[HN Gopher] New iMac with M4
___________________________________________________________________
New iMac with M4
Author : tosh
Score : 368 points
Date : 2024-10-28 15:03 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
| bradfitz wrote:
| I still miss the 27" iMacs. They were such a great form factor.
| bearjaws wrote:
| 27" is really the best screen size for productivity. Easily can
| find 1440p or 4k 27" monitors to pair, and they have come down
| a lot in price.
| tshaddox wrote:
| The 5K screen was the killer feature of the 27" iMac.
| thibaut_barrere wrote:
| So far the screens I've tested are more tiring to my eyes (I
| work both on a M1 13" with external screens, and on a legacy
| 27" iMac). What are the best 27" screens for coding comfort
| that work well with Macs these days?
| Joeri wrote:
| I haven't tried it myself but if you really want that 5K 27
| inch form factor samsung's viewfinity s9 is exactly that.
| Or apple's studio display ofcourse.
| porphyra wrote:
| Apart from the Samsung Viewfinity that another commenter
| mentioned, there's also the LG Ultrafine 5K and the Huawei
| Mateview. The MateView is nicer than other 4K monitors
| because it has a taller aspect ratio of 3840 x 2560 so the
| extra 400 pixels of vertical space is nice for productivity
| work, although of course this is still fewer total pixels
| than a 5K display.
| sroussey wrote:
| LG Ultrafine 5K Has burn-in issues. :/
| jq-r wrote:
| I bought mine like 2 years ago and it's been rock solid.
| IIRC they had some revisions over the years. And being
| rock solid: that's a bit of a lie because the monitor is
| wobbly as hell. So I've propped it with two supports on
| each side. Apart from that, the picture is the nicest I
| ever had from a monitor, and I had a lot of good ones.
| Text is super sharp and has acres of pixels. Compared to
| 4K monitor I can have both a terminal client and a
| browser side by side all looking nice. Can't fit that on
| 4K unfortunately.
| tkuraku wrote:
| I think this 43" screen is amazing for coding. Lots of
| vertical and horizontal space!
|
| https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-
| ultrasharp-43-4k-usb-c-...
| porphyra wrote:
| If only it had higher pixel density. If there was a 43" 6K
| or even 8K screen I'd buy it in a heartbeat. But with only
| 4K I have to use all sorts of weird tricks with raster
| fonts to make the text in my terminals sharp.
|
| Also, too bad all the TV makers stopped making 8K screens
| in 55" and below.
| bloopernova wrote:
| It really is, 4K 27" monitors that can do >=120Hz are perfect
| for me personally.
|
| I just wish that the base macbook pro models supported 3
| external screens without resorting to a software-based video-
| over-usb DisplaySync (not DisplayPort) connection.
| vehemenz wrote:
| I tend to agree but more because the market has settled on
| it. One thing about screen size is that it's easier to
| achieve an effective screen size with a smaller screen (by
| moving it slightly forward) than it is to do the reverse. So
| a 24" screen will work in more environments, e.g., smaller
| desks, than a 27" will. A dual screen setup with two 24's
| will require less neck movement.
|
| Of course, the market has also decided that decent aspect
| ratios aren't worth doing either. If there were 3:2, 4:3, or
| 5:4 options--more versatile for productivity--we'd probably
| settle on something between 21" and 24".
| minimaxir wrote:
| Now that my 27" iMac from 2020 is starting to get old and Apple
| will likely deprecate support for all Intel Macs soon, I really
| wish there was an easy way to use it as an external monitor for
| a MacBook. Every implementation of streaming to an iMac is
| hacky at best.
| pier25 wrote:
| Yeah those 5K panels are fantastic.
|
| When I switched to a MBP M2 I got an Asus ProArt 32'' 4K and
| really like it. Comes precalibrated out of the box.
| da02 wrote:
| Were you able to see a difference between the 5k panel and
| the ProArt?
| pier25 wrote:
| Not in terms of colors but the 5K panel (I assume from
| LG) was more uniform in the blacks and suffered from
| almost no IPS glow. Not a big deal. The Asus is great for
| the price paid.
|
| Obviously big difference in DPI too, but 4K still looks
| great at 32''.
|
| For reference, I'm using the PA329CV. I don't know if all
| ProArt monitors use the same quality of panel.
| peppers-ghost wrote:
| There's not a super easy way to do it but if you're willing
| to take it apart there's driver boards available on
| Aliexpress that convert 5k imacs into HDMI/DP monitors.
| bsimpson wrote:
| I looked into this briefly when they announced that the iMac
| Pro is the oldest device that still gets the newest software.
|
| It's logically two displays crammed together, which
| apparently makes Linux support difficult. Someone posted on
| HN a link to a Chinese company whose sole purpose seems to be
| making boards that let you drive an iMac Pro display with a
| traditional display cable. It's left as an exercise to the
| reader how mad your company would be if you tried that on
| your corp device.
| thibaut_barrere wrote:
| Typing this from a 27" iMac. I do love my 13" M1, but I would
| love to upgrade the 27" too...
| fourfour3 wrote:
| I've got one of the LG Ultrafine 5K monitors paired with a
| modern M1 Max macbook and it's a nice combination.
|
| Expensive, but I _adore_ the pixel density considering I spend
| all day staring at text :)
|
| I'd be seriously tempted by an iMac if it had M4 Pro + a 27" 5K
| display. I just don't feel it's likely as they'll probably see
| it as cannibalising Mac Studio + Studio Display sales.
| bsimpson wrote:
| The Studio Display is priced as if it's an iMac.
|
| It's insane that we've had retina displays for over a decade,
| and Apple still seems to be more-or-less the only game in
| town for a 5k 27" display.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| I will never purchase the Studio Display on principle. It's
| an idiot product.
| thecopy wrote:
| For what its worth, I am extremely satisfied with my
| Studio Display. The 5K resolution makes 2x pixel perfect
| scaling look great, built in webcam which fantatic for
| meetings, good speakers, and charges the MacBook Pro with
| the same cable, and acts as an USB-C hub.
| fourfour3 wrote:
| It's a similar niche to the LG Ultrafine before it. That
| also had a webcam, tolerable speakers, 85W PD over the
| thunderbolt 3 port, and 4 USB-C ports.
|
| If I didn't already have the LG Ultrafine, I would have
| bought one of the studio displays.
| msisk6 wrote:
| I have both; I got the LG when they first came out and
| the Studio display last year during a good sale on
| Amazon.
|
| The panels seem the same but everything on the Apple one
| is better, as you would expect.
|
| But lately my LG is starting to have issues with ghosting
| and color shifts around the edges. It's still ok to use
| (I'm typing this on it) but I guess it's nearing the end
| of it's useful life.
| jwells89 wrote:
| I'm happy with mine too.
|
| It has a few upsides that don't get written about often,
| compared to other monitors:
|
| - Apple is extremely picky about panel QC, making things
| like dead pixels and patchy backlights much less common
|
| - Its design practically eliminates the backlight bleed
| that's common with other monitors due to variances in
| bezel/panel fastener tightness
|
| - No coil whine (surprisingly common even in other high
| end monitors)
|
| - Some of the best glossy antiglare treatment I've seen,
| without the "gritty" coating that can cause a "sparkle"
| effect that's common on Dell monitors
|
| - It wakes up and displays a picture almost instantly
|
| It's not perfect and I'd prefer better specs for the
| money, but it's not a bad monitor. I've tested models
| that are _more_ expensive than the Studio Display that
| fail to check some of these boxes.
| artimaeis wrote:
| What delineates it as an idiot product? There aren't
| exactly a ton of alternative 5k displays on the market.
| Dell and LG have some 5120x1440 options, but only Apple
| has a 5120x2880 option as far as I can find.
| rsynnott wrote:
| There's a Samsung one, though it doesn't seem to
| generally be much cheaper than the Apple one, and the LG
| Ultrafine 5K seems to be... maybe still available?
| jwells89 wrote:
| The Samsung model has a well-known issue with severe coil
| whine. Not a dealbreaker for everybody but worth taking
| into account.
| tzs wrote:
| The Samsung is usually between $800-950 at Amazon,
| shooting up to $1600 about 10% of the time.
|
| I've often it seen it in the $900 neighborhood at Best
| Buy and B & H. It's $1600 right now at both of them but I
| don't know if that is just one of those full price spikes
| like Amazon has or if they too are like Amazon.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| It's really nice! Expensive, but it looks great and the
| 5K panel is beautiful. Speakers are good for a display,
| webcam is meh.
|
| It's much better looking than the LG ultrafine 5K,
| slightly more functional, and costs more.
|
| What's the idiot part? Price?
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| There's an entire computer in the monitor that you can't
| use.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| According to the article below, the A13 computer hosts at
| least the fancy webcam and audio features. That's how you
| use it.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/9/22968960/apple-studio-
| disp...
|
| Similarly my car has a computer in it that I "can't use",
| except it does car stuff.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| That's a mobile processor with desktop-class performance.
| That you can't use. We're not talking about ESP32s here.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Could you please be a little more kind and a little less
| vitriolic? Not talking about right or wrong here, but if
| this comment chain keeps going in this direction, we're
| left with lots of anger and little in the way of
| interesting reading.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Your backseat moderation is unnecessary.
| bsimpson wrote:
| Your reaction is mine too, but it feels like you're
| fighting for the sake of fighting.
|
| Yes, it's infuriating that they effectively made an iMac,
| don't let you run your own software on it, but do charge
| iMac prices for it.
|
| Also, if you're a consumer who wants a retina-class
| desktop display, do you have any better option? So far as
| I can tell, the 27" 4Ks we bought for my office ~9 years
| ago are still state-of-the-art if you're unwilling to
| consider Apple's option.
|
| People are taking exception to your "idiot product"
| remark, because you're standing so high on your
| principles that you're calling people who are willing to
| make a financial sacrifice to get the best available
| option "idiots." If you spend hours a day in front of a
| screen, you can justify amortizing out stupid-expensive
| over the amount of time you spend using it.
|
| We'd all like to see either just-the-screen for half the
| price, or a revived iMac Pro at the current price; but
| neither of those are options anyone can buy right now.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| I don't think I'm fighting anything. You just choose
| another product. In particular for design professionals,
| you're better off buying monitors with panels from
| Samsung or LG, who are also Apple's suppliers.
|
| Edit: The real point is you've been conditioned into
| thinking you need a 5k or even a 6k display. As someone
| who has done professional media work, no you do not.
|
| Apple's monitors are products sold to people who don't
| know seemingly don't know anything about monitors, color
| accuracy, who don't calibrate, or have to test against
| multiple devices to ensure readability or clarity of
| picture.
|
| They're really nice toys for people with a lot of money,
| not unlike Teenage Engineering products, except Apple
| markets them in earnest to "pros" not "professionals."
| People who know better use different products.
| bsimpson wrote:
| Good to know that other companies are supplying 5K
| displays, but neither is significantly cheaper than the
| Apple. In fact, Samsung's MSRP is identical to Apple's.
|
| So much for being an "idiot" product...
| sethd wrote:
| If you wanted a similarly spec'd display for a Mac, what
| would you get instead? (what is the non-idiot
| alternative?)
| rsynnott wrote:
| At one point there were about six manufacturers (though I
| think it was all various grades of the same panel). They
| just didn't sell.
| hocuspocus wrote:
| It's clearly a niche segment...
|
| On one hand, companies willing to spend more than $250 on
| monitors will rather give you a 32" ultra-wide, because
| that's more useful to the typical office monkey worker.
|
| On the other, the PC enthusiast customer base is almost
| synonymous to gamers, who'd rather want high refresh
| rates than a silly 5K resolution they cannot use.
| alberth wrote:
| Apple would rather you buy a Studio Display.
|
| If a 27" iMac did exist, it makes the comparison to the Studio
| Display now a bit odd - because they'd both cost roughly the
| same price but one has a computer and one doesn't.
| minimaxir wrote:
| 16GB base RAM, they finally did it.
|
| They also did move the Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse to USB-C.
| wwalexander wrote:
| > They also did move the Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse to
| USB-C.
|
| Only for the bundled peripherals, it seems. The Apple Store now
| only lists the full-size Lightning keyboard without Touch ID in
| white, which is even worse than before when you could get
| various permutations of tenkeyless, Touch ID, and black.
| t-sauer wrote:
| I guess it was still getting updated. All peripherals are
| available in USB-C versions for me now.
| baron816 wrote:
| Now if only they could figure out how to allow charging the
| Magic Mouse while it's being used. I guess that technology is
| still years away.
| hggigg wrote:
| Very easy. You sell it on eBay and buy a Logitech MX Master.
| kbolino wrote:
| Does the Logitech MX Master come with a driver that
| overcomes Apple's "unintentional" hobbling of non-Magic
| mice?
| Technetium wrote:
| Seems not: https://github.com/pqrs-org/Karabiner-
| Elements/issues/2968
| square_usual wrote:
| What does that link have to do with anything GGP said?
| Apple isn't involved in that bug; it's Logitech's own
| software intercepting events.
| george_probably wrote:
| It does - it two different ways! The scroll wheel ratchet
| can be disabled (which is how I use it) or MX Options can
| override Smooth Scrolling. Or both.
| hggigg wrote:
| It does. Although I don't use it and use this instead:
| https://github.com/linearmouse/linearmouse
| notatoad wrote:
| i use an MX master on my mac and it works great? in what
| way is it supposedly hobbled?
| kbolino wrote:
| Out of the box, with no custom software installed, non-
| Apple mice (and even older Apple mice) will have
| extremely janky scrolling on modern versions of macOS.
|
| Apparently, something internal to how the OS handles
| mouse scrolling was changed, and only the Magic Mouse
| gets a proper scrolling experience using built-in
| drivers. It is possible to fix this, but only with custom
| software (either drivers for specific mice or general
| tools for all mice).
| notatoad wrote:
| is it janky, or is it tied _very_ closely to the scroll
| input, so it 's exactly as janky as your finger moves the
| scroll wheel on the mouse? because that's what it seems
| like to me.
|
| for it to be any smoother, there would need to be some
| artificial smoothing of the scroll wheel input. and i'd
| rather not have that.
| kbolino wrote:
| It's not so much "raw input" as "extremely erratic".
|
| For example, when using the wired Mighty Mouse, the same
| motion of my finger will sometimes scroll a couple lines
| and sometimes scroll the entire page or not scroll at
| all. The same mouse plugged into Windows does not exhibit
| this problem.
| square_usual wrote:
| > For example, when using the wired Mighty Mouse, the
| same motion of my finger will sometimes scroll a couple
| lines and sometimes scroll the entire page or not scroll
| at all. The same mouse plugged into Windows does not
| exhibit this problem.
|
| This is not normal and you're possibly facing a bug. I
| have a Master 3S and mine scrolls exactly the same
| distance with every click of the wheel.
| kbolino wrote:
| Ok, I just tested three different mice (Keychron M1,
| Mighty Mouse, Razer DeathAdder V2) on two different Macs
| (M1 Mac Mini and M1 MacBook Pro) and all 6 combinations
| exhibit the same janky scrolling (mostly, it either
| scrolls too slow/not at all or too fast). For the Razer
| and Keychron mice, the experience is more "consistently
| bad" while only the Mighty Mouse experience is
| inconsistent enough to be "extremely erratic". It might
| just be going bad, though (it's probably a decade old at
| this point).
|
| I don't have any Logitech mice anymore, but maybe they've
| learned how to speak to Macs or worked with Apple to make
| them better. I had Logitech mice in the past, ca. 2-3
| years ago, and they had the same problems then. I did
| notice that plugging in a non-Apple mouse results in a
| "Setup Your Keyboard" prompt, which I just quit out of
| (it's not a keyboard...), but maybe that would install a
| driver if I followed through? Though, the Mighty Mouse
| _is_ an Apple mouse, and it still sucks on macOS but not
| on Windows.
| nox101 wrote:
| I have never experienced this. I have a Logitech G203
| mouse I use with my M1 Mac and of course I use the touch
| pad when I'm not at my desktop. I've never noticed a
| difference. Both seem butter smooth. I have no special
| software install. Am I missing something?
| square_usual wrote:
| Apple is not nefariously gimping mice, they just don't
| see a world where people use non-Apple mice which have a
| touch surface for smooth scrolling. AFAIK this isn't an
| issue that can be solved with drivers. Logi's software
| has a persistent daemon that can convert your scrolling
| to smooth scrolling, but that requires leaving it open in
| the background. You can also use one of the dozens of
| open source apps that do the same thing.
| kbolino wrote:
| I don't think it's nefarious, I think it's negligent. As
| I understand it, they changed something internal to how
| mouse motion is handled. The Magic Mouse speaks to the OS
| in a way that matches this change, and that was all they
| ever cared to ensure worked. They also don't support more
| than 3 buttons on a mouse well, because Apple doesn't
| make mice with more than 3 buttons. They did the same
| sort of thing with standard-DPI monitors; they didn't
| make them look bad on purpose, they just optimized for
| high-DPI monitors and didn't care about the others.
|
| And yes, fixing this requires custom software.
| square_usual wrote:
| > They also don't support more than 3 buttons on a mouse
| well, because Apple doesn't make mice with more than 3
| buttons
|
| This is not true. Again, I have a Master 3S and I have
| natively, through macOS settings, bound Mouse 4 and 5 to
| mission control.
| kbolino wrote:
| I can't recall ever seeing this option with the old
| System Preferences, so it might be new to System
| Settings; but either way, it's not universal. I have a
| 5-button Razer mouse attached to test with right now, and
| the "Mouse buttons" option doesn't appear in System
| Settings. It does, however, show up in the System
| Settings search results, which is nice and confusing
| ("here's a setting we found, that doesn't actually exist
| for you").
| ssl-3 wrote:
| In order for Apple to be negligent by not tending to a
| matter they'd first have to have the responsibility of
| tending to it to begin with.
|
| It is not my understanding that Apple has any
| responsibility for ensuring equal access and capabilities
| for third-party accessories on their own weird,
| proprietary, invented-in-house computing systems.
|
| Therefore, it is also not my understanding that they can
| be negligent on these matters.
| kbolino wrote:
| They broke things that used to work. They had other
| reasons for doing it, but they also didn't really care to
| fix the problems it created. Their ecosystem is somewhat
| isolated from regular PCs and caters to a different
| clientele so I'm sure it made business sense to
| prioritize that way. Hence, there's at least some intent
| involved, just not outright malice.
| epolanski wrote:
| You just reminded me of how stupid the plug beneath the MM
| was...You never needed to charge it, till you needed it and
| couldn't use the mouse.
| dijit wrote:
| There are so many legitimate reasons to hate the magic
| mouse.
|
| Ergonimics, the polling rate, the way the glass gets
| greasy, the scratchy hard plastic on the bottom.
|
| Truly, inferior to the Logitech MX Master in all ways
| except looks. (which is subjective).
|
| But it takes literally a few seconds to get a days worth of
| charge out of the mouse, Apple clearly don't want you to
| leave it plugged in to use as a wired mouse: why? idk,
| because they hate choice, or perhaps its because they know
| it would overcharge the battery and bulge, or perhaps even
| still, people would get weird expectations about "wired
| being better for latency" despite the mouse not using the
| data connections on the wire.
|
| We'll never know. But the charging on the bottom is such a
| non-issue in reality that it makes me wonder if anyone
| actually owned that mouse, or they just think it looks
| funny. Personally, I'd rather they fix the other issues
| with the mouse, the charging was legitimately never an
| issue.
| vundercind wrote:
| Yeah this is something I thought was amazingly dumb until
| I used one, but it's not actually a problem. Even a
| little.
| goosedragons wrote:
| The only reason they don't let you charge it is because
| it's a recycled design of the MM1 which used disposable
| batteries. The Magic Keyboard and Trackpad which came out
| the exact same day both let you use it plugged in and
| charging, even wired! The Magic Mouse shell was just not
| designed with a cord in mind at all.
|
| I have personally been in meeting where my boss forgot to
| charge her magic mouse and we had to wait two minutes for
| her to open the stuff we needed to discuss. It happens.
| estebank wrote:
| The track pad and keyboard don't need to move, which
| would introduce mechanical stress on the port and cable.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Those are both moving parts that must be treated as movng
| the same as a mouse, because they are not bolted to
| anything. Any mechanical designer will absolutely treat
| everything about the ports on those the same as for a
| phone.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >The only reason they don't let you charge it is because
| it's a recycled design of the MM1 which used disposable
| batteries.
|
| But they've done incremental updates to the design since,
| they could have easily fixed that by now.
| goosedragons wrote:
| They haven't made any major changes to the design. It's
| the shape of the thing preventing it.
| 93po wrote:
| ive had a magic mouse and only had to plug it in and
| charge it and walk away for 10 minutes... maybe... 5
| times in the past three years? like it's annoying when it
| happens, but you also only have to charge it once every
| couple months, and i mostly have this annoyance because i
| have notifications 100% turned off and i don't see the
| low battery notification.
|
| however i will say three years in, either a software
| update or hardware issue is now killing the battery and i
| have to charge it every week or two and that sucks
|
| salty that i now have airpod pros, an iphone 13, and the
| magic keyboard and mouse all with their dumb lightning
| bolt or whatever it's called. going to have to rebuy all
| this to forever rid myself of non-usb-c cables but at
| least in 2024 it's finally happened as an option
| dijit wrote:
| The battery may have degraded to be fair.
|
| Each of those times you walked away, did you ever try
| plugging it in, counting to ten and then continuing to
| use it afterwards? That's what I used to do.
|
| I use a trackpad now though.
| ryandrake wrote:
| The ergonomics were absolutely terrible. I now find using
| any mouse painful, to the point where I've replaced all
| of my computer pointing devices with trackpads. I blame
| the pain on a long history of Magic Mouse usage.
| VeejayRampay wrote:
| let's stop justifying this choice from Apple
|
| it annoys everyone, it's a dumb design, you get a message
| from your Mac telling you that the mouse has no charge
| and suddenly you can't work anymore for a few minutes,
| it's idiotic, plain and simple
| dijit wrote:
| Wireless charging is also idiotic, to someone.
|
| You don't like the mouse, that's fine, I _also_ don 't
| like the mouse.
|
| But unless you've actually used the mouse for an extended
| period: I don't think you understood the point that you:
|
| A) don't need it plugged in constantly
|
| and
|
| B) if you charge it for a handful of seconds it lasts the
| rest of the day, meaning you don't actually have to stop
| working.
| msisk6 wrote:
| Yeah, I've been using these on multiple Macs for a decade
| now and it's just not an issue.
|
| If I get the warning the mouse is getting low on charge I
| just plug it in, go grab a drink or use the bathroom, and
| by the time I get back it's good for the rest of the day.
|
| Then all I have to do is remember to plug it in overnight
| and it'll be good for months. YMMV.
| phpnode wrote:
| It's all about tension on the lightning connector imo -
| the connector isn't designed for that level of
| flexibility, so it would break and it's not like they're
| going to use a different connector just for the mouse
| viraptor wrote:
| It's not an issue anymore now that they would use usb-c.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| There are so many lulu ideas in this comment that don't
| hold up to the simplest examination.
|
| Plugging in for a few seconds to get a days worth of
| charge is a stupid thing to actually require or consider
| normal.
|
| I also want to use my mouse tomorrow, and even the next
| day, and do so without having to plan ahead "today I will
| leave my mouse plugged in overnight because I can tell by
| clairvoyance that it is about to run out" or "I have been
| tracking the calender like a menstrual cycle and it's
| time, tonight is the night!" or "I have set up a sheduled
| alarm on my wonderful Apple Watch to remind me to go look
| at the settings somewhere to check the mouse battery
| level and see if it's time to charge tonight"...
|
| And if you don't plan, then you have a few choices,
| charge for a minute and have to do it again without
| warning in 2 days, a constant stream of unplanned forced
| trips to the coffee maker, or just charge for 30 seconds
| every single day as a part of your routine, or stop and
| wait for a full charge on the spot for however long that
| is, or the worst of both worlds, get on with your day by
| charging for a minute now, and then don't fail to
| remember to plug it back in before leaving several hours
| of busy-ness later, which you absolutely will of course.
|
| There is no version of any of that that is remotely
| convenient or sensible, and certainly not an upgrade from
| every other mouse in the world. There is no version of
| this that isn't patently ridiculous. You can work around
| it and tolerate it because it's not as bad as having to
| dig ditches for a living. If there was something about
| mice that the tech just didn't exist for it to work any
| other way, then sure it's possible to live with, because
| humans are adaptable. But it's not good, and it's not
| better than the already norm for $2 mice sice 20 years
| ago.
|
| It's baffling weird to even try.
| dijit wrote:
| The mouse gives you like 3 days heads up that you might
| want to think about charging it though.
|
| If you disable all notifications and it really runs out,
| waiting 10 seconds for it to charge is... _fine_...
|
| I doubt you're using a wired mouse, and most wired mice
| are actually worse at charging than the magic mouse- the
| only difference is that you can use them while plugged
| in, so it's not as annoying that they charge so slow and
| use more power.
|
| Ultimately it comes down to effective utility, people
| harping on about the placement of the charging cable
| without respect to the actual usability of the device
| holistically have quite literally missed the forest for
| the trees.
|
| Like I said, theres plenty of reasons to dislike the
| mouse, but this ranks among the lowest and honestly the
| weird hate-boner for that decision just makes people look
| like they don't know what they're talking about to me.
| epolanski wrote:
| > But the charging on the bottom is such a non-issue in
| reality
|
| As I said, you rarely needed to remember to charge it.
| Till you would in the midst of something.
|
| Anyway, I never liked the MM so when I had my iMac I
| bought a magic trackpad (which you could charge while
| using, small bonus).
| dijit wrote:
| Then you pop it on the charger for like 10 seconds, use
| it for the rest of the day, then leave it charging
| overnight when you go home.
| epolanski wrote:
| Sure, but it was still an inconvenience to interrupt a
| presentation once, and another time a prod debugging
| session where everybody was anxiously breathing on my
| neck and staring at my screen.
|
| To me the plug placement was an inconvenience, regardless
| of how invisible it is to you.
|
| On top of that, it never charged in few seconds after
| years of use, mine would take longer just to connect to
| the iMac again.
|
| I was glad to buy magic trackpad I could leave connected
| 24/7 and never think about it (also I liked it much more
| than the MM in general).
