27-inch iMac gets a major update
apple.com
apple.com
I’d also speculate this means iMac won’t be the first computer getting Apple Silicon. I wonder if it will be the last?
What’s the consensus guess now? Perhaps a new MacBook Air with good performance but the real “breakthrough” is > 12 hours battery life?
They are fanless and have a 5W thermal envelope, which fits in with the current A12X too.
The major criticisms of the design at the time was: Butterfly keyboard, the Single USB-C port and the speed of the device (Intel CORE-M is truly, truly painful). But for a $600-$700 machine with an ARM CPU? that's insanely competitive, and is in-line with the "basic" macbook branding.
I have a GPD P2 Max[0] which also has 16GiB of ram and a Intel Core m3-8100Y...
Not to brag but my CPU does seem to bench higher[1][2], and for me it can be painfully slow at times.. Though perhaps the OS is doing me no favours (Sway+Arch/Chromium)
[1]: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i7-7Y75-vs-Intel-...
[2]: https://askgeek.io/en/cpus/vs/Intel_Core-m3-8100Y-vs-Intel_C...
My office PC is a very generously specced desktop, but for user interaction tasks like coding, browsing etc there is no appreciable difference with MB12.
Am no stranger to bizarre setups. Have used remote shell on Palm PDA with foldout keyboard over IRDA via cellphone GSM modem; now this was cumbersome setup. Had Agenda VR3 Linux PDA and coded on it. It's really comfy with mb12 now tho and I like network independence.
I code on the planes all the time, somehow it's really easy to get in the flow. So I like how this setup works on the foldout tray and without network to count on. Doing tons of field work too. In late January had to code for 6 hours with my ass on a tunnel tarmac north of Trondheim. Though of course most of the time I work within network range.
It's still a workaround - possibly the most basic one for any kind of thin client there is. I want a consistent IDE as well and right now, you can't run vscode properly on an iPad.
I'm still hopeful that future apple silicon macs will be able to do local development with more grunt than current macs. I guess we'll see.
And yes, for doing development on the iPad basically everything is a workaround, but that doesn’t automatically make it worthless. Neither does the fact that it’s basic. I don’t get your criticism.
With your rational, I could do development on my phone as a thin client.
Yes. But it’s not getting in the way that much.
code-server is exactly what you were asking for, an IDE on iPad. You’re moving the goalposts here and not even specifying why and where to.
> With your rational, I could do development on my phone as a thin client.
No. You’re taking my argument ad absurdum. I’m saying the tradeoff isn’t that bad on iPad. That says nothing about phones.
That also means there's literally zero difference running VS Code in the browser vs. the electron app save for the browser toolbar (which Safari hides if you add a bookmark to the homescreen, which also nets you an app icon. At that point this "workaround" gives you exactly the same experience as a native app. Not sure what issues you're still seeing there.)
I'm talking about local vs remote development. Can you even spin up a webserver on an ipad to run codeserver? Or does it rely on an external webserver to run and build your application.
If you know what a thin client is, then you're effectively describing that for an iPad. Anything is a thin client - even your phone.
Until we live in a remote first world with everything built with that experience, you're just describing another type of platform like this: https://gitpod.io/#https://github.com/eclipse-theia/theia
Except you've made it a DIY thing and claiming that it's a the solution for doing development on an iPad which is clearly false.
Why not? You're basically claiming that solely because it's remote it's completely unfit for development purposes. That doesn't really make sense to me. Especially with VS Code being an Electron app the browser version is equivalent to the desktop app.
Just to be clear, I totally concede that there are certain tasks where you do run into limitations, e.g. handling files is rather a PITA, but other tasks like plain coding are perfectly fine. And if you can save the former type of work for your PC then an iPad plus code-server is actually not going to cause you any trouble with workarounds.
Everything on iPadOS just seems more refined, more fluid and more fun than on MacOS. Everything from 120 Hz display, to instant waking from sleep, to battery life that is actually consistent. The overall user experience just seems lightyears ahead of the Mac, assuming your workflows are compatible with the software limitations.
iPadOS is indeed more refined, but not all of it - there's a fair number of very specific things that are a total PITA on the iPad but a breeze on my desktop Mac. That makes doing serious work on the iPad a little challenging, though it's still possible, but for most serious work I still use the desktop. But for almost anything else, I prefer the iPad's mobility and UX. It's the best drawing tablet, ebook reader, web browsing and netflix machine I've ever had, all in one.
2yrs ago, my screen used to flicker. I contacted everyone and they said 'change motherboard' and Mac support people were like buy a new laptop. so I kept the laptop in cupboard for a few months and I open it to check if it works, had decided to sell it and buy a new one and viola, it was working perfectly fine.
~5yrs with no issues.
Exactly my point. The funny thing is, I bought the 2012 model at half the price of the new models and I have 0 complaints about it. No fancy keyboard issue, no fancy thermal issue. Nothing.
and to think that since then, they've made more problems than laptops!
They really don't make them like they used to. I just want a better battery backup that's it. I get 6-8hrs because I did a lot of research about how Li batteries drain (it is best if you do not let it drain below 50% because Li batteries' lifecycle depends on the high-low charge discharge cycles so if you keep discharging battery to 0% then you're scrwed in a few years)
I'll buy the 2012 model again, if this one dies out, but won't ever buy the latest models.
That said, the current Airs are still pretty weak on processing power and if they're not going to juice them up then a middle option would be welcome. Plus it would be a good proving ground to launch ARM with a model that's not currently available new.
I have a 2020 Air and it's pretty great but I recently saw it struggling when there's graphics-heavy stuff, namely driving a 5k external monitor while on video calls.
As you say it's getting a bit long in the tooth and I've been lamenting that there's really no replacement for it. I've been holding out hope that apple silicon will change that.
I still have that Air. Love that thing.
At least until iPads can do everything laptops can.
Though it never gets “too hot”, it does slow down perceptibly. Eg, a single YouTube or Netflix tab.
Butterfly keyboard still works flawlessly and even feels different from the butterfly on my work 2017 MB Pro which has worn out and misses keys.
But the 12” form factor gets too hot and CPU is weak even for browsing with just 20 tabs. But I’ve also been developing on it just fine.
And to me, it’s probably the most beautiful physical Apple product in past decade or so.
Are their hubs yet that can turn one USB C port into several? Or do they still only turn one USB C port into several USB A ports?
A couple years ago what I read was that the hold up was that this required more complicated chipsets that would not be available for a few months and would be expensive. More recently, I've read that this won't happen until USB4.
She uses it with a USB keyboard/mouse and PS4 controller and an external 1440p screen.. works without issue.
It's a strange thing, you can get these super complicated docking stations with all sorts of different ports, but can't get a 4-port hub that's only usb-c connectors.
At least neither tzs nor I have found such hubs.
You are right, I do not see them.. I wonder if that's for a particular reason. :\
Also, when I google with your phrase, there are no hits like that on the first page. I wonder if google is customizing my searches away from what I want...
(To be clear, USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 ports have the same form factor and Thunderbolt 3 is downwards compatible with USB-C.)
I'm skeptical Apple's introduction of their high performance CPUs exclusively on a low end device. A super light/ high performance 12ish inch machine seems right up their ally, but they don't want the new CPU associated with being a low-end "Intel Pentium Gold" type device.
