Apple Inc. this week confirmed a stay of execution for its previous-generation 17-iMac all-in-one desktop, which will remain available for order and purchase by educational institutions. Meanwhile, several other tidbits regarding the company's latest hardware introductions have surfaced.
In a note to channel partners this week, Apple said that its late-2006 17-inch iMac will remain available for educational institutions indefinitely, confirming earlier speculation on the matter.
Only authorized schools and universities may purchase the $899 white-clad systems, however, meaning that students will remain restricted in their purchase options to the firm's latest 20- and 24-inch aluminum models (with educational discounts).
The 17-inch educational iMac remains unchanged from last year and will continue pack a 1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 2MB shared L2 cache, 512MB memory, 160GB Serial ATA hard drive, 24x Combo drive, and an Intel GMA 950 graphics processor with 64MB of DDR2 memory.
Mighty Mouse gets its tail trimmed
Meanwhile, Apple also confirmed that it is shipping a slightly modified Mighty Mouse alongside its new aluminum iMacs. Although the mouse appears visually the same, its side buttons are colored white and its cord is significantly shorter than previous versions.
In order to reduce desktop clutter, the new iMacs ship with a Mighty Mouse whose cord has been trimmed from 30 inches down to 18.5 inches, Apple said. At this time, it appears that the only way to obtain the revised mouse is by purchasing one of the new iMacs. The retail version of the Mighty Mouse maintains the longer cord.
iMac retail configs with wireless package
Apple in recent days has also informed members of its retail team that it will soon begin offering special iMac retail configurations that will be available with wireless versions of the Apple Mighty Mouse and Apple Keyboard.
These retail-only configurations will be available exclusively from Apple stores once the company starts manufacturing its new wireless keyboard. Although announced along side the new iMacs earlier this month, the wireless keyboard has yet to ship. Checks with the Apple online store continue to reflect lead times of 4- 6 weeks for the peripheral, which should be available for the holiday rush.
Existing iMac retail configurations ship with wired versions of the Apple Mighty Mouse and Keyboard.
Mac mini
Separately, Apple this week also informed channel partners that its latest 'refresh' to the Mac mini includes more memory, larger hard drives and Core 2 Duo processors, but otherwise saw no developmental changes from the models introduced a year ago.
The mini, which is believed to be ailing, saw no changes to its Intel GMA 950 graphics controller and AirPort Extreme 802.11 wireless support, which remains limited to just 802.11g.
"Apple does not provide a solution for upgrading the Mac mini to 802.11n," the company said in a separate note to partners.
49 Comments
I wish they would hurry up and release a NEW mouse because the current offering is quite unsatisfactory.
Primarily my complaint is, the scroll ball is always getting clogged up with dust and there is no suitable way to clean it other than turning it upside down and violently scratching across a clean cloth surface such as your jeans. It is worse than the old days of track ball mice.
Secondly, the side buttons are constantly triggering when least expected - right when I'm concentrating on cutting a path around an image in Photoshop. An actual right button not withstanding, the whole thing is quite inferior to even Microsoft's mouse.
Huh? I was pretty sure Mighty Mouse tail was really short already? Certainly less than 30 inches...
The mini, which is believed to be ailing...
I cannot understand why anyone would want to cancel the Mac mini.
The iMac is nice and all, but face it: it forces you to throw away your beautiful display when you scrap your computer. Or worse, if your display goes bad, your computer is junk.
For home buyers, the iMac makes a nice package, but for business buyers who don't need the stunning overkill horsepower of the Mac Pro, the Mac mini is an ideal computer.
It fits wonderfully in the smallest cubicle, it has an attractive pricepoint, it is feature-rich (making the lack of expansion slots irrelevant), it is quiet, it is easily transported, and it drives both DVI and VGA.
I buy nothing but Mac minis for my company's desktop computers. If Apple were to discontinue the mini, they would be scrapping any chance they have of getting a better foothold in any market other than home, graphics, and audio. And if they discontinued it... I would keep buying them from second-hand channels.
I read the whole AI article on why Apple would want to discontinue the mini, and it is not at all compelling. Just because they don't hype their low-end, low-margin, low-wow-factor machine doesn't mean that they intend to kill it. Will they also kill the iPod Shuffle then?
I cannot understand why anyone would want to cancel the Mac mini.
We don't know that anyone does, but we do know that AppleInsider is trying to save face since he was completely wrong about the Mini's demise.
Huh? I was pretty sure Mighty Mouse tail was really short already? Certainly less than 30 inches...
Yes--but apple's mighty mouse has quite a longer tail than the cartoon