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Apple Introduces 24" iMac

johnjs

By johnjs
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johnjs

johnjs

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Just noticed this today @neowin, Apple has retooled their line of iMac machines with the new Intel Core 2 Duo processors and has introduced an iMac with an incredible 24" widescreen display. These are some of the fastest CPU's a person can get their hands on at the moment - Tom's Hardware Guide benches the Core 2 Duo's at the top of their charts at the moment, roughly equivalent to single core Pentium D chips running in the mid 3gHz range. The new 20" iMac seems to me to be a very excellent buy, and as someone who has been cobbling together systems since the early 90's, lemme tell ya, you can't build that equivalent system for anywhere near the money ($1500 US) - Way to go Apple!

-John

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leicanewbie

leicanewbie

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Does anyone have any experience running the newer iMacs w/ the Intel Core Duo chips

and Aperture?

 

I was told by a reseller that Aperture really "required" the new PowerMac and the extra

horsepower to be really usable, but that's a huge step in price.

 

I'm guessing the Mac mini would be underpowered, esp w/ the graphics, and that the

newer iMac would be acceptable without having to pay the premium for the dual Xeon

PowerMac.

 

Any feedback?

 

thanks

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cbretteville

cbretteville

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Yes, Apple 3- PC 0

 

Hurrah for Stevie the Wonder Jobs again.

 

Geewhiz, poor MS... looks like they get buried again. and again. and again.:o

Well, not exactly. Micro$oft dosen't make much in the ways of PC hardware and with Apple using Intel CPUs in their boxes you can now run XP on a Mac. Strange concept I know, but it does work. Get me right here, I don't have a particular thing for M$, it is just that since you now can run XP and all your apps on Apple hardware it will be HP, Dell and the other PC manifacturers that should be a little worried. Bill, I suspect, is fine with this paradigm shift.

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vic vic

vic vic

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ya - great addition - now it can be used in studio as secondary computer. the perormance seems to be enough even for priery computer/monitor at least for photography/graphics, and even for video it will be more than ok usually. alot cheaper than screen and big tower mac.

 

milan - i have currently powerbook 15 (the latest one before the macbook pro, woth 1.67 mh and full memory). ya - the intel macs are better for the aperture, sure. but it works ok even with mine (but only ok, not more). anyway i dont use aperture (love silverfast hdr48 studio), but if using aperture as my prime software i would feel the differance without any doubt on the small comuter.

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johnjs

johnjs

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Milan,

I've no experience running Aperture on my MacMini with the G4 CPU - though it takes awhile to even handle iPhoto with several thousand images in the library. I've converted it into an internet appliance, connected to my living room TV, a Sony 40" LCD, with a Logitech wireless mouse/kb for the Mac, and ran cat-5 to it from my router. Great for surfing the net and grabbing email, and checking the TV listings on-line.

 

The new iMacs with the Core 2 Duo should compare quite favorably with even the mid-level quad Xeon workstations, which really offer more in the ability to run multiple graphics cards in SLI and massive storage bays, as well as supporting huge amounts of system-RAM. The Power Macs are really a professional's tool, or for the absolute enthusiast. In that case, if I desired a workstation of that level, I might be more apt to build a system around the new Asus mainboard for the Core 2 Duo running Windows Vista. The level of user-configuration and maintainance might be higher in a custom system as well, and I believe one could surpass the Power Mac's performance slightly, even with a single dual-core processor through the use of the right memory, HDD and graphics (with a tad of overclocking thrown in). It wouldn't be cheap, though.

 

Apple has offered three very well equipped and priced systems in their new iMacs, and it's impressive that they've hit the ground running by getting these new Core 2 Duo systems out so fast. Apple always was an innovator on the peripheral connectivity and other areas, like the operating system itself, but lagged somewhat when it came to CPU's, memory bus, and graphics offerings compared to the x86 world. That has all been fixed with their new relationship with Intel, apparently. To effectively run Aperture, you should be fine with the fastest Core Duo MacMini, although personally I'd go with the Core 2 Duo iMac at this point. And you'd have the added benefit of possibly using your existing display for more screen area.

 

-John

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MJLogan

MJLogan

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The new high-end iMacs are well withing the "recommended" range for use with Aperture, especially if you spend the extra few bucks and configure your system with the better video card offered on the online Apple store. I'd been planning on getting a Mac Pro tower, but the 24" iMac will do just as well for me--and allow me to pass on my 20" cinema display to my partner, who wants a second display for his laptop.

