An interesting old Apple logo made with fruits.
Even though Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO is still recovering from health problems, Apple is not sleeping on its laurels. Yesterday morning, Apple released a slew of new products, including long-awaited updates to its iMac, Mac mini and Mac Pro lines of personal computers.
The iMac, “The all-in-one-for-everyone”, will hit the streets with different flavors:
- A 20-inch version featuring a 2.66 GHz processor and 2 gigabytes of memory now starts at $1,199.
- A 24-inch version ($1,499) comes with 4GB of memory and up to 1 terabyte of hard-drive space.
- A fully tricked-out iMac—upgradeable to 8GB of memory—now runs well over $3,000.
All iMacs come with a built-in video camera, speakers and wireless-N networking.
Apple unveiled a long-rumored update to the Mac Mini, a petite computer sold without a monitor, keyboard or mouse. The company’s cheapest computer, at $599, was updated with a faster graphics processor and the ability to run more than one monitor at a time. In a press release, Apple also promoted the Mini’s energy efficiency and said it draws less than 13 watts of power when idle, or about one-tenth the power of a typical machine.
The company also overhauled its professional-grade work horse, the Mac Pro, with a quad-core processor from Intel Corp., while cutting its price by $300 to $2,499. An eight-core version starts at $3,299.
Apple has long focused on selling higher-end computers to consumers willing to pay extra for beautiful design. To date, Apple has made few concessions to the global economic crisis that’s crimping consumer spending, and strong sales overseas during the holiday quarter helped offset a slower shopping season in the United States.
And so far, Apple has stayed away from the one fast-growing PC category, netbooks, or cheap, low-powered notebooks that have been a hit with recession-bitten consumers. Those machines start well below $300.
Will Apple continue its unbeatable path coughing out new products during these uncertain times? Who knows? Good Day.
