lately come in white and black, with white being the most popular color. Most of the PC's we retired were white cases and almost every Mac we installed was "white."

I really think some of you Mac guys have got it twisted. Some of us Windows users both enthusiasts and IT side are some really creative and talented people. Just because we reject your Mac-Religion, is no reason to put any of us down. Its really funny that you guys call us the "white" box owners, when you guys have one company that does everything for you. No freedom of choice, no other hardware configurations other than what Culpertino makes for you guys, and no other options except what Steve Jobs approves of. To me, thats proof that the Jobs distiortion field does really work. Now I know some of you Mac users do crack open your cases and custom configure. But please.... we have way more PC manufactuers, hardware manufactuers, software vendors, etc than those on the Apple side. We have more ways to customise, switch up, decorate, and configure our machines. But the Mac is a piece of art and God forbid we'd actually want a different style or vision of what our machines can do.

Jesus H. Christ, give me a freaking break.

Noticias 02-Mayo-2008

La Web de Programación — Fri, 02 May 2008 12:00:28 GMT

Otra vez un poco de retraso antes de poner las noticias, pero buena ración de las mismas: Microsoft Robotics

re: Yikes: Apple's iMac hits 3.06 GHz

lotsamystuff — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:56:36 GMT

@johnpapola: "reduces hardware diversity" is something I thought was true, too, but everything I've added to my tower Macs (Hard Drives, DVD burners, RAM, USB2 Card, FireWire Card) and everything I've plugged in through USB and FireWire was bought off the shelf. None of it is Apple-branded. My aging laptop uses a USB2 PC Card, again, bought off the shelf at Staples (hardly the place one would go for "Mac" accessories). I use Microsoft keyboards and mice. There just isn't much 3rd party hardware a normal user (or even an advanced one, for that matter) won't work with a Mac (cue "Waethorn" spouting about video cards, an obvious exception).

I once tried to make the opposite argument, and plugged in a SONY DVD burner that explicitly was NOT supposed to work with the Mac. Much to my surprise (and chagrin, since I'd bought a second burner that was advertised as Mac-compatible), it worked flawlessly. That's when I learned that the myth of "limited hardware and expansion for the Mac" is just that. A myth.

re: Yikes: Apple's iMac hits 3.06 GHz

Avro — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:32:51 GMT

@Dipsht,

What happened in Vancouver was an ubergeek security specialist prepared an infected website for 3 weeks and then spent 2 minutes manipulating the computer into the malware.

Equivalent would be building a brick wall for 3 weeks and then driving a car into it.

I don't intend to do either.

He fully admitted that he could have done the same thing with IE and Vista.

Why didn't he? I am afraid that "Hacker cracks Windows" would grab about as many headlines as 95 year-old woman dies. ;-)

re: Yikes: Apple's iMac hits 3.06 GHz

DRWAM — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:09:11 GMT

Great post Paul. Thanks for the news.

re: Yikes: Apple's iMac hits 3.06 GHz

johnpapola — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:34:12 GMT

@fivepoint,

Waethorn is a mac flame-baiter. He makes ridiculous, insulting, wrong-headed generalizations about the Mac, Mac users and Apple in every post and in response to every comment. Your effort to engage him is pointless. He'll just come back with "White shiny plastic blah blah 3% share blah blah buy my whitebox OEM PC".

@Dipsht,

I think the better way to put it is that all computers have issues, but on the spectrum between flaming mini tower of death and flawless coded heaven, Apple is closer to the latter than any other computer maker. This is born out by every single survey regarding system reliability, stability and user satisfaction.

Yes, it's because Apple controls the whole widget. Yes that reduces hardware diversity for OSX. But if you want the most reliable system (not perfect, but better than the rest), the Mac is the way to go.

This is not to say that you can't have a great PC experience. It just takes WAY more knowledge and work than 90% of consumers are willing to deal with.

This is what's driving Mac sales acceleration. Great machines + great Word of mouth + the Apple stores.