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jacksparrow

jacksparrow

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I was just wondering... is it just me that feels that the mac cult and the leica cult are very similar? the marketing is different, however the degree of enthusiasm and commitment is similar and I'd say not found in almost any other brand. By the way, I own a Mac :)

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leicanewbie

leicanewbie

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Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences.

 

 

As for the cult of Mac and cult of Leica, I'm just a new user myself, but I see some similarities.

 

Not the least of which is an increasing "pragmatism" on the part of the vendor.

 

Steve Jobs realized that if Apple was going to survive long-term, they would have to switch to Intel. It's fortunate for Apple that iPod

was such a hit, otherwise they would have had to exit the PC business. Even Adobe left the Mac platform at one point, so that

was a shot across the bow I'm sure.

 

Similarly for Leica, the call to go digital and also participate in the 4/3 initiative are reflections that digital is the future, and that they

were being crowded out of the consumer / prosumer market by Sony, Nikon, Canon and Olympus.

 

Partnering with Panasonic and participating in 4/3 is a survival tactic, to maintain a foothold in the medium-cost consumer camera space.

Getting the M system over to a digital platform is acknowledging that digital is the way forward, and is their way of establishing a presence

in the DSLR segment, where most of the consumer / prosumer interest is going.

 

Leica is fortunate that digital technology changes so frequently. Every year the "standard" has gone up, so by getting out product that

have good specs at the high end means that they haven't had to struggle with the flood of competition at the low end that the likes of

Fuji, Kodak and Casio had to.

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spylaw4

spylaw4

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The Leopard will come with Boot Camp(Windows setup), so we may see the beginning of the end for OSX and mac as we know it

 

The deficiencies and vulnerabilities inherent in the cumbersome Windows OS :mad: will ensure that OSX....XI .....XII will continue.

 

Indeed, as users compare the two side-by-side I can see them gradually converting to OSX. :D

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Overgaard

Overgaard

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Introducing a 24" is really something. I had wanted to change my 20" iMac into a 30" PowerMac but now I really don't see the point.

 

They should deliver in 3 weeks. I will wait to se how they work first though. I've just gotten a 12" PowerBook G4 because the MacBook does not run PS that fast yet - I was told. Else the MacBook was the one I wanted. (It was told that the new MacBook Pro runs PS really really fast [something with one processor using 4 buffers or something], and that is even before PS has been made for Intel Macs. It looks like the speed of PS will be amazing incredible when Adobe comes out the the proper PS).

 

One point re Leica/Apple though is that Apple is leading the technology and design on the computer market while at the same time driving the price range down. I would hope Leica could and would do the same in digital (becaues that was what they did in analog photography once).

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Guest stnami

Guest stnami

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I for one are happy to hang off for another year and wait until CS3 comes out along with lightroom, see the changes to Aperture and then decide on a computer as apple are in a limbo period software wise.

The kids like windows(they grew up with it) despite its pitfalls and don't see it as a problem with anything that is thrown at them. Right now I do some workshops with 8-10 year olds who have PCs at home, macs at school, mainly PCs in the graphics studio and I demonstrate with a mac. None will touch the 5 macs

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brucemcl

brucemcl

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I for one are happy to hang off for another year and wait until CS3 comes out along with lightroom, see the changes to Aperture and then decide on a computer as apple are in a limbo period software wise.
That's the conclusion reached by MacInTouch. They tested the Mac Pro and loved it, but said "Adobe Creative Suite users who currently have Dual or Quad G5's may wish to wait for Adobe to release Universal Binary versions of their applications before investing in a Mac Pro."

 

http://www.macintouch.com/reviews/macpro/#conclu

 

If you haven't discovered the MacInTouch web site yet I highly recommend it. I started reading MacInTouch as a column in MacWeek magazine around 1994. I can't think of a more credible, reliable web site for Macintosh news and reviews.

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johnjs

johnjs

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That's the conclusion reached by MacInTouch. They tested the Mac Pro and loved it, but said "Adobe Creative Suite users who currently have Dual or Quad G5's may wish to wait for Adobe to release Universal Binary versions of their applications before investing in a Mac Pro."

 

Plus the quad-core chips are coming soon from Intel and AMD.

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