Does Apple Want To Sell a $500 Mac?My guess is that Apple will be replacing the eMac, either at this month's Macworld Expo or in April or May, the same time frame each version of the eMac was announced. And I think Apple may finally move away from built-in CRT displays. Here's my guess.
by Dan Knight
2005.01.03
The headless eMac will be called an eMac plain and simple. It will still use a G4 CPU, but it will also be faster - 1.5 GHz on the top, and 1.25 GHz on the lower-cost entry-level models.
It will probably continue to use IDE hard drives; there's no reason to switch to Serial ATA drives on a consumer computer right now. (That could change as economies of scale kick in with more widespread Serial ATA adoption.) I'd guess Apple will use the least expensive (slowest, lowest capacity) drives they can get and still market, so 40 GB might still be the entry point.
I have a different prediction - the eMac will be upgraded to the G5 processor. It will be a more powerful computer that the $499 model, and the all-in-one design will continue to be popular in schools, computer labs, offices and homes.