There might be a lower end ultra-thin laptop released, but they are going to go big and push out a high performance CPU right out the gate. They didn't launch their 64 bit A series CPU on a secondary device, they won't launch this on a secondary device either.
I’d assume them to do the same: a high end (MBP?) and low end device (MB? MBA?); that’s where ARM will shine first (mobile: battery life; maybe even integrating a modem with esims).
Desktops will follow later.
Edit: Thanks to the replies letting me know that Rosetta is still a thing. I somehow forgot. Updated.
You will be able to run existing MacOS software on the new hardware under emulation. The Dev kits run emulation fairly well on a 2 year old iPad CPU so I would expect whatever new hardware they release will as well.
If you look at the history of the MacBook and MacBook Air together, it's pretty clear that Apple expected to eliminate the MBA as a product category years ago; to just have "MacBook" and "MacBook Pro" categories. This was probably due to them believing Intel's roadmap for chip releases, such that they thought they'd be able to hit MBA-like performance targets in the MacBook's form-factor. But Intel's roadmap didn't pan out, and so Apple had to turn around and build more MBA-form-factor devices to hit those performance targets. Eventually, the MacBook went so long between releases that they just eliminated it, and redesigned the MBA a bit to cater more to the people who liked the MacBook form-factor (without really making the MBA any lighter, just smaller-seeming.)
All the MBA computers since 2015 "should have been" devices with a MacBook form-factor and MBA-level performance. Right now, that'd mean an ultralight with a CPU matching or surpassing the performance of the https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-1060N... (which is the highest-specced option for current MBAs.)
Such a computer, if released today, would be impressive, no? It would redefine the MacBook (Air) category to be Apple's primary Mac product line, satisfactory for almost all workloads (in the same way that the iMac has been redefined to be the primary desktop Mac, satisfactory for almost all workloads.) In that world, the MBP would be relegated to halo-product status, akin to the current positioning of the Mac Pro. In Apple Stores, you'd have three differently-sized MacBooks, and then an MBP off in a corner where looking at it for too long summons an Apple Business representative.
I don't see how that's not already "going big" or "making a statement." It'd demonstrate that their Apple Silicon chips can eat Apple's own lunch, with their new mid-range Apple Silicon devices beating their old high-end Intel offerings in price:performance, even before Apple Silicon high-end chips get designed to truly replace them. The Intel MBPs, even brand new, would be immediately branded as a "legacy" category, outmoded even before replacement, only to be purchased if necessary for a specific business use-case.
(Before you suggest: no, I don't think Apple would be Osborning their Intel products if they did this. Businesses and freelance professionals would, for the time being, still have plenty of such "specific use-cases" for an Intel-based MBP. Apple also has lots of enterprise customers locked into long-term upgrade contracts, so part of the demand for the tail end of their Intel-MBP pipeline would be fixed/inelastic demand.)
You can group the Notebook Shipment into a few Categories, $1000+, those are nearly all MacBook. With the remaining going into Gaming Machine ( Which is now being rebranded into Content Creation Machine )
You have the absolute low end, Netbook style that are $300, those are not what Apple targets and they are actually competing with an iPad.
You have vast majority of the Notebook in $300 to $600. Considering the lowest MacBook offering at $699, is just the same play as iPhone SE at $399.
It is just $100 more than the median of average Smartphone selling price, and it would attract enough number jumping to Mac platform all while sucking out the oxygen for the other PC vendors.
Apple's been consistent about ~10 hours of battery life for a while. They've hit their spec and think that most people don't need more in typical usage. So they'll be able to shave battery volume down to continue their trend of thinner without sacrificing other specs.
The recently discontinued MacBook was a vision statement that the hardware could not quite reach, much like the first MacBook Air. Here, I think that statement realized would be a MacBook Pro that is as thin as that MacBook, and is still notably faster than the current MacBook Pro.
"Macbook" is the heart of the entire PC portable line for Apple. "Macbook"is the grounding of the brand itself.
I think Apple will release the Macbook as the first Apple Silicon machine because of the optics of confidently putting the hardware at the symbolic heart of the entire portable line.
I do not think the 12" that was discontinued should be thought of also as where the machine will be picked up in terms of form factor. This is not how Apple behaves, when tech shifts or they don't like where they left off, they change direction. (i.e. the Mac Pro trashcan -> modern Mac Pro)
Apple Silicon will allow Apple to reintroduce the Macbook as a compelling machine addressing many customer types. This base machine would pave to eliminate the Macbook Air and redesign the Macbook Pro.
With a few models of Macbook and Macbook Pro the portable product line will be simplified and clean up the confusing price / feature / performance comparison problems that exist today.
In many ways the same was true in 2006.
No, it wasn’t. I used to ru Xcode, iOS Simulator, World of Warcraft, League of Legends on the fanless MacBook with 8 GB of RAM just fine enough.
WoW and LoL are very lightweight compared to pro image or sound editing software, specially because they are doing a lot of the heavy stuff in your GPU.
Even the Mac Pro is also kinda bad with that software to be honest, specially if you spend more than half an hour using it, because of the thermal issues.
It will have a SIM card slot, and get at least 12 hours of battery life while using LTE.
This would be a truly compelling product, filling a niche Apple has tried to inhabit a couple of times, with the distinct possibility of getting it right this time.
Whilst I don't take my phone running because I can use my Watch for music and can make calls on it while out, I don't think I'd ever be somewhere with my laptop and no phone.
It is also true of tethering, which is quite popular.
Now, I can tether my phone to my laptop. Indeed I did so fairly often, before global house arrest.
But this is true of my iPad as well, and I opted for the cellular model instead. I'm glad I did, it's a better experience, hands down, especially when I'm traveling and want to conserve my phone's charge rather than burn it at maximum.
But if you felt differently, Apple sells a WiFi only iPad, you could simply not pay the extra for the cellular model when checking out. This would almost certainly be true for this imaginary Macbook as well.
I wouldn't buy it at all, I'm a professional developer with mild presbyopia, and purchased the standard-fancy model of the 16". But if I were an incoming freshman again? Bet I'd be pleading with my parents to get the cellular model.
Unlike a touchscreen, an LTE modem doesn't demand any changes to a desktop operating system to provide a good user experience. Again, tethering. Cell bandwidth gets cheaper every year.
If they are really creating an ARM macbook, this will be a great product and this chassis is definitely the right one to start with.
However I suspect that if they can they’ll start with a “pro” machine that beats Intel specs as their first out of the gate, to demonstrate that it’s not a compromise option.
It's almost as heavy and as thin as the iPad, but it is a full-sized computer with a full-sized keyboard. I can play with Emacs for 20 hours writing and scripting without charging.
Also another unpopular opinion - I also love the butterfly keyboard of the 12-inch Macbook, it's quite uncomfortable but once I get used to it, I feel I can type pretty fast and it feels good. It feels firmer than the old Macbook Pro because the latter feels a little bit shaky. It also feels more clicky than the later Macbook Pro with the butterfly keyboard. It seems to me they have received too much criticism on the butterfly keyboard so they were trying to make it less edgy, but that made it lost the characteristics as well, thus they withdraw butterfly keyboard eventually.
