January 6, 2002

8:16 PM

Time Canada... your source for Mac newsgives the product to revolutionize the whole entire universe. As discussed here and here, hopefully this thread will be the last in a trilogy? Feel free to discuss, add, advocate.
posted by geoff. (110 comments total)

I'm getting one because it'll fit in nice with all the other nubs-with-big-screens-sticking-out furniture I have. I like Apple's innovation but couldn't they maybe make it so that it'd "fit" in with furniture.
posted by geoff. at 8:18 PM on January 6, 2002

holy crap, someone just posted this to filepile, and I nearly wet myself... so much for Steve's ta da...
posted by machaus at 8:19 PM on January 6, 2002

Oh and my friend who is in the Cult of the Mac told me that ATI slipped up on the Cube and Steve Jobs went nuts. ATI is almost totally out of the Mac picture. No more scoops for you Time Canada!
posted by geoff. at 8:21 PM on January 6, 2002

Steve's gonna be PISSED!
posted by ColdChef at 8:30 PM on January 6, 2002

If this image becomes a red X, you know what happened.
posted by darukaru at 8:35 PM on January 6, 2002

... and it's powered by the user's mental energy and cures cancer, right?

This thing better have a ton of funky features, for all the hype. I mean, they continue to lower the total surface area of their products, but that's not all that exciting...
posted by whatnotever at 8:41 PM on January 6, 2002

$1299 for that with a CDRW is very exciting. color me impressed.
posted by machaus at 8:48 PM on January 6, 2002

I don't get it. It's a smaller iMac. That's it? (again)
posted by owillis at 8:58 PM on January 6, 2002

It looks like something you buy at IKEA.
posted by paddbear at 8:59 PM on January 6, 2002

It looks like something someone else buys for you at Ikea.
posted by dogwelder at 9:04 PM on January 6, 2002

other announcement, buried in the time article -- iPhoto. which will round out the iTunes, iMovie, iDVD suite. a natural next step...
posted by msippey at 9:14 PM on January 6, 2002

Sometimes these things just need to be seen in motion (meaning real life). I'm waiting til the keynote before I pass judgement. Reality distorting...
posted by smilling at 9:14 PM on January 6, 2002

I wonder if you can take the monitor off and put a flower in there so it'll be a cute vase.
posted by panopticon at 9:22 PM on January 6, 2002

<fark>boobie</fark>
posted by NortonDC at 9:27 PM on January 6, 2002

I am so pissed at Time Canada. I'm surprised, and impressed, but damn it, I wanted Steve to draw it out for two hours until the audience wet themselves. (I can hold it, thank you very much)

How long until Apple switches the new default Mac homepage away from Netscape/AOL and over to Yahoo?

That would look so great on the receptionist's desk at the office...
posted by joemaller at 9:28 PM on January 6, 2002

with the way it's held up, i want to see it wobble left and right.... and after all that wobbleding, it would of course drop it like it's hot... as macs are known to do.
posted by lotsofno at 9:39 PM on January 6, 2002

Jeez, people are already passing judgement on the outcome of a Keynote that hasn't even happened yet.

Seems a bit premature to me. So there's a new iMac. Perhaps there's more.
posted by mrbarrett.com at 9:41 PM on January 6, 2002

So will apple file suit against Time Warner for "proving to be, without a doubt, complete and utter idiots" and "ruining a perfectly good suprise via a crappy website"? I can see that going down. I'm still watchin' the keynote.

I have to say tho, this is the kind of computer my mother would love in the kitchen. It doesn't LOOK like a computer. Now if apple could only make a coax input standard and a tv tuner built in, that plus a DVD-ROM would obsolete the television set. forget web TV. we're talking coming at it from the OTHER side.
posted by eljuanbobo at 9:51 PM on January 6, 2002

Someone should make a robot out of it, mount a cam on top of the screen, and put it on a radio controlled car chasis or Lego Mindstorm, it's only limited by how long the power cord is.
posted by riffola at 10:01 PM on January 6, 2002

I'm glad I wasn't the only person who saw that and thought of Swedish furniture.
posted by kfury at 10:07 PM on January 6, 2002

I'm still hoping that's $1299 CANADIAN... because then that would be hype-worthy. (At current exchange rates, that equals $815 US.)
posted by Fofer at 10:07 PM on January 6, 2002

I don't know, it looks kind of scary to me, that metal neck makes it look like a crane, and it somehow reminds me of the movie Brazil. Maybe if it was painted gray...