| dijit wrote:
| Totally fair, why did you ignore the low battery warning
| for 3 days though?
| commandar wrote:
| "Clearly, it is the user who is wrong."
| dijit wrote:
| The point I'm making is that people are making a point
| out of ignorance.
|
| People _think_ it will be a problem, so make ignorant
| commentary about it being idiotic, yet in practice it 's
| fine, and not the worst aspect of a terrible mouse.
| viraptor wrote:
| Because we're human and not behaving in a perfect way and
| the design of our daily tools should account for that.
| legulere wrote:
| Doesn't it tell you that the battery is low before it
| doesn't work anymore? When I used the Magic Mouse I never
| had any issues with the battery.
| jltsiren wrote:
| In my experience, it's slow to charge. I've been using
| the Magic Mouse for many years, because I otherwise like
| it. But charging it to last the rest of the day takes
| long enough that I lose track of whatever I was doing.
| And the low battery warning always comes so late that I
| must stop working immediately and plug in the cable.
|
| It's probably just Apple's usual arrogance. They could
| have easily designed the mouse so that you can keep using
| it while it's charging, but the designer chose otherwise.
| And because this is a minor enough issue, Apple doesn't
| have to fix it and admit that they were wrong.
| dijit wrote:
| Interesting!
|
| That's quite contrary to my experience, granted I've only
| used two magic mice, one for 2 years in 2014-16, and
| another from 2020-2023.
|
| It's possible that your experience is much more common
| though!
| azinman2 wrote:
| Can't remember where I saw the interview but that was a
| conscious choice given the long battery life and fast
| charging.
| estebank wrote:
| I get what they were going for: force the user to use it as
| intended because the battery really lasted long enough for
| most people. Otherwise people would just have left it
| plugged always, and the cable+port would have needed
| different mechanical strength. _But_ that really annoys
| anyone who _would_ have left it charging if not most of the
| time. I think it would have been a better experience by
| leveraging software instead: detect that it is close to the
| end of the day and battery is low, and notify the user thwt
| they need to charge it when they stop using it, if leaving
| the underside port, or use notifications to annoy people
| into disconnecting the mouse when fully charged, if the
| port was moved to the obvious place. You 're still annoying
| people, but you're less likely to end up with an unusable
| belly up mouse midway through your day.
| ValentineC wrote:
| I'm surprised Apple didn't co-opt charging mousepad tech,
| like what Logitech uses:
|
| https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/innovation/powerplay.html
| ffsm8 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it's patented in some way considering
| Logitech is still the only option for that .
|
| The product is already several years old after all (release
| date 2017)
| Suppafly wrote:
| Just pay logitech $5/piece to license the patent and then
| sell them for $200, there is plenty of meat on the bone
| for everyone involved.
|
| Or bypass the idea of the patent altogether by making
| their mouse charge wirelessly and then releasing a giant
| wireless charger that happens to work pretty well as a
| mouse pad later.
| pikminguy wrote:
| Option 1 only works if Logitech plays ball. They might
| consider the exclusivity very valuable and be unwilling
| to license it for anything reasonable.
|
| Option 2 is a great way to land in court. It's one thing
| to steal IP from a tiny company or individual but
| Logitech can afford lawyers.
| jsheard wrote:
| Apple engineers probably still have PTSD from trying to get
| the AirPower mat to work, I doubt they'll touch non-
| magnetic wireless charging again.
| staplung wrote:
| Don't be foolish. We may one day cross the Atlantic in an
| aeroplane or conceive of a motorised carriage capable of
| traveling 50 miles per hour but some dreams are simply
| impossible!
| aqfamnzc wrote:
| Putting the plug on the bottom is an intentional choice by
| Apple. It's because they don't want you to plug it in to
| charge, then never remember to unplug it. Mandatory
| wirelessness.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I don't believe this.
|
| I believe (unfounded) originally it was made for asthetic
| reasons, as to not interrupt the sushi shape, and that not
| being able to use it while charging was not considered to
| be that much of a downside. And then since then Apple just
| hasn't bothered spending engineering effort on 'fixing'
| that design decision ever since.
| fwip wrote:
| Makes sense, especially because it's more impressive/magic
| (especially when it was introduced) when your
| friend/family/coworker sees you using it. If the cable was
| plugged in, it might just look to them like a mundane, not
| Magic, mouse.
| leptons wrote:
| I'd sooner believe it's because they want you to buy 2 of
| them, so you can charge one while using the other.
| square_usual wrote:
| You'd buy a second to avoid taking a 2 minute break?
| leptons wrote:
| I wouldn't buy _any_ Apple hardware to begin with. We had
| to sue them in a class action because of their awful
| faulty hardware. We 're never going back.
| throw4950sh06 wrote:
| I don't know, still better than all the other hardware
| vendors with their devices that are bad by specification.
| leptons wrote:
| Oh, like the 8GB Macbooks they are pushing? Like that
| kind of "bad by specification"?
| throw4950sh06 wrote:
| I'd buy that rather than 32 GB anything else.
| square_usual wrote:
| Then why do you care? Why waste your time making shit up
| about Apple when you're not going to buy any of their
| hardware?
| leptons wrote:
| What "shit" did I "make up" about Apple? I haven't made
| up anything. Apple would be happy if you bought 2 of
| their mice to work around their design problems. More
| profit = Apple is happy.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| Zero people on the planet do this.
|
| The mouse port thing is like a canary in the coal mine,
| betraying the people who just like taking shots at Apple,
| but generally are very ill informed. I think Apple should
| keep the port on the bottom purely so we can get the
| shortcut to discarding people's opinions when they hoist
| it up to concern troll.
|
| For _actual_ Apple Mouse users, charging is just the
| least concerning thing imaginable. The battery lasts an
| absolute eternity. I 'm using one right now that I've had
| for at least five or so years and I charge it once in
| forever, it charges super quickly, and it's just not a
| factor in my life at all.
| leptons wrote:
| >"Zero people on the planet do this."
|
| You cannot reasonably make this assertion and expect that
| it's true. I mean, you outed yourself right there as
| someone not capable of a reasonable discussion. Sort of a
| "canary in a coal mine" of your own.
|
| I have never once had my Logitech mice run out of batter,
| not once, not ever. It charges as I use it. I'll take
| that all day long over the "magic mouse" with a charging
| port underneath so you can't even use the thing if it
| runs out of battery an an inopportune moment. But sure,
| go through the mental gymnastics of excusing a really bad
| design by Apple because you're an obvious fanboy.
| bhouston wrote:
| Logitech makes mice that worked plugged in and not, and
| they are durable too because they use a custom plastic
| piece around the USB connector to ensure a snug fit:
|
| https://www.logitechg.com/en-ca/products/gaming-mice/pro-
| x-s...
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Logitech mice don't use the top surface of the mouse as a
| multi-touch trackpad, so it doesn't matter to Logitech if
| the top surface of the mouse is uninterrupted by a
| charging port or not.
| bhouston wrote:
| I think both could be accommodated in a single design.
| pfortuny wrote:
| You mean, like with a notch... It is cool on iOS but not
| on a mouse... Funny.
| int_19h wrote:
| The charging port on Logitech mice is not on top surface.
| It's on the (slanted) front bottom surface. The top
| surface is fully devoted to controls.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| I converted a Logitech mx2 mouse from micro-usb to usb-c.
| When doing so I confirmed and am 100% certain that the
| data lines of usb are not connected on this mouse (only
| ground and 5V are connected for charging). The traces to
| the micro-usb connector do not exist. The mouse only
| works by bluetooth or a Logitech 2.4Ghz dongle.
|
| Yet, when I read forums as I was troubleshooting
| something, I found multiple posts where someone claims
| the mouse doesn't work in "wired mode", and multiple
| people replied saying they only ever use the mouse with a
| usb cable and never wirelessly so surely something is
| wrong, leading to lots of confusion and returned mouses.
| In reality, the mouse can only work when plugged in if it
| is also paired as a wireless device.
|
| If you think about it, the design choice to support
| charging only and not data makes some sense. Having a
| wired and wireless mode may confuse users if they don't
| have a Logitech driver installed that ensures settings
| are persistent across both modes. Apple's design is good
| from this point of view, it only works wirelessly and
| there is no design language that suggests it has a wired
| mode.
|
| Logitech gaming mouses do have wired and wireless modes,
| but I think they generally do not have bluetooth, so
| presumably the mouse and/or its driver can more easily
| take care of persistent settings between modes by not
| supporting bluetooth which is constrained to support
| certain features.
|
| All that being said, I believe the main reason for the
| port being on the bottom of Magic Mouse was simply to
| avoid cost of retooling for manufacturing when they
| switched from AA batteries to a non-removable chargeable
| battery.
| bhouston wrote:
| Whoa, neat. That makes sense from a product
| engineering/support angle - less work. The cable is just
| for charging and nothing else. I think that Windows
| doesn't really support the auto-pairing via USB cable
| that Apple does anyhow with its mice and keyboards.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Now imagine the comment sections around the Internet if
| Apple released a mouse that needed custom ANYTHING to
| charge it.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Given that the lightning version picks up a nine hour charge
| in the time it takes to take a bathroom break or go get a cup
| of coffee, this is more of an excuse to make fun of the
| design than it is a real world show stopper.
|
| > The Apple Mouse 2 also comes with a Quick Charge feature
| that provides nine hours of use with a two-minute charge.
|
| https://www.jackery.com/blogs/knowledge/how-to-charge-
| apple-...
| viraptor wrote:
| The moment it runs out of power isn't when you're you're
| taking a break, but while you're using it. You may change
| what you're doing and go take a break. But you also may be
| in the middle of a presentation.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It'll warn of a low battery for _weeks_ in advance of
| fully going dead.
| viraptor wrote:
| And I'm going to ignore it.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41974645
|
| In the same way people miss meeting reminders ahead of
| the meeting and Google meet/calendar combo still fails to
| do a reminder at 0 minutes by default. It's a bad design
| that doesn't account for real behaviour.
| stephenr wrote:
| The ridiculous amount of warning time and the
| ridiculously quick time to get an entire days charge are
| _good_ design.
| viraptor wrote:
| And all of that doesn't change the fact that I ended up
| without a charge a few times and threw the MM in the bin.
| With the replacement, I just plug the cable in and
| continue using it. I don't even know how fast it charges
| / how long it lasts, because charging doesn't disrupt the
| usage.
| stephenr wrote:
| If you're unable to acknowledge basic information like
| "battery is low" and respond accordingly within several
| _days_ nor able to wait a few seconds to get enough
| charge to last through your super critical meeting
| /whatever, I guess Apples mouse just isn't for you.
|
| That's fine. It's why we have choices.
|
| Now if you'll excuse me I must get back to complaining ad
| nauseam to strangers about how much I hate a mouse I
| don't use. Oh wait no I don't.
| viraptor wrote:
| Yup, that mouse isn't for me. It's also not for a number
| of people who end up buying it. That's how reviews work:
| people who had negative experience talk about it so
| others like that (you know who you are) will not buy that
| mouse. We also talk about software/hardware design here.
| Acknowledging that wider accessibility means designing
| for people behaving in different ways and it saves you
| from years of repeated complaints - that's also
| important.
| BobAliceInATree wrote:
| Given that it has a lithium ion battery and you're very
| much not supposed to put it in a bin, i'm not surprised
| you ignored a low battery warning for weeks.
| talldayo wrote:
| Right, imagine how much better my Magic Trackpad would be
| if I had to leave it unplugged while I was using it!
|
| ...not.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > And I'm going to ignore it.
|
| Sure, and you might forget the mouse at home. Or the
| cord!
|
| They can't solve every problem.
| viraptor wrote:
| We're lucky then that people only complain here about the
| issues they can fix (like the port position) and not
| about all the ones they can't.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| > They can't solve every problem.
|
| But this one. This one they certainly can.
| mplewis wrote:
| Buddy, if you can't charge your mouse once after weeks of
| notifications, that's a you problem.
| viraptor wrote:
| Yup. Me and many other people. Which Apple can either
| ignore, or fix their design to address a bigger market -
| without making the product worse for others.
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| Sounds like it's not for you. And that's ok.
|
| I'm a long time MM user and have one at every computer I
| use (work and multiple personal). My first one was one
| with the AA batteries. Never had a problem with this.
|
| If you have a car, you have to fill it up with gas (or
| charge the battery) too and you can't use it while doing
| that. Similar deal.
| int_19h wrote:
| Thing is, their is literally the only mouse on the market
| that has this weird limitation - and there's no obvious
| good reason for it.
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| I haven't done the research to know if that's true or
| not, so I will assume it is.
|
| But it is such a non-issue to me that I really don't care
| that it exists. I also would not care if they made it
| possible. But as an actual user of multiple of them, it
| really, truly is a non-issue for me.
|
| My issue is that mine are all lightning and I have fewer
| and fewer lightning devices, so I'll have to keep around
| a lightning cable (regardless of whether I can charge
| while using it or not). But that was bound to happen.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| > ... this is more of an excuse to make fun of the design
| than it is a real world show stopper.
|
| It's still a shitty design born of hubris.
| talldayo wrote:
| Wow, that's longer than it takes me to find a working
| Lightning cable most days.
| vehemenz wrote:
| Considering most people put the Magic Mouse in the shelf and
| never use it, I don't think fixing the charge port is high on
| anyone's list.
| square_usual wrote:
| The people who like the magic mouse (not me) don't care, and
| the people who even otherwise would never use a magic mouse
| get to keep making fun of it. Why would they bother?
| notinmykernel wrote:
| I like the magic mouse, and I care that I can't charge it
| while using it. I also care that I have to activate
| bluetooth in order to use it, even if it's plugged in. Same
| with the keyboard. WTFF.
| stephenr wrote:
| Are you sure about the keyboard? Mine _disconnects_ from
| BT when it 's plugged in (and continues to work)
| notinmykernel wrote:
| You still have to switch it "on" which means it is
| emitting a BT signal. It leaves users vulnerable to
| keylogging via BT. It's well-attested and was reported to
| Apple in Q4 2022.
|
| Ideally the on/off switch would not control both the
| power and BT.
| wtallis wrote:
| It still transmits keystrokes over Bluetooth even when
| it's connected over USB?
| khrbtxyz wrote:
| This is form-over-function, classic Apple. They don't want to
| give even the slightest impression that they are selling a
| wired mouse.
| VogonPoetry wrote:
| I think the issue is that a lightning cable and socket aren't
| physically designed to take the stresses of being plugged in
| _and_ being used like a mouse at the same time.
|
| I've not measured it, but I could believe there is probably
| quite a bit of repeated vertical and sideways stress on a
| wired mouse's cable where it joins to the mouse body.
| encom wrote:
| Apple charging cables aren't designed to be plugged into
| anything. Their cables are notoriously terrible. I had a
| lightning cable on my nightstand that I plugged my phone
| into at night a few times a week. After less than two years
| the connector had developed cracks. Inexcusable.
| knallfrosch wrote:
| I got a Logitech MX Vertical that you can charge while using.
| But why would I ever do that? I charge it 3 times per year
| when I'm going for lunch and that's that.
| OkGoDoIt wrote:
| I generally get a notification I need to charge my mouse
| when I'm in the middle of using it. It's nice to be able to
| plug it in without interrupting my workflow. If instead I
| ignore the charge notification and keep working on what I
| was working on, I generally then forget to plug it in
| however many hours later when I've finished work. After
| enough cycles of this, it dies entirely. Sure it only
| happens a few times a year, but you would think Apple of
| all companies would get this right.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Just buy two at the low low cost of double the price
| jujube3 wrote:
| What if (and just hear me out here), the mouse was attached
| to a cord? This would have several benefits. No need to
| charge or have a battery. The mouse would stay near the
| computer and not get lost.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Surprised that they didn't offer it with 8 GB, since they do
| have a 8 GB version of the M4 in the (cheaper) iPad Pro.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| These days 8 GB is absurdly low for a ~$1300 PC. Hopefully
| they might have finally realized that selling crippled
| products (just to force its users to pay the predatory price
| for memory upgrades) is hurting UX and their reputation.
|
| I mean they claim:
|
| > Compared to the most popular 24-inch all-in-one PC with the
| latest Intel Core 7 processor, the new iMac is up to 4.5x
| faster.1
|
| But is that really true if your "ultrafast" Mac grinds to a
| halt when you have a couple of Electron apps and a browser
| open at the same time? Naturally users who bought the base
| model because they didn't really understood the implications
| would just conclude that macOS is slow and unstable compared
| to Windows?
| Hamuko wrote:
| The 13-inch iPad Pro is a ~$1300 PC that Apple will gladly
| sell with 8 GB of RAM.
| angoragoats wrote:
| No, it's not. It's a $1300 high end tablet, which (among
| other things) will not run arbitrary programs of the
| user's choosing, and which has aggressive memory
| management and background process restrictions. All of
| these factors contribute to 8 GiB being a reasonable
| amount of memory for such a device.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| As far as I know even the newest iPad Pro is limited to
| 5GB per app, so if you use it for things like drawing in
| Procreate the 16GB upgrade does literally nothing.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Procreate's own layer limit calculator makes a
| distinction between the 8 GB and 16 GB chips.
|
| https://help.procreate.com/articles/YB7CjQ-maximum-layer-
| lim...
| foldr wrote:
| > your "ultrafast" Mac grinds to a halt when you have a
| couple of Electron apps and a browser open at the same
| time?
|
| The 8GB models could easily handle this kind of load.
| internetter wrote:
| can confirm
| alpaca128 wrote:
| But they could barely do it without swapping in my
| experience.
|
| The OS alone takes 2GB or more (200MB just for spotlight
| iirc), a bit is used for graphics, and once you add a
| bunch of browser tabs and windows you're easily in a
| situation where RAM usage is permanently above 80%. You
| don't feel it as quickly on the M1 but by the time you
| notice lags it's already swapping 15GB, sometimes for no
| apparent reason.
|
| I still don't quite get it, on the 16GB Macbook I feel
| like I can do much more without exceeding 8GB usage.
| foldr wrote:
| Swapping is fine as long as performance remains
| acceptable. Obviously at some point it won't - the 8GB
| models do have limits. But these limits are often wildly
| exaggerated in this sort of discussion.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| > 16GB base RAM, they finally did it.
|
| I've paid EUR200 for 128GB RAM in my PC. How much does Apple
| charge for 128GB of memory?
| cube2222 wrote:
| I get your point, and Apple doesn't price RAM cheap, but it's
| worth noting that any RAM doesn't equal any other RAM.
|
| There's a ton of ram types with varying performance levels,
| and in apple's case it's RAM with direct and performant
| access from the graphics card (unified memory).
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| I'd much rather have had serviceable ram modules than
| sightly faster ram to the gpu I will never fully flex with
| macos software anyhow. Speaking as someone saddled with one
| of these computers.
| angoragoats wrote:
| Every M-series Mac has shipped with completely standard
| LPDDR4 or LPDDR5(X) memory chips. While these can be a bit
| more expensive than socketed non-LP DDR DIMMS, we're
| talking maybe 10% more expensive, not 1000% more expensive
| (which is what Apple charges for upgrades vs standard
| retail price for DIMMs).
|
| Apple's marketing department would be happy for you to
| think otherwise, but the "secret sauce" of their high
| memory bandwidth is completely due to having more memory
| channels built into the SoC than a standard x86 CPU.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| RAM is literally a JEDEC standard.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| Isn't the memory in the Surface Laptop 7 (and presumably
| other comparable Qualcomm/x86 laptops) quite a bit faster?
|
| Of course MS overcharges on upgrades as well... because
| they can. Can it really have anything to do with cost,
| though? I wouldn't be surprised that the slotted RAM in
| laptops that support it and which Lenovo/Dell/etc. sell
| pretty cheap ir as or more expensive than the "Apple Magic
| Unified Max Marketing RAM" wholesale?
| wtallis wrote:
| EUR200 for 128GB as an aftermarket upgrade, or EUR200
| upcharge for 128GB from a system OEM?
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > EUR200 for 128GB as an aftermarket upgrade
|
| I'd love that, seems like a fantastic deal. I assume it's
| DDR4, though? Which makes it an even more apples to oranges
| comparison.
|
| However if we're being fair Dell seems to be charging about
| 50% less (and Lenovo 75% at least for some models) for
| soldered LPDDR5X upgrades than Apple and Lunar Lake seems
| to have comparable bandwidth
| bee_rider wrote:
| Isn't Apple's RAM inside CPU package? I think it might not be
| possible to put together a system (at least with consumer
| parts) that matches their memory bandwidth.
|
| On the other hand, they are limited in capacity. It is a
| trade off, it is silly to pretend they are just limiting
| memory capacity out of the vileness of their hearts or
| something.
| angoragoats wrote:
| > Isn't Apple's RAM inside CPU package?
|
| No, but their marketing department would like you to think
| so.
|
| > It is silly to pretend they are just limiting memory
| capacity out of the vileness of their hearts or something.
|
| They are limiting memory capacity and charging you 8x-10x
| reasonable retail price for upgrades, so that their profit
| margins stay high. Whether or not that's vile is something
| I leave to you to decide.
| wtallis wrote:
| > No, but their marketing department would like you to
| think so.
|
| Can you link to a teardown that finds RAM somewhere
| _other_ than the CPU package?
|
| Or were you in too much of a hurry to notice that the
| comment you replied to _didn 't_ make the common mistake
| of claiming the RAM is on-die not just on-package?
| angoragoats wrote:
| If you're trying to get into a semantic argument about
| the meaning of "CPU package," I'm not interested, thanks!
| bee_rider wrote:
| FWIW I wasn't trying to start a semantic argument about
| the meaning of the term "CPU package," I just thought it
| was a clear and specific term.
| angoragoats wrote:
| Thanks for clarifying, and especially for not being
| snarky!
|
| I think I was thrown off by your use of the term
| "inside," vs other terms like "on" or "part of," which
| led me to believe you were asking about the memory being
| part of the SoC proper. If that's not what you meant, I
| apologize.
|
| The memory consists of standard DDR4/5 memory chips,
| soldered on a PCB, directly next to the M-series SoC. So
| my point was that while it is likely faster than any
| memory you could get on a standard consumer PC, it's not
| in any way special (read: more expensive) for Apple to
| source or assemble.
|
| Side point: I don't think it's necessarily fair to
| compare most Macs to consumer PC hardware, given the
| price differentials involved.
| wtallis wrote:
| You already made a pretty specific claim on that point.
| You were just wrong.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > capacity out of the vileness of their hearts or
| something.
|
| No, it's obviously because they can upcharge on upgrades?
| That's just market segmentation. I doubt it can have much
| to do with technical limitations or actual costs (the the
| difference the wholesale price between 8GB and 16GB is
| relatively marginal).
|
| > I think it might not be possible to put together a system
|
| No, but you can get a Lunar Lake laptop with comparable
| bandwidth. Dell is also "only" half as "greedy" as Apple or
| MS, e.g. 16 GB -> 32 GB is only $200 instead of $400.
| shalmanese wrote:
| How much does it cost you to buy a GPU with 128GB of RAM on
| it?
| viraptor wrote:
| We'll know soon https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-
| components/cpus/amds-strix-h...
| blinkingled wrote:
| Hopefully 8Gb isn't reserved for Apple Intelligence?
| ezfe wrote:
| It is not
| jeffbee wrote:
| Why does the Magic Mouse still exist, though? If you have an
| iMac with the Magic Mouse, you own the only Apple device
| without the complete suite of multitouch gestures. It's weird
| that they still make the Magic Touchpad a paid option when it
| seems like a core part of the offering.
| macspoofing wrote:
| And yet .. they couldn't help themselves and include a 32GB
| option on their top of the line iMac.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| Brought to you by AI and the EU.
|
| The DRAM makers must love AI, low end iPhones increase RAM 33%
| (6GB -> 8GB), low end iMacs go from 8GB to 16GB.
| kristianp wrote:
| What is the EUs influence there?
| petemir wrote:
| USB-C mandate.
| pbreit wrote:
| Seems strange that iMacs remain ~20% more expensive than
| MacBooks.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Macbooks don't have 24 inch screens with 4.5K resolution.
| amelius wrote:
| Let me guess, all USB connectors are on the back side again?
| Great thinking, Apple.
| bearjaws wrote:
| > the new iMac is up to 1.7x faster than iMac with M1
|
| Now 4 generations in, they are still comparing performance to M1.
| I get that 15-20% improvements aren't too exciting but it feels
| old.
| hobo_in_library wrote:
| And even with that they're still only boasting of < 2.0x
| speedups...
| 39896880 wrote:
| >Now 4 generations in, they are still comparing performance to
| M1. I get that 15-20% improvements aren't too exciting but it
| feels old.
|
| FTA: "Compared to the most popular 24-inch all-in-one PC with
| the latest Intel Core 7 processor, the new iMac is up to 4.5x
| faster.1"
| sigh_again wrote:
| First off, "up to" is the most bullshit metric. I am also up
| to 10x more productive when I get coffee, but that's when
| comparing to days where I just play Satisfactory all day
| long.
|
| Secondly, "compared to a random HP AIO PC with a 5 year old
| CPU" (since there are approximately zero chances that the
| most popular PC in a market that is heavily Apple dominated
| would be a 2023 Raptor Lake) is just, once again, Apple's
| piss poor comparisons.
| dialup_sounds wrote:
| Nah, it's a Core 7 150U, which is Raptor Lake.
|
| The trick is they used a GPU accelerated benchmark
| (Affinity) that highlights how trash the Intel GPU is.
| minimaxir wrote:
| In this case it's more fair since the last iMac did indeed have
| an M1.
|
| EDIT: This is wrong: apparently there was a M3 refresh that
| went under the radar, including mine:
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/10/apple-supercharges-24...
| bearjaws wrote:
| TIL it went that long without a refresh.
| vulcan01 wrote:
| If they compared against the M3, people would be complaining
| that apple encourages needless frequent upgrades.
| mholt wrote:
| They're trying to get current M1 users to upgrade.
| pier25 wrote:
| Probably because most iMac owners are still on M1.
| haswell wrote:
| I actually think it makes sense to advertise this way.
|
| Most people I know who bought an M1 (myself included) are still
| rocking the M1.
