The Mac Set

Archive 3

Something Significant Impending

10 September 1999.

From today's MacOSRumors:

All things being equal (which, granted, they rarely are), the evidence would seem to point to something significant occuring at Apple Expo France next week. There would be little reason for Apple Europe's intensive and costly efforts to get the major Mac players from the region to attend -- some even having their travel expenses paid for them -- otherwise.

The Apple Expo 99 is aimed more at the home market, whereas Seybold was aimed at the commercial market - a natural event to have announced the G4s. In other words, expect something big regarding iMacs at Apple Expo.

Sincere Flattery

10 September 1999.

Longtime ianman efriend Hedge has been so impressed with some of the Mac Set material that he's reproduced it at his own site (and in a fresh new style of his own). Take a look. Also worth a look is his own Mac Rave page.

Sim City 3000

16 September, 1999.

From Apple's Hot News section comes the following, showing the importance of Apple to computer gaming:

SimCity started on the Mac, notes Tim LeTourneau, associate producer at Maxis, the division of Electronic Arts that created the game back in 1993.

"I know Mac users had to wait a little longer than expected to get SimCity 3000, and we wanted to do something special for them," he says. "Given the ability to to put new landmarks in the game via a download, we figured it was the perfect way to give Mac users something no one else had. Apple's developer relations group was really supportive, and got us inside to take some pictures of the Apple Campus. Apply some artistic talent and, voila, the Apple Campus Landmark was born. Everyone who's seen it thinks it looks awesome, and I'm really psyched to be able to give this to the Mac users."

And the cursors are 32 bit colour as well (but black and white on the PC version.)

Quotes

21 September 1999.

"We are very disappointed that this quarter's deliveries of G4 processors will be lower than planned."

Fred Anderson, Apple CFO.

Great shame. Motorola not doing their job well enough for the demand:

"Apple has received orders for over 150,000 Power Mac G4s since the product was announced three weeks ago, and we regret that we will not be able to ship them all this quarter. This is a temporary issue, and we hope to catch up early in the coming quarter."

Steve Jobs, Apple's interim CEO.

PS. Just so you don't forget, The Hobbit was first published 62 years ago today.

iMac Update

27 September 1999.

Some folks may have been disappointed that the new model of iMac wasn't announced at Apple Expo 99 in Paris. In hindsight, perhaps it was a little soon after the announcement of the professional G4 line. It's also possible that they simply want to wait until they know when MacOS 9 will be ready, which they naturally want to ship with the new iMac.

However, this really works in our favour, because the longer Apple delays it, the better the announcement is likely to be - they will have had more time to amalgamate G4 technology, for example.

But how soon will the announcement be? Consider that the Apple Store was selling blue and white G3s with free extra RAM in the few weeks before the G4s were announced. For several weeks iMacs have been selling from the Apple Store bundled with a scanner. Quote Apple:

Tomorrow, September 24, is the last day you can get an Epson Perfection 636U flatbed scanner for just $64 if you purchase an iMac (any flavor) with additional memory directly from the Apple Store.

Also, Apple retailers in the States have been recently warned to get rid of remaining 333MHz iMac stocks. And from Apple developer info we have it about as officially as it can get without Steve Jobs saying it:

iMac information

Works with iMac

The Works with iMac sticker program has been discontinued as of September 14, 1999. Qualified hardware peripherals manufacturers can demonstrate hardware compatibility with iMac by using an appropriate technology logo, such as "Mac," "FireWire," or "USB."

Choose which Logo or Logos will best suit your needs:
Mac Logo
FireWire Logo
USB Logo

... with links to those logos. Yes, it will be very soon now. Another source claims a definite date two weeks away, event unknown. And just so you salivate even more, its DVD drive is rumoured to be trayless - just a slot, as seen in car players.

FireWire DVD iMac, here we come.

Web Inventor

28 September 1999.

From the Chicago Tribune article You Can Call Me Timmy But Don't Call Me Al by James Coates dated 27 September 1999:

Although Vice President Al Gore didn't invent the Internet after all, nobody denies that a computer wiz named Tim Berners-Lee really did invent the World Wide Web. His new book, "Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Its Inventor" ($26, Harper San Francisco) opens with the confession that Berners-Lee's original motive for creating what now is a multibillion-dollar industry was to justify purchasing one of the killer $10,000 NeXT personal computers from Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs that were huge geek status symbols back in the early 1990s.

Note that Steve Jobs was not then iCEO of Apple.

iMac

28 September 1999.

Think Justified Censorship

(Sorry, the above pic is corrupted but may still display in your browser.)

At Apple's Request

29 September 1999.

At Apple's request, all those rumour sites that had the photos of the new iMac have removed them. (Please note that The Mac Set is not officially a rumour site. And Apple doesn't know about me. :-)

My favourite MacOSRumors posted this note:

Editor's note: Our English translation of the Macnews.de page containing images of the C2 iMac has been removed at Apple's request, as has the original page on Macnews.de's site. Because MOSR is here to build the platform -- a purpose that doesn't always line up perfectly with Apple's wishes, but can scarcely run entirely perpendicular to them, either -- we have chosen to consistently cooperate when Apple makes these types of requests. What do you think? Does this policy make sense to you? Let us know!

At Apple Insider, they still have the articles but all the photos now look like scaled variations of this rather more strongly worded "request":

Gripes

15 October 1999.

Every so often I suppose that any good company will get its fair share of gripes - we live in an imperfect world, after all. This first one (from an article at Low End Mac) can at least partially be attributed to an earthquake in Taiwan.

Mac OS 9 requires 32 MB of physical RAM and 40 MB of logical RAM. Apple has been selling iMacs with only 32 MB since August 15, 1998 until the new model was announced on October 5. They are still selling iBooks with 32 MB of RAM. If this is anything like the System 7 release (it will run on a 2 MB system, but if you want to do anything, you need at least 4 MB), buying OS 9 will mean memory upgrades for a lot of users - at a time when RAM prices are at an extremely high point.

That's not the worst problem, though. Due to Motorola not being able to supply enough G4 CPUs Apple has announced that it is downgrading its entire G4 product line by 50MHz - without reducing the price! The much-desired 500MHz G4s are now not expected until the beginning of next year. Also, they have cancelled all outstanding backorders for G4 systems. These things have naturally not gone down well with Apple customers, so they are doing a quick reconsider and will announce something in the next day or two.

On the more hopeful side, to increase availability of G4s Apple has just announced a deal for IBM to supply more G4s than Motorola could alone.

Backorder Update

17 October 1999.

Dear Valued Apple Store Customer,

Yesterday the Apple Store decided to cancel all G4 orders placed before October 13. After a good night's sleep and digesting emails from many upset customers, we have decided to reverse this decision. Please give us an opportunity to reinstate your order.

If you ordered a Power Mac G4 configured with a 400 MHz or 450 MHz processor prior to October 13, we will honor the original price quoted for your order.

If you ordered a Power Mac G4 configured with a 500 MHz processor prior to October 13, you can choose either the same configuration with a 450 MHz processor at $350 less than your original order price, or you may substitute any other configuration with a 450 MHz processor at the original prices in effect before October 13.

Please call us at the Apple Store at 800-MY-APPLE for assistance in reinstating your original order. We apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused you.

Sincerely,

The Apple Store

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