Who are they trying to sell this thing to? It doesn't look very functional, it looks more like an art-deco piece you'd find in a garage sale, not a high powered computer. Maybe high powered computers SHOULD look geeky and aesthetically unpleasing. It does look like it has a very small footprint, and it probably has no fan, so all in all, it's a very well designed, albeit goofy looking piece of technology. One might also assume by looking that the mouse and keyboard are wireless, the whole base looks like a gigantic Airport unit.

Oh yeah, that's what it reminds me of, the Luxo Lamp in that early Pixar animation!
posted by insomnyuk at 10:17 PM on January 6, 2002

I like how they demonstrate it with no mouse, speakers, or keyboard, as if anyone will ever see this thing in such a pristine museum-display presentation.

At least put it on a desk fer chrissakes, so I could see if I might want to plop down the bucks.
posted by anildash at 10:21 PM on January 6, 2002

actually, anildash, this could be used for kiosk displays and be VERY sexy in that regard. Think about a museum piece that had these on a stand with a touch screen or a mouse on a pad next to it. VERY sheik. and if it had only one cord (power) and connected to a wireless network via airport? oh heck yeah.
posted by eljuanbobo at 10:24 PM on January 6, 2002

Anyone interested in specs and prices for new PowerMac G4's? If this is reliable, then the GeForce 2 MX (a 2 year old part) is the standard graphics chip right up to the top end.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:32 PM on January 6, 2002

yawn
posted by zeoslap at 10:33 PM on January 6, 2002

I'll take no design over bad design, anyday.
posted by skyline at 10:37 PM on January 6, 2002

insomnyuk: nice catch about the Luxo Lamp: definitely an inspiration.

anildash: maybe it has a touchscreen an can read your mind?
posted by qbert72 at 10:37 PM on January 6, 2002

The same site has purported specs for three new iMacs.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:37 PM on January 6, 2002

According to the Time article, the new iMac sports a G4.
posted by sudama at 10:42 PM on January 6, 2002

Steven: I highly doubt the validity of that site. The iMac specs are bogus; the new machine has a G4, and there's no configuration listed with a DVD-RW/CD-RW drive. They were suckered into the iWalk hoax as well.
posted by disarray at 10:42 PM on January 6, 2002

C/Net has picked up the story. Their lede is: "The new iMac looks like a desk lamp."
posted by Steven Den Beste at 11:00 PM on January 6, 2002

I think I know what's happened: I think that someone at Apple fucked up Time's NDA. Note that this is Time's "January 14" issue, which is released on Jan 6. I bet someone at Apple approved Time's use in their "January 14" issue because that would be later than Steve's originally-scheduled Jan 8 announcement.

Then I bet someone at Apple realized the blunder, begged Time to not publish (and Time refused) and this is why they hurriedly rescheduled Jobs' speech for tomorrow instead of Tuesday: because they knew it would leak tonight.

Whatcha think?
posted by Steven Den Beste at 11:20 PM on January 6, 2002

hrm

Seems the link is dead now...
posted by delmoi at 11:28 PM on January 6, 2002

delmoi: Both links (C|Net and Time Canada) work, try reloading a few times.

Steven, I think the story was meant for the Jan 14th issue but they probably didn't expect Time to put it online at midnight.
posted by riffola at 11:36 PM on January 6, 2002

The link to the story itself is still good.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 11:43 PM on January 6, 2002

PC people can beat apple at their own game - do a case mod!
posted by Salmonberry at 11:49 PM on January 6, 2002

wow salmonberry, all those cases look like... well... good old boxy cases. but now they have color. and windows - one can't forget the windows.

like my grandma used to say "you can't make a dairy cow look like it's worth sexin'"...
posted by boogah at 12:13 AM on January 7, 2002

AOL/TW is now redirecting http://www.timecanada.com/ through to http://www.time.com/.
posted by brian at 12:17 AM on January 7, 2002

Funky. The direct link still works, as Steve says, but the web domain root at timecanada.com now redirects to the main U.S. site. A change, I think, within the last few minutes...