|
| People who've purchased M2/M3 machines are less likely to be
| jumping on an M4.
|
| Comparing to an M1 tells the most likely customer exactly what
| they need to know.
| askafriend wrote:
| Exactly this. It cuts through the noise and frames the
| benefit for the people who are most likely to upgrade.
|
| The nerds will find the relevant information anyway so no
| need to cater the high level marketing to them.
| bluedino wrote:
| I know it's not the same, but it's like Intel saying the
| Pentium IV is however many times faster than then Pentium MMX
| rsynnott wrote:
| _No-one_ buying this is upgrading from an M3. Honestly, most
| people buying this would be upgrading from some sort of elderly
| Intel thing; these tend to have long operating lifetimes.
| Mainsail wrote:
| Side note, is there anyone that uses a Magic Mouse? It looks
| uncomfortable to use for an extended period of time and curious
| if that's true.
| user68858788 wrote:
| Yup, for years. It feels exactly the same as a MacBook track
| pad and lets you use all the same gestures. I like it better
| than a mouse for my work machine.
| emadabdulrahim wrote:
| Been using it for 10 years. It's my favorite mouse to use.
| Scrolling and tap gesture is the main reason I prefer it. I
| also like touching glass/aluminum over plastic.
| minimaxir wrote:
| The bigger issue with the Magic Mouse is moving it. It has
| rails instead of PFT feet and it tends to tire my wrist out.
|
| When I got an iMac I paid the $50 extra for the Magic Trackpad
| and it was worth it.
| pier25 wrote:
| It has its fans but lots of people find it uncomfortable.
|
| My biggest issue with it is that it's way too heavy. Once you
| go back to 50-60g mice you can't go back.
| helloplanets wrote:
| I use one for 8+ hours a day. I keep reading about the design
| being uncomfortable, but definitely hasn't been the case for
| me.
|
| I guess if I actually kept my hand directly in line with the
| mouse it'd be pretty painful. I just about always keep my hand
| in a slant, more similar to how you'd use a trackpad, or as if
| you were holding a sort of slanted mouse.
|
| I've stuck with it because of the well implemented 2d
| scrolling. Using a physical scrolling wheel feels off at this
| point.
| underbluewaters wrote:
| I love it. The touch-scroll works so well it's like an
| extension of my mind.
| willseth wrote:
| I agree but some people love it. The rest of have a Logitech MX
| speedgoose wrote:
| My work bought one for me so I gave a try. Maybe they updated
| the sensor but the one I got a few years ago was a bad optical
| mouse compared to what I'm used to (Logitech MX and Razer).
| chriscjcj wrote:
| I have one and I don't much care for it. But one thing it does
| better than other mice is scrolling left and right. It scrolls
| left and right as easily as it scrolls up and down. I edit
| audio files and work in DAWs a lot and it's really great for
| that. If I'm not performing those tasks, I generally don't use
| it.
| yborg wrote:
| I guess it's what you're used to and how large your hands are.
| For me, I've use it since it came out and prefer it to any
| other mouse, once you get used to the touch top surface using
| mechanical button/wheel seems archaic. It's also a lot easier
| to keep clean without a scroll wheel.
|
| That said, the change to the rechargeable version was a huge
| unforced error apart from the deserved mocking for the charge
| port location because the mouse also reports low batt condition
| about 10 minutes before it actually dies, I don't know what the
| thinking there was.
| alberth wrote:
| I'm glad to see Nano-Texture coming to their budget line.
|
| That was definitely unexpected.
| lapcat wrote:
| Hopefully they'll add an option for the M4 MacBook Pro too.
|
| I've been waiting 15 years for Apple to reintroduce a matte
| display to the MacBook Pro.
| tosh wrote:
| Accessories are updated to USB-C instead of Lightning
| tosh wrote:
| Not sure if they are purchasable separately yet though.
| artimaeis wrote:
| Looks like they don't have the color-matched options for
| individual purchase, but the b/w trackpad, keyboard, and at
| least 1 keyboard variant are available.
|
| https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MXK93AM/A
|
| https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MXK53AM/A
|
| https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MXK73LL/A
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I see lots of people in this thread mentioning this, but am
| confused. I've never seen a lighting port on an Apple computer-
| only on iphones and ipads, and the cables that come with those
| are USB-C on the other end. Haven't all Apple computer
| accessories been USB-C for almost a decade now?
| kgwgk wrote:
| The past: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102292
|
| > Recharge the built-in battery in your Apple keyboard,
| mouse, or trackpad [...] To charge your device's battery,
| connect a Lightning to USB cable to its Lightning port,
|
| The future: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/10/apple-
| introduces-new-...
|
| > Every iMac comes with a color-matched Magic Keyboard and
| Magic Mouse or optional Magic Trackpad, all of which now
| feature a USB-C port, so users can charge their favorite
| devices with a single cable.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Thanks! That seems like a minor issue because in both cases
| you still use usb-c on the computer end. However it will
| certainly be nice to not need to have 3 different kinds of
| cables, and have everything just take usb-c at some point.
| Although I'll bet they'll have a new usb connector right
| about the time the usb-a and lightning devices finally
| start to disappear.
| mmastrac wrote:
| If 32GB is the max, why not just make that the one and only model
| and get rid of this weird segmentation. That's a ridiculously low
| minimum and only just barely adequate. 8GB was practically
| criminal.
|
| Or -- and I know this is crazy -- slottable RAM on a device that
| is designed for things other than portability. Wild, I know.
| stu2b50 wrote:
| The ram is on the package for more than portability. It's
| necessary for fast enough transfer speeds for the iGPU.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| > necessary for fast enough transfer speeds
|
| Source?
| stu2b50 wrote:
| When was the last time you saw a GPU with slottable memory?
|
| For transfer speeds, look at the data sheets for the M
| series. Much faster than DDR4 or DDR5 RAM. In the ballpark
| of GPU memory.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| Would the people who were buying the baseline 8GB model
| (presumably just for general computing/office work) care
| about the GPU being slightly slower, though?
|
| I bet that the extreme lag when you run out of memory
| because you have an Electron app or two, several browser
| tabs and something like Excel is way more noticeable.
|
| Hardly anyone is using Macs for gaming these days and
| almost anybody who does something GPU intense would need
| more than 16GB anyway.
| KoolKat23 wrote:
| https://www.apple.com/ie/newsroom/2020/11/apple-
| unleashes-m1...
| ankleturtle wrote:
| This has been the approach since the M1s.
|
| See: https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/19/apple_m1_high_b
| andwid...
|
| > The SoC has access to 16GB of unified memory. This uses
| 4266 MT/s LPDDR4X SDRAM (synchronous DRAM) and is mounted
| with the SoC using a system-in-package (SiP) design. A SoC
| is built from a single semiconductor die whereas a SiP
| connects two or more semiconductor dies.
| aseipp wrote:
| Source for what? Parallel RAM interfaces have strict timing
| and electrical requirements. Classic DDR sockets are
| modular at the cost of peak bandwidth and bus width. The
| wider your bus, the more traces you have to run in parallel
| from the socket to the compute complex, which becomes
| harder and harder. You don't see sockets for HBM or GDDR
| for a good reason. The proof is there.
|
| LPCAMM solutions mentioned upthread resolve some of this by
| making the problem more "three dimensional" from what I can
| tell. They reduce the length of the traces by making the
| pinout more "square" (as opposed to thin and rectangular)
| and stacking them closer to the actual dies they connect
| to. This allows you to cram swappable memory into the same
| form factor, while retaining the same clock speeds/size/bus
| width, and without as many design complexities that come
| from complex socket traces.
|
| In Apple's case they connect their GPU to the same pool of
| memory that their CPU uses. This is a key piece of the
| puzzle for their design, because even if the CPU doesn't
| need 200GB/s of bandwidth, GPUs are a very different story.
| If you want them to do work, you have to feed them with
| something, so you need lots of memory bandwidth to do that.
| Note that Samsung's LPCAMM solutions are only 128-bits wide
| and reported around 120GB/s. Apple's gone as high as
| 1024-bit busses with hundreds of GB/s of bandwidth; the M1
| Max was released years ago and does 400GB/s. LPCAMM is
| still useful and a good improvement over the status quo, of
| course, but I don't think you're even going to see 256-bit
| or 512-bit versions just so soon.
|
| And if your problem can be parallelized, then the higher
| your bus width, the lower your clock speeds can go, so you
| can get lower power while retaining the same level of
| performance. This same dynamic is how an A100 (1024-bit
| bus) can smoke a 3090 (384-bit) despite a far lower clock
| speed and power usage.
|
| There is no magical secret or magical trick. You will
| always get better performance, less noise, at lower power
| by directly integrating these components together. It's a
| matter of if it makes sense given the rest of your design
| decisions -- like whether your GPU shares the memory pool
| or not.
|
| There are alternative memory solutions like IBM using
| serial interfaces for disaggregating RAM and driving the
| clock speeds higher in the Power10 series, allowing you to
| kind of "socket-ify" GDDR. But these are mostly unobtainium
| and nobody is doing them in consumer stuff.
| jsheard wrote:
| Then again, the rest of the industry has figured out a way to
| make slottable RAM almost as fast and compact as soldered RAM
| with the new CAMM2/LPCAMM2 standards. The M4 has LPDDR5X-7500
| 120GB/sec memory and there are already LPCAMM2-7500 120GB/sec
| modules, with even faster ones on the way:
| https://www.anandtech.com/show/21390/micron-ships-
| crucialbra...
|
| Two of those modules working in parallel would hit "M Pro"
| speeds as well. I doubt Apple will be adopting them though,
| for the same reason they don't offer standard M.2 SSD slots
| even on systems that could obviously support them with
| minimal design compromises.
| randmeerkat wrote:
| > Then again, the rest of the industry has figured out a
| way to make slottable RAM almost as fast and compact as
| soldered RAM...
|
| Just be patient, the EU will take a large stick and force
| Apple to allow users to replace their RAM soon too.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Very unlikely. Apple can argue that less than 1% of
| computers users ever upgrade their memory (which is
| true), and after all, did the EU intervene when GPUs
| dropped _their_ slotted memory?
| jsheard wrote:
| > did the EU intervene when GPUs dropped their slotted
| memory?
|
| The difference there is that slotted GPU memory is
| demonstrably impactical, but the memory on the M4 isn't
| demonstrably better than the LPCAMM2 module above. It's
| literally the exact same spec. Not that I expect the EU
| to do anything either when they didn't act on Apples
| soldered-in SSDs, which definitely aren't any better than
| standardized M.2 drives.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Actually, incorrect. On some scenarios, you'd need up to
| 4 CAMM2 slots to do what Apple does. This is due to CAMM2
| maxing out at 128 bit busses; but M3 Max chips are
| currently at 512. Needless to say, battery life most
| affected.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40287592
| jsheard wrote:
| Yes, the higher end Max and Ultra chips would still need
| soldered memory for sure. Two CAMM modules flanking
| opposite sides of the SOC is probably doable though, so I
| think the M Pros could practically have socketed memory.
| mmastrac wrote:
| GPU memory is 20 MT/s+, Apple is ~6 MT/s, LPCAMM supports
| ~7500 MT/s.
|
| Easy heuristic: if your memory transfer rate is more than
| 1.5x the standard, you can solder RAM. If not, you must
| use the standard.
| incrudible wrote:
| These are still well below what Apple offers at the high
| end and you can not buy systems like that right now. If you
| want high memory bandwidth on the CPU today, you will be
| charged a big markup on Epyc/Xeon/ThreadripperPro CPUs and
| motherboards, rather than the DRAM.
| wpwpwpw wrote:
| For SSD speeds, that was already dismistified with iBoff new
| adapter which makes an M1 Macbook Air upgradable and faster.
| I wouldn't be surprised if the same was true for RAM using
| the CAMM standard positioned near the CPU. Or maybe even
| better, slotted memory chips like in the old days, with a
| memory controller ready to accept multiple chip sizes.
| causal wrote:
| Yeah I'm a huge fan of Apple hardware and even I can't handle
| this. The different in price between 8GB and 16GB for the M3
| Air was like $500 at Costco. My air from 2016 came with 8GB.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| > That's a ridiculously low minimum and only just barely
| adequate.
|
| What are you doing? I'm still doing web development with
| Chrome, JetBrains, and Docker on a 16GB M1 Pro and it isn't a
| problem. For the average Chrome-using citizen, 16GB should be
| fine.
| emadabdulrahim wrote:
| Opening large files, such as large Figma files, eats up RAM
| like no tomorrow
| HeuristicsCG wrote:
| I'm over here doing hobbyist C++ development and web browsing
| on an 8gb m1 air without any issues.
| dialup_sounds wrote:
| There are Chromebooks currently shipping with 4GB of RAM.
| People don't understand how low the bar is for normies.
| Hamuko wrote:
| 32 GB seems plenty for me for the target audience. The iMac is
| aimed at a rather casual computer user, especially now that
| they nixed the larger screen size one.
| bearjaws wrote:
| I agree, I run 32gb on a dev Macbook pro and it's enough,
| even our largest app is around 20k files and the language
| server uses 5gb of ram. I often sit around 22-24gb of usage
| with Docker running.
|
| For most people 32gb is not going to hold them back.
| seanw444 wrote:
| Wow. And I thought several hundred MiB for my langservers
| was absurd.
| observationist wrote:
| Arbitrary markup based on whatever they can maximally extract
| from their consumers is the name of the game. Product
| segmentation is just one of a variety of tools used to that
| purpose.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| > Product segmentation is just one of a variety of tools used
| to that purpose.
|
| I think people here forget that Apple is targeting a certain
| profit margin. Currently, their gross profit margin is about
| 45%.
|
| If you're rolling this out on the Mac line, it's okay to have
| a profit margin closer to 35% on the base model; but maybe
| with 55%-65% margins on the higher-tier professional
| equipment, to "balance" it out. It also turns out,
| professionals have money, and will pay despite the grumbling.
| The RAM prices are basically a progressive tax.
| briandear wrote:
| Isn't that the name of every game?
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| I've never felt memory limited on my 16gb macbook pro, on which
| I code, run rust-analyzer (major memory hog), video edit, etc.
| Most people definitely don't need 32GB
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| Agreed. I was XCode'ing on an 8gb M1 back during the
| lockdown, it was great.
|
| It's nice to see more RAM and Apple was being very stingy
| about it, but the real-world is totally overblown.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| If you use your PC to only run a single application at any
| time then yes, 8GB might be usable. If you need to have an
| Electron app opened, a few browser tabs and XCode (let
| alone some less efficient IDE)? Your compute will grind to
| a halt...
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| Well yeah... like, that's why Electron apps are terrible,
| though, I bend over backward to avoid them.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| Well... that doesn't really matter if you have to use
| Teams/Slack or whatever?
| linux2647 wrote:
| I've definitely been memory limited on a 32GB MacBook Pro.
| Though it's probably due to Docker, Slack, multiple IDEs, and
| dozens and dozens of browser tabs all open at the same time.
| Consider me part of the exception.
| mmastrac wrote:
| The problem is the insane markups, but my anecdata is the
| opposite of yours.
|
| I'm also doing Rust dev, but I can't work with less than
| ~24GB.
|
| On my headless rackmount dev box that I use for my remote
| development environment, the box sits around 17GB of memory
| in use + 8GB of cache. I've got an M3 with 36GB running a few
| Visual Studios Code (plus browser/Docker/Dropbox) with about
| 30GB used (8GB of that is cache).
|
| 16GB would not have been enough for me for my work at Deno.
| My current job involves both Rust and Python work and I'd
| quickly hit the limits of 16GB if I'm running my code while
| developing it, let alone running a browser or keeping my
| email client open.
| xethos wrote:
| Says the first owner of the machine. Macbooks, and Apple
| devices in general, have a strong reputation for high resale
| value. That high resale value is based on having them last
| quite a while. This falls apart in a few years as hardware
| requirements continue to balloon.
|
| That was fine when Intel was sitting on their ass, raking in
| the cash, and nearly everything else (storage, especially
| external drives, RAM, and even batteries weren't too bad) is
| upgradeable. This is less great when you can no longer
| upgrade the component most likely to be the first bottleneck.
|
| Apple pays people to be smarter than me about this, but I
| still think it's a stupid long-term play to damage one of
| your biggest selling points
| endemic wrote:
| "640K of memory should be enough for anybody." -- apocryphal
| BillG
| epolanski wrote:
| I do on my 24gb one running a custom typescript compiler,
| running backend + 2 frontends (a backoffice and an embedded
| one) + E2Es.
| matsemann wrote:
| Have you considered that your way of using the machine is
| based around the limitations, hence you don't recognize them?
|
| Whenever switching company I went from a 64 gb ram computer
| to a 16 gb ram. Yes, it worked, but only because I had to
| adapt to it. But one might not see it if one's never tried.
| lbourdages wrote:
| I might get away with 48GB (don't know, I have 64 now on my
| work machine) but I had a lot of swap usage when I was
| running on 32GB. Some of us do need a lot of ram.
| prmoustache wrote:
| But are "us" imac users?
| david_allison wrote:
| My M1 MacBook is currently sitting at 46GB usage. It's not
| heavily under load
|
| (WebStorm, Rider, Android Studio, Chrome, Discord & Slack),
| not currently running an Android Emulator, LLM or Docker
| foldr wrote:
| The OS will use more RAM if you give it more RAM. The fact
| that you are currently using 46GB on an (I assume) 64GB
| model doesn't necessarily mean that your workload would run
| badly on a 32GB or 16GB model.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| It's more likely to mean exactly that, because the less
| RAM, the more disk swapping.
|
| At some point it becomes impossible for the OS to keep
| everything it wants in RAM at the same time, and then you
| get an orgy of disk thrashing and a potential lock-up.
|
| This is not theoretical. I've had it happen on both Macs
| and Windows machines, sometimes with just a single main
| app running.
|
| At best you'll get obvious delays if you switch apps, as
| pages get dumped to disk while other pages are loaded.
| foldr wrote:
| Yes, you may get some swapping, but with a fast SSD that
| won't necessarily degrade performance too much.
|
| Some RAM is used for file caching and other optional
| stuff, so not all of the additional usage will translate
| into swap if RAM is reduced.
|
| MacOS also makes use of RAM compression, which increases
| the amount of memory pressure that can be sustained
| before swapping is necessary.
|
| All in all, it's pretty complicated, and the only way to
| know if a workload will perform acceptably on a machine
| with less RAM is to try it.
| hatsix wrote:
| Definitely constrained by my 16gb, it's only 2 years old.
| Rubymine takes 4gb on it's own, Chrome eats a lot... I'm
| usually hovering around 10gb of swap.
| perihelions wrote:
| Presumably, their career economists found that this "weird"
| pricing scheme is actually optimal--that selling tiny RAM
| upgrades for $200 or $400 is _empirically, measurably_ an
| effective way to sort their consumers by purchasing power, and
| optimally drain their wallets.
|
| It goes by many names, the _" microeconomic pricing strategy
| where identical or largely similar goods or services are sold
| at different prices by the same provider to different buyers
| based on which market segment they are perceived to be part
| of"_,
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination
| mmastrac wrote:
| > optimally drain their wallets
|
| I mean, that's basically it. The difference between part
| costs of 8GB/16GB/32GB RAM chips is nearly a rounding error,
| and they're probably eating a bunch more costs stocking and
| adding assembly for different RAM SKUs.
| simonh wrote:
| That explains it then. The extra cost of supporting extra
| RAM SKUs has to be recouped somehow. What better way than
| by stocking extra RAM SKUs and charging a premium? :)
| epolanski wrote:
| How else can they upsell 16GB of ram worth 50 euros for 400?
| samatman wrote:
| On the one hand, sure, Apple loves to get that extra margin for
| more RAM and SSD, no doubt.
|
| On the other hand, the MacBook Air ships with 8GiB RAM
| standard, and it's robustly popular. One could suppose that all
| those customers are suffering from the lack of RAM, or one
| could suppose that for many use cases, it's an adequate amount.
|
| The latter is more likely. macOS manages memory well, and a
| fast SSD means that swapping is fast enough that it often
| results in no visible delays to the user.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| I'm not sure how can we tell. The Mac revenue has peaked back
| in 2022 and has been declining since. But assure, I wouldn't
| be surprised if a lot of people use their Macs as they would
| an iPad (i.e. at most a single app and/or browser and 8GB
| might be enough for that).
| samatman wrote:
| How we can tell what?
|
| That they sell a lot of stock MacBook Airs? They do. I
| don't find the topic interesting enough to find a link, but
| I'm pretty confident on this one.
|
| > _a lot of people use their Macs as they would an iPad_
|
| A lot of people have pretty undemanding requirements in a
| laptop, yes. 8GiB is more than enough for some web browsing
| and light document editing, a bit of photo retouching, that
| kind of thing. There are many Chromebooks on the market
| right now with 4 GiB and they sell in numbers.
|
| The HN tilt trends toward systematically overestimating
| system requirements because development is fairly demanding
| of them.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > but I'm pretty confident on this one.
|
| I just doubt there is actual meaningful data available
| (at least that's publicly accessible). We'd need to
| measure the proportion of base config MBA users who
| regularly get OOM warnings?
|
| > many Chromebooks
|
| Yes. People just have different use cases. I mean almost
| nobody who does anything that might require > 16-32 GB of
| memory would likely buy this iMac (even if Apple sold
| such configs).
|
| It's an entirely different product than the 27 inch "Pro"
| iMacs with Xeons from back in the day.
|
| Hardly anybody "needs" a desktop PC these days (outside
| of gaming and some niche applications). So this is just
| basically a generic office / front desk PC for people who
| don't need laptops.
| samatman wrote:
| > _regularly get OOM warnings_
|
| Ah, yes that was why I asked what I did. I'm quite
| confident they sell a lot of stock MBAs, is what I said,
| as a guess at what we were trying to 'tell'.
|
| As for "low on application memory" warnings, macOS
| doesn't really do that unless the user is also out of
| swap. Offer may not be valid for XCode. My wild-ass guess
| is that users who need lots of RAM tend to know that when
| they buy computers, and that percentage wise, there are
| more over-provisioned Mac users than under-provisioned.
| But who knows.
|
| > _So this is just basically a generic office / front
| desk PC for people who don't need laptops._
|
| Right. Apple market-segments their products pretty
| carefully, and the post-Pro iMac line is for
| receptionists, desktop publishing, light-duty
| visual/creative, the occasional desk-oriented email job,
| and so on. 16 GiB is a generous baseline for those tasks,
| and 8 GiB was probably adequate for most customers.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| The vast majority of HN users are not the target customer for
| the iMac
| piinbinary wrote:
| It's frustrating how disposable these are designed to be
|
| edit: e.g. screen replacements cost nearly as much as the entire
| computer
| aqme28 wrote:
| Are you expected to replace your screen often? I don't think I
| upgrade and replace either one much faster than the other.
| Usually get a new monitor and a new PC every 4 or so years.
| mullsork wrote:
| > Usually get a new monitor and a new PC every 4 or so years.
|
| Maybe you're not quite the average consumer that OP has in
| mind? Maybe you are, I don't know. Either way it's
| unsustainable and ridiculous that the _average consumer_
| would need to replace something after 4 years when it COULD
| be built to last.
| hatsix wrote:
| My first LCD monitor is still actively used in our house,
| about 18 years old now. My mother has gone through several
| computers, kept the same screen for 15 years. Apple
| Consumers are not "Average Consumers". Starting at $1300,
| it's a luxury desktop.
| acdha wrote:
| That's a mid-range desktop at most in a world where
| people pay more than that for individual components at
| the high-end, especially when you look at pricing for
| equivalent quality displays.
|
| The correct criticism of iMacs is that it links two parts
| with different lifespans. There should be a legal
| requirement that all-in-one computers have an external
| connector so that if some other component fails or simply
| becomes obsolete you can use the perfectly functional
| display with another system.
| hatsix wrote:
| I agree that the iMac needs to be usable as a monitor.
| Both Dell and HP all-in-ones that I looked at do this (I
| did not do an exhaustive search, so it may not be as
| common as my 'look at two' makes it sound, but it's not
| UN-common)
|
| However, let's be real clear, iMac is not a mid-range
| desktop, price-wise. Amazon's all-in-one category's
| HIGHEST non-apple price in the top-10 is $599. There are
| three non-apple all-in-ones over $1k in the top-50. [1]
|
| Obviously, once we separate the pieces out, things become
| even more clear cut. You can buy the beefiest "mini-pc"
| from amazon and pair it with a 28" or 32", flat or curved
| 4k monitor for $200-400 and still have money left over.
|
| The iMac is NOT high-end, but it is luxury, and that's an
| important distinction.
|
| 1: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Electronics-All-
| in-One-C...
| acdha wrote:
| My point was just that while it's not low-end it's also
| not luxury in a world unless you're defining that term to
| mean something like "has clean lines without stickers" or
| "has a better display than a TV from a decade ago".
|
| Most of the cost of an iMac is the display and as your
| example shows, you don't see significant savings unless
| you accept massive compromises on quality. 1080p FHDs is
| like saying you have a luxury car because your baseline
| is a golf cart and most of those have terrible color
| quality according to their spec sheets even if you ignore
| the low resolution. By the time you're getting to models
| which are only one generation behind on CPU you're
| looking at a $900 system with a display which is worse
| than what Apple shipped almost 20 years ago.
| fastball wrote:
| That wasn't their point. The point is that the average
| consumer doesn't really upgrade their desktop separately
| from their screen, if the two are separate. You do not need
| to replace an iMac after 4 years, they are in fact built to
| last.
| orangecat wrote:
| I made the mistake of getting a 27" iMac in 2014. The 5k
| display is still great by today's standards but the internals
| are obsolete.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| Well.. no. But if it breaks or is damaged you basically have
| to throw away (the otherwise) fully functional PC.
| stackskipton wrote:
| Most people I know who don't use laptop exclusively don't
| replace their monitors that often. My work docking station is
| still rocking 2017 4k monitors and my wife home setup is
| similar.
| mjlee wrote:
| Especially egregious when you consider older iMacs could be
| used as external displays - https://support.apple.com/en-
| gb/105126
| Teever wrote:
| I'd love to see a regulator mandate that computers like the
| iMac that have built in screens must have HDMI ports that
| allow them to be used as monitors.