Butterfly Keyboard get most of its criticism when it moved to MacBook Pro, Because now you are putting up with a keyboard that ~50% of the people find it to have worse typing experience at the expense of a possible ( or not as we have seen other vendor capable of doing without it ) 1mm decrease in thickness.
Personally I still want the old 1.5mm Scissor Keyboard.
For similar reasons, I don't think the iMac was ever slated to be the first Apple Silicon machine. The desktop form-factor just doesn't highlight the benefits of the new architecture the way a laptop does. Since they sell a lot more laptops than desktops, it's likely they don't even have a desktop specific CPU ready at launch time. That'll come next year or maybe even 2022 towards the tail end of their 2 year launch window.
That would mean 2 significantly different 16" MBPs in the same year. My thinking here is that it would be quite odd if they released a 14" MacBook Pro which is faster than the more expensive current 16" model.
This first launch is going to be the most scrutinized & criticized Mac Apple has launched in years. Apple knows this and they are going to put a beefy CPU in their new machine to silence the critics. If they can't beat Intel performance at launch, what are the chances they are going to be able to beat them a year down the line?
And since it would be quite weird to have the smaller MacBook be the better/ faster iOS development machine, it seems like the 16" is pretty likely. Maybe not launch day, but within the first few months at the latest.
They might keep the Intel based MacBook around and sell them at the same time, but I doubt it will be the only 16" MacBook they sell for long. It just doesn't make any sense.
Why? The 2015 15" came with an integrated GPU option (and that was by far the most popular SKU, AFAIK).
It's certainly the tougher nut to crack.
https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/hgahzx/apple_gpu_...
The rest of the PowerPC line was brought to Intel within the calendar year, and iMacs and MacBook Pros received an additional refresh replacing the Core Duos with Core 2 Duos later in the year.
At the time I remember thinking the release cadence for which models they transitioned over made perfect sense. You could make a strong argument for them to follow a similar roadmap this time around because while Macs have changed substantially since then, each Mac’s place within the lineup has not changed very much, although a MacBook Pro and a new ultra-thin MacBook around the same to show off the advantages of Apple’s chips on both sides ends of the performance per watt spectrum wouldn’t surprise me.
People realized how crappy the camera (an well mic) was on Macs compared to other computers now that we are all video conferencing. Its sad that every PC user with a Logitech looked much better.
There is your answer - Physics is a harsh mistress!
Here's an article with screenshots: https://www.macworld.com/article/3018431/in-praise-of-the-gl...
What about the iMac?
Perhaps they never got the levels of feedback that drove them to upgrade it. Perhaps it has to do with internal designs of using an USB 2.0 bus or something that now has to be changed to a CSI or MIPI style interface that first has to be processed by something like the T2 before it is a readable data stream for the standard Intel architecture.
They probably won't be able to fit the exact same iPhone module, the optics (Be it plastic or glass lenses) are too deep, but you could probably do with a better sensor for sure. Some manufacturers tried to 'fix' this by putting the camera below the screen which gives it a bit more space because you can then use the hinge area for the components; but now you end up looking at someone's chin all the time.
We simply don't know.
This is a ridiculous statement considering the camera we're talking about is 720p. The current camera is indeed better than "no integrated camera at all" and is perfectly fine for video calls with your family, or even for work, since you're probably sharing your screen and your coworkers don't need to see every pore on your face.
Nano Glass is around $500 up charge which does not seem bad but I seem to recall it has special cleaning requirements so be careful if you have family or friends who are touch prone.
SSD upgrade from 512 to 1TB is reasonable as well, around $200
Reasonable for Apple maybe, but for $200 you already get a pretty decent 1TB retail SSD.
I guess for companies flush with cash where every employees salary is in the six figure ballpark, the price of Mac configs don't raise any eyebrows in the list of expenses but at least in all companies I've worked so far if I'd have suggested we buy Macs, the bean counters would have had a fit.
Same.
I own a 2017 5K model with an i5 and the terrible cooling is my only gripe with it.
It's totally fine for bursty workloads, but once you get into a light sustained workload (eg: music production) temps go to +70ºC and the fans become quite annoying.
There have been rumors about an updated smaller iMac which will shrink the bezels and basically look like an ipad pro on a stand, with a screen size increase to 24" and Apple Silicon, coming either later this year or early 2021.
I do wonder why separate the smaller and larger iMacs lifecycles, maybe because the desktop-level Apple Silicon chips aren't ready yet? That would make sense especially if they're aiming to replace the AMD GPUs even on the top of the line larger iMac and use integrated graphics there too.
- A super-lightweight 12" Macbook-like device that lets them demonstrate how Apple Silicon opens up new categories and form factors: small, powerful and amazing battery life
- A developer machine (MBP or similar) will be necessary. There are precious few DTKs out there, and they need more developers to be running Apple Silicon. I can't imagine them not shipping this in the first wave.
Their new iPad Pro took a big step in that direction with the keyboard, but it still doesn't have macos and mac apps.
Not sure whether they'd position it more as a "Macbook Touch" or "iPad Mac"...
The strongest rumors are for a MacBook Pro 13/14 and a 24” iMac. The 24” iMac suggests that they will switch to new designs with the new chips.
I don’t think that Apple will restrict their new chips to just a little MacBook. It would make it look like that is all they can do. They are going to want to come in strong and have a range of chips on different machines. Some with high efficiency and some with high performance. They seem confident and I suspect they will pull this off.
So this probably doesn't mean anything in that regard.
Also notable, the rumored iPad-like style changes are conspicuously absent, these look pretty much identical to the older iMacs.
Otherwise this looks like a decent bump all around. Notably, the iMac Pro also got some love (though not too much it seems?)
A friend of mine upgraded his 21 inch one out of the box because Apple RAM pricing and turn around is terrible. However he damaged the screen ribbon cable at the same time. Happens a lot.
I get that it has to be soldered on or whatever, but I'm looking at faster RAM on Newegg right now, in brand names, single module DDR4, for ~115.
I really wanna buy Apple stuff, but stuff like this continually keeps me away when I finally get to the Buy page.
But that doesn't apply to the 27" Mac which has non-soldered slots.
They gave me the laptop when the company went out of business. It was my Plex server until last year.
In my experience, the companies who always buy the cheapest model tend to avoid Macs entirely. The big place I see the base iMac popping up is at schools.
If it where up to IT everyone would have beefy computers as the most frustrating calls are "My computer is slow."
The rumor that they would redesign for Intel didn't make a ton of sense.
The MacBook Pro design had a major pain point so they needed to push an update for their "final" Intel MBP. The iMac design is a touch dated, but has no significant flaws (at least none which Apple intends to fix).
> iMac Pro now comes standard with a 10-core Intel Xeon processor. Designed for pro users who require workstation-class performance, iMac Pro features Xeon processors up to 18 cores, graphics performance up to 22 teraflops, up to 256GB quad-channel ECC memory, and a brilliant 27-inch Retina 5K display.
I think just a bump in the base CPU and maybe the graphics? There is a reason it's buried deep in the PR.
If you upgrade the new 27" iMac to the same specs, you can get a faster machine than the base model $4999 iMac pro for $900 less - it's a faster clock speed 10-core processor, better performing GPU with Radeon 5700 XT 16GB (as opposed to Vega 64 8GB), and same 32GB RAM and 10Gb ethernet and 1TB SSD for that price.