All I can say is... after that, I hope there's an iPDA too. (I still have and love my Newton 100!)
posted by pzarquon at 12:18 AM on January 7, 2002

All the links are now redirecting to time.com.

Thanks for the picture, darukaru.
posted by colt45 at 1:25 AM on January 7, 2002

A glimpse of the January 14 issue on time.com

"Apple's Latest Fruit -- Steve Jobs believes that what users want is control over their digital lives. He says he can give it to them. Just hand him a larger market share."
posted by waterfrog at 1:33 AM on January 7, 2002

Wow, I hope that's not it. That's cool and all, but at $1300-$1800, not enough people will buy it to make a difference. OK, it's a G4...how do I sell that to my mom? "You don't understand...it's a G4 cantalouple!"
posted by kirkaracha at 1:38 AM on January 7, 2002

Copy of the article on Macslash, if other links are dead.
posted by laukf at 2:18 AM on January 7, 2002

kirkaracha, preach on brutha! I would be a lot more impressed if there was a CRT option. I'm not using a duron 750 for my health, its just very economical and has all the power I'm going to need for a while.

Sure there are many benefits to using Apple equipment, but if the starting price average is around $1500 then a lot of would-be mac converts are going to look the other direction. I'm also curious to see if that LCD is worth the premium or if its just there for looks. It better be pretty damn sharp and just as responsive as a CRT for the money.

I can't get to the article text, but all I'm seeing is a laptop you can't carry anywhere.
posted by skallas at 2:21 AM on January 7, 2002

I'm so disappointed. Why is it that all the Mac fans can come up with excellent, imaginative, hit-the-spot ideas, but Apple itself is producing okay but not particularly remarkable fluff?
posted by skylar at 2:48 AM on January 7, 2002

Skallas -- there's been some talk over on /. about the price... few people looked up the price on the Dell system they mention in the article and it turns out that's the Canadian list price in Canadian dollars. Exchange rate is hovering around US$.63 to the Can$1...
posted by nathan_teske at 2:58 AM on January 7, 2002

Time article pictures:
http://129.21.139.1/imac.jpg
http://129.21.139.1/imac2.jpg

Time article text:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=25790&cid=2796179
posted by NortonDC at 5:00 AM on January 7, 2002

A mirror of the Time Canada page is at http://www.forked.net/www.timecanada.com/
posted by TNLNYC at 5:54 AM on January 7, 2002

Skylar: "Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself."

Those fans don't have to deal with things like budgets and schedules and suppliers and Steve Jobs.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 5:56 AM on January 7, 2002

I guess this pretty good, the sort of thing you'd place in your kitchen, as if you needed a system in the kitchen, without it looking like an eyesore. Reminds me of those web appliances, I'm pretty sure there one with an lcd and a round base as well. Hardly revolutionary, but then again, apple never was. In terms of hardware and such they haven't even been keeping up.

A mac is only worth having as a g4 tower, where you can upgrade and such, but the prices are too high. Four times the price of a much more powerful pc. If you'd want something that would look really good, you'd be better off with Sony Vaio systems, like the MX one. That just knocks all the translucent plastic down. Sure it's also ridiculously expensive, but just there's the option.
posted by tiaka at 6:28 AM on January 7, 2002

T minus 2.5 hours and counting, now. Let's keep Expo discussion in this thread?
posted by darukaru at 6:32 AM on January 7, 2002

Four times more expensive, Tiaka? How do you figure? Whenever I've compared Apples to Dells or IBMs, I get the towers being a tiny bit more and laptops cheaper.

Anyhow, on the subject of the new iMac... If this is it, and there isn't something else that we've missed, this will be a bit disappointing. A new PC model doesn't really warrant that much news anymore, I don't think.
posted by mikel at 6:38 AM on January 7, 2002

A bit more expensive?
A 1.9ghz system will cost you $600-700, while the g4, at 867mhz, with all the other specs being the same (perhaps a larger harddrive, but you can buy a second one for 80 bucks) comes to $2,300.

