PepsiBlueG5iMacStripteaseFilter

August 27, 2004 8:12 PM

Amidst all the fun pre-expo speculation as to what the new G5 iMac will look like [1,2,3], we have a possible sighting in the wild at Charles De Gaulle Airport.
posted by brownpau (30 comments total)

The most convincing argument that this is a fake is that the sides of the unit are almost touching the box. There would be room for packing material if this wasn't just an apple display in a powerbook box, and knowing apple, the styrofoam would be the same thickness all the way around.

It does seem like fun to take such a simple picture and generate such (narrow but intense) attention.

next time, man, we ain't stopping at page 2
posted by ulotrichous at 8:26 PM on August 27, 2004

It would be interesting if it was built like the current displays and came in the iPod mini colour set.
posted by cmacleod at 9:15 PM on August 27, 2004

Apparently it's being shipped in the briefcase from "Pulp Fiction."
posted by ColdChef at 9:20 PM on August 27, 2004

It better be cheap.
posted by bitpart at 9:21 PM on August 27, 2004

Yeah, the pulp-fiction packing box amused me too. My favorite entry on gizmodo was the toaster-iMac with the little iPods sticking out.
posted by hattifattener at 9:54 PM on August 27, 2004

yeah, what the hell... Like this would just be sitting in an airport elevator, unattended?

Like we're supposed to belive that the guy just left it there. Uh huh.

Oh, and what is up with the apple zelot love of fantisizing about future products. Jesus, get overyourselves.

Side note, I am as drunk as it is possible to be.
posted by delmoi at 5:46 AM on August 28, 2004

um, isn't that just one of the new monitors?
posted by jmgorman at 8:41 AM on August 28, 2004

I'd be drunk too if I had to use Windows.
posted by digaman at 9:52 AM on August 28, 2004

ha ha well said digaman! I tend to act like a 5 year old screaming 'I want I want I want' when i'm in the shops and come across a G5 and apple cinema screen as I'm stuck on a G4. I only use windows cos i HAVE to at work :(
posted by floanna at 10:28 AM on August 28, 2004

Not to derail the thread too badly, but I'm trying to understand what's so much better about Macs nowadays.

Background: I'm a former Macintosh loyalist. The first computer I bought was a Centris 610 running System 7 back in the early 90s, and I really loved my Mac. Back then the difference in usability between Macs and PCs was significant, imho, especially for people who didn't know much about computers, but it seems to me that Windows XP has leveled that playing field considerably (you plug in your network cable or wireless card and the Internet is up; you drop in a CD and it asks what you want to do with it; etc.).

Granted, Apple's aesthetics are way ahead, but honesly I don't see why anyone things they're any easier to use than PCs. I think the usability of programs like iTunes and Quicktime is actually a little disappointing. I've played with Panther a bit and features like Expose are neat -- it's a nice OS overall and it seems nice and stable -- but aside from the eye candy I didn't see anything that made me say, "Wow, I wish I were running this OS instead of Windows", especially given the much higher hardware costs.

Can the Mac fans here explain briefly why they're so partial? (I have no bone to pick and I won't issue rebuttals -- I'm just curious what people like about Apple's computers so much nowadays.)
posted by boredomjockey at 11:50 AM on August 28, 2004

boredomjockey: I'm probably not the best person to answer your question, but in the spirit of metafilter, I will anyway.

I've very limited experience with PCs. Only recently have I been using a windows PC and it seems fine. Glitchy and unpredictable, but fine. Windows users tell me that if I just had such and such service pack installed, partioned the thingy or other, tweaked with my native and installed firewalls and only used MS Office, I wouldn't have any problems.

Apple, well, it just seems to work. I push a button and it does stuff. I have no idea how it works or why it works, but it seems to be working. It has its glitches too, but for the most part Apple computers are well designed for the eye and functional for use.

Hopefully someone how doesn't think of computers as a fancy typewriter and internet access device will answer your question better than I.
posted by elwoodwiles at 12:31 PM on August 28, 2004

For me, I guess that my 1st real experience with any kind of computer was a mac as I studied graphic design and worked as a graphic designer for a few years out of college. My loyalty has kind of stuck from there really as it's always been easier to use than a PC and for any kind of design work it really is the best out there for me.

Admittedly there isn't much difference now with Windows XP for the general usage but have you ever tried to design anything decent with the basic office package you get set up with work?? It just doesn't cut it and is now why my bosses (at my general admin kinda work I do now) have got me a mac to call upon my design skills. I now produce work in a quarter of the time that a PC and Word etc would normally take! At the end of the day I just guess it's a personal choice and for me the Mac's aesthetics are the icing on top of a yummy cake :D
posted by floanna at 2:15 PM on August 28, 2004

can you just click (or doubleclick) on desktop icons of docs and things and start working right away in Windows now? (last time i used one you had to go thru the menu) and welcome floanna...i guess new people are trickling in?
posted by amberglow at 2:30 PM on August 28, 2004

For me, the appeal of the Mac is a combination of aesthetics (they are so pretty) and stability -- my Mac crashes maybe three or four times a year, and it's almost three years old now. That's never the case with Windows PCs in my experience -- they'll crash three or four times per NIGHT.

