New Apple iMac in September.

[Eug]

They timed their production stoppage of their old model too early it seems.

http://www.apple.com/imac/

iMac Availability
Apple has stopped taking orders for the current iMac as we begin the transition from the current iMac line to an all-new iMac line which will be announced and available in September. We planned to have our next generation iMac ready by the time the inventory of current iMacs runs out in the next few weeks, but our planning was obviously less than perfect. We apologize for any inconvenience to our customers.

*** CONFIRMED: It's a G5 ***

 

[ViRGE]

Oddly enough, this is history. Never before has Apple pre-annouced a product, let alone in a manner like this. They usually don't run out of products like this, either.

 

[Eug]

On a good note... There it's no question in my mind now that it's a G5, given their "all-new" description. I was 97% sure before, and now I'm 100% sure.

 

[sisooktom]

I have to admit I double checked the url. An admission/announcement of this kind from Apple is unheard of. I bet Jobs had someone's head for this, with Apple's tiny market share, they need every sale they can get.

 

[Wahsapa]

wow... atleast we know its gonna be september, and depending on the price point a g5 imac might ve VERY worth it

 

[Tostada]

This is no "admission" of doing something stupid. If they simply announced that a new iMac would be available in September, sales would fall off sharply for the current iMac, and then what would Apple do with their inventory? They certainly don't like marking down prices.

This is just a scheme to raise interest. In two months, all the Mac people will be begging to pay extra for the new iMac.

 

[Eug]

Except that it's likely they'll run out of computers in the next few weeks. They've already stopped taking orders for the current iMac.

 

[ponyo]

Are sales of iMac that good that they ran out early? Or did someone at Apple just mess up badly? Or is it combination of both? I've never heard Apple running out before new model introduction. I don't know if I should be happy or sad at this news as Apple shareholder.

 

[arsbanned]

Sad.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Naustica
Are sales of iMac that good that they ran out early? Or did someone at Apple just mess up badly? Or is it combination of both? I've never heard Apple running out before new model introduction. I don't know if I should be happy or sad at this news as Apple shareholder.

Sales of the current iMac are poor actually. Apple messed up. Slow shipments of the G5 970FX? (They've been having supply problems with the 970FX for the Xserve G5.)

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Tostada
This is no "admission" of doing something stupid. If they simply announced that a new iMac would be available in September, sales would fall off sharply for the current iMac, and then what would Apple do with their inventory? They certainly don't like marking down prices.

This is just a scheme to raise interest. In two months, all the Mac people will be begging to pay extra for the new iMac.

The point is that they _NEVER_ pre-announce products. They don't announce it and watch their sales fall off. They keep it "secret" and just spring it on people.

And Apple usually has a couple of older models for sale on their website at reduced prices.

 

[ponyo]

Originally posted by: Eug

Originally posted by: Naustica
Are sales of iMac that good that they ran out early? Or did someone at Apple just mess up badly? Or is it combination of both? I've never heard Apple running out before new model introduction. I don't know if I should be happy or sad at this news as Apple shareholder.

Sales of the current iMac are poor actually. Apple messed up. Slow shipments of the G5 970FX? (They've been having supply problems with the 970FX for the Xserve G5.)

That's what I thought. I thought based on their last quarterly CC call, their iMac sales were pretty bad. But it's usually like that before new model introduction.

 

[acebake]

It's also a first time Apple has miscalculated their shipments of old to new computers.

 

[sisooktom]

Originally posted by: Tostada
This is no "admission" of doing something stupid. If they simply announced that a new iMac would be available in September, sales would fall off sharply for the current iMac, and then what would Apple do with their inventory? They certainly don't like marking down prices.

This is just a scheme to raise interest. In two months, all the Mac people will be begging to pay extra for the new iMac.

Sure there was, there's an admission of crappy timing. As for what they would do with the old iMacs, they'd probably do the same thing they did with the Powermac G4, which they only recently killed off.

 

[manly]

I'm not sure the Power Mac G4 is "killed off". It sounds like they EOL'd the $1299 base model, but will continue to sell dual-CPU configs for some time?

And yes, iMac inventories will be exhausted RSN (real soon now).

Apple will miss out on nearly 3 months of back-to-school sales to consumers.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by: acebake
It's also a first time Apple has miscalculated their shipments of old to new computers.

I think the problem is more IBM miscalculated the difficulty in making new chips and that, in turn, screwed up Apple's time table.


Lethal

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: LethalWolfe

Originally posted by: acebake
It's also a first time Apple has miscalculated their shipments of old to new computers.

I think the problem is more IBM miscalculated the difficulty in making new chips and that, in turn, screwed up Apple's time table.


Lethal

IBM seems to be screwing a lot of people over. Nvidia is using IBM for the GF6, and they're having a hell of a time getting enough NV40 cores, apparantly.

 

[Eug]

Apple says it's a G5.

They blame the iMac delay on IBM's G5 supplies.

 

[n0cmonkey]

hmmmm... Rockin.

 

[Eug]

The G5 iMac had better be good, because the current iMac sales suck.

 

[batmanuel]

Originally posted by: acebake
It's also a first time Apple has miscalculated their shipments of old to new computers.

Well, at least since the second coming of Jobs.

Back about a decade ago the old Apple management screwed the pooch and lost a ton of Mac sales during the boom in the computer market in late '94 and early '95 because they didn't have enough inventory of their new multimedia equipped PCs (that featured the spiffy new CD-ROM drives). Of course this was the same bunch that also missed the chance to sic the Star Trek project (a version of the classic Mac OS adapted to run on Intel-based hardware) on Microsoft before Win95 was released, it is no suprise their inventory management skills were lacking.

 

[tart666]

Originally posted by: Eug
They timed their production stoppage of their old model too early it seems.

http://www.apple.com/imac/

iMac Availability
Apple has stopped taking orders for the current iMac as we begin the transition from the current iMac line to an all-new iMac line which will be announced and available in September. We planned to have our next generation iMac ready by the time the inventory of current iMacs runs out in the next few weeks, but our planning was obviously less than perfect. We apologize for any inconvenience to our customers.

*** CONFIRMED: It's a G5 ***

wow, they actually did have something to announce in Boston... Jobs must have lot of spite to pass up an opportunity to show off new stuff

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: batmanuel

Originally posted by: acebake
It's also a first time Apple has miscalculated their shipments of old to new computers.

Well, at least since the second coming of Jobs.

Back about a decade ago the old Apple management screwed the pooch and lost a ton of Mac sales during the boom in the computer market in late '94 and early '95 because they didn't have enough inventory of their new multimedia equipped PCs (that featured the spiffy new CD-ROM drives). Of course this was the same bunch that also missed the chance to sic the Star Trek project (a version of the classic Mac OS adapted to run on Intel-based hardware) on Microsoft before Win95 was released, it is no suprise their inventory management skills were lacking.

Of course, none of this has any relevance whatsoever to the matter at hand. :roll:

Originally posted by: tart666
wow, they actually did have something to announce in Boston... Jobs must have lot of spite to pass up an opportunity to show off new stuff

FWIW, it will be announced at Apple Expo in Paris, on Aug. 31.