Wil Shipley writes a rumour-starter that the iMac is due to be EOL’ed this year. In the interests of getting this started, let’s examine it.
When the Apple Product Matrix was young, it made sense to have an iMac. It fit – showing the product as a friendly consumer-oriented device:
Powerbook
PowerMac
iMac
iBook
Everything else has gone through a rebranding exercise. The PowerMac has become the Mac Pro. The Powerbook, the awkward MacBook Pro. The iBook retired as well in favour of the MacBook. The Mac moniker comes first – it’s a deliberate reinforcement of the Mac brand certainly in areas where it was missing completely (Powerbook, iBook).
So what of the iMac
I think that in a world where Apple has rebranded again, it might be worthwhile wondering where the “Mac” went. We have the MacBook Pro and the MacBook. We have the Mac Pro and then we have the …. Mac mini and iMac.
What I’d like would be for Apple to keep the current lineup and complement the Mac mini with a MacBook mini (something analogous to Sony’s TX-series subnotes) or even the new Metro concept design from Intel.
What Apple will do?