Any real reason Apple solders video cards into iMacs?

they don't solder a card onto the motherboard; they build a chip set into the motherboard because it's cheaper for them and they need all the space they can get in that tight enclosure, especially without a fan. A 'card' would use a lot more power. Steve doesn't like that.

[quote]Originally posted by MacAddict:
<strong>And isn't having upgradable system components just too un-Apple like?

:) </strong><hr></blockquote>

Yep, definately is un-Apple like.

Eugene, that might not be true. So many people have iMacs that maybe a company would think it would be a good investment to make specific cards for iMacs.

Yep, the Rev. A and Rev. B iMacs would take an 8MB Voodoo 2 in the mezzanine slot, but Apple dumped the slot with the Rev. C iMacs.

Plus, the company that made the cards, Microconversions, went bankrupt because people would buy the PC Cards and use Microconversions drivers for them.

[quote]Originally posted by Eugene:
<strong>Because the iMac design wouldn't fit an upgrade card anyway. There's a dearth of developers making normal PCI and AGP upgrade cards for Macs as it is...there's not much of a chance they'd make a special card that would fit some proprietary physical size spec needed in an iMac.</strong><hr></blockquote>

that's not true. if apple wanted to they could easily implement a 7 inch AGP slot into the iMac design. I mean even the 20th anniversray mac had a 7 inch PCI slot in it.

the reason(s) likey is
1.) Steve Jobs thinks the imac should offer everything out of the box and should never need to be opened. this is why there is no internal expansion on the first mac
2.) by keeping the imac feature set closed and not open to changes by the user developers know what they have to use use and meet the requirements of.