The marketing team at the Fruity cargo cult Apple has just announced a cheap and cheerful box which is designed for those who cannot afford Jobs’ Mobs’ more pricey offerings. 

Clearly Apple is still wrestling with this concept, but it has a long way to go before the world “budget” will actually mean something. The price of a new iMac will be $1,099 which is $200 cheaper than the previous lowest spec machine, but a long way to go before it will be considered “cheap.”

The chip is a dual-core 1.4GHz Intel Core i5 processor and a 500GB hard drive. In comparison, the $1,299 flavor comes with a quad-core 2.7GHz Core i5 CPU and double the hard drive space. It is not as if Apple is providing you with the same spec at a cheaper price. But hell we would not expect that.

However it still won't be as cheap as Windows-based all-in-one PCs, with a similar spec. We saw some going for about £550 and you do not have to buy into the Apple walled garden. Apple is hoping that its lower-priced version of Apple's iMac will do well in the back-to-school market. We can’t see why any kid would want a computer that slow or any parent pay that much for it.

Graphics wise the thing is also rubbish. It actually uses use of Intel HD Graphics 5000, whereas the $1,299 system uses Intel's superior Iris Pro Graphics. Still not as good as having a proper graphics card though.