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Artemis Has Landed (3/31/98)
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Apple officially announced the Power Macintosh All-In-One today (the Mac Formerly Known As Artemis), sooner than we had expected, but later than we had originally hoped. The good news is, pretty much all of the rumors about its specs have proven true: it's got a 233 or 266 MHz G3 chip (a full 750 with 512 KB backside cache, not the cacheless 740 model); it's got an integrated 15-inch monitor capable of displaying 1024x768 resolution; and it'll ship standard with 32 MB of RAM, a 24x CD-ROM drive, and a 4 GB (not 2 GB) hard drive. You can read more about it in Apple's press release, and MacCentral's Dennis Sellers has a truly excellent profile of this cheery new addition to the Mac product line.
Yes, the AIO looks like a real winner, and in fact we've only got two gripes about it, and neither of them is a particularly fair criticism. First of all, it's currently only available through educational sales channels, which leaves your friendly neighborhood AtAT staff out in the cold, staring through the shop window and drooling into the snow. But the schools deserve first crack at this kick-butt configuration, and in fact, it was designed expressly for educational use-- little features like safety-conscious rounded corners and dual front-mounted headphone jacks (so two students can share one Mac) make this plainly obvious. Nice to see that when Steve announced Apple's intention to focus on the educational market, he wasn't just blowing smoke.
The other gripe is simply the price. Interestingly, Apple included no price information in their press information about the AIO, as if to try and draw attention away from the fact that it's not the sub-$1000 system everyone's been waiting for. A Newsbytes article quotes an Apple spokesperson as saying that the AIO is a $1499 system, though. And while that's a great price for a complete system that'll beat out a 300 MHz Pentium II, we've got to wonder about schools who'll have to choose between the $1499 AIO and a $899 complete Pentium-class Wintel system, for instance. Here's hoping that the superior design of the AIO and Apple's long-standing commitment to the education market tips the scales in Apple's favor.
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SceneLink (584)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 3/31/98 episode: March 31, 1998: Artemis has arrived, and not a minute too soon-- the flashy toothlike beast aims to do some damage in the educational market. Meanwhile, the mad geeks chained to their desks in Apple's labs continue to try to squeeze the Artemis down to a $1000 level, and Boca beats Apple to the Global Village checkout counter...
Other scenes from that episode: 585: Already Waiting for AIO 2 (3/31/98) Or, there's also the possibility posted by Mac OS Rumors that the AIO will include a sub-$1000 configuration after all. Recall, if you will, that Apple's currently working on the educational version of its online build-to-order Apple Store... 586: GV Sheds Its Modems (3/31/98) So much for rumors about Apple buying Global Village-- turns out Boca bought them instead. For a measly $10 mil, Boca gets all of Global Village's modem business, including the brand name and logo. Details are in a Reuters story. After the transfer of its modem business to Boca, the Company Formerly Known As Global Village will re-emerge with a new name and a new stock ticker symbol, at which point they'll leap feet first into marketing their new product: a communications server designed for small businesses which provides fax, internet, and remote access services...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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