Same with brand-name pcs, NetVista™ A22p Desktop costs $1,069 with a monitor, and clocks at 1.6ghz with all other specs being the same.
posted by tiaka at 6:57 AM on January 7, 2002

I think that someone at Apple fucked up Time's NDA

A fascinating possibility. I honestly don't know how things work at that end of the spectrum (highly confidential new product release covered in major national news magazine), but in general a journalist would be unlikely to agree to any NDA, and gentleman's agreements on how (and when) a story will be covered are only made by reporters. That is, it would be extremely unusual for an editor to even consider binding his judgment on how a story should run to any outside influence, in any way, and it's the editors who make the real decisions about what gets published.

I don't know how it really goes with stories like this, however. Anyone? (SDB?)
posted by mattpfeff at 7:06 AM on January 7, 2002

mattpfeff,

I can't really speculate on this particular matter, specifically on the news release side of it. However, I have myself interviewed a spokesperson for a close Apple partner whose products were designed in conjunction with the Apple Industrial Design team, and was pretty amazed by the fact that there was more that he could/would NOT say than could/would (even off the record).

If that makes any sense.
posted by Sinner at 7:15 AM on January 7, 2002

Matt Pfeff, for this kind of product-announcement, it's routine for journalists and reviewers to receive information ahead of time under a time limit. Sometimes they even get samples. The companies making those products want to do this because they want a lot of articles to hit the streets simultaneous with the product announcement, and it takes time to create such things.

It's routine for there to be agreements on exactly when they're permitted to go public.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 7:29 AM on January 7, 2002

What I want is just the dome... no monitor. Have a monitor output so we can hook up a seperate monitor. A G4 is a bit much for what I want a Mac for (since I have a good Windows PC), and so I want a low-cost Mac.
posted by benjh at 7:36 AM on January 7, 2002

Much bigger picture:

http://www.macgeneration.com/mgnews/categories/actualite/upload/imac2_scan.jpg
posted by NortonDC at 7:43 AM on January 7, 2002

apple stock is holding fairly steady in morning trading
posted by machaus at 7:44 AM on January 7, 2002

Well the Timecanada link has been turned into a redirect to time.com, and the mirrored site is suffering from the slashdot effect. Speaking of /., this thread at least includes the text of the article.
posted by insomnyuk at 7:45 AM on January 7, 2002

A 1.9ghz system will cost you $600-700, while the g4, at 867mhz, with all the other specs being the same (perhaps a larger harddrive, but you can buy a second one for 80 bucks) comes to $2,300.

I am not trying to argue here.... To make that pc equal to that mac, you'll need to buy a firewire adapter card and some kind of video editing program (imovie is dorky but good for my mom), a keyboard with usb built in, a decent mp3 app (that compares to itunes), an antivirus program with a monthly subscription (since you're using windows), and probably Eudora since Outlook for Windows is a monster...
posted by panopticon at 7:46 AM on January 7, 2002

Most times when there's big news they let the journalists in on it ahead of time under an embargo. Breaking an embargo is a big deal and someone will get fired for it.

tiaka, when I went through the IBM site to get a system that matches a $1700 G4 Tower as closely as possible, I got a price of around $1350 at IBM and Dell. I think that's "a bit more expensive".

Whatever. I'm still curious to see what's up today at Macworld.
posted by mikel at 7:47 AM on January 7, 2002

I wish Apple would put out a nostalgia edition with more modern guts, a color monitor and a CD burner in an original style case. I can't imagine anyone outside of traditional Mac circles getting terribly excited over this design. (The larger picture of the iMac linked above is much more impressive than the Time cover, which makes it look like Steve Jobs is using it as a shaving mirror.)
posted by MegoSteve at 7:57 AM on January 7, 2002

A firewire card will run you 60 bucks. From what I've read it's fairly easy. A keyboard with a USB built in? huh? Most of the pc keyboards are USB, some are ps2. There's hardly any difference. If you're talking about a usb keyboard that also has a hub built in, then any mac keyboard will work. Macally sells their own for 30 bucks. Software? That's hardly something macs can win points on. Video editing software is aplenty, most is better than itunes, adobe sells premier for both platforms, windows comes with a free editor, from what I've read, it's ok. mp3 app? What do you need it to do? I haven't used itunes, since my mac died a while ago. Winamp and like a zillion other programs out there. Why an antivirus program? I like outlook express, it's much better at handling both email and news reading than anything on the mac side. And I've looked far and wide.
posted by tiaka at 7:59 AM on January 7, 2002

Hmm.. This is slowly becoming a platform war.