|
| This would be great for the consumer and prevent a lot of
| ewaste as people can use obsolete computers as monitors well
| past their useful lifespan as a monitor.
| SahAssar wrote:
| HDMI might be a bit more complex, but displayport should be
| doable since most devices use embedded displayport (eDP)
| anyway for their built in displays. I'm guessing the main
| cost would be adding a switching chip for switching between
| external and internal source.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| While it is a shame it was never brought back, at the time it
| was removed it was unavoidable since the bandwidth required
| for 5k was beyond what could be carried across a single
| display port cable.
| redox99 wrote:
| Displayport 1.3 which supports 5k 60fps became widely
| available with the NVIDIA 900 series just 5 months after
| the 5K iMac released. AMD followed suit 1 year after.
|
| They could have very soon added support for it, maybe even
| launched with DP 1.3 support if they worked something out
| with AMD.
| whitehexagon wrote:
| yeah I have an older model that had the well documented faulty
| / fragile screen connector for the LED back lights. Very
| expensive replacement screen was the recommended fix! all for
| the sake of a tiny six pin connector.
|
| One of these days I'll split it down and see if my hands are
| still steady enough to solder on a new connector.
|
| Anyway it was enough to swear me off any all-in-one devices
| ever again. I thought by now we'd be fully modular with desktop
| computer hardware.
| js2 wrote:
| I commented elsewhere, but my uncle is on his third iMac in 30
| years. He keeps them a decade at a time. My father is still
| using an Intel iMac. Normal people do not upgrade their
| computers after purchase. Displays are generally not something
| that fail. These machines are capable of providing a decade or
| more of service to normal people.
| IndrekR wrote:
| First iMac was released in 1998.
| js2 wrote:
| I rounded too aggressively. His first iMac was the G4 on a
| stalk (2002). The second was one of the aluminum pre-Retina
| Intel models, perhaps 2012. He just purchased his third
| earlier this year. So, three iMacs in 22 years, but I
| expect him to keep this one for at least a decade too, at
| least 5 years, so that will get him to three iMacs in 27
| years at minimum.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| My last iMac lasted 10-years. I replaced it with the M3 iMac
| for my daughter. I will be happy if it takes her through High
| School graduation in 2030. If the M3 iMac is still running, I
| expect to use it for some intro to computer stuff for one of
| the younger kids.
|
| Yes I cannot mine the iMac for parts at EOL, but realistically,
| I haven't really done that on any tower-based PC either.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| I bet iMacs are some of the longest-average-lifetime computers
| out there.
|
| But I'm sad that the 27" models are obsolete computers and
| still-wonderful screens, and Apple removed the use-as-screen
| mode.
| VogonPoetry wrote:
| That feature was available and only possible with specific
| Intel chips. It went away because Intel stopped supporting
| it. Sad the feature didn't come back to life in the
| AppleSilicon iMac.
| ascorbic wrote:
| I bought an iMac in 2011 that I had for 12 years before it
| died. I replaced the HD with an SSD after a few years but
| otherwise it just kept on going.
| phs2501 wrote:
| Why does this still have the ridiculous iMac chin? Surely they
| can fit everything behind the screen at this point.
| fckgw wrote:
| They literally can't. They moved the headphone jack from the
| back to the side because it was too long.
|
| Now you could argue if it needs to be that thin but for the
| current configuration, there's nothing you can cram behind the
| screen.
| phs2501 wrote:
| For something that's literally designed to sit on a desk,
| yes... it's ridiculous to make it thinner in a dimension you
| never see vs one that you see all the time.
| aabhay wrote:
| Aesthetics is also for the environment of the object rather
| than the primary user. That's the reason the logo is on the
| back
| stu2b50 wrote:
| Many of these are customer service desks which are visible
| from the side.
| hengheng wrote:
| iMac has always been a device to be seen with, if not for
| the user then for the manufacturer.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| One more vote for aesthetics here. I put a lot of effort
| into making my home beautiful. iMacs respect/complement
| that effort for me.
| porphyra wrote:
| From the ifixit teardown of the previous M1 model [1], it
| seems that all the compute is going in the chin.
|
| They can't put the compute in the back of the display itself,
| while maintaining the same thickness like an iPad (which has
| the same CPU), because the room behind the displays is
| dominated by the speaker system, allowing the iMac to have
| surprisingly good audio quality despite being so thin.
|
| [1] https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac+M1+24-Inch+Teardown/
| 142...
| candiddevmike wrote:
| These look hideous tbh. I'm waiting for the iMac to flip
| vertically and ask me to tip.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| where do you put ur sticky notes?
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| It makes a lot more sense if you look at the iFixit teardown.
| https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac+M1+24-Inch+Teardown/142...
| alberth wrote:
| Does it though?
|
| The iMac is basically the same as the M4 iPad Pro, and the
| iPad Pro doesn't have a chin.
| wolrah wrote:
| > The iMac is basically the same as the M4 iPad Pro, and
| the iPad Pro doesn't have a chin.
|
| Cooling seems like it might be a factor here. The iMac's
| display is probably going to be run at a brighter (and thus
| hotter) setting AND it's more likely to be used to do
| things that require high load for extended periods of time,
| so putting it in its own space probably helps.
| dagmx wrote:
| iMac has active cooling, more ports and more power
| available to it to drive those ports (though the PSU is
| external, it's still gotta have the internal circuitry to
| deliver that).
|
| Those all do have to go somewhere.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Someone got into their mind that it was important that
| everything is as thin as possible - hence the chin.
|
| I miss the times when they used the form factor to actually
| make new shapes - both the sunflower and the cube looks more
| futuristic than the 2024 iMac.
| wpm wrote:
| The chin gives you a good touch-point for adjusting the angle
| of the display and the rotation angle of the entire base,
| without having to worry about touching the screen/screen bezel
| and getting finger prints on it.
|
| It's also a great place to tack post-it notes.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| You can do that with a regular monitor too
| fdvdf wrote:
| No chin can be adjusted fine on basically any other display
| on the market today.
| space_oddity wrote:
| Sticking notes...Not everyone understands how necessary this
| is for some people
| spankalee wrote:
| I think they keep the chin because it's the only thing that
| visually indicates that this is an iMac and not a monitor, and
| thus worth more than $500.
| vehemenz wrote:
| Surely we are beyond concern with bezels, chins, and other
| frivolous mobile phone aesthetics at this point.
| speedgoose wrote:
| Do you think there is a chance that they will remove the huge
| bottom bezel one day?
|
| It may be part of the iMac design identity at this point, but I
| don't like it since its appearance on the iMac G5.
| gatkinso wrote:
| Interesting to roll out the M4 with the low end machine
| mjamesaustin wrote:
| They will be unveiling more M4 devices every day this week.
| Probably started with the least remarkable to build intensity.
| jshier wrote:
| M4 already rolled out with the iPad Pro update in the spring.
| rsynnott wrote:
| They tend to do that; the M1 took some time to get from the
| Mini and Air to the other machines. _Years_ for the Pro.
| emadabdulrahim wrote:
| Curious who uses iMac over a MBP with an external monitor? Is it
| mainly for front desk, businesses, and perhaps people with large
| homes and need stationary mac?
| PokestarFan wrote:
| Great "Family Computer"
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| It might also be a good choice for those who always work at one
| desk, have established a work/life balance such that they don't
| need a portable computer, and would prefer not to pay extra to
| have portability that they just don't require.
|
| An M4 iMac with 10 CPU cores, 10 GPU cores, 16GB RAM and 1TB
| SSD costs $1700.
|
| A 14" MBP with 8 CPU cores, 10 GPU cores, 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD
| costs $2000. Before you add a 27" monitor and desktop
| keyboard/pointing device.
|
| Why pay that premium if you don't actually need to carry your
| desktop PC around?
| munificent wrote:
| I'm a typical software engineer nerd who uses a MacBook Pro for
| work.
|
| My last two home computers have been 27" iMacs. Each one has
| lasted me about 8 years and I've been happy with both of them.
| Nice big display, good specs, not a lot of clutter. Really good
| bang for the buck.
|
| At home, I use them for making music (Ableton Live), video
| production (DaVinci Resolve), photo processing (Photoshop and
| Lightroom), and programming (various IDEs and editors). I much
| prefer one good display over a pair of them.
|
| Long-term, maybe it would be more cost effective to get a Mac
| Mini so that I don't end up paying to replace the display when
| I replace the machine. But display technology seems to advance
| about as fast as other hardware specs do, so I suspect I'd want
| a new monitor at about that rate anyway.
|
| Going forward, though, I probably won't buy another iMac.
| That's largely because now that I make music with Ableton Live,
| I want a laptop that I can (aspirationally!) take to shows to
| play live on.
|
| But for well over a decade, I've been a happy iMac user. I
| don't care about upgradeability. I buy a machine that has the
| specs I want when I buy it.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| > The iMac also features a new 12MP Center Stage camera with Desk
| View
|
| (from the marketing page)
|
| wait so this thing has the universally reviled Studio Display
| camera??
| stevenAthompson wrote:
| Do they sell matching monitors to go with these all in one style
| iMac's?
|
| I'm not really an Apple person, but I can't imagine having a
| single monitor in this day and age and any other color would look
| silly next to a weird pastel pink device.
| presbyterian wrote:
| I don't use an iMac, but I do use a single display with a
| similar resolution, and I personally much prefer it to a multi-
| monitor setup
| nxobject wrote:
| I agree... on the proviso that I can never afford 3 monitors,
| and I've never quite found 2-monitor setups comfortable
| because even with the very small bezels today I'm constantly
| shifting and turning away from the centre.
| stu2b50 wrote:
| No. If you're that kind of power user, the iMac isn't for you.
| Get a Mac mini or studio.
| askafriend wrote:
| A lot of people in this thread commenting without making an
| attempt to understand who this is for.
| stevenAthompson wrote:
| > A lot of people in this thread commenting without making
| an attempt to understand who this is for.
|
| Why do you seem defensive? I asked a reasonable question of
| a group of people I thought might have product knowledge I
| lacked. I am not a Very Pink Apple Product SME, and stated
| as much in my question.
| askafriend wrote:
| This isn't directed at you. I just happened to read a
| bunch of comments before yours. Stu2b50's response seemed
| like a good enough place to point out the dynamic.
| jfoster wrote:
| I could never justify getting an iMac. All the downsides of a
| laptop & desktop in one; not upgradeable and not portable. Leaves
| me wondering how many of these Apple actually sell. A Mac Mini
| with a separate screen feels like it makes far more sense.
| fire_lake wrote:
| Very low desk clutter though. Power cable, maybe a mouse.
| Nothing else.
| graeme wrote:
| The iMacs very much aren't their main seller. A couple of key
| demographics use it though:
|
| * Families with a shared computer in a common room. Super
| simple to setup, no fiddling, low price. In the video Apple
| showcased this use case. My parents have an M3 imac and it
| works great. They had their last iMac for ten years.
|
| * Businesses buy these for reception areas and customers see
| the Apple logo on the back. Easy solution for a business with
| no IT department, great marketing for Apple.
|
| Apple will probably always sell an iMac option as long as
| businesses buy and display them.
| 39896880 wrote:
| Education as well. Main reason why that headphone jack has
| stuck around I suspect.
| graypegg wrote:
| +1 for the business front desk. This is by far where I see
| them the most. They're very easy to deploy, and most of the
| software you're going to need it to be running works in a
| browser. A windows all-in-one PC is another option... but the
| chance of something going wrong/being annoying in the interim
| between "plunk it on the desk" and "open salesforce in
| chrome" is definitely higher.
| aphantastic wrote:
| My parents have had an iMac in their living room sitting
| quietly doing _stuff_ (web apps, mainly) for 9 years now.
| Still works fine for all their use cases and the 5k screen
| remains a delight to behold.
| notatoad wrote:
| i know a few people who have an iMac in their living room
| like that, with the same logic as the people who still have
| landlines - the laptops and cell phones get put away when
| you get home (or stay in the home office), so you can be
| present with your family. but sometimes you still need a
| computer for _stuff_ , like controlling the music or
| quickly looking something up on google. but if it's not
| your computer, and it's not signed in to all your stuff,
| you're going to quickly do the thing you need doing and
| then get off it again.
|
| iMac is perfect for that. it looks pretty, it's small
| enough that it can be put in a corner, and it's powerful
| enough that you can buy it, leave it there, and not think
| about having to upgrade it for a decade.
| saylisteins wrote:
| It's surreal for me how something so expensive can be
| thought as "perfect" for this usecase. I'd say in cases
| like this having a cheap laptop or even a cheap all in
| one desktop computer is good enough. Why spend $2000 to
| browse the internet?
| graypegg wrote:
| Being honest, I would bet the archetypical family that
| can prioritize "putting the phone away and being present"
| definitely skews more affluent than you may expect.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Eh, they start at $1300 (I suspect pretty much all non-
| commercial purchases are the base-line one) and last
| roughly forever (like, a decade is not an exaggeration;
| you see old ones around a fair bit). There's a market,
| there.
|
| Not sure what it's like these days, but last time I
| checked cheap PC laptops were basically disposable; in an
| old job we had plastic Dell laptops for non-eng roles,
| and I'd be surprised if the median lifespan was much more
| than a year. They just broke _all the time_. Possibly
| things have come on, I suppose; this was a while back.
| graeme wrote:
| The long support length lowers the effective cost. We
| only upgraded my parents' computer after ten years due to
| software support. It was so old it was soon going to lose
| even Google Chrome updates. But it ran like new.
|
| The total carrying cost over ten years is quite low. And
| my parents have needed much less tech help with a mac.
| The day to day ease matters and is worth money.
| znpy wrote:
| > Why spend $2000 to browse the internet?
|
| Not having to manage windows and its bullshit, most
| likely.
|
| Macs usually require way less maintenance than windows
| machines. Just install all the upgrades and you're 99%
| fine.
| saylisteins wrote:
| Sorry for the 2000 price mark, seems like the base
| version costs 1300$.
|
| In my personal experience, my parents (not super tech
| savvy) always had a windows laptop and never had a
| specific windows issue due to updates and whatever. If
| they did, it's more app specific, not necessarily os
| specific.
|
| In general, I (personally) disagree with the statement
| that macs require less maintenance than windows or Linux,
| I use a mac for work, and I have a fair share of app
| related issues just like I would on a Windows or Linux
| machine. It's just my opinion.
| coryfklein wrote:
| I love the iMac as the main driver for my family of 5
|
| * We want a dedicated space in the house for a family
| computer, so portability is no concern
|
| * It has a very small footprint
|
| * It looks the most like "furniture" out of all the options
| I've seen; pretty color & form factor, and no mess of cables.
| If you're male, think "wife approval factor".
|
| * It does everything the family needs from it; runs Steam,
| documents, spreadsheet, browser, school, photos/videos, etc
|
| * High interoperability with our family iPhones/iPads
| newsclues wrote:
| Yeah a family friend PC that can end up on a desk or in the
| kitchen, or on a milk crate as a media player in an
| apartment, as a family computer they get years of use over
| time by different people in a family. From work to life to
| play.
| lokar wrote:
| Same here. I provide tech support to my father, on the
| condition that I pick the hardware, always an iMac
| jwells89 wrote:
| Low number of cables has also been one of the points of
| appeal for the iMac, to the point that it was a focal point
| of marketing for the original model. For the average person's
| setup the current model only needs a power cable.
| mjlee wrote:
| It's an optional extra (of course), but you can plug an
| ethernet cable in to the power adapter and deliver power +
| network over the same cable.
| bmicraft wrote:
| > For the average person's setup the current model only
| needs a power cable.
|
| Even if you use wireless input devices you'll need to
| charge them occasionally
| jwells89 wrote:
| Of course, but those cables (or more likely, just one
| cable) can be stashed away in a drawer 99% of the time.
| The bundled keyboard and mouse/trackpad can go months
| between recharges, especially with lighter less frequent
| use that something like a living room or kitchen machine
| might see.
| davedx wrote:
| My daughter's orthodontist has one of these behind every
| chair. Our dentist has them too.
|
| HN honestly is a terrible source of information for
|
| 1) What sells
|
| 2) What might sell
| playingalong wrote:
| I have been to a on orthodontist office which didn't have
| any iMac.
|
| I wouldn't apply this observation to judge if the product
| makes sense
| talldayo wrote:
| That's fine, but personal anecdotes are also a hugely
| misleading source of information too. In the time since the
| iMac redesign was released, I've seen 10x more of the old
| models than I have seen of the new ones. My local barber
| even uses an Intel iMac in Target Display mode to run their
| Windows small-form-factor PC.
|
| HN is disillusioned, but so are a lot of the west coast
| product designers that expect businesses to buy these on
| day 1. The majority of businesses are going to buy whatever
| is cheap and effective - their realistic choice is between
| a Chromebox and a Mac Mini.
| bobsmith432 wrote:
| When I think cheap and works out of the box, Mac is the
| last thing on my mind.
| glonq wrote:
| "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."
| jfoster wrote:
| OK, I want to partly take back my comment. The business use
| case is brilliant.
| FactKnower69 wrote:
| >low price
|
| ???
| sgt wrote:
| If you just want a family computer in the living room or
| somewhere, it's perfect. A place where you can just sit down
| and do some stuff. We have an iMac there without a login
| requirement.
| martin_a wrote:
| I don't see the point in them anymore, too. 24" screen size is
| not interesting and I can't get more displays that do look like
| the first one. Will always look strangely mixed in
| environments.
|
| edit: ok, others pointed out possible use cases. was thinking
| about the reception one, too.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Most Mac users seldom upgrade. I read here and myself often use
| a MacBook for 7+ years. Given screen tech changes alone, I
| think it makes a lot of sense.
|
| I've owned an iMac before very happily. I just don't own one
| now because they stopped making 27" versions.
| ryandrake wrote:
| 27" iMac has been my daily driver for over 10 years, and I
| only replaced my last one because the screen cracked when I
| tried to repair it. I've got 64GB of RAM and a 27"
| thunderbolt display on both sides, making excellent for both
| software development and video editing. I don't know what I'd
| replace it with if it died.
| sorum wrote:
| What is preventing them from launching a 27" version?
|
| I've been waiting to upgrade our 2017 model in the living
| room, was hoping the 27" was finally going to come now. Guess
| Mac Mini is the only route to go...
| znpy wrote:
| > What is preventing them from launching a 27" version?
|
| most likely they (apple) think that would eat into some
| other market segment. for a 27" station they probably want
| you to get a mac mini with a studio display. apple is known
| for "gently (but firmly) nudging" you towards the more
| expensive options.
| sorum wrote:
| It does seem that way, doesn't it? Shame, it was the
| perfect form factor for family room, office front desk.
| rgbrgb wrote:
| > Leaves me wondering how many of these Apple actually sell
|
| I think we can check since they're public. Looks like 5-8
| million per quarter [0]. Approx 10% of their computer sales
| [1].
|
| [0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-
| ma...
|
| [1]: https://www.cultofmac.com/news/macbooks-make-up-a-
| whopping-7...
| wongarsu wrote:
| Compared to 43% MacBook Pro, 34% MacBook Air, 9% Mac Pro, 3%
| Mac mini, 1% Mac Studio, as per the second link.
|
| So these are their most popular desktop, but by a slim margin
| and far behind the laptop sales
| Tagbert wrote:
| Note that those are revenue figures, not unit sales. That
| is why the Mac Pro comes out so high. the unit cost is so
| much higher that even with low volumes, the revenue is
| noticeable.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Note the data isn't actually public - Apple does not break
| Mac revenue or sales figures down to per device. These are
| all just 'market intelligence' estimates.
| MBCook wrote:
| Right. They used to, they stopped many years ago. So now
| it's all guesses, estimates, based on whatever.
| taeric wrote:
| I'd be interested in numbers on some of this. From my view, the
| upgradability is a bit of a red herring for most users.
| Computers are fast enough for most uses that it just doesn't
| matter.
| stouset wrote:
| And frankly, the "upgradeability" of most desktops is a myth
| in my experience.
|
| By the time I've ever wanted to upgrade a Windows or Linux
| PC, a new CPU probably isn't going to fit into the same
| socket as the one I had so now I need a new motherboard too.
| I probably want a new GPU if it was a gaming PC and if it
| wasn't I would be using an integrated GPU anyway.
|
| I think the only thing I've ever kept from an "upgrade" was
| my case and some memory sticks. But I probably would have
| been better off--both in time and money--just selling the
| damn thing as a whole and buying an entirely new set of
| components.
|
| TL;DR, year-over-year bumps just aren't worth the price of
| upgrades, but by the time it is worth doing you probably want
| to upgrade so many parts there's little left to keep. YMMV.
| captnObvious wrote:
| I agree with you entirely except for if we skip the year
| over year part.5-
|
| Time of purchase upgrade ability, if we're talking about
| getting to 128 or 256 GB of RAM. Time of purchase to
| upgrade to multiple high res screens that match. Dedicated
| GPUs... I bet there is a top of the line home hobbiest LLM
| oriented GPU from Nvidia or AMD in the next 3 years that
| will cleanly connect to recent chip architectures. I doubt
| it will run optimally tied to a Mac. It'll be something
| that you could also rack in a server.
| wongarsu wrote:
| If you want a new CPU after a decade it's absolutely as you
| describe: you need a new mainboard and probably new memory
| (DDR5 just came out), and end up keeping only the case,
| drive, case fans and PSU, if that.
|
| For other components it mostly works. You can smoothly
| upgrade from 8GB RAM all the way to 128GB, get a new GPU,
| whatever the current WiFi standard is, more silent cooling,
| more, bigger or faster drives, etc. If you replace
| something every 2-3 years you can ship-of-theseus the same
| computer for a surprisingly long time at pretty low cost
| stouset wrote:
| I have been building and upgrading PCs for like thirty
| years, from 10 to 40 and through varying degrees of
| expendable income. I genuinely cannot ever remember there
| being a time where it made sense to upgrade a single
| component.
|
| I'm not going to say it doesn't make sense to do so for
| anyone, but it certainly wasn't in my experience.
| neilalexander wrote:
| You can hit a RAM limit on some lower-end motherboards
| quite quickly depending on the memory controller and you
| might only get so far with GPUs as well depending on the
| type of PCIe slots.
| wtallis wrote:
| I'm not sure what decade you have in mind, but for all
| the recent ones, the memory controller has both been on
| the CPU, and not been part of the differentiation between
| low-end and high-end CPUs for a given socket. So the only
| significant RAM limitation coming from the motherboard is
| if it's a small form factor board with only two slots
| instead of four.
| michaelt wrote:
| Depends where you are in your life, I suspect.
|
| A person in college on a tight budget might choose a
| budget-conscious PC, with an average amount of RAM and a
| modest hard drive. A few years later, component prices will
| have fallen and the PC will be showing its age thanks to
| its modest components. Adding a larger hard drive and more
| RAM will get a few more years out of it.
|
| On the other hand, a mid-career professional programmer has
| plenty of disposable income, so if they're buying a PC
| today they can chuck in 128GB of RAM and not need to
| upgrade for the next 10 years.
| acdha wrote:
| If they bought a "budget conscious" PC, what are the odds
| that they'll have hit the limits of their RAM but not any
| other component? If they bought a cheap laptop, for
| example, what are the odds that the hardware isn't
| starting to fail? If it's a desktop, what are the odds
| that by the time they need a new CPU a worthwhile upgrade
| will still be socket-compatible? Usually the budget
| options are already well into the service lifecycle for
| things like that and at least anecdotally the budget
| buyers I know buy a new one 1-2 times per decade rather
| than upgrading anything.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> If they bought a "budget conscious" PC, what are the
| odds that they'll have hit the limits of their RAM but
| not any other component?_
|
| 20 years ago, a budget-conscious 1.3GHz CPU for $130 was
| just a binned version of a high-end 1.6GHz $339 CPU. So
| the budget-conscious CPU would have pretty much the same
| longevity as a higher-end CPU.
|
| 10 years ago, a budget-conscious user could pick up a
| 4-physical-core ~3GHz CPU for ~$192 (like the i5-4590).
| Today you'd be due for an upgrade, but it wouldn't be
| unusably slow. Indeed, Intel are still selling
| 4-physical-core ~3GHz CPUs to this day, like the
| i3-14100.
|
| And of course components like sound cards and gigabit
| ethernet ports don't really 'hit their limits'. You'll
| probably want to upgrade your wifi, admittedly - but a
| USB dongle is what, $20?
| acdha wrote:
| Yes, but the question was how often you only need one of
| those. You can toss a slightly better CPU into that
| socket but how likely is it that you're limited by only
| that much? Your memory bus, storage subsystem, etc. won't
| get noticeably faster and those are what most people
| notice - especially when their starting point was low end
| on the day it was released.
|
| That Wi-Fi dongle is a good example: your $20 dongle is
| probably a waste of money because it won't reach the
| maximum for whatever wifi spec it claims to support and
| it tends to be the case that cheap hardware does not
| reach the maximum USB speeds promised so the performance
| impact is likely to be unnoticeable.
| jfoster wrote:
| That's a really good point. It's been more than a decade
| since I last upgraded a computer.
| taeric wrote:
| This is what had me thinking this is a red herring.
|
| I remember buying computers in the past piece wise with an
| eye for what component I would want next. I... can't
| remember the last time I did this. And for my kids, it is
| not something they are interested in. At all.
| gigatexal wrote:
| Yeah ... I wish they kept the iMac Pro line. An M4 pro in that
| body heck even with a larger 32inch screen would be awesome!
| klodolph wrote:
| I bought an iMac a while back. I left it connected to a bunch
| of music studio equipment. It does its job as the center of a
| home recording studio--gigabit ethernet and plenty of USB
| ports. I am not considering replacing it yet, even though it
| stopped receiving updates from Apple. It can't run Logic 11
| (it's stuck on 10).
| mhh__ wrote:
| But just think of the satisfaction you'll have at your computer
| being tiny in the dimension you can't actually perceive when
| using it!
| Tagbert wrote:
| Most computers are part of a 3D space where you can occupy
| more than just the frontal view. You will notice the screen
| thinness from other angles. it's not the most important
| aspect but it a nice enhancement. This are often used in
| environments where they are seen from other angles like
| homes, front desks, schools.