Again. Not perfect. Not perfectly secure (not necessarily any more or less secure than Vista, which seems very solid). Just better for most people people.

re: Yikes: Apple's iMac hits 3.06 GHz

Dipsh t Admin — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:48:33 GMT

"better system (which I expect)"

First, I assume you mean "suspect", but no matter. While it certainly isn't debatable that Windows suffers from this problem, it is the marketshare. Malware writers work for profit, and given that OS X was owned at the CanSecWest in 10 minutes due to a flaw in Safari (the browser being the most susceptible and used attack vector), I wouldn't count on OS X, or any OS for that matter to protect me. Software security is hard. Marketing is easy, however.

BTW, Paul was not the one making the claim about Apple "sending" (whatever that means) more updates. That was actual research from another party.

"The ecosystem."

And all of those things you mentioned are made by what company? Yeah, I thought so. It isn't much of an ecosystem if there is only one player. And yes, before anyone mentions it, I am aware that more than Apple is involved in the ecosystem, but an Apple supporter has seemingly admitted that the ecosystem is limited.

I should also ask, that if Waethorn (who I admit is not my most favorite poster in the world) is indeed defending the so-called inferior OS, then why do you need to defend the superior option? Why waste your time, if indeed Waethorn is wasting his time?

"just plug it in and it works. Flawlessly."

While I don't doubt that you have a good experience, I have to wonder why a site MacFixIt exists then? I thought everything just "works"?

For example, if you follow this link:

www.macfixit.com/search.php

Such as this text: "The inability to properly sync iPhones with iTunes remains one of the most pressing issues facing the device. We've received hundreds of reports from users indicating problems on some level."

The main page has solutions for many different issues in different software:

www.macfixit.com/index.php

Or, how about the 564 reply strong forum post on Airport Extreme dropping issues?

discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa

Sounds pretty flawless to me!

And yes, before I hear it, I know that Windows has its own set of problems, and I could find tons of links to back that up, no doubt. That's not my point. Rhetoric such as this simply does not make it so and detracts from any kind of argument that you are trying to make.

re: Yikes: Apple's iMac hits 3.06 GHz

fivepoint — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 19:01:11 GMT

@Waethorn

"and anybody that buys a computer just based on shiny white plastic or brushed aluminum casings and thinks that's it's "cool" to be in some sort of miniscule elitist club should have their head examined."

I don't know who you're talking about... but personally I bought my iMac for the following reasons:

1) No viruses. I don't care if it's because of marketshare or because of a fundamentally better system (which I expect)... the fact is that there has never been a single successful 'in the wild' virus for Mac OS X. I don't even care if Paul says that Apple sends more updates for Mac OS X than Microsoft does for XP and VISTA... all that matters is this number: "O (ZERO)"

2. Cohesive and Logical OS. It's not a debate anymore. Nearly every major techno writer and blogger admits that Mac OS X is superior in almost every way to Vista. It's not an argument. I use Windows every day at work, and I LOVE coming home to my Mac. At the risk of being ridiculed... I will say: "It just works."

3. The ecosystem. My mac works perfectly with my iPhone. My iPhone works perfectly with iTunes which works perfectly with my wife's iPod and my AppleTV. Beautiful 'synergy'. I love it. No messing with drivers from third parties, no installilng software or removing trial software, just plug it in and it works. Flawlessly.

Anyway... I could go on and on. But, my main point was just that I didn't buy because "shiny white plastic or brushed aluminum casings and thinks that's it's "cool" to be in some sort of miniscule elitist club" and I don't think too many other mac users did either.

You're living in the past man. What you need to ask yourself is why you feel the need to defend the inferior windows OS so much against the obviously superior competition.

re: Yikes: Apple's iMac hits 3.06 GHz

johnpapola — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:14:18 GMT

@ Paul

I'm not aware of any advantage Photoshop gains from a bumping a Radeon 2600 up to a faster graphics card. Photoshop's rendering is all CPU-based. in fact, for Core-image based GPU rendering such as Aperture's non-destructive image editing, or Motion and Final Cut's realtime FX... the Radeon 2600HD is actually FASTER than the Nvidia 8800 series.