/me steps back a bit.
posted by tiaka at 8:01 AM on January 7, 2002

A 1.9ghz system will cost you $600-700, while the g4, at 867mhz, with all the other specs being the same (perhaps a larger harddrive, but you can buy a second one for 80 bucks) comes to $2,300.

Somebody has fallen for the GHz myth. a 1.9 GHz P3 (or P4) isn't twice as fast as a 867MHz G4. In most applications, it's not faster at all. The reason? They're two completely different chips. It's comparing apples to oranges.

And that doesn't even begin to go into the superiority (in power, ease of use, elegance, etc.) of Mac OS X over Windows, which makes a few hundred extra bucks spent on hardwre worth every penny and more, in my book. It's insanely great. Now, if the "to boldly go where no PC has gone before" tease means OS X on Intel (or AMD), I might be tempted to buy different hardware, but probably not. Others certainly would, though.
posted by sjarvis at 8:05 AM on January 7, 2002

tiaka
> A bit more expensive?

You can't compare megahertz like that. It's not an absolute scale. It's like comparing a 6-cylinder lawn mower with a 6-cylinder aircraft engine.
posted by stevis at 8:12 AM on January 7, 2002

Sorry tiaka - I certainly didn't mean to start a war. I'm certainly not going to continue it (don't really feel like it is a war either, but anyhow).
posted by mikel at 8:14 AM on January 7, 2002

Most times when there's big news they let the journalists in on it ahead of time under an embargo. Breaking an embargo is a big deal and someone will get fired for it.

The question is, who is bound by the embargo?

for this kind of product-announcement, it's routine for journalists and reviewers to receive information ahead of time under a time limit. Sometimes they even get samples. The companies making those products want to do this because they want a lot of articles to hit the streets simultaneous with the product announcement, and it takes time to create such things.

It's routine for the to be agreements on exactly when they're permitted to go public.

Whoa. It takes time to write news articles? You don't say. (Thank you for condescending to enlighten me.) The rest of what you write, however, is mistaken. These things aren't "routine". A publication will agree to outside conditions on the stories it runs only in special cases, and will generally require, in those cases, that they be given the story exclusively. (Otherwise, SDB, another publication might, for various reasons, be able to publish the story first.)

Moreover, unless a reporter or editor has a relationship with a trusted source, or the story in question is especially signficant, a publication will be very reluctant to bind itself to any agreement, SDB. The only other time a pub will willingly abide by an embargo, I believe, is when access to the (important) source in question is a privilege, and violating the embargo would cost the pub future access. (Your use of the term "NDA" is rather naive; a journalist will never sign one.)

The question is, what sort of agreement would a publication like Time make with a company like Apple for a story like this, and who at Time would be responsible for it.
posted by mattpfeff at 8:19 AM on January 7, 2002

the superiority (in power, ease of use, elegance, etc.) of Mac OS X over Windows

OSX has its own issues, not the least of which is that cycle-sapping UI. I use Litestep for my windows system, and it's as lightweight as I please. I don't believe for a minute that OSX would fare any better than Windows, were they to receive the same scrutiny.
posted by skyline at 8:23 AM on January 7, 2002

I never claimed that it was trice as powerfull or whatnot. The processors are different, this can be seen everywhere, even on the pc side, intel vs amd, where intel's higher mhz chips are slower than amds and such.

mikel, you didn't start anything. yeah. : )
posted by tiaka at 8:23 AM on January 7, 2002

The new iMac is definitely the sort of computer I would buy my computer illiterate sister. iMacs have always been computers that appeal to kids, mums and people who don't know very much about computers. Don't forget that those people buy computers too. Apple makes things easy to use, and the computers are cute.