| notjustanymike wrote:
| It's the computer equivalent of a fleet car.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > not upgradeable and not portable
|
| your average user (aka not HN-er) doesn't upgrade their
| computer
|
| an all-in-one solution is very attractive for families or
| situations where you don't need to tote around a laptop and you
| want a large screen
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Average user tells average HNer their computer is slow and
| the HNer does the upgrade.
| js2 wrote:
| My uncle is on his third iMac. He owns them for a decade at a
| time. When he sends emails, the _subject_ is always "From <his
| name>" because he shared an email account with my aunt years
| ago and even though he no longer does, he still puts his name
| in the subject.
|
| That's the target buyer.
| xyst wrote:
| glorified e-mail client for $1200. Nice.
| msisk6 wrote:
| For a decade. That works out to $10 a month. Not a bad
| deal.
| bmicraft wrote:
| It's still a bad deal.
| pantulis wrote:
| I've provided my father (82 years, living 500km away from
| me) with hand-me-downs Mac laptops since 2009: from the
| initial Macbook Core Duo up to a the most recent M2 Air.
| He does web browsing and frequent FaceTime calls with me
| just for checking out how they are. Those little laptops
| last him until the battery dies.
|
| He could very well be using Windows with a cheaper
| laptop, but I consider the amount of support hours that
| I've saved to more than compensate for that.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| i agree on principal, but don't forget...not everyone
| tries to thrift every purchase.
|
| Some people don't care about a $300 price difference
| (just an example) if they plan to keep it for 10 years.
| Good for them.
| rwmj wrote:
| Meet my relatives who recently retired an x86 iMac, upgraded to
| an Arm-based one, and will probably upgrade to something like
| this, but only after another 7-10 years, when the current iMac
| is far out of support and getting so slow that it becomes
| unbearable. They use it as a shared family computer, almost
| exclusively for downloading photos from a (also very old)
| digital camera and watching Youtube videos.
|
| Judging by the sibling comments I'm not the only one with
| relatives like this!
| xutopia wrote:
| I was considering an iMac but decided against it because I
| couldn't use it as a secondary display for my work laptop.
| jedberg wrote:
| At the very least, they use them at the front desk of every
| Apple building for the admin who signs people in. :)
|
| I had one during the pandemic. I got it at a steep discount but
| it was really nice when I didn't need to go anywhere. I'm
| giving it to my son to put in his room.
|
| Seems like they're useful for families and kids, and corp
| environments that use Macs for the folks who work in office and
| don't move around (admins, lab workers, etc)
| symlinkk wrote:
| The "separate screens" you can buy all suck. They aren't 5k
| resolution, and they always have some weird edge case issue you
| find out about 2 weeks after you buy it.
| gehsty wrote:
| I think iMacs end up where someone wants a computer to look
| nice (either personally or professionally). You could have
| these in a none tech environment and they will look good.
| space_oddity wrote:
| iMacs have always been as much about aesthetics as
| performance, and they do fit beautifully in environments
| where style is key, like design studios
| HeckFeck wrote:
| You're completely right and yet the sight of one fills me with
| desire.
|
| Possibly because it has a direct line right back to the
| original Macintosh. Such that when I showed my 11yo cousin my
| Macintosh SE, he called it an 'iMac'.
| jxdxbx wrote:
| For a long time the best Apple display you could get was in the
| iMacs. An iMac with nothing used with it besides a wireless
| keyboard and mouse, where you can even hide the ethernet port
| in the power brick, makes for a nice clean desk.
| space_oddity wrote:
| Absolutely, the iMac's display quality has been a big draw
| for years, especially when Apple's external display options
| were limited.
| runjake wrote:
| Since none of the options there are tangibly more upgradeable
| than the other, you can reduce your point to "The iMac is not
| portable."
|
| I bet that iMac M4 sales meet their target, which is probably
| on par with the iMac M1 sales. And those were apparently good
| enough that they finally released an updated model.
| space_oddity wrote:
| It suits users who prioritize a clean setup, minimal cable
| clutter, and don't need the flexibility to upgrade components
| down the line.
| racl101 wrote:
| They are perfect for suuuuuper casual people. Perfect for your
| grandparents for example. Most people I know who own these are
| elderly. Yes, an iPad would also work or a MacBook too but
| elderly people aren't travelling nor are they gonna buy a
| MacMini and get a monitor. They just need their simple to set
| up, all-in-one desktop computer.
| jccalhoun wrote:
| schools are a big one. If they are going to buy macs, being all
| in one the school IT doesn't have to worry about a separate
| monitor to troubleshoot problems with.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| > Leaves me wondering how many of these Apple actually sell.
|
| The target audience for this machine is my local yoga studio
| (which has two), my local comic book shop (which has two), and
| my local spa (which has one).
|
| They run a web browser, some kind of inventory or booking app
| in the browser, and Spotify. That's it.
|
| Last year I went to Bali and the Gili Islands on vacation and
| both of the places I stayed checked me in on an M1 iMac. In
| that instance they were both also running the WhatsApp app.
|
| They're going to sell millions.
| amelius wrote:
| Question. Is this "Apple Intelligence" phoning home all the time?
| fsflover wrote:
| It's worse: Any file you open results in phoning home,
| Intelligence or not,
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25074959
| dilap wrote:
| I believe just executable files, right? (Still terrible of
| course.)
| acdha wrote:
| That's overstating what happened there and what was sent.
| OCSP validation happened only for signed executables and the
| only bit of information is the hash of the developer
| certificate being verified, which was not logged in
| conjunction with your IP.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/11/mac-certificate-
| chec...
|
| Typically when there are concerns about phoning home it's
| both more detailed information and something being traceable
| back to an individual.
| fsflover wrote:
| There are a lot of good explanations in my link why the
| current setup is outrageous, including the danger of
| deanonymization of Tor users by Apple.
| acdha wrote:
| There's a lot of uninformed speculation, you mean. The
| Tor part, for example, was guessing which was not
| correct.
| fsflover wrote:
| How is this not correct? Apple knows when I open Tor
| browser, which enables a timing attack.
| acdha wrote:
| Apple knows that a Mac user checked the revocation status
| of the TOR Project's signing key. They don't log your IP,
| your Mac caches the result so it's not even every time
| you launch the browser, and if knowing when your browser
| was launched is a successful timing attack it means the
| TOR protocol is too broken to be used - which I rather
| doubt is true regardless of what random commenters may
| confidently assert.
| VogonPoetry wrote:
| If the App is delivered outside of the Mac App Store,
| then you could just verify the signature, then resign /
| replace it with a local one (using the "codesign" tool).
| Dealing with OTA updates after you've done this might
| take a bit more effort.
|
| Resigning will appease Gatekeeper. As a result there will
| be no X.509 compliant OCSP checks made for the developer
| certificate - because it won't be there any more.
|
| The Tor browser folks could do this as a privacy and
| security feature for you.
| simonw wrote:
| No. It's mostly on device, and the not on-device stuff uses
| incredibly clever computer science to run code in an auditable,
| non trackable way on cloud hardware. It's called "Private Cloud
| Compute" https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/
| xyst wrote:
| An arbitrary limit of 32G of memory? Laughable. Glad I exited the
| Apple ecosystem long ago. Only have 2-3 year old machines now.
| Current phone is "free" from carrier due to trade ins.
|
| I think Apple should shift away from personal computing (iMac,
| MBP/A, iPhone) and focus on selling their SoC. Get these into
| data centers.
|
| Powering a data center with their chips would likely result in
| significant decrease in power consumption. I am running an "old"
| M1 as a small remote k8s cluster for personal dev work and home
| automation. Works wonderfully.
|
| Power consumption during peak load (20 W?) is very low compared
| to my Intel based computer (120-150W?) I use for occasional
| gaming.
| samatman wrote:
| > _I think Apple should shift away from personal computing
| (iMac, MBP /A, iPhone)_
|
| This is going to be the most insane thing I read all day.
|
| > _Get [their SoC] into data centers._
|
| This is a great idea. Apple discontinued servers a long time
| ago, and it's too bad, now that they've got the new silicon
| they could be crushing it in the sector.
| shrubble wrote:
| Apple has very little understanding of Enterprise and
| Datacenter markets. They proved that with the Xserve, despite
| having some success - they should have "owned" the market by
| driving down the costs of running, managing and maintaining
| hardware over the long term - but didn't, or got bored about
| it, and missed the opportunity.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Form factor isn't updated afaik, but man, I am just so so
| impressed with the form factor. It looks like a giant tablet.
| Makes me want to hold it and draw on it.
| vondur wrote:
| How about a bigger model? 24" is kinda small.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Apple makes some dubious claims:
|
| > Gamers can enjoy incredibly smooth gameplay, with up to 2x
| higher frame rates5 than on iMac with M1.
|
| What games do run on the Mac? Certainly, most AAA titles do not.
|
| >Compared to the most popular 24-inch all-in-one PC with the
| latest Intel Core 7 processor, the new iMac is up to 4.5x faster.
|
| You can build PCs there are more powerful than that Mac, cheaper.
| And you can easily repair them.
| theflyinghorse wrote:
| A few games do work on mac. Factorio, Baldur's Gate 3 etc
| vundercind wrote:
| > You can build PCs there are more powerful than that Mac,
| cheaper. And you can easily repair them.
|
| Nobody's buying a Mac to game. The gaming is a bonus for a
| segment of their market, is why they mention it at all. Zero
| Mac sales are motivated primarily by gaming. "Does this do
| enough gaming, well enough, that I can avoid buying a
| Steamdeck, or that I can get rid of this bulky PC that I use
| _only_ for gaming?" are things their prospective buyers might
| wonder, not "should I buy this if I want a gaming computer?"
| (No, obviously)
| nox101 wrote:
| Yes except so few games run. Even games I suspect don't need
| the power.
|
| Examples: Cocoon, ufo50, Outer wilds, Harold Halibut, Noita
|
| > "Does this do enough gaming, well enough, that I can avoid
| buying a Steamdeck, or that I can get rid of this bulky PC
| that I use only for gaming?"
|
| I think the answer is "No". I'm writing this from a Mac. In
| the last year, so many games I've wanted to play while
| traveling, someone tells me about it, I go check it out, no
| mac version. I just have to wait until I get home.
|
| Sometimes I get lucky, "A Short Hike", but more often than
| not there's no Mac version.
| vundercind wrote:
| If you want to play _almost any possible_ game, yeah, you
| need a PC. (I have one. And a Steam Deck. I kinda half-
| regret taking up gaming as a hobby any time I touch either
| of those, but not _quite_ enough to ditch them)
|
| If you're flexible on what you play, it might be fine for
| gaming. Like someone with a Switch might be like "eh, sure
| I'd like to play the new Assassins Creed, but not enough to
| get a PlayStation--my kids want the Switch, and I don't
| want two consoles, so I'll just find stuff to play on here
| instead." I think that's the market-segment they're talking
| to when they write ad or marketing copy about Mac gaming
| capabilities.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > You can build PCs there are more powerful than that Mac,
| cheaper. And you can easily repair them
|
| Why would anyone buy a Porsche? You can buy an F-150 with a >1
| ton payload capacity, fit 6 people in it and if you get the EV
| version it might be even faster than the base config Porsche.
|
| The PC will take up a lot of space, use a lot more power, be
| loud and be look ugly. Some people might care about these
| things even if you don't.
| sunshowers wrote:
| To be honest it's the Mac that feels clunky, at least
| compared to Linux. Why does every app have its own updater?
| Why are the animations so painfully slow?
| Wytwwww wrote:
| That's fair. People have different preferences. I
| personally don't even really care much for macOS these
| days..
|
| > every app have its own updater
|
| Well certainly not all due. But mainly because they are not
| part of the OS/distribution. And it's not like there arent
| any proprietary apps on Linux that have to be
| installed/updated independently.
|
| Also you can use the App Store if you are so inclined. IMHO
| an awful experience but still better than the extremely
| laggy GUI app stores on Gnome/KDE.
| Mainsail wrote:
| Games I play on my M1 Macbook Air:
|
| - BG3
|
| - CIV
|
| - Stardew Valley
|
| - Football Manager
|
| - Subnautica
|
| - XCOM
|
| - ARMA 3
| dlivingston wrote:
| Stray and Myst for me!
| ttul wrote:
| Note: The 24" iMac is never going to be the platform of choice
| for HackerNews readers.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| I recommend these to friends who want a simple computer setup.
| Many people have dramatically different needs and wants than I
| do as a software professional.
|
| Apple knows this, and so it markets it to them rather than to
| us.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| With an M4 and 16gb+ ram it is more computer than anything I've
| ever owned. I write text files for a living. Might be able to
| limp along on a souped up 486, definitely a Pentium 90.
| mrweasel wrote:
| I could do my work on one, but yeah, the screen size would be
| annoying long term. The sad part is that it's the exact form
| factor my dad wants. It's absolutely perfect for his needs,
| except it's wildly overpowered and overpriced.
|
| The 4K monitor is going to push up the price, and I'm all for
| giving everyone a high quality monitor, but I'd argue that the
| iMac is 30-40% over budget for those who'd like that type of
| computer. I think you could get away with having it be a $1000
| computer, but not $1600, for the lowest spec'ed model.
| delfinom wrote:
| Mmm, in an era where monitors no longer need large bezels, apple
| sure decided to keep the neck fat on the iMac which to me makes
| it quite ugly.
| wffurr wrote:
| What's with the green iMac picture?
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/2024/10/apple-introduc...
|
| It only shows two USB-C ports while further down the marketing
| material talks about "all four USB-C ports". EDIT: the low-end
| 8-core model for $1300 only has two ports.
|
| It also has what looks like a rear-facing camera in the stand
| cutout. What is that for? EDIT: It's the magnetic power
| connector. I did not expect that to be round.
|
| Supposedly there's a gigabit Ethernet port somewhere too. Not
| shown in any of the pictures on the site that I can find.
| goosedragons wrote:
| The base model iMac only has two Thunderbolt ports.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > The base model iMac only has two Thunderbolt ports.
|
| Indeed, per specs [1]
|
| [1] https://www.apple.com/imac/specs/
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > What's with the green iMac picture?
|
| The picture is of the base model.
|
| The upper model is featured on their main website[1], which
| shows this image [2]
|
| [1] https://www.apple.com/imac/ [2]
| https://www.apple.com/v/imac/q/images/overview/closer-look/c...
| fourfour3 wrote:
| The gigabit ethernet port is in the power brick.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| That's a cool idea. The desktop has only one cable even on
| wired network. Neat.
| simonw wrote:
| As someone who mucks around with running LLMs and other large
| models on my computer the 32GB maximum RAM is a show-stopper for
| me. I'm on a M2 with 64GB at the moment and I'm already
| regretting not going for 96 or even 128.
|
| I want to be able to run a large model AND other apps at the same
| time.
| klodolph wrote:
| Sure, but to be honest, I don't think you should be shipping a
| high-spec computer with a built-in screen. Anything high-spec
| should be broken into at least a separate screen and computer.
| The screen is such a major point of failure. I've seen so many
| iMacs and MacBooks with broken screens where the end solution
| is to replace the entire device, which is a waste. It's that
| much more of a waste if you are getting a high-spec version.
| simonw wrote:
| Yeah, that's my biggest complaint with iMacs: I want to be
| 100% certain I can repurpose them as monitors later in their
| lives.
|
| I have a ten year old iMac at the moment that would make an
| amazing second monitor... but it doesn't quite have the
| features I need to use it like that. An HDMI input would be
| great.
| lisper wrote:
| > An HDMI input would be great.
|
| There is a reason that is difficult to do: the licensing
| terms for HDMI require manufacturers to put DRM in place to
| make it impossible (or at least not straightforward) to
| record from an HDMI source. It's nearly impossible to meet
| that requirement on a computer.
| tcoff91 wrote:
| DisplayPort doesn't have that same restriction, right?
| lisper wrote:
| I don't know, but probably not. It's a legal requirement
| for HDMI, not a technical one. It's actually not hard to
| build an HDMI recorder, you just can't legally sell one.
| But bootleg recorders are easy to find.
| buccal wrote:
| HP does HDMI-in in somo of its AIOs:
| https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-eliteone-840-g9-all-
| in-...
| lisper wrote:
| It's not impossible, but it has to be a completely
| separate signal chain that bypasses the PC. (Well, OK,
| it's theoretically possible to do it other ways, but it
| would be really hard.)
| fwip wrote:
| Couldn't you "just" wire the HDMI port to the panel
| control logic? That is, the HDMI-in doesn't connect to
| the computer part of the iMac, just to the display
| circuitry.
|
| Edit: nevermind, I see you addressed this in another
| comment.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| They could design it in such a way that the hdmi input
| port bypasses the whole 'computer' and goes straight into
| the display board. If it's plugged in the 'computer'
| could either not boot or just run headless, i'd prefer
| the former (just to save on energy costs).
| kmeisthax wrote:
| You're thinking of HDCP, not HDMI. HDMI recorders exist
| (Elgato built an entire brand off selling them for
| console game streaming) but they are not allowed to speak
| HDCP because _gestures vaguely at DMCA 1201_.
|
| In the specific case of the iMac:
|
| - USB-C video outputs are all either DisplayPort[0]. HDMI
| Forum was promoting an HDMI USB-C altmode but it was
| never implemented. USB-C HDMI adapters are all
| DisplayPort adapters that additionally tunnel DVI traffic
| (because HDMI 1.x is actually single-link DVI with a
| funny connector and extra bits).
|
| - Apple used to support Target Display Mode for video
| input until the Retina iMac a decade ago. They dropped
| Target Display Mode because their 5K display panels were
| using eight lanes of DisplayPort, a configuration that
| doesn't exist[1] outside of Apple's custom display
| controllers. Every other 5K display (and even some 4K
| ones) were instead using multiple cables, with some extra
| (poorly-supported) metadata to tell the graphics card to
| treat both halves of the display as one.
|
| Why Apple hasn't brought TDM back now that we have enough
| bandwidth for 4.5K over standard cables is beyond me.
|
| [0] Or MyDP, aka "the funny Nintendo Switch altmode"
|
| [1] Think of it like a "32-lane PCIe port". It's
| technically possible but no host or device silicon
| supports a link that wide.
| lisper wrote:
| Yes, that's right. Thanks for pointing that out.
|
| https://www.makeuseof.com/hdcp-vs-hdmi-whats-the-
| difference/
| hultner wrote:
| You probably know this but it's possible to buy a
| controller card for the panel on Ali Express and retro-fit
| into the case and use as a monitor if you are ready to
| retire the computer itself.
|
| I'm contemplating doing this myself at some point but my
| maxed out 2019 iMac upgraded to 128GB ram and extra SSD is
| still plenty fast for me, actually feels subjectively
| quicker than my M2 Pro MacBook Pro with significantly less
| ram feel. I was a bit surprised as I had read all the hype
| of the responsiveness of the Apple M-machines.
| eastbound wrote:
| If they could be used as monitors, then my iMac 2018 would
| still be worth 1700EUR (the price of the Apple monitor)!
|
| Instead, the 2018 iMac is incredibly slow, and can be
| thrown away.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > The screen is such a major point of failure.
|
| The screen of an iMac (at least the 5K 27" one) is the part
| that still has value, so its annoying when you can't use it
| on new hardware.
| klodolph wrote:
| Yes, that is annoying. There's also such a massive price
| difference between 4K and 5K monitors. I've decided just to
| accept 4K everywhere because it's so much cheaper. But I
| would consider getting a 5K iMac.
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _Yes, that is annoying. There's also such a massive
| price difference between 4K and 5K monitors._
|
| Perhaps check out the Asus PA27JCV: 27" at 5120x2880.
| vesrah wrote:
| The unfortunate part is that these aren't for sale yet
| and we don't know how they actually compare to the
| existing LG 5k or Apple Studio display. It is nice to see
| more options coming to market.
| msisk6 wrote:
| I have a MacBook Air on my desk plugged into a Apple
| 27-inch 5k Studio Display next to my work MacBook Pro
| plugged into a cheap AOC 27-inch 4k display via HDMI and
| frankly there's not much difference.
|
| The speakers and mic in the Apple display are nice, but
| if you're just concerned about the display itself save
| yourself the bucks and stay with the 4k.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I have a 28" 4K from LG and a Samsung 27" 5K. It wasn't
| that bad, $5-600.
| squarefoot wrote:
| I was surprised to find out that along older VGA/HD LCD
| controllers now there are also 3rd party boards to drive 5K
| Apple screens. Look for "5k screen controller" on
| Aliexpress. Price range from ~130EUR to 300+EUR, no idea
| about the quality.
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _The screen of an iMac (at least the 5K 27 " one)_
|
| I've had a few of these iMacs and would like another. When
| I buy a new one (every ~5 years) I hand down the old one to
| a family member (the last one is ~10 years old now, and
| stuck at macOS 12(?)).
|
| I like the form factor as it is convenient.
|
| I'm typing this on 2019 Retina 5K and am hoping Apple will
| bring back that form factor (there have been rumours of a
| 32", but that's a bit too big IMHO).
|
| As it stands, it looks like the Asus PA27JCV has similar
| specs, and so I may end up with that and an Mac mini.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| I know that some of the older imacs could still work as a
| monitor using 'target display mode'. Would be nice,
| however, if apple could design an imac where the actual
| computer is a module you can snap into an older one to
| upgrade it.
|
| At some point we need to stop putting these things into
| landfills or even recycling them. I've been using the same
| PC case for at least 10 years ship of Theseus style and the
| same monitors for 5.
|
| I appreciate apples recycling stance but even better is a
| reuse stance. Even just stripping back all the aluminum,
| melting it all down, re casting it and then remachining it
| has a significant cost.
|
| For the last 10-20 years apple has been pretty good about
| reusing case designs for a few generations before doing
| some kind of redesign. Seems silly that I can't swap out a
| motherboard for a m2 macbook for an m3 macbook. (maybe this
| would also stop them from fucking soldering the storage to
| the motherboard since an upgrade that wipes my whole
| machine is utter bullshit)
| ellisv wrote:
| It's really a shame that Apple discontinued target display
| mode.
| cududa wrote:
| Great. But plenty of consumers disagree with you, which is
| why this product exists.
|
| Not everything you see is designed to be useful for you
| specifically
| falcor84 wrote:
| > plenty of consumers disagree with you
|
| What do you mean? This was just announced, no? Are there
| any sales/pre-order figures already?
|
| Also, how would you even go about analyzing the
| counterfactual of whether the number of people who would
| buy this spec are "plenty" compared to the number who would
| have bought a spec with more RAM had it been available?
| cududa wrote:
| Well by virtue of the fact that they've sold these un-
| repairable/ un-openable macs for 3 years now, and they're
| refreshing it instead of killing the product - all these
| things indicate consumers like the current approach
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| Someone who is looking to muck about with LLMs isn't looking
| to pay for a 4k screen that cannot be separated from a non-
| upgradeable PC.
|
| If you're in the Apple ecosystem, you're going to want eithet
| a Mac Mini Pro or a Mac Studio, depending on where the RAM
| configurations on the Mac Mini Pro tops out. .
| declan_roberts wrote:
| Which models are you running? I'm on a M2pro w/ 32gb and I can
| run meta llama 8B on lmstudio pretty decently while coding.
| simonw wrote:
| Yeah 8B is fine but I really want to run 70B (or even 405B
| but that's way outside my system at the moment).
|
| I can run 70B at the moment... but not if I also want Firefox
| and VS Code at the same time.
| gigatexal wrote:
| M3 MAX here with 128GB ... and even that's not going to be
| enough one day.
|
| I bet the M4 Max goes to 256. Oh the envy I will have.
| a_wild_dandan wrote:
| I'm so jazzed to comfortably run Llama 3 405b on my Mac with
| less quantization.
| vineyardlabs wrote:
| RAM aside, it would be silly for you to ever buy this model for
| your use case anyway. This is the base M4 that's also in ipads
| with no active cooling. If your running large LLMs locally, you
| aren't the target market for this product.
| wtallis wrote:
| > I'm on a M2 with 64GB at the moment and I'm already
| regretting not going for 96 or even 128.
|
| You're using a M2 Max, not a M2. Two (big) steps up the chip
| product stack from what's used in the iMac.
| dagmx wrote:
| You have a higher tier M2. This is the base M4.
|
| The comparison is apples to oranges.
| notarealllama wrote:
| It's literally Apple to Apple
| sroussey wrote:
| Ryzen 3000G vs Instinct 300A -- both literally comparing
| AMD to AMD.
|
| Sheesh
| flemhans wrote:
| When I first scanned your sentence I assumed you were gonna
| write that 32 GB is now the minimum, not the maximum.
| lynguist wrote:
| But that means the next Air will be upgrade worthy for those
| who want an Air and a memory uplift from 24 max to 32 max!
| turnsout wrote:
| I'll be curious to see if the Mini has an M4 Pro option, and if
| so, what the RAM ceiling will be!
| sroussey wrote:
| I guess we find out tomorrow.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > As someone who mucks around with running LLMs and other large
| models on my computer the 32GB maximum RAM is a show-stopper
| for me.
|
| To be fair, I don't think people mucking around with large LLMs
| is the primary target market for the iMacs.
|
| The sort of people who muck around with LLMs almost certainly
| already have a monitor, keyboard and mouse. And so are more
| likely to pick up a Mac Studio which will no doubt be coming
| soon with M4 Ultra.
| whiplash451 wrote:
| Or separate concerns and shell out on a Studio display with
| the-mac-you-like on usb-c
| talldayo wrote:
| Or buy a real computer, plug in an Nvidia GPU, and save
| your DRAM for compute while using your VRAM for inference.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| So now you just limited to 24gb unless you are running
| dual 3090s or leave the consumer market for a gpu.
| talldayo wrote:
| I mean, model layering has been around for several years
| now: https://huggingface.co/blog/lyogavin/airllm
| Philpax wrote:
| Moving the weights between the CPU and the GPU
| significantly limits performance. It's not comparable to
| having the entire model resident within video/unified
| memory.
| lynguist wrote:
| 16 GB or 24 GB for inference doesn't cut it for large
| models...
