Aiming to boost its fortunes in the education market, Apple has unveiled the eMac, an all-in-one computer similar to the original iMac, as well as a line of new PowerBooks.
The all-white desktop, which will be sold only to the education market, features a 700MHz G4 processor, 40GB hard drive and 128MB of memory. A model with a tray-loading CD-ROM drive will sell for AU$1995, while a similar model that can burn CDs and play DVD movies will sell for AU$2,344, again only in the education market. Because it uses a flat-screen CRT monitor, the eMac takes up roughly the same amount of space as the original iMac.
Although Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs declared the CRT monitor dead in January, Apple has a good reason to use a flat CRT monitor, which is thinner than traditional CRT monitors but thicker than the flat-panel liquid crystal displays (LCDs) found on notebooks and on Apple's latest iMac. They typically cost less than LCDs and cost is all-important in the cash-strapped education market. Apple will make the eMac available from mid June.
Apple also plans to introduce two new PowerBooks that are faster, have an improved screen and better graphics. An 800MHz version with improved ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 graphics, 40GB hard drive, 512MB of memory, wireless networking card and a combination drive that can burn CDs and play DVD movies will sell for AU$7,395.
The other model comes with a 667MHz chip, 256MB of memory and a 30GB hard drive but without an AirPort card, is priced at AU$5,795.
The PowerBooks, which will be available from the 6th of May, feature the same size screen as their predecessors, at 15.2 inches. Unlike their predecessors, the new PowerBooks can display 1,280 pixels by 854 pixels, about 25 percent more than the models they replace. The new machines also benefit from 1MB of Level 3 cache memory, which helps speed up things like the real-time effects in video editing programs such as Apple's Final Cut Pro.
Apple Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson indicated during the company's earnings conference call earlier this month that Apple was feeling the pinch of tighter education budgets, but hinted obliquely that it might be doing something to improve its position.
"We experienced sequential growth in our education channel but our overall performance in the market continues to be impacted by tax revenue shortfalls," Anderson told analysts. "We are making additional improvements in our coverage model to further expand our advocacy during the upcoming education buying season."
Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing said that Apple's commitment to education goes beyond the bottom line.
"We think we make a better machine to learn on," Schiller said. He said that other tech companies have the wrong idea about the purpose of putting computers in schools. "It's not to have (another) IT department," Schiller said. "It's to help kids learn."
From a design perspective, the eMac builds upon Apple's growing fondness for white, fitting in well with the iBook, flat-panel iMac and iPod. It has new 16-bit stereo speakers, which look as if Apple's baseball-like Pro Speakers have been inserted into the eMac's case. It also adds an audio in port, another request from schools.
"We're about innovation, which means moving on," Apple Design Chief Jonathan Ive said in a January interview, discussing Apple's retrenchment from the days of Flower Power and Blue Dalmation.
A 17-inch version of the iMac has been rumored to be under development for some time. Although the flat-panel iMac was two years in the making, Schiller said Apple started on the eMac more recently, as Apple saw it would have a tough time getting the flat-panel machine under US$1,000 (AU$2,000).
The eMac is not the first Apple computer that Apple has sold just to the education market. In 1996, for example, Apple introduced the eMate, a four-pound mobile computer based around its Newton technology.
Apple is also introducing a device that allows PowerBooks to connect to Apple's flat-panel displays. The DVI to ADC Adapter also will allow recent PowerMacs that have Nvidia's top of the line GeForce 4 Titanium to use two digital displays. It will cost AU$319.
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