I've always been a Windows user, until recently. I had the pleasure of using a new iBook, and they are seriously fucking excellent. For $1800, you get a sexy, small and relatively light laptop, with two USB ports, ethernet, firewire, a CD-RW drive and 20g drive. I had wanted a Viao for ages, until I actually went to the Metreon and had a look at them. They about all of about one USB port, ethernet and that's really about it, they are still pretty heavy and not to mention expensive. And then there's iMovie. Well, I can't really say enough about it, because it's so bloody simple! I'd never, ever used a computer to do video stuff before, and I couldn't believe how simple it was. I'm definitely an Apple lover now.
posted by animoller at 8:33 AM on January 7, 2002

I'm 99.999% sure it was embargoed information, as well, and some TimeCanada web person is getting screamed at, if not out-and-out fired.

Way back, when I did healthcare P.R., we'd produce and receive embargoed information all the time. Produce: news of a drug launch or new treatment. Receive: usually from a publication like the New England Journal of Medicine, or from the Journal of the American Medical Association. As far as we were concerned, and healthcare reporters were concerned, the embargo meant "here's info for your story, so you can prepare your story, but you MAY NOT RELEASE your story until after the date (and usually the specific time) on the embargo." In the case of a new drug or treatment launch, this was a very real issue -- any information "leaked" beforetime could get our clients in trouble with the FDA. I don't think we ever had a case where someone broke the embargo.

Breaking an embargo would usually result in the company not working with the publication -- depending on the company and the pub. Since this is Apple and Time, and since a Time cover story is VERY hard to get -- well, you do the math.

I'm sure they're singing "Blame Canada!" around Apple HQ today...
posted by metrocake at 8:42 AM on January 7, 2002

Someone at Time Canada decided to break the embargo - all magazines and newspapers with publication dates later than the announcements will have all their new Mac stories paged up and ready to print.
Having been an editor for over a decade I'd say this has gone exactly as some Time Canada executive wanted it to. They've got their publicity; they've been reined in by the mothership.
(The mothership most probably co-operated energetically).

Here's a CNet link for non-techie late risers.

Btw, I'm definitely getting one. I had a Cube and loved it to bits, but it belonged to the newspaper and so it now sits on the current editor's desk. Almost every night I think about stealing it as I considered it mine. Hey, I had to convince the money guys to fork out for it in an all-PC environment!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:59 AM on January 7, 2002

The keynote stream is up now. Loading the page is slow as hell, and the video itself makes a postage stamp look big. Curse you AT&T cable for not carrying TechTV.
posted by darukaru at 9:01 AM on January 7, 2002

the superiority (in power, ease of use, elegance, etc.) of Mac OS X over Windows...

Yeah, right. This is why scores of Mac users are rebelling against that eyecandied kludge of an OS and downgrading to a more stable, more-useful-but-older version of MacOS. I don't carry on a love affair with Microsoft products, but lay off the Mac Evangelist Crackpipe when posting under the guise of reason.
posted by Danelope at 9:04 AM on January 7, 2002

You can watch the text stream over at MacNN, if you can't get the video stream.
posted by ry at 9:04 AM on January 7, 2002

Photoshop for OS X has spellcheck. Niiiice!
posted by riffola at 9:21 AM on January 7, 2002

OK actually not that great a feature, but it's a nice add on.
posted by riffola at 9:24 AM on January 7, 2002

The live stream is working fine and dandy seen from over here in Portugal - and decent-sized - which is quite exciting. Good Harry Potter game being shown. Jobs in foul mood and "Nuke Canada" t-shirt. Last bit not true.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:40 AM on January 7, 2002

mattpfeff, it's pretty simple - agree to the embargo or don't get the story, and the interview or whatever else anchors the news to the story as it will be published (the value-add of Quittner's walkaround with Jobs and Ive in this case). Time could have just run a story with the news itself, of course.
posted by mikel at 9:44 AM on January 7, 2002

This is the third computer ever made that I would consent to place in my living room. The first two were the Titanium PowerBook (which, in fact, currently *does* sit in my living room) and the G4 Cube.

Those of you who have not had the opportunity to replace your CRTs with LCDs may not realize just how much crisper and more even the image is. There's none of that subtle flicker you get with CRTs, and there are far fewer problems with eyestrain.