|
| Mac hardware offers up to 128 GB shared RAM.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| It is in a weird middle ground. It is much worse ram and
| much slower hardware (factor 4 or so IIRC) and only an
| option if you need more than 24 but less than 200. Also,
| only if you think that 9000EUR is pocket change but
| 20000EUR is cost prohibitive. Also, you need all that
| power but no server, no ECC,... And you only ever want to
| do inference but no training or tuning.
|
| If you want a Mac anyway, sure. But if you don't care,
| this seems like a very, very specific Venn diagram.
| int_19h wrote:
| It's not much worse RAM, though. RTX 4090 has memory
| bandwidth of 1050 Gb/s. M2 Ultra is 800 Gb/s. And you can
| get a Mac Studio with Ultra and 128Gb of RAM for $3K or
| less. It's great for 70-150B models.
|
| You're correct that it's only good for inference, but
| most people running local LLMs only do inference.
| keybits wrote:
| That config Mac Studio costs 5,800 Euros (minimum). Where
| do you get it for 3,000 USD?
| diggan wrote:
| > And so are more likely to pick up a Mac Studio which
|
| Although price-conscious LLM muckers are most likely to pick
| any Apple-hardware. You can easily build rigs that are twice
| as powerful for half the price, assuming we compare desktops.
| DrPhish wrote:
| True. eBay dual-socket Epyc systems ala
| https://rentry.org/miqumaxx are a great case in point.
| 015a wrote:
| We should do a "Most HackerNews HackerNews Comment Of The Year"
| award each year; in homage to the O.G. [1]. I'd like to
| nominate this comment.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
| skeaker wrote:
| I agree with the premise but this isn't a great nomination, I
| think saying "this device won't appeal to the niche LLM
| gadgetry crowd" is valid in this case since yeah, it won't.
| theWreckluse wrote:
| While it's not a great one, it certainly checks the tone
| deaf attitude some HN comments have.
| geodel wrote:
| Agree. LLMs are really next generation requirements.
| Previously people would run a dozen docker containers in
| Kubernetes cluster on Mac or further before a dozen linux
| VMs etc and predictably but sadly macs never worked well
| for these requirements.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| It's also not like the comment was claiming the iMac isn't
| going to sell well. (And to be fair, it probably won't sell
| spectacularly well compared to than prior iMacs anyway,
| given how the MacBooks, Mac Minis, the Mac Studio, etc.
| have eaten that desktop's lunch.)
| djoldman wrote:
| Hrm. My OG vote goes to:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079
|
| > pg: That has to be the comeback of all time.
| ahofmann wrote:
| That was hilarious, thank you for posting this :-)
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| That's a great piece of HN lore.
|
| Same original article:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35103
|
| Tarsnap is functionally unchanged as a start-up and Dropbox
| is $2.5bn in revenue
| mescalito wrote:
| Why can't I see this comment when viewing the original
| article?
| Manfred wrote:
| Probably because it was flagged.
| skeaker wrote:
| Do you have showdead enabled? The chain is flagged so I
| think it would be hidden by default.
| latexr wrote:
| > in homage to the O.G.
|
| That is a poor example of the thing you're trying to mock.
| That exchange is an example of what one should do, it does
| not deserve derision. dang explained it well:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27067281
| 015a wrote:
| I proposed the nomination of an award to this commentator!
| That's hardly derision.
|
| I'm actually a little hurt that you would treat my comment
| with such derision :(
| stogot wrote:
| This isn't even a comparable or relevant comparison.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| I really wish that "elite" LLM folks like yourself or many
| others in the field would just abandon apple/mac.
|
| Yes, they make better laptops from a hardware perspective. No,
| M series chips are not actually competitive with Nvidia
| hardware on anything except cheap (and relatively slow)
| inference of big models.
|
| The fact that windows laptops are considered DOA despite the
| insane amount of inertia behind Nvidia GPUs is just sad. I want
| a world where Dell/Lenovo can actually convince folks like you
| or other "elites" to use their shit. The XPS should be a better
| laptop than the macbook pro. Yet, I have to watch as the
| technical elites fawn over a company which continues to sell a
| starting level un-upgradable laptop with 8gb of ram and a
| gimped "SSD" in 2024 (this was criminal to do back in 2018) all
| because other companies can't make a good keyboard or touchpad.
|
| I have a similar old-man yelling at cloud tier rant about the
| slow death of X86...
| cherioo wrote:
| They would run from Mac when nvidia offers a 128gb or 512gb
| laptop offering.
|
| Until then it's meaningless to even consider windows (laptop)
| internetter wrote:
| > The XPS should be a better laptop than the macbook pro.
|
| Except its.. not. I'm a longtime windows/linux user who
| recently switched to mac, and my mac somehow manages to get
| better performance out of the same specs _while_ lasting 2x
| longer on battery. In my price range, there is no competition
| on price:performance:battery.
| leptons wrote:
| There are a lot of "power users" that refuse to realize that
| they simply will never be in Apple's target market. They love
| Apple so much for cosmetic reasons, for wanting to be in the
| "in-crowd" reasons, or for whatever the fanboy reason, that
| they can't see the writing on the wall. Apple is not making
| hardware for their use cases, and likely never will again.
| pram wrote:
| You pretty casually dismiss the value of being able to run
| big models, when it's literally impossible on a mobile
| Geforce in a lot of cases since they max out at 16GB!
| t-3 wrote:
| XPS are horrible though. Native linux support is almost
| literally the only redeeming quality.
|
| > all because other companies can't make a good keyboard or
| touchpad.
|
| The whole point of a laptop is to have integrated input and
| display. Why wouldn't you expect the laptops with the best
| displays and input devices to be the most popular?
| seabird wrote:
| Most of the world is x86/Windows machines, developers
| included. I would bet that for every MacBook issued there's
| at least a hundred Precision/Latitude/ThinkPad/Optiplex
| machines that went into someone's hands. The Apple hard-on is
| from a specific region and culture where the technical
| "elites" have made a bajillion dollars working on shitty
| phone apps and other such light work where it's possible for
| your trackpad/keyboard to be the biggest issue. It sounds a
| bit mean-spirited, but I think it's pretty telling that as
| the gravity of the work increases, you see less and less
| Apple products being used to do it.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| No, it isn't mean-spirited at all. A lot of lucrative
| software development has been based around fairly trivial
| software, all things considered. The barrier to entry was
| dramatically reduced, the resources required for
| development were too, and the option to choose your
| favourite hardware became an option. I think some people
| might be offended by that, but the variation of required
| hardware goes in all kinds of directions. Look at working
| on firmware vs the web, for example. You'll probably
| encounter a ton of friction on a mac if you get into
| robotics.
| exe34 wrote:
| > It sounds a bit mean-spirited, but I think it's pretty
| telling that as the gravity of the work increases, you see
| less and less Apple products being used to do it.
|
| it does sound like envy. I hate macos post 10.8ish myself,
| but the hardware is pretty solid. my 12 year old Mac book
| air would be enough for my work although I have to use a
| windows laptop issued by work. I don't want to dox myself,
| but I'd say my work is of international interest even
| though it's quite niche.
| seabird wrote:
| There's definitely some envy -- the hardware is beyond
| solid. It's definitely bordering on the best there is if
| it isn't already there. macOS as a computing environment
| is just too far off the beaten path in too many ways to
| realistically deal with, which is why Windows absolutely
| dominates everything everywhere that isn't Bay Area web-
| based software companies. Not to say that Windows is
| particularly good, but for most people that _actually_
| need to drop $2500+ on a computer, it 's probably better.
| maleldil wrote:
| > all because other companies can't make a good keyboard or
| touchpad
|
| Or screen, sound, battery life, cooling, weight...
|
| Are MBPs the best possible configuration out there? Of course
| not. But they're just much better _mobile devices_ than
| anything else available.
| slashdave wrote:
| > No, M series chips are not actually competitive with Nvidia
| hardware
|
| Integrated memory is important, since CPU <-> GPU bandwidth
| is often a limiting factor
| risho wrote:
| macbook pros are by far the best device you can get for
| running local llms. first of all nvidia gpu's have extremely
| limited vram relative to the 100+gb afforded to macbook pros.
| second you cant take an llm server on the subway with you.
|
| until you can show me small nvidia laptop with 128gb of vram
| and 20 hours of battery life, i'll keep using my macbook.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Nvidia's laptop range isn't all that impressive, really the
| magic is in the 3090/4090 desktop cards where they're hitting
| a magic trifecta of power+memory+value.
|
| As absurd as it is I just built a PC with a 3090 at both home
| and work for training and inference then carry around a MBP
| for everything else.
| carstenhag wrote:
| I don't do LLM so I can't comment there. But in general,
| devs/pros would use windows/linux laptops if they could. All
| we get is crappy build quality or bad battery endurance or
| bad performance (CPU or super basic stuff like the touchpad
| etc) or bad software.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| I own a MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021) Apple M1 Max 64 GB. I'm
| just adding to this that at the time of purchase, this was
| Apple's top-of-the-line MacBook Pro model, and it's just not
| that great, in my opinion.
|
| Apple's new hardware pales in comparison to the relative
| abilities of what features existed on a 27-inch iMac with
| Retina 5K Display 10 years ago.
|
| All of the power of modern computers come primarily from their
| GPUs, and Apple's aren't very good, and have been chronically
| underpowered compared to the competition for years now.
|
| I'm considering relegating Apple devices to being good for just
| design work.
|
| Edit: I agree with Der_Einzige's sentiments. It's beyond time
| for us to move past Apple hardware.
| _fw wrote:
| Can you elaborate on this? It's my understanding that the CPU
| alone on that machine even blows the iMac Pro out of the
| water in terms of performance.
|
| Can you share where you're finding inadequate performance?
| Genuinely curious to know
| wordofx wrote:
| Unless Op has a very special use case that requires an
| Nvidia card or something then he doesn't know what he's
| talking about. The M2 Max fully specced 14" is insane.
| Being able to take the laptop anywhere and not need to plug
| it in and still get all the same power I normally get if
| it's plugged in without the worry of the battery dying in
| 30m is incredible.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I missed the "also great for mucking around with LLMs!" in the
| press release
| sroussey wrote:
| I have a M2 with 64GB and find that it's fine.
|
| Larger models that don't fit are only moderately better, while
| much slower. I'd want higher memory bandwidth over more memory.
|
| The next five years will push for better models that are
| smaller. Smaller is faster and more useful.
|
| I feel like we are in the brute force phase of model
| development and that it will pass.
|
| Running 405B param model in 16bit on my laptop would be neat,
| but I'd stop after the novelty wore off.
| jollyllama wrote:
| Huh, is that a step backwards for them? iMacs from over 6 years
| ago were upgradeable to 64
| tiltowait wrote:
| The M-series is a little more complicated. The M1 was max
| 16GB, with the Pro and Max going up to ... 64, I think? The
| latest models can go higher, but we're still a long ways off
| from the old Mac Pro's 1.5TB max.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| why would you want an imac of all things for that? I suspect we
| are going to see m4 studios, which, given their current
| options, will support your rediculous ram requirements.
|
| iMacs are, generally speaking, targeted for home users,
| normies.
| grecy wrote:
| It sounds like you should buy products in the "pro" line.
| vid wrote:
| I think the OP's point is that Apple is forcing people to pay
| a lot more for something that doesn't cost Apple that much
| (extra RAM) and is part of artificial product lines. One
| could claim the product lines are important for ultimate
| profitability, but Apple makes so much money it's hardly
| critical if they wanted to be a truly incredible consumer
| focused company. Apple has gotten far away from the idea of a
| home computer someone can hack with, where hacking includes
| local AI these days. In this period we know more memory is
| important for many applications of local AI, which they claim
| is a goal to provide for people, so it's hard not to say
| Apple's approach is optimized for shareholders, not end
| users.
| grecy wrote:
| Then it sounds like OP ( and yourself) should spend your
| money elsewhere.
|
| I mean, I'm livid Ferrari don't make a cheap commuter for
| my family and 9 dogs. So I shop elsewhere.
| vid wrote:
| Oh, I do take my money elsewhere. However, your livid-
| ness is a lot more misplaced compared to expecting a very
| massive, "user friendly," general computing company that
| "thinks different" to give the people what they want.
| slashdave wrote:
| But... new colors!
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Similar case here. I'm on a 32GB Mac Studio and constantly
| wishing I had 128. I didn't expect that when I chose 32... I'd
| been getting by fine with 16 for a decade. I was "future
| proofing", haha.
| pmarreck wrote:
| Came here to post this. Although I'm looking for an M4 Macbook
| Pro with 128GB RAM for the same reason. This going to be
| announced?
|
| #OneOfUs #OneOfUs
| sroussey wrote:
| My guess is Wednesday.
|
| - iMac today, USB accessories
|
| - Mac Mini on Tuesday, likely debut M4 Pro
|
| - MacBooks on Wednesday, debut M4 Max
|
| Now in the "I wish" category (zero percent chance):
|
| - Thursday would be MacStudio with HBM memory for Max and
| Ultra
|
| - Friday would be macPro with 1 to 4 Ultra in NUMA
| configuration.
|
| Now I don't believe those last two.
|
| But I do want to see the X-ray of the max chip to see if it
| has the UltraFusion part that allowed for combining two
| chips. It was missing from the M3 Max (and maybe all future
| odd numbered max chips). If it returns, then we know an Ultra
| is on the way for sure.
| beAbU wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the iMac with no upgradeable RAM nor external
| GPU support is really targeting the hobbyist big-compute crowd
| anyway. So you don't have to worry, they are not trying to make
| you buy one.
| znpy wrote:
| > As someone who mucks around with running LLMs and other large
| models on my computer the 32GB maximum RAM is a show-stopper
| for me.
|
| your specific use-case is probably irrelevant to apple.
|
| > I want to be able to run a large model AND other apps at the
| same time.
|
| you answered yourself... go for a machine with 96 or 128gb ram.
|
| btw for the money you'd be spending (6-7 k$) you might as well
| rent or buy a dedicated box with 128, 256gb or more ram and all
| the gpus you need.
| xyst wrote:
| This computer appeals to families that use their computers to
| browse social media. For grandparents that browse YouTube with
| reckless abandon. The emphasis on multiple color options is a
| strong indicator. Even has some "cutesy" appeal for college
| students to decorate their dorm.
|
| The "Apple Intelligence" branding is nothing more than a
| selling point. Sure it might run some very small LLM workloads
| , but don't expect much especially in the locked down hell
| known as Apple ecosystem.
|
| This is not meant for heavy workloads.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| For many use cases you are correct. That said, I bought a 32G
| M2 Mac mini in January, and mostly using Ollama, I use local
| LLMs for many useful local apps and many experiments. I augment
| running local models with Colab Pro, Grok APIs, OpenAI APIs,
| etc.
| neodymiumphish wrote:
| This is the chief reason I'm closely watching this week's
| releases from Apple. I'll hopefully be switching from UnRAID to
| a Mac Mini or Mac Studio and a multi-drive enclosure, but the
| Mac needs to support enough RAM for my various services (Plex
| and Immich primarily) as well as enough to test some large LLM
| models as a replacement to constant Claude/OpenAI API
| utilization.
| efficax wrote:
| It's an iMac, the target market is not running local LLMs or
| doing machine learning research
| anthk wrote:
| And here I am with 1GB and 512MB as ZRAM on an Atom Netbook.
| With SBCL.
| lanza wrote:
| When shopping for a new car to take to the race track on the
| weekends did you stop and point out that the Honda Odyssey's
| suspension is too soft?
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Same here, I wish I went for 128. That said, I don't think this
| use case applies to 99.9999% of iMac buyers.
| yumashka wrote:
| Will it blend?
| YegoBear wrote:
| They're just never gonna make a 32" one, huh?
| jeffbee wrote:
| It sucks that the TB4 ports still point out the back of the
| machine like that. It has never made sense! Every Thunderbolt
| cable has a bulky active electronic assembly that is at least a
| few centimeters long, followed by a cable strain relief. I hate
| having my cables hanging out like that. It seems like it would be
| possible to build a little port hutch on the back, with the ports
| pointing straight down.
| skybrian wrote:
| I have a more than a decade-old iMac with a 27" display that I'm
| stil using as a monitor (though it's seen better days), so that
| worked out well, but a Mac mini and an external monitor seems
| better in every way.
|
| Which monitor to get, though? Maybe Apple should sell a Mac mini
| bundled with a nice external monitor instead of iMacs.
| jprd wrote:
| I love the innovation Apple has brought with their investment in
| ARM. That said, I can't imagine buying a computer in the 21st
| century that can't be opened and upgraded, especially with a
| price premium attached. I just don't get it.
|
| I am in no way trying to be combative, but I'd love to hear a
| counterpoint that makes sense for these machines.
| cududa wrote:
| Most people don't want to open up their computer. Ever.
|
| And for most people who _dont_ want to open their computer,
| they'll probably use these iMacs until their ancient, and
| replacing the whole thing makes more sense anyway
| 2arrs2ells wrote:
| I bought an M2 iMac for my parents. It'll last at least five
| years for them - likely closer to 10. At that point, I'm happy
| to recycle or donate it and get them a new iMac - likely with
| some major updates (form factor? Display? Etc?) that wouldn't
| get with a RAM / CPU upgrade.
|
| Spending ~$150-$300/year for them to have an easy to use & fast
| computer feels very worth it for me.
|
| All that said - I would love for the machine to be upgradeable
| as well! Just explaining why it's not a dealbreaker.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Same, I had to panic buy a 13" m1, i was remote working extra
| remotely and my laptop got destroyed. The 13" m1 was not an
| ideal machine, it had limited usb ports, limited ram.. but it
| was pretty quick and I wasn't going to buy intel.
|
| A few years later the m2pro/max's came out (i think
| technically in 14"). I picked one up and just handed my m1
| down to family. Huge upgrade over their old intel air that
| had already lasted them like 10 years.
|
| My main bitch is the soldered in storage. It's a shitty
| optimization that has to punish apple as much as it punishes
| users. To have a machine that I can't just go buy a harddrive
| and slot in when i want more storage or when the drive fails
| is a total fucking nightmare.
| askafriend wrote:
| I replace my computers before I ever feel a need to upgrade
| them. Computers are fast and performant for a long time now (4+
| years, especially for non-professional use).
|
| And as someone who works with computers all day long, I never
| ever want to open one up unless I build one from scratch and
| want a personal project.
| lomase wrote:
| What about the screen?
| brailsafe wrote:
| What about the screen? Although I do have an external
| display, I haven't found a compelling replacement in the 10
| years it's been going.
|
| That said, the 24" iMac screen is not in the slightest bit
| compelling to me
| asoneth wrote:
| Once upon a time I'd use the same monitor for several
| generations of desktop. But lately monitors feel like
| they're advancing more quickly and computers more slowly
| such that I end up replacing them after about ten years.
|
| I personally appreciate not having to do both at the same
| time, but at least for me it has reduced that particular
| criticism against all-in-ones.
| dsv3099i wrote:
| My guess is the only reason to open and upgrade a computer is
| if one needs (or wants) to be on the bleeding edge of what
| local compute is capable of on a day to day basis. With the
| advent of cloud compute the number of use cases that meet that
| criteria shrinks every day. With the iMac there is a price
| premium but what the users is paying for is a computer that
| just gets out of their way. For them the computer is simply a
| means, not an end.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Most of my buddies w/ PCs for gaming generally only open up
| their machine to upgrade their video card, once their
| motherboard no longer supports the latest and greatest they
| just dumpster the whole damn thing (maybe sell the card on
| ebay), or turn it into a plex server or something and start
| over.
| thrwaway1985882 wrote:
| For professional use, the idea of "opening up and upgrading a
| machine" feels _wild_. You 're either given one by your
| employer or buying one yourself, and either way, it's on a 5
| year deprecation schedule. It's a negative ROI for me as a solo
| or for my employer to ever do anything with a device that isn't
| "oh it's broken? too slow? new one being UPSed this afternoon".
| slashdave wrote:
| I used to work on my car engine too. These days, I open the
| hood (it's a hybrid), scratch my chin, and then close it again
| and bring it to the dealer.
| kgwgk wrote:
| > I can't imagine buying a computer in the 21st century that
| can't be opened and upgraded
|
| Because opening and upgrading computers is a 21st century thing
| and not a 20th century thing? I'd say it's the other way
| around!
| xyst wrote:
| > that can't be opened and upgraded
|
| One of the reasons I don't buy into Apple's marketing gimmicks
| especially when it comes to the "carbon neutral" initiative.
|
| > especially with a price premium attached. I just don't get
| it.
|
| Apple is a public company. Investors expect them to churn out
| profit so stonk goes up. As long as users are trapped in their
| Apple ecosystem/wall, then they will keep buying. If the
| devices were open and upgradable then the company will not be
| able to charge a stupid high markup for RAM or storage.
|
| If products were easily upgradable, consumers would buy the
| base model configurable SKUs then take their business to repair
| shop and get ram and storage upgraded at a fraction of the cost
| Apple would provide out the door.
|
| > but I'd love to hear a counterpoint that makes sense for
| these machines.
|
| There is no counterpoint. Most people (ie, not fanboys) would
| agree with you. There is absolutely zero reason for devices to
| not be upgradable or easily serviceable. You don't become a
| trillion dollar company by playing nice with your users.
| massysett wrote:
| The computer that can be opened is larger and more janky. Most
| users derive absolutely no utility from ability to open the
| machine, as they will never open it. They do however benefit
| from a smaller, more aesthetic computer.
|
| I have plenty of space next to my desk for a mini-tower
| computer - something like a Micro ATX. Since trading it for an
| ultra small form factor that's the size of a paperback book, I
| wouldn't go back to the larger one. The smaller one is just
| less janky, and I sometimes remove the computer from the desk
| entirely to convert the room to another use. The smaller
| computer is easier to throw into a box.
|
| Sure I could do all of this with the micro ATX, but since the
| upgradeability did nothing for me, I might as well take the
| smaller size.
| bhouston wrote:
| I guess it is just me, but I cannot stand working on small
| screens on the desktop. I will accept a small screen on a laptop
| because it is inconvenient carrying around something larger, but
| on a desktop, there is no reason to compromise.
|
| I use a 48" OLED with my MacBook Air M3 and for me that is a near
| ultimate web development experience both on desktop and when
| travelling:
| https://bsky.app/profile/benhouston3d.bsky.social/post/3l7li...
| madeofpalk wrote:
| What's the actual resolution of this? The idea of using
| something with such low pixel density seems really painful to
| me.
| bhouston wrote:
| It is 4K. I wish it was higher. But practically, I cannot
| find an affordable 6K OLED monitor. And 8K is both
| unaffordable as well as not supported by my MacBook Air:
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/macbook-
| air/apd8cdd74f....
|
| I do set my MacBook resolution to maximum and it works well.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| So you value just the physical size of things, not being
| able to display more 'stuff'? For example, a 27" 5k (5120 x
| 2880) display will give you more space/resolution for stuff
| than a 4k 48" display.
|
| I can't imagine how pleasent that would be, the display
| being so physically large with pixels the side of boulders.
| As long as it works for you, I guess! I'm with you in
| spirit though - I ditched dual monitors for an ultrawide
| and its now the only way I can work.
| bhouston wrote:
| I do wish it was higher resolution for sure, but that
| isn't feasible this year. I would have to squint at a 27"
| 5K monitor to read the fonts if I put this much on screen
| at once.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Having to turn your head to see a full 16:9 screen
| doesn't sound great either.
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| I tried couple of monitor sizes and anything above 27-28 inches
| came across as downright inconvenient for work at least for me.
| Also, 4K was not great at all. 2K was.
|
| It was opposite of how I want my TV.
| bhouston wrote:
| I love the screen real-estate resolution for coding, it
| really is a lower cognitive load.
|
| I can have the terminal window open with lots of output, the
| ChatGPT window for AI, the source code with a ton of lines on
| the screen. And then on the other side have the browser
| window open with the console/debugger below. No need to swap
| in-and-out windows at all, just shift my gaze.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Yeah, 27" was about the sweet spot for me. We now have 32"
| monitors at work, and I find them a _little_ uncomfortable to
| use. Depends on your field of view, I suppose.
| whatever1 wrote:
| The pixel density would kill me. Now if it was an 8k monitor...
| bhouston wrote:
| And if MacBook's supported 8K monitors (they max out at 6K
| 60Hz, where as 4K does 144Hz.) That would be my next upgrade
| once they are affordable. But I think they won't be
| affordable until 8K TVs are common as that will drive the
| volume.
| hmottestad wrote:
| Many of them can do 8K 60Hz over HDMI:
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/102236
|
| Edit: You need an M2/M3 Pro or above.
| hmottestad wrote:
| DELL has a 32" 8K monitor if you're interested. Personally
| I've gotten bitten by both the pixel density and the high
| refresh rate bugs. So now I want a 27" 5K 120hz monitor, or
| none at all :P
| robertoandred wrote:
| Looking at pixelated text all day on a low-resolution monitor
| doesn't seem very ultimate to me.
| fourfour3 wrote:
| I'm not sure I could do this - I think it would do horrible
| things to my neck! But I am curious:
|
| Do you run that at 3840x2160 without high-dpi support? How do
| you find text clarity?
