[Macworld]

Post your comments for The new rules for buying a Mac here

[Archiform_3D]

There is always going to be people that want a bigger machine than they need so they can feel good about themselves. There will also always be people that get the cheapest machine. But what this article points out effectively is that normal consumer level machines are now powerful to do most things. It's been a few years now since computers really exceeded what we need to every day office tasks and now even things like Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver and the like really only need an iMac.

It's only us "super-power-users" that run 3D, CAD or similar applications that really use the MacPro and we are still crying for more power. Our next upgrades for the web development team will be iMacs - less money, less footprint, nice machines.

Steve Bell
Archiform 3D Animation

[gdevore]

I have been using a MacBook Pro for several years now as my primary machine. I do a lot of web development. This week I just got a 24-inch iMac and I am not going back anytime soon. The productivity boost is huge with extra screen real estate. A Mac Pro would be overkill though. I think that these iMacs are really amazing business machines for most people.

[kirkmc]

I have an early Mac Pro, and one reason I like it is the ability to have two optical drives (one Superdrive, and one 52x CD-R for ripping music), and four hard drives. This said, having seen the recent iMacs, I'm more likely to go in that direction when the Mac Pro has gotten too slow - unless, of course, I get a 30" display, which I would like to. The iMac can't support that. However, a 24" iMac with a second screen is another possibility...
In any case, I'm not planning to make a change for a couple of years; maybe by then there will be 30" iMacs.
Kirk

[palane]

gdevore - Why did you decide to buy an iMac over an external screen? If additional screen space was the critical need for you, an external monitor would be a cost effective addition. http://I agree with ... in the office.
BB

[CPTKILLER]

The article while interesting sounds like a sound bite from Apple Marketing. In your own editorial staff there is a group that thinks a mini tower is a good thing. It covers a hole in the system that is needed for upgrades, configuration changes, and the concept of doing things my way. The existing Mac's are OK but are hardly innovative any longer. Maybe it is time for Apple to smell the roses (of innovation) again for something other than iPhones and iPods. The latest updates are evolutionary, not the THINK DIFFERENT matra that many of us miss.

[gdevore]

palane- I already had a 20" monitor attached to my MacBook Pro. I now have it attached to the 24" iMac and it is fantastic. This is especially helpful when you are working on things that require a bunch of windows. For me that is mainly Rails development and CSS styling. Plus, the iMac feels much faster.

[Rhywun]

When I made the Switch two years ago I felt a little "regret" at settling for an iMac when in the past I would never have considered an all-in-one. Yet I've been quite happy with it after all. I've been wondering whether I'll move to a Mac Pro next but you're right, they really are overkill for almost everybody. With these new iMacs, and the Mac Pro's move to quad (or octo!) cores, it just doesn't make sense to splurge on the Pro. One of my friends on a seven-year-old Mac Pro (I know it was called something else then - I was on PC so apologies if I don't know exactly what...) said he will switch to an iMac. Even the cheapest iMac now has better specs than the top-of-the-line model I bought two years ago! My only concern is if Apple pulls a Vista and renders all but the top-of-the-line models useless. Seems unlikely for now.

[jamus]

I am still hesitant to suggest an iMac for many of my users not for lack of power or expandability, but because of the risk of part failure with an all-in-one. If the CPU unit goes out, I am also short a monitor (and vice versa). This leaves me scrambling to replace TWO units until the repair is done and not just one. It also means we cannot upgrade to a larger or better monitor. You get what you get.
That said, the initial batch of 24" iMacs that we did purchase as a test have held up very well and I have had no problems with them. However, I still don't think I can roll them out in large numbers.
I still am hoping for a "Mac Pro mini" at some point. That would be perfect.

[Gee4orce]

This was a great article - I especially like the scorecards and the 'Old Rule' / 'New Rule' format. It's certainly given me pause for thought about whether I should go for a Macbook Pro or an iMac next time.

[Gee4orce]

Rhywun - I don't think there's any fear that Apple would limit the next os to just the current top-spec machines. Leopard will run on an 867MHz G4 - and it's an awfully long time since the shipped any of those !
Jamus - sign me up for the Mac Pro Mini too ! :)

[rickcarl]

The old myth of waiting to buy unless you need it right now doesn't compute unless you don't have a computer at all and this is your first buy. The new reality for owners of multiple computers is don't buy at all unless Apple offers the right hardware combination for an individual's use. New hardware designs don't always offer the best choice for the user.

[MiniMoe]

I don't disagree that the iMac will, in the majority of cases, satisfy the needs, if not the wants, of most current Mac tower users. But, as said, there are valid reasons for a Pro besides multi-threaded processing, not the least of which is memory, internal hard drives, and multiple video cards. I've seen just over 4 GB free and inactive, out of 12 GB on my Pro.
However, I disagree with 2 GB of memory being adequate for users of both OS-X and Windows. Yes, it's adequate for dual-booting, and yes, 1 GB per operating system is barely adequate when running Windows, especially Vista, in a VM. But both OSes, including OS-X, run MUCH better with 2 GB of memory and I wouldn't recommend less than 4 GB on any Mac that will run Windows under Parallels or Fusion. Apple charges $200 for a 4 GB iMac upgrade, but with third-party memory, you can get there for about half that.

[adobephile]

gdevore said:

palane- I already had a 20" monitor attached to my MacBook Pro. I now have it attached to the 24" iMac and it is fantastic. This is especially helpful when you are working on things that require a bunch of windows. For me that is mainly Rails development and CSS styling. Plus, the iMac feels much faster.

I'm with you. I had a G5 2.0 GHz dual for years and it served me well--until various software came out that was Intel-only, e.g. the iPhone SDK, and a strange situation with Epson's latest driver for my aging Epson Perfection 2450 scanner.

The writing was on the wall, and I really wanted a new machine. While drooling over the 8-core Mac Pro, its price was just too high to swallow right now (though I still may get one if my 3D work increases like it has been of late).

So my best option overall was the iMac 24" 3.06 GHz, which I got last week. It's really very sweet.

I had two of the clear-plastic-frame 23" Cinema Displays on my G5. So one went to my wife's older 24" iMac and one went to mine. We had to get two Mini-DVD to DVD adapters and one more DVD to ADC adapter (I already had one for connecting one of my displays to the ADC port on my G5). So now we both have iMacs with extra displays.

Though the CDs are not nearly as bright as the new iMac's display, they serve well for all the palette windows or for having Safari and Mail windows on them alongside of productivity app windows on the iMac displays.