The introduction of an LCD monitor to a consumer PC is a major step forward. It's not something novel enough to make all of us tech savvy folk drool, but it is an improvement which now gives Apple's home PC a user experience its competitors will have difficulty matching.

Perhaps there's even more that's new about it - all I know is what I see in the picture.

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 9:47 AM on January 7, 2002

Hmm. X is now the default OS on all new Macs. And the iTunes demo fell apart on Steve-O. Heh.
posted by darukaru at 9:56 AM on January 7, 2002

Mars,

Am I incorrect in thinking that LCD's actually cause more eyestrain due to lower image quality? I use both and have never really noticed much of a difference, but I was sure I'd heard that somewhere.
posted by Sinner at 10:03 AM on January 7, 2002

it's pretty simple

er, um, consider, par example, a point Romanesko raises on MediaNews (sorry, no permalink, ack):

Time usually posts covers on Sunday, but the Dec. 31 issue stayed on its Web site until noon ET Monday. A MediaNews reader notes: "If they are holding back so that Steve Jobs can make his now-blown (iMac) announcement at noon eastern, wouldn't that be an awfully huge leap across the line of journalistic integrity? Especially considering Apple is a big advertiser in Time."

There are a lot of different issues here. Time is a weekly pub, and agreeing to an embargo would be the only way they could report this story before dailies like the NYTimes or WSJ. But it's hard to see how they can change their entire publication cycle based on such a deal -- if they deliver to newstands on Sunday nights every week (as they do in NYC, where people could get the news in print last night), that's pretty much a given. So then, what happened here? Who agreed to what? Did Apple know in advance the story would break Sunday night? Or did someone at Time screw them over? If so, was it a reporter, or someone higher up?
posted by mattpfeff at 10:13 AM on January 7, 2002

LCD's driven by a purely digital signal are much sharper than CRT's, but they still have many image-quality drawbacks, including refresh speed (making them inappropriate for games and fast motion video) viewing angle (in at least one axis), color control, and resolution inflexibility.

Personally, i'm hoping that OLED displays mature quickly. They may have the advantages of current LCD's plus faster image updates, truer and richer colors and no reliance on backlighting as the screen directly produces the light (instead of filtering light, as LCD's do).
posted by NortonDC at 10:17 AM on January 7, 2002

You know... who cares about the new iMac design or whatever? iPhoto appears to be the really nifty easy little tool that I've been dying for to manage my photos. I mean, I love Photoshop and all, but it's not there to twiddle with images in the same way. It's the simplest little thing and it appears to rock.

When can I download it, Steve???
posted by stefnet at 10:23 AM on January 7, 2002

How is iPhoto's print ordering service any different from the one in Windows XP?
posted by riffola at 10:24 AM on January 7, 2002

...and everyone gets a free copy of Time magazine with the New iMac on the cover on their way out of Steve's talk!
posted by rio at 11:00 AM on January 7, 2002

[The introduction of an LCD monitor to a consumer PC is a major step forward. ]

So we should thank Gateway?
posted by revbrian at 11:02 AM on January 7, 2002

No, thank NEC.
posted by Sinner at 11:05 AM on January 7, 2002

Hum, no G5 towers this quarter, it seems. Anyone know when the next big expo/convention is? Seybold? (I can only ever remember MWSF and MWNY.)
posted by darukaru at 11:09 AM on January 7, 2002

Then again, you probably can just thank Gateway.
posted by Sinner at 11:28 AM on January 7, 2002

stefnet,

Download iPhoto

Seems a little busy at the moment. ;)
posted by dglynn at 11:44 AM on January 7, 2002

posted by Steven Den Beste at 12:45 PM on January 7, 2002

Wow. My paradigm just shifted.
posted by insomnyuk at 1:59 PM on January 7, 2002

"Are we not men? We are Steve-o!"
posted by kindall at 3:14 PM on January 7, 2002

NortonDC said:
LCD's driven by a purely digital signal are much sharper than CRT's, but they still have many image-quality drawbacks, including refresh speed (making them inappropriate for games and fast motion video) viewing angle (in at least one axis), color control, and resolution inflexibility.