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| I love in Apple product announcements when they show people doing
| tasks that not only don't require recent hardware, but in fact
| could have been done without much trouble 20 or 30 years ago.
| Specifically talking about the ice cream spreadsheet that I
| suppose was there to show off how small businesses can use the
| new iMac.
|
| I'm sure it's a fine machine, but it does to me highlight the
| upgrade treadmill.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| No way, we need local LLMS to help us populate the spreadsheet!
| tylerrobinson wrote:
| > iMac with M4 features the world's fastest CPU core, making
| multitasking across apps like Safari and Excel lightning fast.
|
| This stuck out for me too, plus the examples of using Siri on
| the desktop. I reckon that invoking Siri to say, "Send Gema a
| text" and then having to proofread and approve the message is
| more effort than just sending Gema a text. Same for typing out
| "turn on do not disturb".
|
| You could imagine the argument being that there are a lot of
| deep settings or hidden controls that people would like to
| find, but then wouldn't a vector search that shows relevant
| settings be just about the same outcome?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Siri is hot garbage, but having apps open and close near
| instantaneously is a productivity boost. Which was also
| helped by SSD, but I would say the next material change since
| SSD I have experienced is M processors.
|
| Amortize the time and "focus" savings over years of using the
| machine, and even a couple thousand extra dollars is worth
| it.
| cheschire wrote:
| I'm not sure the iMac market is centered on upgrades.
|
| Humanity is growing. There are more new people ready for their
| first desktop than ever before. Many young new computer buyers
| have never used anything but a phone.
|
| I think the screen size alone is the biggest indicator as 24"
| is a step down for many existing desktop users, but anything
| larger might overwhelm someone accustomed to tablets and
| phones.
| brailsafe wrote:
| I agree, but now that I've been spending months working
| directly with people on kind of slow machines that occasionally
| present minor roadblocks to basic productivity, there is at
| least a little value derived from making periodic upgrades to
| your office or retail computers.
|
| _Most_ of the time that I 've seen people encounter real
| problems, it's the result of overly arduous, or inconsistent
| software interfaces, rather than hardware, but it's not not
| worth re-investing in every half-decade or so.
|
| If it's your personal computer, even as a layman, you'll be
| willing to deal with things like one might with an aging car,
| but if it's the computer you've been given to get work done on
| in front of customers, it's a different perspective. Some
| people will literally just stop showing up sometimes if tools
| aren't working for them, and they might be right to do so.
| Again though, it's tenuous how often this occurs for basic
| tasks on hardware that's within the decade.
| brianpan wrote:
| Isn't that show the opposite of the upgrade treadmill?
|
| When I buy a new MacBook, it WILL be to make ice cream
| spreadsheets. Not because M3 is now an M4. (Except for the
| Intel to M1 transition, I waited for that one.)
|
| And when I buy a new iPhone it won't be because I really need a
| Dynamic Island, it'll be because of Fantastical and Overcast.
| matt3210 wrote:
| How much of the price is the AI tax
| dlevine wrote:
| I'm surprised they are still shipping these with 256GB of storage
| base. I had a Macbook with a ~500GB SSD in 2012 (I installed it),
| and a 500GB spinning disk in like 2008 (also user installed).
|
| A 500GB SSD can be had for <$50 these days, and a 1TB for <$100.
| Still plenty of profit for Apple, even if they bump up the base
| storage to 512GB and make 1TB a $200 upgrade...
| slashdave wrote:
| These are not ordinary SSDs, which (via SATA) are dirt slow in
| comparison.
| wmf wrote:
| Ordinary SSDs have been NVMe for years and have similar
| performance to Apple NVMe SSDs.
| brailsafe wrote:
| It depends what the person meant by ordinary, but if
| ordinary just generally refers to "off-the-shelf" or
| commodity SSDs, then we've been able to get equivalent or
| better performing NVMe SSDs for a long time, for a small
| fraction of the price. Within what you can get retail, I
| think you'd still want the higher end of it for comparable
| speeds and yields, but would still save A LOT doing so.
| anvuong wrote:
| What year are you currently living in? A good 2TB Gen5 NVMe
| with W/R speed upto 7,000MB/s can be had for less than $200
| during sales that happen multiple times a year. Go down 1
| tier lower to 4,000-5,000MB/s and you can have one for just
| $120. Nobody puts SATA in premium laptops, hasn't been the
| case for quite the few years, you got brainwashed good by
| Apple.
| r00fus wrote:
| This is a desktop so I think the assumption is that the savvy
| can attach a USB3/4 device with appropriate storage (e.g. for
| your massive photo library - it's easy to change the location).
| pantulis wrote:
| Except that storing your iCloud Photo Library on an external
| drive is a PITA, as multiple daemons (photoanalysysd being
| one of them) will randomly activate themselves to do their
| shit, making it difficult to predict when the drive will not
| be able to be gracefully ejected. It needs to be a permanent
| external disk.
| r00fus wrote:
| We're talking iMac - so it's effectively permanent external
| storage.
| int_19h wrote:
| The problem with any sort of external storage device is how
| easy it is to accidentally unplug it while something is using
| it.
| Lammy wrote:
| Hello from The Land Of Perverse Incentives :(
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/108047#nasalac
| colonwqbang wrote:
| A relatively generous interpretation is that they want to keep
| down the price of the entry model. They make their own silicon
| now, only three different sizes so it's not viable to
| differentiate on compute power. The easy way out is to put too
| little storage and memory in the base model and make customers
| pay through the nose for more storage and memory.
| mysteria wrote:
| Do regular users use more than 250GB or so of local storage?
| Large media collections are likely stored on a NAS or external
| HDDs and the local disk is more for the OS, apps, and scratch
| space. Nowadays many files are on the cloud as well.
| Developers, video editors, and other people who actually handle
| large amounts of data locally will likely purchase an upgrade.
|
| While they're Linux systems pretty much all my desktops and
| laptops only use 50-100GB of disk space, and I still issue
| 128GB SSDs with no complaints as everything's stored on the
| network. Considering how expensive storage is on Apple devices
| I don't want to be paying the premium for 1TB of NVME which I
| won't use.
| Allybag wrote:
| I think "regular users" are very unlikely to use any sort of
| external drive, other than maybe some sort of cloud service.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Exactly this.
|
| Regular users keep their photos and videos in the cloud these
| days, whether iCloud or Google Drive.
|
| And video editors are going to be using external drives
| anyways, the internal SSD is just for scratch.
|
| If Macs were used more for gaming then that would be a major
| reason... but they're not.
| shmoogy wrote:
| I bought my wife a base storage mini with this assumption
| and her iCloud messages was 95gb because of all the
| pictures and videos sent. There is no way to offload it or
| move it to store on my nas, or an external HDD that I could
| find
|
| It's a very intentional thing to try to make you need more
| space.
|
| I pay $30 a month for the 6tb iCloud plan and could find no
| other workarounds other than logging her out of iMessage -
| which is absolutely rubbish
| bloudermilk wrote:
| You just made me nostalgic for the intel MBP days when you
| could swap the factory HDD and optical drive for two SSDs
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| Right now, the Apple computer lineup is totally out of alignment
| for me. The iMac is too small and the laptops are too big. I'd
| like a minimum 27" display for the iMac, maybe 31". For a laptop,
| give me something more portable, like the old 2 pound, 12"
| MacBook.
| el_benhameen wrote:
| I love the idea and form of an ultraportable laptop, but I've
| had to face the reality that even a 13" monitor is just too
| small for me to be productive on complex development tasks. My
| eyesight isn't good enough to handle tiny fonts, which could be
| part of the disconnect. What kind of work are you able to get
| done on a 12" screen?
| euroderf wrote:
| AFAICT the 11" Mac Air failed in the market. It did not last
| long in the lineup.
| t3rabytes wrote:
| It was available for 6 years (2011-2017), that's hardly a
| failure relative to other Apple products that have only made
| it through 2 cycles (the most recently iPhone Mini sub-family
| that lasted 2 years).
| euroderf wrote:
| OK, my bad.
| hartator wrote:
| MacBook 12" was super sweet though.
|
| I bought 2 for professional engineering work. They were my
| main computers despite Intel CPUs being absyammal in term of
| performance.
| space_oddity wrote:
| It would be fantastic if Apple brought back that 27-inch or
| larger iMac for desktop users who don't need a separate display
| wingworks wrote:
| I used to always buy MBP's, but the new gen are all those super
| thick and heavy models. I tried one and couldn't get used to
| the thickness or weight. At that point I may as well get a
| desktop.
|
| I ended up buying M2 new MBA (from intel MBP), screen size
| similar enough, thickness good, weight good. And M2 is fast
| enough for 99% of the things I do. I did max the RAM to 24GB
| and wish there was more sometimes, and would love a faster SSD.
| Bot overall very happy.
| doublepg23 wrote:
| Why not get a Mac Mini and external 32" display? It should be
| refreshed this week with rumors of a redesign.
| Koshkin wrote:
| Not if you want an M4
| caseyy wrote:
| It will come.
| fensizor wrote:
| 13 inch Air is small enough. Get yourself an iPad if it's still
| big for you ffs
| newsclues wrote:
| I miss the old small MacBook Air https://support.apple.com/en-
| ca/112441 But it would have been nice to get a device more like
| the mini Sony Vaio device of old with tons of ports, so you
| have a mini workstation to add a large display and inputs
| dcre wrote:
| iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard might not be too far off for the
| tiny laptop one. Though those are 11" and 13", and you're on
| iOS instead of macOS.
| thenaturalist wrote:
| > For a laptop, give me something more portable, like the old 2
| pound, 12" MacBook.
|
| MacBook Airs or your iPad Pro is perfectly portable.
|
| Absolutely love, love, loooove Apple finally upped the MBPs to
| 14 inch.
|
| Such a QoL improvement over 13inch.
|
| I'd never buy a 12 inch computer, ever.
| knutwannheden wrote:
| Changing screen sizes appears to be a very common theme for
| Apple. That way they can a few years later re-introduce the old
| screen sizes as the best invention since sliced bread. Very
| annoying. I would also have liked to see a 24"+ model.
| thefz wrote:
| > The M4 chip brings a boost in performance to iMac. Featuring a
| more capable CPU with the world's fastest CPU core,(4)
|
| Then, deeper in the footnotes where no one ever reads
|
| > (4) Testing was conducted by Apple in October 2024 using
| shipping competitive systems and select industry-standard
| benchmarks.
|
| This is why I could never take this company seriously.
|
| Oh, and 1499EUR for a computer with 256GB of storage. That you
| can't upgrade.
| aag wrote:
| It looks beautiful, but it's such a waste to bind the monitor to
| the computer this way. Monitors outlast many computers.
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| 2.1x faster than M1, but they tested an M4 with 32 Gb vs. an M1
| with 16Gb. Sad to see this kind of comparison. I guess in
| "performance-per-"dollar it still stands since they just doubled
| the baseline RAM levels.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| 32gb RAM max?
|
| I don't understand, macbooks on battery power have 128gb, why
| this limitation on an always powered device
| nknealk wrote:
| I believe it's a limitation of the memory controller on the M4
| chip. It can only address 32 gb of ram. Addressing more ram
| would require more die space
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I hope not. This is a parallel product line instead of a
| successor then. Not what anyone was anticipating or looking
| forward to.
| seshagiric wrote:
| It's almost becoming a bother of how accurate the rumors are
| becoming now a days. With this release they were spot on with the
| 16gb min ram and no change in screen size.
|
| I am not building LLMs on my computer (I wish :)) but I do use my
| iMac for both work and photography. Lightroom slugs big time on
| my 2019 iMac. My dream spec for the next iMac would be:
|
| - bring back the 27" form factor
|
| - dumb down use as monitor. My work computer has disabled file &
| screen sharing so current methods dont work. I just want to plug
| my work macbook using a cable or wireless and use the imac as a
| display.
| jjcm wrote:
| Since this thread seems to be about niche asks for pro users,
| despite the product being targeted towards casual users who want
| an easy out of the box experience, I'll add my own to the mix.
|
| I'd love a bigger/better screen on these, specifically an
| ultrawide variety. An iMac Pro with an 8k ultrawide would be a
| near-instant purchase for me. I find the ultrawide form factor so
| good for productivity. I love the apple "it just works" approach
| to their hardware, so if something was fully integrated I'd jump
| on it immediately.
|
| Today I use a 49" CRG9, but the input and connection setup is
| somewhat finicky. Not a huge blocker, but it would be lovely to
| be able to simplify.
| giobox wrote:
| I also use and love the exact same 49" CRG9, but if you do the
| 2x retina math, to deliver the pixel pitch Apple customers
| expect on desktop in the 32:9 display form, that would
| realistically have to be a 10240x2880 display at a minimum of
| 60fps. Not sure if there are bandwidth considerations over
| displayport or similar as this is essentially two 5k Studio
| Displays (5120x2880) side by side at that point.
|
| I love my CRG9 with MacOS, but there's no escaping the text
| rendering is significantly poorer than on Apple's own 2x retina
| stuff.
| blairbeckwith wrote:
| TB4 should be able to handle that resolution - I am running
| 2x Studio Displays + gigabit ethernet + countless USD devices
| in to one TB4 port on my MacBook via a TB4 dock.
| peterldowns wrote:
| Which dock are you using? Looking to get one + a large
| display, and share both between my windows desktop and mac
| laptop.
| phillco wrote:
| Incidentally, it was observed that the new iMac can support an
| external 8K 120Hz display:
| https://x.com/vadimyuryev/status/1850929080281321899
| OnlyMortal wrote:
| People also don't get the idea of an appliance.
| dllu wrote:
| Using a large 8K display for productivity is underrated. I
| wrote a blog post about my experience:
| https://daniel.lawrence.lu/blog/y2023m12d15/
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Why not the 55" 8K? Also the checkerboard is because you're
| not using variable refresh rate. You need to turn on game
| mode for the TV and VRR in OS display setting.
| dllu wrote:
| I can't find any. The newer QN800D or whatever aren't
| available in 55". And they don't make the QN700B anymore.
|
| EDIT: Also wow I've been using this QN800A for like 3 years
| with the checkerboard problem without realizing that
| enabling variable refresh rate solves the problem. Thanks
| for the pro tip!!!
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| I have the QN700B. It seems almost small to me at this
| point. Can you get VRR to work on linux?
| dllu wrote:
| Yes, "G Sync on unverified devices" seems to work on
| nvidia-settings on Linux.
| vehemenz wrote:
| You've convinced me, but it really shows the limitations for
| 16:9 when these are our options. Two largish 28" 4:3 monitors
| would be a nice middle ground.
| jjcm wrote:
| Consider the samsung 57" ultrawide. 7680x2160 resolution.
| Lots of usable space, but a better form factor for
| productivity than a TV.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-DisplayPort-Mini-LED-
| DisplayH...
| gpm wrote:
| > AMD Linux drivers
|
| > Unfortunately, as of writing, AMD GPUs do not have HDMI 2.1
| so you cannot use an 8K TV in 8K 60 Hz mode unless you use a
| DisplayPort to HDMI adapter.
|
| Interesting workaround! This hadn't occurred to me at all as
| a solution when I read about the HDMI 2.1 driver licensing
| issue.
|
| Edit: Added "AMD Linux drivers" to quotation.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| This is wrong. I have used a AMD 6600XT with 8K 60hz VRR
| over HDMI.
| gpm wrote:
| On linux? What drivers are you using?
|
| It's been pretty widely supported that the "HDMI Forum"
| (licensing body) has blocked AMD from supporting HDMI 2.1
| (necessary for 8k 60hz over hdmi) in their open source
| linux drivers - which I thought was the only set of
| drivers available. For example:
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hdmi-forum-to-
| amd-no...
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| On windows. Haven't tried Linux.
| gpm wrote:
| My fault for omitting the context of a heading that said
| "AMD Linux drivers" immediately before the part I quoted
| then, sorry for the miscommunication.
| dllu wrote:
| I also updated the phrasing in the blog post to be
| clearer haha
| tbirdny wrote:
| I have a Sony 43" 4K and would love a 55" 8K. I think that
| would be the perfect. I'm really disappointed there's no
| current option. I'm waiting. Everyone says 8K isn't worth it
| for movies especially at 55", but I don't want it for movies!
| It would make my computer "desktop" as big as my physical
| desktop. I seriously considered the QN700B. I wasn't sure if
| it would do 60Hz 4:4:4 and wasn't quite ready to buy a new
| Mac (my current Mac can't do 8K).
| buildbot wrote:
| I use my Q900R the same, it's awesome. It's so flexible:
|
| For couch gaming, 4k, 120Hz, VVR, 10bit and like, 1500 nit
| HDR. The downside is pretty clear blooming though.
|
| 8K 60Hz for sitting close and using for photo editing &
| programming.
|
| It does get hot though.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| Unfortunately the iMac Pro was a stopgap measure similar to the
| 16 inch iMac that had the escape key. Even the last MacBook Air
| with Intel is really a testbed for the design of the first M1
| MacBook Air (the mainboard is the only thing that changed).
| Apple has taken the steps to make the Mac Studio and other
| display devices made by them but, curved displays don't seem to
| be a strategy that Apple would take because right now they
| might move to tandem OLED on all devices which means even
| considering something curved isn't on the drawing board.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| How are people still going on on that idiotic "it just works"
| slogan. It was never true and will likely never become true
| either.
|
| All Apple software has always had their quirks and usability
| downsides. Wherever that's iOS, macOS or iPadOS.
|
| It's still a great OS, but no, it doesn't just work.
|
| Or please tell me how to use the magic mouse while it's
| charging? Am I just holding it wrong?
| cafed00d wrote:
| > Or please tell me how to use the magic mouse while it's
| charging? Am I just holding it wrong?
|
| is that really a deal-breaking decision to buy an iMac? Yeah,
| sure, I agree it's super silly design that they put the port
| under the mouse; but c'mon, does it really matter?
|
| As far as I can tell, I have never had to explain to my 61
| year old Indian mother how to use a Mac as much as I have had
| to debug every little thing on Windows PCs. Macs & Apple
| products _truly_ do "just work"
| ffsm8 wrote:
| Can you read? I guess not, because I literally even wrote
| that it's a great OS?
|
| It just doesn't _just work_ and has issues. That doesn 't
| mean that windows or Linux _dont have issues_. They do,
| they all have their warts and that 's fine. But that makes
| the slogan "it just works" idiotic.
|
| It has the by far best vertical integration with the least
| issues switching devices, sure.
|
| That still doesn't make "it just works" a reality, because
| that's an unachievable pipedream!
| wodenokoto wrote:
| iMac Pro with HDMI _in_ would be a purchase for me. The screen
| will outlive the computer hardware, yet an imac is cheaper than
| a studio display.
| bbkane wrote:
| I tried an ultrawide, but had trouble with window management -
| I need to make 4+ apps visible at the same time and found that
| a lot easier with 2 displays and the Rectangles app
| mulletbum wrote:
| Use Magnet with Left and Right snapping. It works perfectly
| fine on an ultrawide.
| r00fus wrote:
| I have the same monitor and honestly BetterDisplay.app has made
| the CRG9 a lot better - it fakes HiDPI so you have much larger
| readable text (my eyes ain't what they used to be).
|
| Before that app, I was leaning into my monitor, now I sit back
| and enjoy.
| jxdxbx wrote:
| I've been using an M1 iMac as my main home computer (with 16 GB
| RAM, 1 TB SSD) and have zero reason to upgrade. I've loved it.
| Exactly what I need, though I offload a lot of home server type
| tasks to a big tower PC, including messing with local AI stuff.
|
| BUT a new hockey puck Mac mini that shared a screen with my
| gaming PC would be a nice space-saver. If only the studio display
| could switch inputs--using macOS on a curved gaming monitor seems
| weird.
| phillco wrote:
| There are Thunderbolt 4 KVMs now (can't speak to any myself,
| but they exist!). DSC will give you quite a bit of spare
| bandwidth with the Studio Display.
| deadfa11 wrote:
| I've been using the Sabrent one for a year or so. It's worked
| quite reliably once I got the cables sorted. I was
| unintentionally using one TB3 cable in the mix, and that made
| it pretty flakey. It has been pretty solid since swapping
| that for a TB4 cable.
| yunohn wrote:
| > the new iMac is up to 1.7x faster than iMac with M1
|
| This seems like a much lower than expected speed bump for M1 to
| M4? Would've been nice to see something more for something
| designed to be non-upgradeable.
| thedangler wrote:
| I'm waiting to replace my 2015 MBP with an M4 MBP. I bought the
| m2 Studio Max and love it. But I need a mobile computer. Working
| only at my desk sucks sometimes.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Why wait? The M3 MBP is basically perfect.
| RomanPushkin wrote:
| > iMac features a color-matched keyboard and mouse or trackpad...
| These accessories now come with USB-C ports, so users can charge
| all of their favorite devices with just a single cable
|
| WOW!
| mmaunder wrote:
| Oh thank god. Not a day goes by when I'm not thanking the
| powers that be in Europe for pressuring Apple to add USB-C to
| iphone.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| People say this as if Apple hadn't already been adding USB-C
| to their iOS devices for several years. There were pretty
| good reasons for holding off USB-C for the iPhone. It was
| likely to alienate a good number of customers.
|
| I doubt Europe had anything to do with the timing.
| jmspring wrote:
| "good reasons"? What would be those?
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| I've seen countless people upset that Apple is now
| "forcing" them to throw away their perfectly good cables
| _again_ (to replace with USB-C).
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| People have crazy long memories to consider this as
| happening "again," seeing as the lightning connector has
| been around for 12 years.
|
| Who are the folks that only have one device, anyway?
| Surely almost everyone who owns a smartphone has at least
| one USB-C cable kicking around for something else?
| nozzlegear wrote:
| My sisters are two living examples of said people. They
| both asked me why Apple was suddenly switching the cables
| for their new phones and tablets, when they already had
| everything on one cable type (lightning) and it was
| convenient. Now it's inconvenient for them and they
| didn't understand what the big deal was with usb-c.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Cables are the obvious one, as someone else mentioned.
| But I think people forget how many accessories have been
| sold (e.g. FLIR cameras [0]) that were Lightning only.
| Switching the phone to USB-C renders those expensive
| accessories obsolete.
|
| [0] https://www.flir.com/products/flir-one-gen-3
| audunw wrote:
| Yup, exactly. I have a flir one, and I'll have to keep my
| old lightning iPhone around just so I can use the flir
| camera when I need it. There are probably a bunch of such
| peripherals. The key difference between MacBooks and
| iPads where they did switch to USB-C early is that
| dongles are WAY less convenient of a workaround with a
| mobile peripheral.
|
| I think the lifetime of the lightning connector has been
| very reasonable. If they switched much earlier they
| would've really screwed over those who invested in
| lightning peripherals. I think it's reasonable to expect
| the peripherals to last at least one phone upgrade.
|
| Yeah maybe it still sucks for people who bought such
| peripherals in the last few years. But more and more
| stuff is done over Bluetooth now and we've had years
| where everyone should know that there wasn't a future for
| lightning
| sangnoir wrote:
| Fat margins on licensing Lighting accessories were good
| for Apple.
| dguest wrote:
| I'm confused about how Europe didn't have anything to do
| with the timing.
|
| Apple switched exactly when Europe mandated it and
| criticized the mandate.
| Nition wrote:
| I used to have a cheap Acer keyboard that had two USB ports in
| the back, so it acted as a little bonus USB hub that you could
| plug extra stuff into. Great for quick USB drive transfers; you
| could even plug in your mouse there.
|
| For a second I thought that's what Apple meant here. But they
| just mean you can plug in the device itself.
| SurgeArrest wrote:
| Reading this on 2017 iMac 27" - is the first 5k iMac that
| couldn't be used as a monitor after the computer inside is
| irrelevant. I hope EU will push for some law that requires all
| AIO computers to work in monitor-only mode if internal hardware
| is no longer good enough or no longer supported by software
| updates. I love the 5k screen on this iMac but the CPU is too old
| for photo or video editing as software got so much slower over
| the years. I could have used this screen for many more years, but
| now it will hit landfill... Apple is only "green" in their
| presentations - in reality they care more about inifite sales
| only.
| mikeatlas wrote:
| they offer free recycling of old hardware
| https://www.apple.com/shop/open/free_recycling when you buy new
| hw
|
| see also https://www.apple.com/me/recycling/
| mihaaly wrote:
| I hope they also plant one or two small trees somewhere! And
| promote the use of refillable water botles on campus!!
| gljiva wrote:
| I hope more companies start recycling their own products.
| It makes me sad to see so much valuable electronics, so
| many "totalled" cars just thrown away on the same heap as
| other rubbish (and old cars respectively). Such a waste of
| resources is surpassed only by war.
| rvense wrote:
| Recycling electronics basically means crushing them and
| extracting some of the minerals inside. A lot of them
| can't really be recovered, and of course all the
| electricity that was used to create it is still gone and
| the water used is still tainted.
|
| If you make electronics you should be forced to do
| everything humanly possible to extend its useful life.
| jdietrich wrote:
| Consumer electronics have a negative recycling value -
| the raw materials are worth significantly less than the
| extraction cost (in both financial and carbon terms),
| making recycling nothing but environmental theatre. If
| electronics manufacturers actually care about
| sustainability, they must extend the working life of the
| product by designing for longevity, repair and reuse.
|
| Apple have a very mixed track record in this respect.
| iMacs used to work as an external monitor when the in-
| built computer became obsolete, but that feature has been
| removed. Most components in an iPhone are locked to that
| device, preventing their re-use as spare parts. Apple
| computers are almost entirely non-upgradeable, greatly
| limiting their potential useful lifespan.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Not sure if you're kidding, but around 2014 on campus we
| all got reusable water bottles, and I still of course have
| mine, as they're useful (and less wasteful).
| tsunamifury wrote:
| Buddy you really seem to be totally obvious to the cult
| koolaid you've been drinking
| dagmx wrote:
| From earlier this year in fact
| https://www.apple.com/ca/newsroom/2024/03/apples-restore-
| fun...
| nozzlegear wrote:
| I mean, yeah. This but unironically.
| dolni wrote:
| There is a reason that the old saying is "reduce, reuse,
| recycle". The effectiveness is in that order: reduce
| consumption, reuse what you have, and recycle what you can no
| longer use.
|
| There is a very straightforward opportunity here for Apple to
| enable "reuse". They absolutely should be doing that.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Don't landfill it please sell on eBay or locally. Crazy people
| like me that love the monitors and just surf the web will buy
| them. I was awestruck the other day how much I would have to
| spend to exceed the monitor quality on our ancient iMac. I
| bought a modern 4k one and it was still worse. They really put
| the magic in those old 5k monitors.
| rzzzt wrote:
| If you have the inclination and skills, it can be converted to
| an absolutely-zero-smartness display using an LCD driver board
| (this example conversion log used the A1419's housing with a
| separately purchased display panel):
| https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/diy-5k-monitor-success....
| jibbers wrote:
| Absolutely do this. I built one and use it connected to a
| MacBook Pro. Building it was straightforward and 99% plug-
| and-play.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Someone needs to turn iMac-to-monitor conversion into a
| small business. At least in major cities, since packing up
| an iMac for shipping is not easy or fun if you don't have
| the original box anymore.
| hggigg wrote:
| We shovelled 100 of them into a van last year to be shredded.
| It's terrible. I had no say or control over that before anyone
| shits the bed.
