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Mezz Has Left the Building (1/6/99)
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Let's recap: the new iMacs cost $100 less, have a slightly faster processor, a bigger hard disk, and come in five colors. Sounds like a solid upgrade, right? Except that what Apple's not shouting from the rooftops is that the "iMac 266" is actually missing a couple of things found in the "classic" iMacs. (Hey, that price drop had to come from somewhere.
First on the cut list is IrDA support. A lot of people forget that this was ever even a feature in the iMac, because it's not terribly useful right now; since the IrDA port is on the front of the iMac, building an infrared link between your iMac and a PowerBook requires holding the PowerBook up in front of the iMac, which is awkward at best. And don't even think about using an infrared-capable printer, because the positioning would require that you wear the printer strapped to your chest-- again, not optimal from an ergonomic point of view. Apple is apparently of the same opinion, since a TechNote states that IrDA support was dropped in the iMac 266 because Apple is focusing on USB as the connectivity method of choice. So our dreams of a wirelessly-syncronizing MacMate palmtop are dashed upon the rocks of cost-cutting reality. Boo-hoo for us.
Much more troubling, though, is another TechNote which states that the Mezzanine card slot on the iMac's motherboard has vanished in the new iMac 266. The Mezzanine slot was based on PCI, and therefore several companies have announced Mezzanine products which expand the iMac's capabilities in various and sundry ways; you could add SCSI, for instance, or a super-fast Voodoo 2 3D gaming card. I guess now we all know why Apple was so adamant about telling developers that they shouldn't plan any products around the Mezzanine slot; hopefully those companies who have Mezzanine products can at least break even by selling to the more than 800,000 Mezzanine-equipped iMacs already sold. All of this means that those of you who bought a revision B iMac over the holidays only to be faced with the speed bump/price drop announced earlier this week, your funky blue guy has a couple of features that the iMac 266 doesn't. Granted, they aren't features very many people would ever use, but isn't it a consolation that there are things your iMac can do that the new iMacs can't?
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SceneLink (1251)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 1/6/99 episode: January 6, 1999: Brace yourself, because it looks like an iMac price war is looming on the horizon. Meanwhile, the new iMacs underwent a little surgery before hitting the runway, and the P1's design is still way up in the air...
Other scenes from that episode: 1250: Fire At Will! (1/6/99) If you'd have asked us yesterday, we would have told you that now is absolutely, positively, no-questions-asked the best possible time to buy an iMac. After all, the processor speed's been bumped up slightly, the disk capacity's been expanded by 50%, and the price has dropped $100... 1252: Have It Your Way (1/6/99) Sometimes it's easy to forget just how much a product can change during its development cycle. Take a look at Yosemite, for instance, and note the number of features that differ from earlier prototypes described on the web: it's iMac-colored instead of dark blue, it has no AGP slot, it has no IrDA port, there's no media bay that allows the swapping of modules with PowerBooks, etc...
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