I've been staring at an LCD for the past eight months and have noticed no problems with refresh speed or viewing angle. I can look at the screen 75-80 degrees from the perpendicular and still read the text. I've also watched entire DVD movies on this laptop with no noticeable blurring or afterimage problems. LCDs did have these sorts of problems in the past - the laptop I had in '95-96 was really bad at the refresh thing especially - but if the LCDs in these iMacs are as good as the ones in the PowerBooks, these aren't problems to worry about.

Color control is a problem, but I would be surprised if too many people who are going to be doing print publishing choose the iMac over the G4 minitower (or a Windows PC).

Fixed resolution is also a good point. I've always run monitors at the highest resolution memory will allow, so the fact that you can't reduce the LCD resolution has never bothered me. But I can see that some people would miss that ability.

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 3:21 PM on January 7, 2002

Let's not forget to thank IBM...

(But come on people, the iMac looks so much sexier!)

For me, the most exciting news today was the release of the phenomenal "iPhoto" software. It's free and it's awesome.

I downloaded during the keynote and was totally impressed by it's bells-and-whistles and ease-of-use. Perhaps it's best feature? You can edit each of your photos to your heart's content... cropping (maintaining proper size ratio for prints,) eliminate red-eye, or converting to black-and-white... and then later on after printing, can "revert to original." No need to keep two versions of your snapshots anymore (original and "fixed.")

All of the photos are imported into iPhoto's fast database-of-sorts, and can be drag-and-dropped out to get an e-mailable JPEG.

VERY nicely done, without sacrificing the UI. This is OS X's first "killer app" IMHO. It truly fills a gap and does it's job exceptionally well!
posted by Fofer at 8:15 PM on January 7, 2002

Jobs in foul mood and "Nuke Canada" t-shirt.

You had me laughing there, Miguel! Thanks!
posted by qbert72 at 8:19 PM on January 7, 2002

Mars Saxman - CRT's hold their color from any angle that reveals the front surface. LCD's do not, especially (typically) with vertical variations (hence my "at least one axis" qualifier). And films are only 24 frames per second, which does not qualify as high speed video. For comparison, competitive computer gamers typically aim to keep the minimum framerate above 60, with many even sacrificing other aspects of quality to keep framerates above 100.
posted by NortonDC at 8:58 PM on January 7, 2002

And signs of a backlash from all the media that are not Time Magazine are appearing. From David Coursey at ZDNet Anchordesk:

Apple said it would not do this [provide embargoed information] for me, and apparently others, because it wasn't doing it for anyone.

Anyone except Time magazine, of course. And then Time blew the embargo, both on its Canadian Web site and by distributing copies of the printed magazine in advance of the announcement.

This has angered many journalists, especially among the crowd that covers Apple, because they like the company and its products. AnchorDesk's readership, for example, is predictably below average on days when Apple appears in the headline, which is consistent with the company's overall market share.

THE FLAP over how information about the products was released is rapidly becoming at least as interesting as the products themselves. I've been asked to do interviews with several publications, including the Wall Street Journal, to talk about this.

[snip]

As for Apple, this is another example--and it is famous for this--of the company hurting its friends more than its enemies. And these are people Apple will have to deal with, long after the world realizes that the new iMacs, while interesting, will never be "Flat-Out Cool."

posted by pmurray63 at 9:35 PM on January 7, 2002

NortonDC: thanks for the comments. I had not known there was a market for framerates above 30 per second.

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 12:00 AM on January 8, 2002

Mars, the reason is that those kinds of computer games do their calculations and simulations at the same time granularity as the frame rate. If framerate suffers, the simulation gets more grainy and that can affect how the game works. Perceptually, anything above about 60 fps looks the same, but it doesn't play the same.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 12:56 AM on January 8, 2002

Hilarious Macsketeers, Steven!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 2:29 AM on January 8, 2002

Thanks for the photo SDB. Love it.
posted by bjgeiger at 10:29 AM on January 8, 2002

I dint do it! (I found it on SlashDot)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 11:03 AM on January 8, 2002

"Buy an iMac" link: A Faux Pas for Time. NYT details the clucking over the recent gaffe.
posted by rschram at 10:37 AM on January 14, 2002

rschram beat me to it!
posted by mattpfeff at 12:30 PM on January 14, 2002