Apple Store offline. New iMacs today? – update
It's 4 a.m. and the Apple Store has disappeared. Could this be the day the new iMacs appear?
[UPDATE: False alarm. By 4:45 a.m., the store was back online. Reader Pierre in Montreal spotted a new version of FileMaker's Bento, which appeared to be the only change.]
Talk that Apple (AAPL) was preparing to refresh its best-selling desktop computer line has been building for months, and on Thursday AppleInsider's Kasper Jade reported that the new machines had already been rolling off Taiwanese assembly lines for roughly two weeks.
According to Jade's report, the new iMacs — the "most versatile ever" — will have:
- More affordable pricing, subsidized to some extent by the iPhone's extraordinary profit margins
- Thinner industrial design, possibly patterned after the 24" LED Cinema Display Apple introduced last October.
- Blu-ray support, despite Steve Jobs' characterization of the high-def video technology's licensing issues as a "bag of hurt"
- New features catering to the "semi-professional audio/video crowd," including, according to the French site Mac4Ever, a built-in SD camera card reader
The iMac line is certainly due for some attention. According to MacRumors' Buyer's Guide, Apple refreshes its desktop line on average every 220 days. It's been 210 days since Apple did anything new with the iMac, and that was a routine upgrade of memory, storage and graphics capability.
"An announcement could come anytime between next week and mid-October," AppleInsider wrote last week. "Put simply, it's up to marketing to press the 'Go' button."
"…it's up to marketing to press the 'Go' button."
Then for thousands of fanbo… er, buyers, to press the fool… er, "buy" button.
"More affordable pricing, subsidized to some extent by the iPhone's extraordinary profit margins."
I've seen this line many times over, but what does it mean?
Are the iMacs to be sold below cost of manufacturing and distribution?
Are they cheaper than before for the same/higher configuration?
Is the percentage of profit lower than the previous model, is that adjusted for greater quantity sold that they may generate?
It seems odd–really odd–that apple has to shut the store down to modify one item? Nobody else's e-commerce site is that clunky…
It seems odd–really odd–that Apple has to shut the store down to modify one item? Nobody else's e-commerce site is that clunky…
And changes to nobody else's e-commerce site generates the buzz that Apple's does. Maybe it's a defect by design. Or operational practice.
How much do you figure this article is worth, as free publicity? Apple is the master of that.