The advent of the Intel based Mac has changed Apple’s product lines drastically especially the type of products the company can create. The Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Extreme, Xeon and Pentium M (used in the Apple TV) already provide a flexible base to create a wide range of products aimed at consumers through to professionals.

Apple’s product range already utilises a multitude of these technologies including their low end computer that is hard to upgrade and impossible to update the graphics, continues to produce the all in one computer that helped the company return to profitability but is difficult to upgrade and becomes a throw away item if you need a larger display and then there is the professional Mac Pro workstation that now has 8 cores across much of the line and is upgradable in every way. As it stands there is a huge gap in the product line between the Mac mini and the Mac Pro when you take the all in one out of the equation.

Is it time for Apple to reintroduce a cube-like computer that allows for a limited amount of expandability and caters for people who may want to hook up external displays? Intel’s processors are so varied that such a product would be easily created and could compliment the 24″ iMac and fit below the low end Mac Pro. The product would have to be positioned below the entry level Mac Pro but somewhere above the mid range iMac to ensure the product does not overlap the Mac mini and Mac Pro as to avoid a repeat where the G4 Cube was priced higher than the low end Power Mac.

Possible configurations could include a Core 2 Duo clocked at 2.4GHz similar to the 24″ iMac or a Core 2 Extreme version. The addition of upgradable PCIe graphics would enable the computer to drive Apple’s 30″ display and cater for upgrades in the future as previous cube owners have enjoyed. Priced at US$1599 and US$2099 the new cube would still reflect value for the iMac and it’s built-in display and the cube with it’s expandability. Using the Core 2 Extreme processor will keep the product separate from the Mac Pro, while offering customers a mid range option beyond those offered in Apple’s existing computer lines.

Apple has had some bad experiences from their previous forays into a mid range product with the failure of the G4 Cube, and the poor sales of the single processor Power Mac G5 but only because the products sweet spot has not been found. Creating a product that mirrors the 24″ iMac’s but adds expandability and maintains a relative price point could be the spot Apple needs to find in order to exploit another part of the personal computing market.

Suggested reading: Origin of the mid ranged Mac: the G4 Cube and Power Mac G5 SP

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 12th, 2008 at 9:07 am and is filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.