Search on barefeats.com to see for yourself.

The GPU's on the iMac have always been perfectly fine for everything but serious gaming. So back to fivepoint's original statement, the iMac's use of laptop parts has not been a bad thing for anyone except gamers, who'd never buy an iMac anyway.

But now, with this top end iMac, you could get one as an occasional gamer and enjoy great performance in bootcamp for games and general performance for OSX doing everything else.

or just buy a damn 360 and save yourself the money and headache of PC gaming all together.

re: Yikes: Apple's iMac hits 3.06 GHz

fivepoint — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:29:15 GMT

@ PaulThurott

"But the iMac has progressed to the point now where it finally has decent desktop PC-quality graphics, which makes a big difference for anyone who wishes to play games, use Photoshop, or otherwise push the machine in ways that just weren't possible in previous-gen iMacs."

That is exactly my point! What percentage of computer owners consider themselves "gamers?" What percentage of computer owners consider themselves "Photoshop Users?" Let me break it to you... it isn't over 5% in either category.

The iMac is the ultimate desktop computer for the average computer consumer. There is no denying it...

re: Yikes: Apple's iMac hits 3.06 GHz

BrightrevCarl — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:40:37 GMT

This is obviously anecdotal, but we had a 24" iMac in our office for a few weeks while we were building it for a user. People (all PC users) absolutely LOVED the thing. It literally stopped people in their tracks. They'd look at it and talk about what a great monitor it was. When we told them it was the whole computer, they were just astounded. I've never seen reactions like that to a computer. There is a reason Macs have increased in sales so much.

re: Yikes: Apple's iMac hits 3.06 GHz

johnpapola — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:31:33 GMT

My bad on the desktop FSB vs. the mobile FSB used in the iMac. It still manages to spank the Dell XPS One in actual application benches, so, whatever.

re: Yikes: Apple's iMac hits 3.06 GHz

Waethorn — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:12:35 GMT

"He also argues like a child, ignores reason and logical points and fires back with one-liners."

yet your comments drone on and on about nothing in particular.

"Look at how he can't even tolerate Paul's compliment of the iMac's design and points to marketshare"

yet when Paul does it to shut you up, you just take it in strides.

"except that Apple has as much as 20% consumer share in US and Canada"

stats, please!

"So based on market share, the iMac is a smash hit."

"Think 3% is low? Think Different!....BOOM! The new iMath(TM)" - Steve Jobs

"Anyone that buys a computer based on a meaningless metric like worldwide marketshare and not on their own needs and wants is a complete and utter tool."

and anybody that buys a computer just based on shiny white plastic or brushed aluminum casings and thinks that's it's "cool" to be in some sort of miniscule elitist club should have their head examined.

"this iMac is running the fastest bus of any consumer PC"

sorry but you are SO. DEAD. WRONG.

1066MHz FSB is what the old Core 2 Duo desktop chips have used when they were first released, and we're moving to the 3rd FSB speed very soon - 1600MHz, which is in line with what newer Xeon's use, so that puts PC's at a huge performance advantage over any consumer PC coming out of Poopertino (as always). Right now, desktop Core 2 processors are 1333MHz (and there are consumer quad-core options too - fancy that!).

re: Yikes: Apple's iMac hits 3.06 GHz

Dipsh t Admin — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:21:23 GMT

John, not exactly, if we are to believe TG Daily.

www.tgdaily.com/.../135

"Intel told us Monday afternoon that this new processor in fact is not the X9100, but rather a "special" SKU of the 45 nm Penryn processor for the company's Santa Rosa platform."

re: Yikes: Apple's iMac hits 3.06 GHz

Xtreem0 — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:18:29 GMT

I have had an amdx2 3.2 ghz for a long time now. (about a year and a half) so this product isnt net. Its just the gay computer market takes to long to update its components.