The iMac pro has even further upgrade options that the iMac doesn't, but still, I wouldn't expect a $5k non-upgradeable pro machine like that to be underspecced. It'll also be interesting to see some teardowns of the new iMac and compare actual benchmarks between these machines, the iMac Pro might still have better thermals that lets the cpu/gpu perform better in the real world.
It made sense for a little while before the iMac screens were upgraded to 5k.
It’s offensive
(After roasting several drives, thermal management was not a high point on those machines)
It's much more expensive but I needed to be able to hook in my work laptop to a 5k display while working and switch easily to my home setup with a single cable when I want to.
Ended up being perfect! It's paying off big time with COVID and WFH.
If Apple only offered a desktop class Mac, I would even start thinking about the pro display.
But I agree it does suck that you can't get a decent desktop that's not an all-in-one iMac. Users have been asking for it for years, and Apple's response was "Fine, you want upgradeability? Here's the entire kitchen sink with terrible base specs for $6000. Oh that's too expensive for you? Guess you're not a real pro after all so shut up and buy the consumer level products we sell you."
Too bad for them. They're missing a huge chunk of the market.
I have a MacMini + eGPU. Every time I (re)boot the machine I have to remember to remove the remove the eGPU: Otherwise I cannot enter the filevault password. This is super annoying since the machine seems to have crashed every time I want to use it (even without an eGPU).
Previously I used the eGPU with an 13” MPB and the experience was annoying in different ways: Simply unplugging the eGPU kills the programs using it. Every time I wanted to “undock” the MBP I had to remember to click to remove the eGPU from the MBP: otherwise half the programs running are killed/not responsive.
I was just yesterday looking at a new Mac Mini and a couple of LG 5K monitors (and, thus, the Apple Store eGPU). And I use File Vault. Because Apple.
So is this a known reboot problem? I want to run this Mac Mini as an always-on server for home media when logged out.
Any Apple support links on this?
> 1. If you have a Mac mini (2018) with FileVault turned on, make sure to connect your primary display directly to Mac mini during startup. After you log in and see the macOS Desktop, you can unplug the display from Mac mini and connect it to your eGPU.
It is a shame that iMac does not provide normal video input.
https://youtu.be/6vBEiPaegjM?t=60
This is most certainly why video input does not exist. What's ridiculous is they clearly figured it out to support the LG 5K display which is the exact same panel and over TB3 which the iMac fully supports.
Just say "No" to the product. I'm not making the same mistake again.
This matches my recollection that my 2008 iMac had this feature, and the one my wife got in 2012 did not.
2009 Tech Specs: https://support.apple.com/kb/sp696?locale=en_US
2010 Tech Specs: https://support.apple.com/kb/sp588?locale=en_US
Target disk mode. Target display mode. Boot from an external drive using option. Boot from the network.
And you know the "decision makers" don't understand how much nicer it makes the computers to administer. (understand in the sense they would defend them for real in a feature-cutting meeting) Instead we get dongles.
sigh.
To be clear, I wasn't saying they were taking out the option boot-picker.
I was saying these lesser known features - although they will never be used by a general audience - make the mac significantly easier to administer for people who have been using macs for years and know what they're doing.
I will say I'm glad you can upgrade an older system to a new usb-c style thunderbolt machine using target disk mode - but the dongles/cables to achieve this feat are ridiculous.
https://www.quora.com/Why-cant-the-iMac-27-5K-be-used-as-an-...
Previously, I would sometimes use screen sharing to use the desktop of my MacBook onto my iMac, but due to its slow speed, that is only an emergency measure.
1/4 TB of storage in the $1800 model, 1/2 TB in the $2300 one. Ugh. (So before the lower-end one had 64GB? [Edit: Nope, 1 TB Fusion Drive, thanks smnrchrds!] That would be FULL just from installing the one game the press release mentions.)
What kind of magic fairy dust SSDs are they using that you can't have a sensible amount of storage space at those prices? Looking at the upgrade options (which aren't even available for the lower-end model), they charge $300 per TB.
No, the lower end ones came with "Fusion Drive", that was 32-128 GB of SSD merged with a 1TB HDD presented as a single disk.
My MacBook Pro has used 5% of its SSD endurance in 6 years or so? It has a 1TB SSD.
I'm not filling it up, but I'm not trying to optimize the writes or something?
It can be hundreds of RAW images (50MB/image) or the simulation software I'm working on which can generate GBs of output in 3 seconds if I leave the wrong flags on.
In my other workstation I can actually see the big jumps of write accumulation when I do these tasks via SMART (I log the data periodically).
So mine was a honest question rather than covert fanboyism.
This is why I paid or a 1TB SSD on the Mac. I guessed that I'd wear it down faster but nope, that thing holds.
Periodically I graph the data with GNUPlot. There's a slight slope most of the time. In some regions there are jumps. These are generally when I seriously work with my software, generating logs and other output.
System is on another SSD and swap is on a high performance HDD so, they do not affect the graphs I'm getting.
That jumps helped me to catch two KDE bugs. One was an isolated case with akonadi. Other one was reported and possibly KRunner's bookmarks extension will see some more revisions to eliminate disk trashing.
Addendum: When I have spare time, I'd write a small HTML/JS file to get the data from log file and graph it interactively. A both fun and useful project.
If you were spending more to get better endurance, you could have just bought the 2TB version, which would have guaranteed 1422 GB/day.
(NB: SSDs suffer write amplification, so if you actually need 1.4TB of writes per day you should choose an enterprise drive instead.)
Endurance isn't a problem with SSDs for consumers, at all. Even QLC, which has significantly worse endurance than TLC, has plenty.
I have a slower storage tier on that computer for big files and archives so, it's only hammered when I really need that speed.
When I bought the Mac, 1TB SSD was top of the line. 2TB was not available for Mid 2014 Macs. Actually, I upgraded everything as apple could while buying it
I'm aware of the dynamics of SSD writes and TBW values. I personally don't write that brutally. Things get hot if I'm processing images or working on my software and need to see some detailed logs or interim results along the way.
If I was using my computer as an ordinary user, I'd not worry about it at all. My family's computer runs on much simpler drives and their write volume is nowhere near me.
Many vendors (including Apple premium resellers) offer replacing the drives for whatever you like.
[0] iFixIt https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+27-Inch+EMC+2546+Bla...
I don't know about magic fairy dust, but Apple's SSDs are known to be phenomenally fast in benchmarks. $300/TB is compared to $200/TB aftermarket for a high end NVMe SSD. Is that markup? Yes, but it's not 300%.
Can you show any other major manufacturer that includes a competitive internal drive for significantly less? Because otherwise you're comparing very different things. Dell also upcharges $300 for a 1TB NVMe SSD.
"If I buy it separately and install it myself" isn't a valid market comparison. If you want to do that, then do it.
Many (most?) modern laptops seem to have an m.2 expansion slot. You could for a fraction of the price put in a 2TB SSD.
The kind where Apple can make a 300% or more margin, knowing that people will still pay.
Don't think Apple have ever sold SSD upgrades at anything remotely resembling competitive $/TB prices. Clearly they don't need too because people still buy their machines.
