[Macworld]

Post your comments for Wrapping up Expo here

[Schneb]

OK Apple, where is the solution between iMac and the Mac Pro? How hard is it to go shorter rather than thinner?
And where is that Leopard Update? So many bugs in that kitty, its scratching more than its working.

[AgentAsia]

Two things,
Is Apple ever gonna try and fix the speed of the MacBook Air?
and
Is Apple gonna get Parallels Desktop with Vista?

[bigpics]

Schneb said:

"OK Apple, where is the solution between iMac and the Mac Pro? How hard is it to go shorter rather than thinner?"

I agree. I've been posting for years about why the next event was not going to have the announcement of the "Mythical Mid-Range Mac" (MMRM) or "X-Mac," because of Apple's focus creating entirely new markets with transformative devices.

At this point though, as the article pointed out, they have the resources to address non-mass markets that will add to their whole ecology. And with a new Leopard Server, hot X-serves (both in performance and in the top five in sales in their server segment), more and more employees used to using Macs at home (and wanting them at work), mature, stable networkable client software -- even if they'd lose a few Mac Pro sales to the existing base with a headless mid-range there's enough of a market there, and the engineering, from a Mac point of view, is trivial so that they'd make a tidy net profit. Because of the market segments:

1. A minitower is something IT departments understand -- and they also tend to replace CPU's more than monitors and keyboards, etc., which makes them not find the life-cycle cost math what they want it to be by purchasing iMacs, and the cost of a Mac Pro puts it out of reach for initial purchases for Sam in accounting running Excel and Entourage even when you add all the extra Windows support costs. It's not like most secretaries and accountants are going to be rendering 3D CAD and compositing HD video. So most of the new sales to business of such a machine would be sales they wouldn't have made otherwise, ergo, no cannabalism of other lines there. And a bump in market share. And a bigger foot in the SMB market.

2. Geeks on budgets who can't afford MP's and can't get the video and other peripheral performance they want on an iMac. Many of whom therefore are buying PC's to hack away and play games on. Even if gaming doesn't ever really take off on Macs (though it might), a geek with a Mac and his choice of video cards and other options can still use Boot Camp to while away his life in gorgeous violent mazes.

3. Personal bean counters who have good monitors, etc., for whom the Mini is clearly not their thing.

4. People like me who prefer things like pivot monitors (great for word processing, long web pages and editing portrait mode pix), real mice, etc. (I've tried Mighty Mice in a number of Apple Stores and could not get one to work close to as advertised and it felt cheesy besides.) This is why I still have Win Tower and a Mac Notebook.

So personally I don't see much downside for Apple if they fill this gaping hole in their lineup soon, now, already yet. It's time Apple. Give us a pedestrian (but wonderfully up to date) MMRM!!

Failing that, I'd like to know anyone else's cogent reasoning for the continuing lack of such a machine from any point of view, business model, technology or otherwise.