Plus, I'm a rabid music fan, and iTunes has long been the best jukebox software to manage my collection with -- it was worth getting a Mac for long before it came out for Windows (I got my Mac, and my first iPod, back in the days of Mac-only exclusivity).
posted by logovisual at 3:13 PM on August 28, 2004

Oh, and when I needed to buy an external hard drive to accomodate my music, all I had to do was plug it in. Seriously. It worked immediately, with absolutely no setup -- I didn't even have to use a setup CD! One of my friends tried to do the same on his Windows machine and it took three days and two calls to customer service before it worked.
posted by logovisual at 3:14 PM on August 28, 2004

I'm generally enthusiastic about both the Windows platform and Apple's stuff now. .NET really is a step in the right direction, and since Win2k, windows really hasn't sucked.

But I still do find annoyances on Windows -- the various service packs and tweaks, weird unexplained disk paging/thrashing, memory leaks more common -- so the ship doesn't feel quite as solid to me. And then there's just this sense that Apple has taken time to put in extra courtesies and touches to make things right. The aesthetics aren't just frosting -- they're a sign that someone has really sat down and thought about user experience.

Also, the fact that Apple made UNIX easy to administrate just makes me in love. I do a lot of web development, and having a staging server on my laptop that is easy to administrate is a joy. I can focus on coding, rather than futzing about with my box, like I would (and did) under linux.

Finally, I do music stuff, and while Apple is sortof behind in bang for buck from processor power, they have taken and continue to take great pains to lay down great system underpinnings for MIDI and audio related applications.
posted by weston at 3:22 PM on August 28, 2004

Apple made UNIX easy to administrate

Oh boy. You should meet my boss :)

He has an X-Serve - a Unix that should supposedly be easy to administrate, seeing how it's Apple and all, right? Not so fast. OS X Server has completely non-compilant, non-text-based administration which requires a client Mac of a matching OS X version to run the administration console which will connect to the X-Serve. That's just about as dumb as server administration can get. He finally gave it to someone else who decided to install Linux on it. No more X-Serves for us, thank you.

Don't get me wrong, I love it how Apple integrated Unix into its desktop, and it's undoubtedly a leader in client OS innovation right now. The value of being able to combine all the power of Unix, OSS and Mac in one machine is incredible. But in the server room, Apple still has a long way to go - though shorter than Microsoft.

elwoodwiles, your response was so spectacularly dumb that I'm left speechless. How about improving the spirit of Metafilter and not posting when you don't have anything to contribute?
posted by azazello at 3:53 PM on August 28, 2004

Thanks amberglow - it took me a year or so but I got here in the end!
posted by floanna at 5:10 PM on August 28, 2004

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone. Including you, elwoodwiles. (azazello: Try decaf.)
posted by boredomjockey at 9:59 PM on August 28, 2004

One more plus: Garage Band. I know of nothing like this that comes bundled with a Windows OS. It was a pleasant surprise of a built-in feature when I finally made the move to OS X this year. I've gotten addicted to it.

Like this would just be sitting in an airport elevator, unattended?

It's funny you mention that, because I found a digital camera in an elevator, and this is exactly what was on it.
posted by soyjoy at 10:38 PM on August 28, 2004

They're so purty.

They're sleek and lovely and they purr along nicely.

iTunes is the best thing ever, besides the iPod.

They're smooth and curvy and fondle-able.

They come in colours!

I heart my iBook.

The End.
posted by jokeefe at 12:12 AM on August 29, 2004

weston and soyjoy (and anyone else who'd care to answer): I really did want a Mac this time around, but went with a PC because GarageBand's reputed to not be as good as Cool Edit. CE didn't come bundled, but it is only usable on PC, and everything I've seen in TapeOp and the like claims it to be midrange in terms of pricing and quality (above friendly and free GarageBand, below awesome and insanely expensive ProTools). Assuming this is so, is there talk about whether the G5 will have an enhanced version of GarageBand? That would definitely influence my purchasing decision next time.

(and hi floanna, just got here myself -- isn't it nice after lurking so long?)
posted by melissa may at 3:47 AM on August 29, 2004

can you just click (or doubleclick) on desktop icons of docs and things and start working right away in Windows now? (last time i used one you had to go thru the menu)

Not sure what you were using, amberglow, but you always could do that (unless Windows couldn't recognize the file format).
posted by pmurray63 at 8:51 AM on August 29, 2004

I like Macs because the whole net isn't trying to exploit their combination of crappy code and legions of clueless users.
posted by ulotrichous at 2:19 PM on August 29, 2004

Hoax! I take it all back. Hope you like the AppleCollection stuff, anyway.
posted by brownpau at 5:17 PM on August 29, 2004

melissa may, I've used Garage Band for recording basic tracks that have formed the basis for some pretty nice sound recordings. Obviously if you're doing something high-end you'll need a professional app, but for 95% of home musicians I think GB would do fine. I haven't tried Cool Edit, though. Let me stress that I probably wouldn't have gone out and bought or even downloaded Garage Band. It was just a cool extra in the desktop suite, and now I've come to really enjoy it.
posted by soyjoy at 6:45 PM on August 29, 2004

azazello, it's a joke, man, a joke. I guess I'm funnier in person.
posted by elwoodwiles at 7:15 PM on August 29, 2004

My powerbook reminds me of the weird and wonderfull home computers I used to use before the PC arrived, and turned everything to homogenous cream-gray shit.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 12:43 PM on August 30, 2004

ta-daa! some of the guesses were really really close.
posted by amberglow at 9:34 AM on August 31, 2004

I want one. I want one with the built in bluetooth and a wireless keyboard/mouse set. I want it really bad.
posted by elwoodwiles at 3:26 PM on August 31, 2004