Apple has put a huge amount of real effort into direct outreach and support of their customers, really.
Microsoft chased business.
Apple chased people.
Google is chasing its own tail.
For the markup over the retail price of the SSD, someone else does the installation, validation, built dumb stupid restore and backup services to boot.
Dell? Lenovo? Microsoft? Still ramming bloatware down your throat and persona non grata in malls or shopping centers, or wherever a digital nomad might be roaming.
Apple built a hardware and software ecosystem for normies. Free from the Machiavellian incantations of pretentious experts with their opinions on memory layouts, how big their data is, when people just want to edit and backup files.
People think the markup is worth it to avoid IT people. Can’t say I blame them. Have you worked with the “professional” level IT crowd? Alpha bro sausage fest and foot fungus eaters.
That’s why people pay the markup.
I work at a network security company and a very small percentage fit your ignorant stereotype of them. Overall its the best group of people I have met in my entire life.
You run into way more "Alpha bro sausage fests" when you hang out with "normies".
Anyway, if you want to get into it... Microsoft dominated the consumer market in the 1990s. The same people you say who were not nerds and didn't care ... Didn't care to get an Apple machine either, they got whatever everybody else got, which were Wintel PCs. Most didn't care if something else had a nicer design or UI or was friendlier or more efficient. It was Win9x almost everywhere.
I think this negates your "Microsoft went after businesses" hypothesis somewhat. They had total domination everywhere, and maybe got a little lazy or complacent and the lead eroded, at the same time Apple got Jobs back and grew as a consumer brand due to iPod etc. But Microsoft is still a major force outside of techie circles.
Microsoft dominated everything in the 1990s. Apple more or less lost it all.
> Most didn't care if something else had a nicer design or UI or was friendlier or more efficient.
Macs weren't very good in the 90s. They weren't fast, they weren't pretty, and they were quite expensive. The original iMac changed that in a fairly big way. It was more affordable and a lot more approachable than pretty much any other PC on the market and non-business consumers loved it.
Every successive generation of the Mac has shaved of just a little bit more of the consumer end of the PC market. Then the iPad came along and completely crushed the low end Netbooks. So now Apple has much of the mid-low end consumer space with the iPad and the upper end of consumer space (and a big chunk of professionals who have the choice) with the Mac.
Microsoft still truly owns corporate PCs and gamer space though.
Apple alone sells about the same amount of phones+tablets than all of the personal computers sold in the world (https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2020-01-1...) and it only has 13% market share.
The PC market is tiny compared to the mobile market.
In essence, I'd rather go with a company that will fix my hardware even if they charge me for it. Rather than a company (like HTC/Sony) where I have to wait many many weeks if at all and software upgrades cut off in under two years.
May as well but a new Dell every 2 years for half the price
Is it perhaps "annoying in theory" that I couldn't upgrade my Mac's hardware if I wanted to? I suppose so. But I'm never going to want to do that, so I don't experience any practical annoyance. I suspect my experience matches the overwhelming majority of Apple's customers and potential customers.
It seriously looks like finding an excuse.
I did it several times. Seriously, upgrade is advantage. Some of Apple fanboys can deny it, but better to have that possibility.
And Apple SSD specs in 2020 makes me laughing. But I'm not whining, you want mac - be ready to pay premium price or spend time with hackintosh. It's just business.
So sure Apple storage is pricey, and if you’re willing to compromise on performance you can get something that looks equivalent for a lot less, or something actually equivalent for a bit less. But there are a lot of other things about Apple gear you can’t get anywhere else full stop, at any price.
Why did it suddenly become important in your example?
I have a linux desktop that works well, but I can't always work on it unfortunately.
On the one hand, Apple loves to eliminate options and lock things down, both for quasi-defensible reasons like simplifying product lines and for less defensible ones like increasing profit margins (and making everything obsessively thinner, like they're in the grip of some industrial design anorexia). On the other, their most recent hardware design changes have often shown response to customer complaints (e.g., replacing the butterfly keyboard with an improved iteration of the "Magic" keyboard) -- and, if they really intended to lock down the Mac like iOS, the move to ARM and the sweeping UX changes in macOS Big Sur would almost certainly have been when that happened. The fact that it hadn't happened makes me considerably more skeptical it's going to. (I'm also more skeptical now that iOS will ever be allowed to blossom into a full general-purpose OS, but that's a different topic.)
As an aside, I'm not sure whether adding the T2 chip would make it more complicated to use a third-party SSD. It's my understanding they function as the SSD controller and do some kind of wonky things, but I am not taking the time to look that up and could be completely wrong. :)
I suspect the vast majority of people who pay for the upgrades are businesses or consultants where the Apple upgrade price is fairly negligible compared to cost of their professional time.
If you’re someone who didn’t want to pay the Apple premium before they took user upgrades away, it seems a little unlikely you’ll be happy to stomach them after. Rather you would just do without (of course there will be some who do upgrade, but I suspect they’re in the minority).
Yes exactly. The premium on my time has been gradually edging out in my priorities. I'd rather pay a little extra to have something already there than spend the same amount in my own time instead. It's a fair tradeoff. "But there's not much time involved, it's a ripoff," say many. But there is time involved for people who don't regularly upgrade computers. Figuring out what to buy, the best place to buy it, then the process of doing the upgrade yourself (if it's possible) is not a trivial amount of time unless you do this often enough.
Let's say you can upgrade a hard drive in 2 hours total, which is conservative -- the total time of researching what to buy, reading how to install it, ordering it, opening the package, putting in the drive, configuring the stuff you need to do, if necessary. Even at two hours, for my wage, that's about $200 of my time. I'd rather just spend the $200 or even a little more to not deal with it. And in reality, for me at least, it would take more than 2 hours of my time all-in anyway.
Last time I checked buying 32 GB of ram for the imac was about $175, apple took $850 to upgrade from the base 8 GB to 32 GB...
Replacing them wouldn't take many minutes.
(Or - you could buy 64 GB for $350 (something apple didn't even offer, I guess the uint32 would overflow)).
I bought a tricked out iMac last year and the only thing I didn't upgrade was the memory. Got 32 GB from Other World Computing at the same time for a much more sane price.
The $1800 price point isn’t hard to grasp once you consider the display.
EDIT: I previously compared to / referenced possibly sub-$1000 5K monitors, but it seems the ones I was looking at in that range were actually 4K.
I wonder how expandable this is? Buy the bottom end machine with the CPU you want and upgrade SSD and RAM? I would imagine SSD is upgradeable but RAM soldered onto the mobo?
> four SO-DIMM slots, user accessible
Sure, but more would buy at lower prices.
That said I don't doubt that Apple has researched this a zillion ways, and this price point is there for solid reasons.
Well, sure, that's just the law of demand. If Apple's goal was simply to ship the most products as possible in the short term, they would sell them for a penny until they ran out of money.
My only point was that "people still buy" is not much of an argument.
In hindsight, I didn't contribute anything of value to the discourse by that...
Tim Cook spelled it out pretty clearly to Congress when he testified last week; Apple does not have majority market share in any market they’re in. Not in smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops, or wearables. And they don’t want to have more market share. The inflated prices and being seen as a “luxury brand” is a great way for them to continue making a huge profit while restricting market share to the point that they can skirt around most monopoly law.
