When you reach the limits..
From Apple Insider (doncha love ‘em) on the Apple quarterly conference call:
“Apple does not expect to again see quarterly PowerMac unit shipments in excess of 200,000, as a good majority of users are switching to the iMac G5.”
Yup, I can believe that. I share an office with two graphic designers who are presently using ageing (4yo) PowerMac G4s - the 400MHz models. They’re thinking it’s time for an upgrade. To PowerMacs? “Naah, an iMac G5 with a 20-inch screen would do fine for us.”
People are reaching the point where they don’t need that much more juice. They just want it to work.
- These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
- In today's Guardian Tech by me: Apple's keynote, the DNE of Scrabulous?, and slower broadband growth (17 January 2008; score: 23.53%)
- Modern ethical dilemmas: should you edit your spouse's Wikipedia page? (19 June 2007; score: 22.29%)
- If ITV is wondering why its audience share is falling... (16 May 2005; score: 21.25%)
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January 17th, 2005 at 9:35 am
Recently, I’ve been revising my view that processing power isn’t really important for computers. Back in 1999/2000 when the 1GHz barrier was just being broken, I remember thinking how daft it was, as word processing and web browsing (i.e. what most people I knew used their computers for) didn’t require such fast processors.
However, recently at home I’ve been ripping CDs, using iChat for audio chat with people downstairs (yes, I know that’s somewhat lazy when they’re in the same house, but I think it can be a really time-efficient communication method), and having several other applications open. On OSX at least, this can make things a bit sluggish. I’ve heard that a dual-processor machine can help performance when using multiple applications like this (even if individual applications aren’t designed to take advantage of the two CPUs).
But you’re quite right, when you compare the cost of the PowerMac (+ monitor) with the iMac, the iMac really does give you great value (apart from the kinda wimpy, non-replacable graphics card).