Apple announced last June that it would start making Macs with
Intel CPUs by June 2006. Just six months later, Apple lived up to
its promise -- well ahead of schedule -- by unveiling at Macworld this
week new iMacs and the new MacBook
Pro laptop, each of which uses Intel's new Core Duo CPUs.
Apple claims the new iMacs show speed boosts two to three times
that of the old iMac G5. We can't
verify that until we test one. What we can say is that this could
mark the beginning of a new era of computing competition.
Upside
Most of what we know about the new iMac Core Duo is good news.
Apple introduced two models with this announcement: the AU$1,999
17-inch 1.83GHz iMac and the AU$2,649 20-inch 2.0GHz system. The
baseline prices for each should look familiar; they remain
unchanged from the two previous-generation iMac G5 models. And
aside from the CPU, the new iMacs have the same features as the
preceding models, including the integrated iSight
camera, Apple's Front Row media player software, and integrated
wireless networking and Bluetooth capability. Getting the same
features and an allegedly faster CPU for the same price as the
preceding iMac G5 sounds great to us, especially considering that
we just gave the iMac G5 an Editors' Choice award.
Apple also introduced a minor upgrade to the 3D graphics chip on the new iMacs. Instead of the old ATI Radeon X600, you now get the Radeon X1600, a video-friendly 3D chip with advanced decoding capabilities (although by no means a gaming powerhouse). The new iMacs ship with OS X 10.4.4, which features some incremental tweaks to Apple's operating system. In addition, you get Apple's new iLife '06 software, also announced at Macworld. The suite includes minor updates to the current iLife programs, as well as the new iWeb Web design software.
Downside
Because of the switch to a different processor architecture,
Apple needs to use a program called Rosetta to translate Mac
applications that haven't been programmed to run on an
Intel-based chip. The Tiger operating system and all of its
bundled apps have already been ported over to run natively on the
Core Duo, and Apple says that many other programs are ready to
go. But the transition is not complete. During his Macworld
address, Apple CEO Steve Jobs showed a new iMac Core Duo running
Photoshop with a little difficulty. "Performance is not going to
be strong enough for professionals that spend hours a day in
Photoshop," he said. Adobe won't comment on when its Universal
version of Photoshop will hit, other than to acknowledge that the
software is in the works. A Microsoft product manager made an
appearance at Mr. Jobs's keynote, affirming Microsoft's
commitment to a timely transition, as well. We expect other
developers are similarly onboard.
Outlook
The new Intel chips likely won't be cause enough for more Windows
users to switch to a new iMac. What we do expect is that the new
Core Duo chips will let Apple maintain its competitiveness with
Windows-based desktops down the road. Without dual-core chips
(and apparently the dual-core PowerPC G5 chips in the Power Mac
G5 Quad won't cut it), pretty case design alone won't make up for
the gap in capabilities between Apple and Windows-based systems.
Now that Apple's processing future is secure, it can focus on
continuing its tradition of innovative design and superior
usability.
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How deep in the pocket of Microsoft is ZDNet Australia ..... bu twait there is no ZDNet Australia. The exact same comments are on the internet from another site.
I am not an Apple user but would love to be soley because of the equisite design of the iMac. Your remarks about "a pretty case is not enough" is so purile. A pretty case, without all the cables and crap that goes with MS machines is enough. God knows how many people out ther want to get rid of the spagetti we inherit with MS Fatware that a iMac start to look good as long as it will do what we need. For many now this is simple word processing, video chatting, managing photos and music. Good God, not even you would be brazen enough to clain that Microsoft does this in an intuitive manner. I would "switch" in a heart beat if only Apple made a useable PDA.