The downside there is to maintain growth, they need to continually push into new markets, which they’ve been doing about once every 5 years (desktops -> laptops -> phones -> tablets -> wearables -> automotive/AR?)
That is his spin. iOS has majority market in US ( over 50% ), and iMessages etc. So it is not a niche.
Of course he would like to use Shipment, Brand or whatever other matrix to prove. Although congress seems to be dump enough ( or not ) to not act those questions.
And that is speaking from an Apple Fan.
Apple wants a certain profit margin for the model as a whole. Yet for customers who will never pay prices that will give Apple that full margin, they offer a model at a low price point with a compressed margin, but with a painful aspect that will encourage customers who can pay to go with a higher priced unit — here, the painful thing is the small SSD size.
So the idea that the minimal-SSD model is somehow the "real" price and Apple is selling SSD space at an exorbitant markup, isn't quite right.
You could almost think of it as Apple offering a discount if you'll go with the smallest SSD, so they can capture more of the market while still keeping their average profit margins high.
If Apple charged "competitive $/TB prices", the small-SSD option would likely be more expensive, rather than the larger-SSD options being cheaper.
Outlet malls are another form of price discrimination, as they offer lower prices for those willing to travel further to get the lower prices. But there will always be some people happen to live next to the outlet mall.
Having worked at a school with labs full of Windows machines, the real cost of IT support is not to be discounted.
Maybe a Mac isn’t the best solution for everyone, but in the school environment, they’re great. Most schools have kids doing video projects, presentations, desktop publishing, etc. —- tasks for which an out of the box iMac can handle with aplomb and with minimal hassle or additional expense.
Sure there are probably FOSS alternatives, but if you are the computer lab teacher, the last thing you have time for is managing a lab full of temperamental Linux boxes and the multiple flavors of FOSS software alternatives that frankly, aren’t that good compared to what Mac gives you included. For example, what’s a FOSS version of iMovie that works so powerfully and intuitively?
I wonder how people here are unable to understand basic reality. Especially in third world countries.
These drives are so tiny now they could easy offer an expansion slot which is accessible to the user, like the PS5 will. I miss the early-2000s era Apple who would actually do something like that.
$100-$150 for an enclosure, so that's still going to be cheaper than Apple's markup.
Like this but for consumers. https://www.anandtech.com/show/11702/intel-introduces-new-ru...
Most people can afford to buy an iPhone of some kind. $1000 monitor stands and expensive iMacs is what makes their brand seem luxury.
Though let's be real here. I have a 2018 MBP with 256GB of storage. I have XCode, the XCode beta, Logic Pro, virtually the entire Adobe gamut of software, brew and a massive selection of brew packages, every browser, IntelliJ, GoLand, and just a tonne of crap.
I've used about 150GB. As fair disclosure I have a USB 3 1TB 970 Pro in an enclosure that I use for the occasional massive file download, purely because I'm paranoid about flash exhaustion, though by the system metrics I'm still at less than 1% wear.
Yeah, someone buying this for their kid to do their homework is going to be completely fine with 256GB. Though it's worth noting that the next option is just $200 more and gives you a faster process and 512GB. The lowest end one is just the one to frame the value, and presumably isn't their recommendation.
Developers write code for platforms that they're using. This is what drove adoption of Apple hardware in the early 2ks (a POSIX that runs MS Office!), which in turn set set the stage for the iPhone and iOS.
Unlike then, Apple now has a good grip on the consumer market: Not targetting iOS with a mobile/tablet release is a bad idea, regardless of whether or not devs are familiar with it. But OSX? There are a few areas where it's still has strong devotees: Color management in OSX is still fantastic, creating a lot of loyalty among artists, photographers, etc... It's still technically a POSIX, so it's still attractive to developers.
In short, OSX is not targetted at consumers. When someone needs a "computer" for their kid to do their homework, that's increasingly going to be an Android/iOS device.
For a platform to survive, it needs a healthy developer community. A developer community needs incentives (e.g., market-share or devs already using the platform). Right now, what are the incentives for OSX devs?
Developers buy MBPs. Industry users buy iMac Pros (which starts at 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD, going up from there) or even the goofy Mac Pro.
"When someone needs a "computer" for their kid to do their homework, that's increasingly going to be an Android/iOS device."
Lots of people do the vast majority of their "computing" on pads and smartphones, but they still like a computer on the desk for..."productivity". For many of those people, this device is more than adequate.
I accidentally ordered the 'wrong' iMac (256gb SSD) which turned out to be the right option because the fusion drives seem to have issues. Had a 2TB SSD hanging off the back for the past 6 months until i finally went to install it internally. Sadly, if you didn't order your machine with a SATA drive, it doesn't have a SATA Cable -- hence having to disassemble the entire thing to get to the plug on the logic board that lets you add a drive.
Not anymore. Fast NVME drives are commonplace. Unless these drives are again significantly faster than the competition, which I doubt, that's just Apple doing their thing and not adjusting fast enough.
Apple's drives are no longer faster. They're fast. But high end PC drives are just as fast (and usually 1/3 the price).
You may not find this adequate (actually, I don’t like it either) but it’s not an unreasonable position to take.
Having worked in the hw biz not only do memory sockets add to BOM, they reduce reliability (statistically — not on any one machine, but over your installed base)
It's $2k for the 27" with 500GB.
How much is it to get a really good quality 5k display with a Dell?
> What kind of magic fairy dust SSDs are they using that you can't have a sensible amount of storage space at those prices?
I'm using 165GB of 500GB on my current system. Considering all the systems issued by work are configured the same and nobody complains about space issues, I don't think it's a big problem.
I'd take the 5k display over 1TB storage any time. Sadly my work issues laptops and not iMacs.
Personally, I am always inclined to buy my Apple products when travelling as most times it's a lot cheaper in the US or Singapore. I mean $2300 (incl. VAT) vs $1799+1.08=$1945 $350 cheaper.
Having mentioned that, it'd be awesome if we could plug it into a MacBook Pro via USB-C and use it as a power supply, an eGPU, and an external monitor. And maybe also mount the disks.
That would be great.
Because Target Display Mode is no longer supported:
"Make sure that your iMac is using macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 or earlier. You can't use target display mode with later versions of macOS, or with Boot Camp and Windows."
There's also some screen extender software, but you absolutely want a wired connection or it'll be painful.
Though maybe I should be thanking them; I'd almost certainly have bought one if target display mode was available, so they've saved me money!
With Apple Silicon I suspect we will see the return of target display mode. I can't wait!
Also, having only 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports seems a little light as well. I would hope to have had 4 ports at least.
Apple only does value-based pricing. They'd charge you a percentage of your income if they could figure out how.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201191
The 21.5", however, is a different story.
If you have a retina macbook pro from 2014~ it definitely makes sense to upgrade to a macbook pro 16" today. The thing will see you through another 5-6y easy.
However, I am assuming since the Macbooks are rumored to get ARM as early as late this year, it is likely iMac would follow next year too. The Developer Transition Kit has a Mac Mini with ARM already.
For most apps it’ll be fine, emulation and cross compiling will be enough. There will be some apps where this isn’t enough though. When the App Store switched to 64-bit, how many apps just disappeared, never to be seen again?
