Where’s the Mac?

There’s a huge, gaping hole in Apple’s lineup between the iMac/Mac mini and the Mac Pro. Most of the market, both home and work, buy something in between, but Apple still doesn’t offer it. They missed their chance, again, yesterday. We don’t want to buy Dells - bring back the Mac![...] Thanks to onethumb for providing this nice story on Digg (more than 1739Diggs).

What other users say about this:

Kmfan: MAC does not give their customers good options on purchasing their products. Dell has a decent payment plan, but MAC does not.

simmux: My take: if you buy an iMac and then change it you don’t “throw away the monitor”. You change it too.

If you need more than 24″ of display and can afford it then you can afford a MacPro.

If you need to play games you don’t need a Mac. You need a console or a PC. Nothing wrong with buying one of the two instead of a Mac.

If you need a computer then you need a Mac. And the iMac is an excellent bargain.

techmaster7b: Actually, you have a problem if you want to buy a mac. Why are you even on the internet anyway? You should not be allowed.

macgurrl: Perhaps Apple just wants us to shell out money for a new computer every 5 years or so, when all the hardware begins to break. I have imac with a perfectly good monitor, and I know any day now, the motherboard will break, and I’ll be left with a perfectly good screen, that I can’t do anything with.

ifknot: Wow I bet Steve Jobs is reading this just now and thinking “hmmm yeah! these guys are so right get me the r&d dept” as an informal poll digg me up if your agree, digg me down if you don’t

jydesign: Where’s the “Mac Shuffle”? - I also see an opportunity for a lowest-end Mac, something wimpier than the Mac Mini. I’d call this the Mac Shuffle, it would have 256MB of RAM, run the stripped down version of OSX found on the iPhone, and rather than let you choose what application you want, it would randomly present you with an app. Turn it on, and hey you are going to IM today! (of course you could ’skip’ to the next random program, or go thru app in alpha order). It would be the perfect cheap computer for those with short attention spans! You’d need to bring your own: monitor, keyboard, mouse; power cord.

I’m kidding of course, and would also like to see a Mac that’s not as kickass as the Mac Pro, but better than the iMac or Mini. I already have a Cinema display, don’t necessarily need a Mac Pro, and a Mini ain’t enough - so this premise while not unique is spot on.

qwerty69: My one thought about the iMac has always been to wonder why it does not have Video in???

I have a friend who has a 17″ iMac G4 and although it’s good for most things he does he would see quite a performance increase if he upgraded to Core 2Duo.

Why can he not buy a Mac Mini and hook it in to the iMac’s display?????

ryanwarnersteel: Why has no one mentioned that which apparently must not be named….. Sell a MacOS that is compatible with a computer that you build yourself.

Anndruh: On my freshman dorm floor (2003-2004), over half the kids (40) all got the same “back to school” Dell laptop. By the end of the first semester, over half of THOSE (23!!!!!) had fried. The craptastic fans weren’t cooling the computer down and therefore the motherboards cooked.

I guess you could use the overheated piece of plastic and metal to reheat your ramen noodles…

Skidmark66: oh this is stupid, bury me . .

djalam: MAC’s are for mentally challenged people who thing windows is too hard for them to use…the same exact people buy iphones because “smart phone” are too hard for them to use where as smart phones are alot better with better featers

figshta: So true that I want to Digg it twice! I was hoping to the “Mac” would be released back when the G5 was about to go Intel… But all we got was the Mac Pro.

iamlutheran: I e-mailed Steve Jobs about this a long time ago. Apple needs to wake up and realise that some people want more power than a Mac mini but not as much as the Mac Pro. A mid-tower case would be cool, sort of like the Mac Pro. The thing would sell like hotcakes IMO.

NeoRicen: The market for a >iMac

nickthedude: yeah bring back the 7,000 different models of performas!