Seeking to burnish its somewhat dulled image as the industry’s leading innovator – almost all its efforts of late have been going into shaving costs to compete in the cut-throat mass market dominated by no-margin Windows machines – Apple Computer Inc is working on a new line of value-added or Sharper Image Macintoshes for the medium term – 1995, MacWeek reports. The paper says that Apple is looking to combine audiovisual technologies with new display and input devices to create machines that can be said to be truly different. A Mac code-named Pomona is expected to appear as a mid-performance desktop machine with improved ergonomics – a computer that wouldn’t look out of place on the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation, one source suggested to the paper. It will be aimed at executives, doctors, lawyers and those with home offices who want a machine that will grace rather than jar with the furnishings. Pomona will come in three pieces: a 10.4 colour active-matrix LCD display with stereo speakers; a CPU in the new ultra-slim case; and a cordless infra-red keyboard and mouse, and Apple is working on making it serve as a television, a radio, a telephone with answering machine and a compact disk player in addition to being a computer. It is also intended to have a built-in microphone and video camera for video teleconferencing, and may have a new touch-pad input device. The company also intends to use widely-used components so that it can price the machine as the successor to the Classic II, although using an active matrix colour display may make that hard. In addition to Pomona, several styles and colours of designer Macintoshes are also being considered, the paper hears.
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