|
| I bought a studio display to get out of that. That has spares
| available and is repairable as well. It's getting its second
| computer shortly.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| > Apple is only "green" in their presentations - in reality
| they care more about inifite sales only.
|
| needs citation. I say this as someone who worked several years
| in engineering at Apple, and they were extremely
| environmentally conscientious years before it was a thing.
| matrix2003 wrote:
| I send all my old stuff for recycling now and get a gift card
| in return. They just did this for my ancient iPad that won't
| even run the latest iPadOS.
|
| I go on a site, pop in the serial number, and they ship me a
| box for free with a return label.
|
| I basically got $45 for an incredibly slow brick, so I'd say
| that's pretty good incentive for their recycling program.
|
| Sure, you could install Linux and upcycle it, but how many
| people are actually going to do that? I think the recycling
| program is actually great for the 95%+ of people and how they
| use their devices.
| zh3 wrote:
| Not in the UK; my iPad was unreliable from the off,
| eventually it was crashing 4 minutes after starting it.
| Trying to trade it in just got a message along the lines of
| "It can still have a good second life, go find a
| responsible recycler and give it to them. Have a Nice
| Day!".
|
| Unlikely to ever buy an Apple product again.
| hcarvalhoalves wrote:
| Can you share the instructions on how to do that?
| tjoff wrote:
| The iMac are the perfect example though. The horror of
| putting a DVI/HDMI port on that thing seemed so horrendous
| that they'd rather let the whole thing go to waste. Reading
| OP it seems like this has been corrected? But generation of
| generation of devices didn't have any sensible reason to
| exist.
|
| Apple is also the king of integrated batteries. First with
| phones, then with laptops. I'm still baffled they got away
| with this. Such mindless waste at an incredible scale.
|
| Being extremely environmentally conscientious while designing
| the packaging isn't going to offset that.
| jrmg wrote:
| This would require additional hardware in every iMac sold.
|
| Many people (I suspect the vast majority) would not reuse
| the iMacs as displays.
|
| Would the total amount of extra hardware inside discarded
| iMacs (those not used as displays) be less than the amount
| of hardware saved by reuse of the others?
| tjoff wrote:
| Definitely.
|
| Would it affect apples bottom line if they couldn't
| prevent people from reusing their displays? You bet.
| troupo wrote:
| > This would require additional hardware in every iMac
| sold.
|
| Hardware that costs a few cents at Apple's volumes and
| adds about 1mm of thickness and 2g of weight.
|
| Also, it's _standard_ hardware
| alpaca128 wrote:
| > Many people [...] would not reuse the iMacs as
| displays.
|
| They could resell them as displays, given the resale
| value of Apple devices that might not be unpopular. If
| Apple actually cared they could easily add the hardware
| necessary. Would it cost them a few bucks more? Sure, but
| that's what choosing environment over maximum profit
| means.
|
| Or they could at least make it easy to modify so
| tinkerers can quickly turn it into a display without
| having to destroy the case or something.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> I say this as someone who worked several years in
| engineering at Apple, and they were extremely environmentally
| conscientious years before it was a thing._
|
| Then please tell us why they can't put a HDMI/DP input on the
| iMac to be usable as an external monitor when the internal
| computer dies or just to be used as a secondary monitor?
|
| Or why the SSD NAND on Macbooks needs to be soldered when a
| guy on youtube managed to hack an NVME connector on the
| motherboard to make the storage replaceable and expandable?
| What are the reasons other than driving more sales of new
| devices when old ones break?
|
| Because they're clearly not technical limitations and without
| any substantiated info from your side, your comment just
| reads more like astroturfing ("Apple is so conscious, trust
| me bro I worked there").
| zeusk wrote:
| Because as a customer you should probably buy a studio
| display and Mac mini if that's your use case.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| "My use case" of ...*squints*... not throwing amazing and
| still functional monitors in the trash because the
| computer part in them is obsolete/dead and keep reusing
| them instead? How rude of me to reject Apple's marketing
| NPC programming and use common sense instead.
|
| How about Apple just puts the 2 cent connector & PHY, and
| let the users who paid for the device decide how they
| want to use the product. Gaslighting people with the
| "you're holding/using it wrong" argument today is just ..
| I can't even express anymore without breaking HN rules.
| zeusk wrote:
| and yet you continue to moan about your NPC problem when
| the right product for you already exists?
| brailsafe wrote:
| There are a ton of older iMacs on the used market, and if
| you have one, it's a fair complaint that you can _no
| longer_ re-purpose it for whatever else you like. Ideally
| if I got a mac mini I 'd just hook it up to the screen I
| already have, rather than spending another $2k on the
| only other option the brand sells.
|
| Additionally, not having that option lets the
| manufacturer have control over how much value a product
| retains after it's useful life. Apple already does this
| in a number of different ways, and it's disgraceful. iPad
| too old to get new updates? Recycle, it's not like your
| backup included the versions that did work for your OS
| version, can't do much with the hardware. Battery dead?
| Recycle! Already have a 5k iMac but want Mac Studio for
| more performance? Well you better like spending a whole
| lot more for exactly no new value.
| zeusk wrote:
| Just because the device is too slow for you does not make
| the device useless in totality. What are you going to ask
| for next? HDMI-in port on the iPad and MacBook so you can
| use it as a display when the internals are outdated?
| wtallis wrote:
| > when a guy on youtube managed to hack an NVME connector
| on the motherboard to make the storage replaceable and
| expandable?
|
| Link? I've seen several instances of third-party repair
| shops doing BGA swaps to replace the NAND with larger
| packages from other Apple products. I've seen one instance
| of somebody making a pair of custom boards, one soldering
| down to the original NAND BGA pads to provide a slot, and
| the other board slotting into that one to hold the
| scavenged BGA packages in an easily-replaced module. But I
| haven't seen anyone retrofit an off the shelf NVMe device
| to operate as primary storage for an Apple Silicon machine.
| conradev wrote:
| It's not that they actively do bad things, it's that they
| only dedicate real resources in the direction of self-
| interest. Tim Cook likes to point to their solar investments
| and accessibility as examples of "doing good" when in reality
| the former is a good long term financial bet and the latter
| is generally under-resourced (or "cheap" to them).
|
| They'd use M.2 SSDs in their Macs instead of soldering flash
| chips to the board to allow for upgradeability, but that
| would seriously hurt the average profit margin on their
| devices and (maybe) take more time to engineer.
|
| The areas where their self-interest and the environment
| overlap are truly awesome, like shipping iPhones without
| chargers (increased margins) and in smaller paper boxes (more
| efficient shipping), but I don't wear rose-colored glasses
| about it.
|
| They'll also never let the iPad run macOS, because if people
| could own one device instead of two, that would be bad for
| their profits. They'll keep them cleanly differentiated for
| as long as they can.
|
| (I also worked in engineering at Apple!)
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| You can tell they're full of shit because they can't stop
| tooting the green horn. It's self evident.
|
| If they made their devices repairable, easily resellable,
| etc. then they wouldn't have to greenwash.
| ben_w wrote:
| They don't strictly need to greenwash _even despite the
| difficulties with repairing their devices_. They talk
| about green stuff because that 's what they want to be,
| for whatever reason.
| mikae1 wrote:
| _> They talk about green stuff because that 's what they
| want to be, for whatever reason._
|
| How else would the conscious consumer justify another
| marginal hardware update?
| ben_w wrote:
| > How else would the conscious consumer justify another
| marginal hardware update?
|
| I don't even know how they do it with all of that.
|
| None of the changes between successive versions of the
| iPhone -- ever -- have felt like good value for money to
| me. I get new ones when the old ones break. Then again, I
| am a weird outlier in economic things, and I've known
| that since I was a teen.
|
| I'd ask if people really are so much more interested in
| _signalling_ green than _being_ green, but of course I
| know they do -- an old flame campaigned Green in the US,
| despite also having a big thing about supporting the
| striking coal miners in the UK (that happened before she
| was born).
| Kirby64 wrote:
| I'll bite: what about their devices is not easily
| resellable? Sure seems easy to factory reset basically
| anything Apple, and their resale values hold up a lot
| better than most devices.
| dlachausse wrote:
| Exactly! My iPhone 12 Mini is actually worth replacing
| the battery in. I could do that and _still_ turn a profit
| reselling it, or continue using it for a couple more
| years before it actually becomes obsolete and unusable.
| reaperman wrote:
| Apple Silicon MacBook's are actually a bit difficult to
| truly factory reset. In a divorce I ended up with an M1
| MBP that was first set up using my ex-wife's AppleID, but
| was primarily my laptop. Her administrator account was
| deleted, my AppleID was shown in all the system setting
| menus that I could see in the operating system, and
| "FindMy" on her phone at least was not tracking its
| location.
|
| Two years later I updated my login password and then
| promptly forgot the exact punctuation of the new
| password. I ended up getting completely locked out of the
| laptop with no self-service options to fix anything.
|
| That day I learned that you have to boot into a special
| mode to truly factory reset, not just delete the
| administrator accounts with other AppleIDs. I was able to
| get Apple to remotely unlock the computer for me, but
| only because I could "prove" it was mine by sending them
| the original invoice slip from store.apple.com with my
| name, email, and the serial number of the laptop on it.
|
| But that invoice slip is literally a piece of paper in a
| box, and you can't access it yourself after 18 months - I
| had to call into Apple support and get them to email me a
| new copy because it had been longer than 18 months.
|
| If I had purchased the laptop from someone else on
| craigslist 2 years prior and then got locked out, I would
| be completely shit-out-of-luck, because I wouldn't be
| able to prove I truly owned it.
| ferbivore wrote:
| Not sure if this is what they meant, but from what I've
| heard, lots of companies send "obsolete" devices to
| recyclers without disabling Activation Lock. Not really
| Apple's fault, but if they added a last-resort way to
| wipe devices they could cut down on a lot of waste. I'm
| somewhat skeptical that locking does anything to deter
| thieves anyway.
| gtvwill wrote:
| I factory reset a 2012 Mac book pro that was needed for a
| client to use to check emails and use the web browser.
| Device was instantly blocked by Apple from accessing most
| websites because the factory version of the OS was deemed
| insecure by Apple. This included blocking the updater
| from being able to update the device via the web to a
| safe version of the OS that was available. What was
| supposed to be a 1 hour service became about 4 hours of
| me reading online trying to work out wtf was going on.
| Then I had to spend time navigating my way around the
| nightmare of distro hopping it up OS updates manually til
| it got to the most recent "safe" supported os version.
|
| Device works completely fine and lives behind a well
| secured network (battery was stuffed but it lives plugged
| in). Apple took it upon themselves to dictate to the user
| that it was no longer fit for operation. Apples solution
| was "replace the device and send the old one to landfil.
|
| Apple literally greenwash their entire business model.
| But they are one of the most wasteful companies around.
|
| Meanwhile I'm still reformatting 8, 12 and 15 year old
| windows pcs with Linux and putting them back into service
| for email checking and basic web browsing without a
| single hiccup. Saving more and more from landfil, they
| get used once in a blue moon but it's literally all the
| owners want. They don't mind waiting a bit for stuff to
| turn on, hell plenty of them are over 60, they've spend
| their life being patient and a few mins to make a cuppa
| while something turns on is a blessing to them.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Why can't you just put Linux on the Macbook then? Most
| 12-15 year old laptops are not capable of running the
| current version of Windows, either, and have major
| vulnerabilities.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> (maybe) take more time to engineer_
|
| Apple, the richest company in the world, who spends
| millions in money and engineering hours on stuff like
| making sure the packaging having the right neutral smell,
| and the box sliding out with the right amount of friction
| when you open it, and on security teams/mercenaries able to
| pull family members of workers from warzones, and you're
| telling me they have to nickel and dime their HW team for
| routing an NVME slot on the board instead of soldering the
| NAND chips because that would cost some more engineering
| time?
|
| Thanks for the chuckle, I loved it. I think Apple spends
| more on toilet paper or hand soap in a month than the
| effort would cost their HW engineers to do that.
| harikb wrote:
| :) but we take it that you are not disagreeing on the
| first part of their claim?
|
| That said, I have bought many cheap Windows PCs/Laptop in
| my lifetime and I have only ever _upgraded_ them once and
| they also don 't last as long. Somehow... I don't feel
| shouting at Apple. These things do last a bit longer...
| ferbivore wrote:
| It's to reduce unit costs, not engineering costs. They
| integrated an NVMe controller into the SoC and they can
| now just buy NAND chips instead of full SSDs.
|
| Soldering them to the board is just an asshole thing to
| do though, especially since these machines can't boot off
| of USB if the NAND dies. Surely some elastomer BGA
| sockets wouldn't cost that much. There's no sane
| explanation other than they're doing it so you have to
| buy a new Mac to get more storage.
| romanobro56 wrote:
| "They only dedicate real resources in the direction of self
| interest"
|
| Wow, it's almost like they are a publicly traded company
| with a legal obligation to do so!
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Of course. But it's hypocritical to then pretend like
| they care about the environment when they manifestly
| don't.
| burnte wrote:
| > Wow, it's almost like they are a publicly traded
| company with a legal obligation to do so!
|
| This is an amazingly common misconception about fiduciary
| responsibility to share holders. Nowhere in the law does
| it state that they must seek profit and shareholder value
| at all costs, above all other concerns, regardless of the
| impact. Companies are absolutely allowed to do things
| that are not 100% aligned with self interest. Many
| companies routinely do such things like charitable
| giving, excellent customer service, expensive processes
| that make the product more recyclable or repairable, etc.
| piyuv wrote:
| You know, keeping the planet we live on alive is also
| self interest.
| lynx23 wrote:
| Funny how accessibility seems to be both. Too complex and
| manpower-sucking to actually fully support, and cheap,
| because someone need his argument to work. As a VoiceOver
| (blind) iOS user (since 13 years or so) I submit you are
| underestimating the complexity of something like shipping a
| screen reader for _every_ device you put out. Yes, there
| are days where I hope the Accessibility Team had more
| resources to fix obviously long-standing issues, but that
| doesn 't let me forget what a gracius gesture it originally
| was to say "Fuck ROI, we're going to be the first to do
| this."
| v1ne wrote:
| Using an M2 SSD instead of soldering the chip on board has
| more implications: PCB gets physically larger, and takes
| more power or has less performance talking to the SSD. Heat
| transfer is also worse. I completely understand why they go
| for a soldered SSD chip.
|
| One way of true environmentally-friendly innovation could
| have been to find a way to attach the SSD chip so that a
| user could safely replace it, though, with little
| additional space.
| conradev wrote:
| Yes! I forgot that the NVMe controller is on-die. I want
| some way to swap the NAND chips. Reminds me of this
| video:
|
| https://youtu.be/KRRNR4HyYaw
|
| For a desktop computer, though, where they have a bigger
| thermal envelope and no battery, it seems more
| reasonable. They even did the software work already for
| the Mac Pro.
|
| That would be their counterargument right there. Want
| Linux on your M1? Get a Mac, not an iPad. Want swappable
| storage? Get a Mac Prp, not an iMac.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| I think it's extremely overestimated by the technical crowd
| how many people would ever upgrade their RAM or SSD in
| their Macbook. I honestly doubt it's even in the single
| digit percentage points. The energy, engineering and
| material wasted on having connectors probably vastly
| outweighs the environmental savings by having that one tech
| person upgrade their RAM or SSD,
| indymike wrote:
| The article is about the desktop iMac model. Regardless,
| I think many would upgrade because ssds are cheap... RAM
| would lead to customers getting another year or two out
| of their computer...
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _" I think it's extremely overestimated by the
| technical crowd how many people would ever upgrade their
| RAM or SSD in their Macbook."_
|
| Back in the day when this was possible (iBooks,
| Powerbooks, early-model MacBooks), I'd say that a large
| percentage of Mac laptops eventually did get upgraded. I
| certainly upgraded 100% of the Macs I owned and also did
| many for friends and family. Some models made upgrades
| quite easy: the RAM slots, especially, were often
| accessible without special tools. It was common to buy
| the base model Mac with the fastest CPU, then install
| your own RAM modules and big HDD/SSD to save money.
| Swapping HDDs out for SSDs was also, of course, a huge
| performance upgrade for a while.
|
| Even non-technical users who wouldn't upgrade their Macs
| on their own would often trade them in to
| dealers/resellers who would refurbish and upgrade them
| for resale.
| hajile wrote:
| Apple wants $1200 for a 4TB SSD. I'm sure a LOT of people
| would gladly pay $300 for a top-end SSD of the same size
| and pay someone to install it for $100 and still save
| $800 on the price of the machine.
| conradev wrote:
| I bought an M1 Max with a 2TB SSD, but I'm running up
| against the capacity and I want more storage. The
| computer is still plenty fast. Normally, I'd upgrade my
| computer and continue using it, but now I need to sell it
| and get a new one to get more storage. Not to mention the
| carbon cost of doing that, these things are $4000!
|
| Further, when I buy a new one, I'm now incentivized to
| over-provision it based on my current needs by that same
| logic.
|
| OWC has an entire business around this (for older Macs):
| https://www.owc.com/
|
| Photos and videos get larger each year with larger
| sensors, so it can be hard to predict future usage if you
| take a lot of those.
| waynecochran wrote:
| It's simple. I have a old iMac w a 5K screen. I would like to
| just but a now Mac Mini and keep using my iMac as a monitor.
| Instead my 5K iMac will end up in a landfill. Which is less
| green.
| kev009 wrote:
| The citation is common sense.. if your business is
| consumerism, you are by definition the opposite of "green".
| Putting some idiots on stage every year to carefully
| gesticulate to soft music about how "green" creating immense
| amounts of industrial waste are and thinking it is real is
| getting high on your own supply.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| Classic apple worker, missing the forest from the trees. You
| were bamboozled into making your products greener while
| forcing customers to buy more and more of them.
|
| Come on are you really that unaware?
| talldayo wrote:
| If you need a citation to understand, then nothing will get
| through to you. Apple glued in their batteries before "it was
| a thing" and implemented parts pairing DRM "before it was a
| thing" too. Whatever era you worked at Apple during, the
| company is changed now and has _been_ changed for over a
| decade. Their modern rhetoric proves they detest the _Reduce,
| reuse, recycle_ hierarchy that defines how "green" is and
| has been defined. You can prove that Apple is anti-green
| through basic examination of their modern business model:
|
| - They deliberately limit the functionality of devices
| unsupported by their first-party services (eg. App Store and
| Safari) which prevents reduction of new hardware required.
| Third-parties are prevented from offering serious and lasting
| alternatives.
|
| - They've systematically prevented repair of both their
| laptop and phone hardware, obviating the "reuse" part of the
| cycle. In their current scheme, independent repair shops are
| deliberately _and_ unnecessarily cut off from the parts they
| need to repair Apple hardware at-cost.
|
| - Their stance towards recycling is asinine and insidious.
| Since store owners can't recycle partially-broken hardware as
| donor boards and users can't extend the use of their devices
| once iOS stops supporting them, Apple _graciously_ offers to
| take your valuable hardware for free and destroy it for parts
| or materials for their own benefit. Users aren 't expected to
| want any better and instead are supposed to thank Apple for
| pocketing their broken hardware to pay for Carbon Credits and
| Mother Nature spotlights.
|
| Apple's "serious" dedication to the environment is a joke,
| and the cracks have been showing for a while. They prioritize
| obstinate and unnecessary proprietary features instead of
| differentiating themselves through natural competition on
| their merits. If it wasn't for regulatory concern Apple would
| continue abusing the environment and people like you would
| keep defending Apple regardless.
|
| This is bad. I expect better.
| rty32 wrote:
| Citation: MacBook Pro with 8GB memory, starting at $1,599, on
| sale right now.
| tomcam wrote:
| With respect, then, why do you think iPhone or iPad batteries
| can't be replaced by the average user after a decade and a
| half?
| harywilke wrote:
| I remember, long time ago in 1990, when apple switched to
| brown boxes for environmental reasons.
| seam_carver wrote:
| Please don't landfill it. Recycle it responsibibly once it's
| lifetime is over by recycling it to Apple or taking it to a
| local electronics recycler like Best Buy.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| It's reduce, reuse, recycle. And recycle is last for a
| reason.
| knolan wrote:
| I went from a 2560x1600 27" 2012 iMac to a 5K 2015 iMac. The
| 2015 model was the first not to offer target display mode, so
| it's even worse than you say. For a while I ran the 2012 as a
| second display for the 2015.
|
| The 2012 iMac is long gone, passed to a friend, but I still
| daily drive the 2015 5K. I'm interested in the new iMac but the
| 24" screen feels like a downgrade. The 27" studio display seems
| like a nice option but for similar money I get an extra
| computer in a smaller screen.
|
| Naturally I could buy a cheap monitor but I don't want to.
| e1g wrote:
| I used your iMac as the daily driver for years, and now use
| the 27" Studio Display. I don't know what's more frustrating:
| that it's still effectively the same panel 10 years later, or
| that it's still the best one (for reasonable money).
| knolan wrote:
| I was tempted to gut it and stick in a display driver board
| but that comes with a risk of destroying the thing. It's
| still running fine and I could find use for it elsewhere.
|
| But you're right. It's a damned fine display.
| chirau wrote:
| If you have no intent to use it longer, please do let me know.
| I am always looking for machines, books etc to give to my
| former high school in southern Africa. I'm in the US and can
| get it shipped
| alexsmirnov wrote:
| In a similar situation ( mine is iMac 2019 ), I just added
| Linux box with 8x Xeon cores and Nvidia GPU. I use iMac as
| remote VNC / X11 client for that server. It still good enough
| for web browsing, email, and heavy tasks offloaded to Linux
| server. I do mostly ML / software build, no video editing
| though.
| kome wrote:
| please, sell it. don't trash it! a computer from 2017 is still
| perfect for most people, and especially for hackers. there is a
| market for computers that are barely 7 years old.
|
| i am writing this from a macbook pro from 2012, and it's my
| daily driver. macs are really amazing machines (i guess there's
| a bit of luck involved, but they are in general very solid).
| jerich wrote:
| Apple should hire a couple hackers to create "end-of-life"
| firmware for their obsolete devices; give them new life as
| super-specialized devices. Part green program, part customer
| delight, even some wacky art projects.
|
| Maybe if an iMac doesn't have a video input--have it boot as an
| AirPlay-only monitor.
|
| I've got 2 old EOL appleTV boxes sitting in a drawer--again,
| one last firmware update to make them dedicated AirPlay
| receivers.
|
| Take my 2011 MacBook Air and make it a dedicated Notes
| machine/word processor--all it does it run notes and sync with
| iCloud.
|
| Obsolete iPad picture frame is an obvious one.
|
| They can work on the "Reuse" side of the 3R's of waste
| reduction (with reduce and recycle, right?)
|
| PS, I'm available, 9 years embedded SW experience ;)
| prettyStandard wrote:
| That would be amazing.
|
| This reminds me of the offline email client HP built on EFI.
|
| Cathode Ray Dude -
| https://youtu.be/ssob-7sGVWs?si=qjyf5lm_9PrzPPeE
| dijit wrote:
| Oh god, I have one of those laptops on my shelf. Such a
| wild feature.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _" Apple should hire a couple hackers to create "end-of-
| life" firmware for their obsolete devices; give them new life
| as super-specialized devices."_
|
| They've actually done this in a few cases! There's a whole
| generation of (discontinued) Airport Express Wifi base
| stations that got a final firmware update which gave them
| AirPlay 2 functionality. Now they're still quite sought after
| as a device to make old stereos/speakers wirelessly
| compatible with the latest Apple devices. Especially if you
| have stereo eqipment that can take optical (TOSLINK) audio
| input.
| stuartd wrote:
| It can be done, and if my 2016 IMac dies then I am going to do
| it. An amazing display.
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Convert+an+iMac+Intel+27-Inch+E...
| LASR wrote:
| I've been looking for an upgrade from my 2015 5k iMac 27.
|
| Might finally pull the trigger on this version. What I will miss
| is the 27 inch 5k display.
|
| Also, my use case is exactly what this iMac is meant for - shared
| family computer that takes up little space in the kitchen.
| thescriptkiddie wrote:
| still no 27" display :(
| notinmykernel wrote:
| It'd be awesome if Apple could make skins for the iMac. That way
| it wouldn't look as dated in 3-5 yrs.
| abhayhegde wrote:
| The displays on these iMacs are so crisp, but disappointing that
| 24" only. Happy that the base RAM is increased, perhaps trying to
| pander to AI audience. But, who buys these at costs almost at
| Macbook Pros? Isn't this just a monitor?
| smcleod wrote:
| Only a maximum of 32GB shared RAM?! Surely that must be the
| minimum now?
| PeterCorless wrote:
| I was really hoping they'd have announced a MacBook Pro based on
| M4. I had been waiting all year for it.
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2024/03/11/apple-reportedly-develo...
|
| However, reading Nanoreview it looks like the performance of the
| M3 Max still actually beats the M4 for graphics and multicore
| performance.
|
| https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/apple-m4-vs-apple-m3-m...
| 1123581321 wrote:
| They are supposedly launching Macs all week, so you will
| probably get your M4 Pro and Max MBPs. M4 Max vs. M3 Max will
| be the apples-to-apples comparison to make.
| madjam002 wrote:
| That link you posted is comparing the M3 Max with the base M4,
| it has more CPU and GPU cores
| perching_aix wrote:
| Their commitment to absolutely god awful designs really makes it
| exceptionally easy for me to avoid buying any of their products,
| with iMacs being chief among them.
|
| It's baffling to me people tolerate (or even like!) those massive
| disgusting chins for example. Sure is a big world out there.
| exabrial wrote:
| > M4, iMac is up to 1.7x faster for daily productivity, and up to
| 2.1x faster for demanding workflows like photo editing and
| gaming, compared to iMac with M1
|
| Huh? how about than an M3?
| downrightmike wrote:
| Don't care about anything other than Mac Mini
| Koshkin wrote:
| I don't need another computer, but, hell, I want one of these...
| tintor wrote:
| Why are they not releasing it in 27" size that they had before?
| brundolf wrote:
| I've not sure I've ever had so much product lust for something I
| had so little use for as the Apple Silicon iMacs. Gorgeous
| objects, but I've already got a MacBook Pro and a bigger monitor
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-10-28 23:00 UTC)