I fully support the transition and I think it’s a logical step for Apple, but it’s going to be one more thing that indie or smaller devs have to worry about. Which means it’s one more thing everyone on this forum has to worry about.
It's not much harder than supporting Linux on x86 and ARM.
It’s trivially easy to compile your iOS app for 64-bit as well, but like I mentioned... that transition left a lot of dead apps in its wake.
Apple is going to change the landscape with a mainstream ARM platform that can compete in specs with Intel desktops and laptops. Let's see what happens then.
The dynamics of proprietary software are somewhat different from open source - unless you make a steady revenue from an app you launched some time ago, there is little incentive to dedicate resources to port it to a new platform (even if it's from 32 to 64 bits) unless you expect it to drive new sales. There is no penalty apart from lost potential revenue and a huge incentive to focus on the next product.
Most of those "dead" apps were not under active development and had no income flow. Making a "trivial" change to an inactive project means rebuilding software which you have shelved for some time.
If you are actively developing software, adding Intel support to a build is pretty much just clicking the option to build a Universal binary. Adding a flag to an existing build a lot easier than dusting off an old app and making a bunch of tweaks and a new build with near zero chance of return on that time invested.
And what user that is ok with a 6 year old computer is interested in spending several thousand on a new macbook that they're going to have to throw out in 3 years? The only user I can imagine that would be ok with the 16" macbook are the users that upgrade every 2-3 years... they can risk it and likely won't lose out on anything except maybe the resale value.
Not really. Pre-2015 Retina MBP are just as efficient and far more flexible than later models.
Wait for ARM.
No touchbar instead classic function keys, HDMI output, 2 displayports + 2 usb3 ports, magsafe!, and most importantly a MicroSD drive i have put a Nifty 512GB card into, so i have 768GB of space of which 256 is from the SSD, - works perfectly.
Having a small SD drive is so incredibly useful when you can buy half a terabyte of extra space for $100, granted not that fast but still useful as storage.
The newer models are so incredibly expensive they make no sense to me when they remove features.
... so waiting for the ARM version.
a question i ask myself
video rendering throttles to 30% at steady state
the top end CPU perf only lasts a minute or so before it throttles
/s
I'd be very surprised if Apple Silicon is going to be competitive against the Xeons in their highest end machines any time soon, so they'll be bound to supporting Intel at the OS level for the foreseeable future. They've basically said as much. I suspect you should be able to get about 5 years, at least, before they start phasing things out.
I'll take that action :) I think it's going to be pretty dramatic. Or they wouldn't have bothered.
That makes less sense, though. Apple isn't using Arm's cpu architecture, just the ISC.
Apple is switching from Intel chips with x86 to Apple chips with ARM. You should, when comparing, use one pair or the other.
From x86 to arm
Or
From Intel to Apple
The whole industry of music software is kind of weird… their products tend to be somewhat “closer to the metal” than typical software, even a bit more than video, graphics, CAD and 3D… improvements and bug fixes are few and far between.
Also, like most artists (in my experience), musicians tend to learn one way of doing things very very well and getting them to try anything new is next to impossible.
Smart move since it increases the appeal of the Apple-powered Mac devices. The pricing difference will also help, as based on the expensive base configurations (RAM, SSD as others have pointed out here), it will make the new devices look that much more attractive.
"just" indeed...
https://www.techradar.com/in/news/the-next-macbook-may-be-ap...
Dell did the same thing with the RAM in a 7740 and 7750 I recently ordered (work and personal), ironically about the same markup.
OTOH, I'd expect the average HN user to need a lot more. I'm currently finding 16 GB a bit constrained and would be delighted to have 32 in the same footprint. The server under my desk has 64 and the swap indicators tell me it should have more (or less stuff to do).
It's really a great win for Apple marketing that anybody even discusses such a silly news...
Ice lake uses Sunny Cove cores, which are Intel's first significant core µarch redesign since Skylake.
There's also a very handy "New" indicator on the 27" model that's not yet present on the 21.5".
Personally I'd reserve my judgment.
Is this a strategy of Apple (or Intel) to be able to get people to ignore (and therefore they can optimize the cost of) the generation of chip used? It's almost as if they realized people fixate on the GHz figure, and overlook the chip generation, which (I guess?) must contribute much more to effective clock speed than a small difference in Hz rate? I even fall into this trap sometimes.
It is a bit complicated for the casual buyer to have the clock speed which was the previous metric of "goodness" of your machine now have to be weighed with the generation of processor. When the name of the processor itself doesn't provide clear differentiation between generations.
That said, the difference between generations is pretty minimal thanks to Intel's huge process blunder last decade.
If you want to know which chip is actually faster for your workload that turns out to be a fairly difficult question to answer. A lot depends on what you're trying to accomplish and how your code is built.
I think even for the Mac Pro, they don't go into this detail.
Obfuscating the chip generation is almost a necessity at this point because the variations within and between generations is too complicated to keep track off.
Interesting deviation is how they've been highlighting the performance of the A-series chips since the A7.
I guess the next update will get rid of any vestigial spinning metal storage.
I have a laptop with dual storage and the largest hard drive that fits is 2 TB, but, on the M2 side, it can go way beyond that.
The 32gb additional memory option costs 4x the price of the entire 32gb of ram in my desktop. It costs independently 60% of the cost of my desktop pc base unit just for the upgrade.
The bottom end unit features 256gb SSD (probably soldered) and the next tier up wants +£200 to go from 512 to 1TiB. My entire 1TB Samsung evo plus nvme cost £165.
The 5k display isn’t worth it for my use case so I’ve got a 27” iiyama 4K display I paid £379 for. I suspect for 90% of people the story is the same.
Add the shit show that has been Catalina so far and this is a comedy gouging.
Edit: equivalent spec of my desktop build is £3399 here. I paid £1520 for my desktop approx: ryzen 3700x, 32gb ram, 1TB ssd, gtx1660, 27” 4K display, decent mechanical keyboard, decent mouse, Windows 10 pro.
Where is the £1879 advantage?
Also I’m paying full retail not OEM prices for these parts.
This is competing against products like HP Envy 32, Microsoft Surface Studio 2, etc which are priced similarly. You pay a premium for the design and form factor.
I have repaired a few and own one (2015) I think the design is absolutely dire.
I still feel good about iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch at this moment. However, everything else hardware wise feels like a disaster to me. I mean where is the home pod mini? Homekit will never be taken seriously or as useful as Google Home and Alexa, until Apple finally releases smaller, less expensive smart speakers. "Hey Siri" just doesn't work well on current Apple devices.
And let’s not get into the overpriced input devices. Wobbly keys and a mouse designed much like the furniture at the start of Men in Black.
Gah I’ve just convinced myself to sell the Mac mini and the iMac I already have now. And probably the iPad I’m whining about this on. Yes I’m a member of the cult. I have a whole cupboard of white boxes. But the pc pays the bills.
Well. Wow.
> Apple today also announced that its 21.5-inch iMac will come standard with SSDs across the line for the first time.
Double wow
I'll be holding out for complete iMac redesign with ARM. I'm hoping something will be announced at their event?
If anything, this is the first time i see an iMac which has a good GPU. Though considering iMac's form factor and my experience of having a PC with a 5700XT i wonder about thermals.
Like, this has to be a totally artificial restriction. I'd much rather buy the cheap one with a bigger SSD, but instead I'm stuck paying hundreds of dollars extra for features I don't care about.
I used laptops for years until and rsi issue made me have to avoid trackpads. I can say I’ve been extremely pleased with having a desktop imac. I use an ipad pro when I need something portable. I like just having a station I can get in front of that signifies work, and the imac pro fans basically never make noise.
I'd like a quieter device without the constant fan noise.
I also do audio/video recording, and driving that + my external display really made the fans spin.
I miss the absolutely silent (albeit slow) computing it afforded me.
Your going to love Apple Silicon based Mac's!
And like others, it made me think of their transition to ARM. I know the first ARM Macs this fall will be their lowend MacBook and 13" MBP line, but at WWDC they said the Intel to ARM transition would be complete in under 2 years (like they said with the PPC to Intel transition). And since the PPC to Intel transition only took a little over a year, it could mean that ARM-based iMacs may be here next year to replace the current iMac lineup, and I'm dreadfully curious as to whether they'll be lower performing than this iMac update (which is quite impressive, performance-wise). Or perhaps they'll use multiple ARM CPUs to boost performance. Regardless, every time I see a spec bump now from Apple, I can't help but think of these things.
Matching encoding speeds with Apple Silicon is probably an easier task, since they can create on-chip, hardware accelerated encoders, which exist on iPhones already.
Bezels are important to frame the screen content from functional perspective. Think of it like a frame for the art work. Black bezels occulude the distracting edges and background noise from the screen and you have always have a constant black border. They can be made to look nice as well like some of those Bang & Olufsen TVs[1] and Sony Trinitron Professional monitors [2].
Contrararily, there is no reason to the opposite besides "aesthetics". Can you think of any?
Alas - the momentum behind bezels is so massive, it is impossible to reverse this trend. Same with "borderless" trends in UI/UX.
[1] http://www.extravaganzi.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Bang-...
[2] https://www.proav.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/...
Also for the record, [2] looks extremely bad.
It actually doesn't matter if its a screen, artwork or a photo. IMO bordered (black or white) photos is vastly superior to borderless photos. There is a reason why every museum that displays fine art photography have borders, almost always.
I don't see any distinction with screens. Perhaps, even more so important to have distraction free edges on monitors than photos.
To be fair I'm biased because the shift to bezel-less (on phones) was accompanied by a shift to humongous screens that I can't use. Now I'm stuck with the new iPhone SE as my only viable upgrade.
Great machine and no Apple Silicon as yet (which may be a huge advantage if you still need to run Boot Camp or x86 VMs.)
I'm also excited about the nano-texture display. I've learned to live with reflective displays because I'm addicted to their high contrast and deep blacks, but nano-texture sounds like the best of both worlds.
Nice that they upgraded the anemic FaceTime camera and pulled the plug on the low-speed hard disk (even if it was configured as a fusion drive.)
Apple has generally had decent mics and speakers as well, so it's exciting that they are trying to make them even better. Anyone who has suffered through horrible zoom audio will appreciate the benefits of good mics (and not using zoom, which seems to make bad audio even worse.)
It depends on the macOS. Only Catalina and higher (macOS 10.15) require APFS. macOS 10.14 and Mac OS X 10.x may use HFS+. That is, though High Sierra and Mojave both "want" APFS, they may be coaxed (cloned) into booting on HFS+. [0]
[0] https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/327051/can-you-upd...
I had a tech come to the house and do it for under $100.
This can hardly come as a big surprise given that a maximum of 7-8 years of support for latest MacOS has been the norm for pretty much forever.
One gripe is the 27" iMac comes standard with only 8GB, while the 15" MacBook Pro has came with 16GB standard since 2014... I'm guessing most people are going to the aftermarket to throw 32-64GB in there anyway. Apple offers the 16GB upgrade (from 8GB) for $200, but you can buy 32GB of RAM for $150 and install it yourself.
what? Since when did they offer a DIY upgrade path?
Not sure if the value proposition is there though for a specced out iMac.
So the T2's processing power is used to augment the main CPU and graphics card's power.
This seems like a new development, but maybe it's been known for awhile?
https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/04/09/apples-t2-chip-ma...
How in hell is Apple squeezing a Xeon into an iMac without the thing either melting or being louder than a jet turbine?!
https://www.imore.com/sites/imore.com/files/styles/larger/pu...
I hope next iPad also gets this textured glass, it would be so much better as a drawing writing pad.
https://www.lifewire.com/use-imac-as-monitor-with-target-dis...
No reason Apple can't bring it back - it greatly increases the value and lifespan of an iMac!!
Also I do not like their beta product experiments they tend to run on customers since years - I will wait for years before I trust their hard- and software to be useful for work or even personal things.
If they want me to beta test they should give me money for it.
And even for professional artists, I have to imaging the portability of an iPad Pro probably blows it out of the water for those use cases. Some people think it's more natural to move their canvas around the pen than vice-versa, so just being able to move the device/screen around is huge.
For the less than five years bet, if you’re referring to macOS updates, I can personally bet my entire wealth (which is a decent figure) that you’ll lose. There’s no way the Intel Macs released this year are going to lose macOS support for another six years (into 2026), at the very least. The latest macOS (Big Sur) that’s now in beta supports models that are seven years old (or even older than that).
If you’re referring to hardware support and repairs, there are standard ages for each model that Apple uses for that purpose to define what’s obsolete, vintage, etc. I’m sure these will follow the same cycle.
I've worked e-waste recycling and the number of beautiful but unsupported macs that were dropped off was very sad and to this day I definitely consider Apple a significant force for evil on this planet, just for the planned obsolecense ecological damage alone, let alone the right to repair.
I've gotten linux running on a few of them and they are wonderful machines. Sad that the owners had to throw them in the trash.
Welcome to 2010, Apple.
I wonder what took them so long.
Starting it with `Cupertino, California -` as if it's breaking news and then launching into a complete sales pitch is just so slimy.
I wonder how they justify charging US$ 500 for the coating on the iMac and US$ 1.000 on the Pro Display XDR. 32" vs 27" don't seem enough.
Still, the results are amazing and anyone who dares to even get their filthy greasy fingers near my screen, let alone touch it, are in for some serious trouble anyway.
In the case of a nano-texture screen, I should probably require people to sign an insurance agreement to be in the same room as the device.
It's good that they've finally improved the webcam, but Apple clearly went out of their way to ensure people looking to get an Intel Mac because they need to dual boot weren't going to get anything too compelling.
Edit: Downvotes be damned, it is mediocre. Not bad, because it is a spec bump, but there are lots of things about the iMac's architecture that are beginning to show their age and are unchanged here, despite becoming bottlenecks. The cooling system is a big one, and the storage controller support another.
Don't forget it includes a 5K display...
It included a 5K display at a much lower price point that hasn't been adequately justified by currency changes before too, so I'm not sure that means anything.
Not exactly a "major update". Looks like the magic on this iMac is already wearing off and the magicians want their reality distortion spells back.
[1] https://beetstech.com/blog/apple-proprietary-ssd-ultimate-gu...