2011 iMac speculation

[miscarriage]

the only REAL improvement, which is needed, is the GPU-Upgrade.

I hope there will be Sandy-Bridge, a mobile 6970 and a SSD. That would be perfect!

Greetz from GER

 

[coryndiego]

ok a immobile MacBookPro on a stand ..actually that is not a bad idea at all
the ideal Mac actually , think about it a 17" MacBookPro with a reversible display like the dell inspirion duo that could be mounted onto a normal iMac stand at home

you could use it as a laptop with keyboard , as a tablet with touchscreen functions of a iPad, but with the performance of the MacBookPro , and as all in one desktop when mounted onto a stand looking just like a shrunken iMac 21.5
..the perfect all in one computer totally flexible to use

This seems cheaply made- faulty design and as if it would fall apart in months.

 

[Kalach]

Quad core on every machine. And hopefully lower prices

 

[mrsir2009]

Add in a 24" model in addition to the 12.5 and 27 inch models

Oh, and

lose the optical drive lose the optical drive lose the optical drive

We need to move forward, and optical media aint' the future

 

[MacHamster68]

This seems cheaply made- faulty design and as if it would fall apart in months.

i did not say apple has to copy the inspirion duo ,sure apple might get permission to use parts that dont fall apart within a year..but only if its achievable with a high profit margin ,on the other hand you are right , if apple would build a MacBookPro /iMac /iPad hybrid with such features ...then the price would make a MacPro 12 core look cheap and still likely the display would be a ips display that fails anyway within days

so forget that idea quickly its just not possible for apple to build something like that...to many QC problems that cannot be solved
thats why you need to buy a iPad , if you want a tablet , a MacBook air if you need a netbook, from time to time a MacBookPro if you want a laptop and a iMac if you need a desktop...i forgot the mini if you need ....and the MacPro ...., so instead of one device you need to buy 6 devices at least

 

[sasasule]

Hey guys, Just wondering.

If i buy myself the 1699$ 27" i3 iMac now and apple decides to update their iMacs very soon. Will be bee seeing SSD drives as standard, and what about the price. Will it stay at 1699$ for the same iMac Model with SSD`s?

SSD will not be standard for at list few more years..because it is money maker for as long as that is the case it will not be the standard, special not in big machines like iMac.

If you want to see if SSD worth of paying check video in my signature and you will see the difference between HDD and SSD

At least with a car, an upgrade is something that is realized and can be enjoyed. Buying a new computer every year (especially one that looks exactly the same) cannot provide much tangible benefit other that saying...."my geekbench score is 4 million; however, my old computer still worked fine for my needs".

Don't get me wrong; when I upgrade I go for the best and every few years I upgrade again but it's truly a waste of money to upgrade each year for a higher geekbench and that is what most people seem to be doing.

If you have 1year old machin and you want to sell it you will get lets say 70~75% of original price..If you sell it after 3years you will get if you are lucky 15~20%...So investing for upgrades every year can be double without spending a big ammount of cash...Same with car i prefere to change my car every 3years because waranty on all is up to 3-4years so i get more value on used car then if i wait 5 6years. If you have extra cash on hand to spend on upgrades with nice money management you will not feel much and you will have all time best unit that is out on market.

Apple keep their value so it is good investment no mater what.

If they drop the optical drive then I'll be going elsewhere for my next computer, but I honestly doubt they're going to drop them that soon. I'm looking into getting one as a kind of media centre. 27", 200gb iTunes video library, a huge collection of DVDs. That'd do me just fine!

I buy my software on disc, my TV shows and films on disc and I need it for backups and as a disposable and cheap method of sending very large files to colleagues around the country and world.

They're still very practical and useful.

Do you want to buy my DVD movie collection by any chance then hehe

Over 400 original DVD's

yea im not expecting a big major update, but id rather have the latest and greatest, and wouldnt mind waiting a little for it

Not expecting iMac refresh before summer time but that is just my opinion.

Hey guys, I know everyone should personally decide on this one, but I would like to hear your opinion. Given the fact that I am completely new to Apple and very interested in buying an iMac, would you say I should wait for the new ones coming out sometime soon or shall I go for the ones that are available at the moment? What benefit would I have from fetching the new device other than having something new? I saw that the MBP's got the new thunderbolt port, I guess we can bet on the iMac's getting that too, but whats the use of it? Is it true, that there are no devices in the wild such as hard drives which support thunderbolt? Of course no one can say, but do you guys believe the iMac will get a major update and will we see them some time before Lion comes out? Thanks for now!

Promise already have 6bay unit that support TB technology...but MP will happend in summer time after Computex (exibition show in Taiwan). I bet a lot of hubs and other type of devices will be out after Computex but key thing is nobody know when iMac will get update. If you planing to buy iMac i would wait until new is out it may take some time but it is not far far away.

 

[Hellhammer]

Promise already have 6bay unit that support TB technology...

But it won't be available before Q2.

 

[FrankySavvy]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

End of April would coincide with the history of iMac updates. Besides look at the specs of the new MBP line...they put current iMacs to shame as desktops compared to Apples notebook line.

I'm calling late April, early May...internal update. Same design.

 

[MacHamster68]

If you have 1year old machin and you want to sell it you will get lets say 70~75% of original price..If you sell it after 3years you will get if you are lucky 15~20%...So investing for upgrades every year can be double without spending a big ammount of cash...Same with car i prefere to change my car every 3years because waranty on all is up to 3-4years so i get more value on used car then if i wait 5 6years. If you have extra cash on hand to spend on upgrades with nice money management you will not feel much and you will have all time best unit that is out on market.

Apple keep their value so it is good investment no mater what.

where are you living if Mac's after 3 years are down to 20% of their value , even the latest PPC Mac's from 2004-2005 are only going down that far here if you are lucky to be the only bidder . After 3 years your iMac must be in terrible condition with broken display broken hdd and totally scratched and dented before it even hits 40% of its value ,
thats the reason why people buy every year new Mac's because its only the first one they really have to pay for , the others only cost them about 10%-20%max of the price from apple, often less or just equal with the price apple care would cost them , if you take a mini its even better you would be a fool to keep a mini longer then a year ..always having the newest for a couple quid , a mate does that since 10 years , he lately sold his late 09 iMac 27" and his 09 mini and he payed not much for the iMac 27 initially because he sold his 08 iMac 24" for just short of the price new and he made even profit when he sold his 08 mini to get the 09 mini , when he sold his 09 iMac and 09 mini last month he only had to pay a whopping £150 towards a brandnew Macpro eight core
people are insane when it comes to Macs , the higher the price you ask the more bids you get , just include some software (not on disc's obviously as you still want to use the software on your next Mac) and they go really mad to get that Mac especially if you sell between november and january (christmas hint hint ) then they totally lose any sense for money and even pay very close to what a brandnew one would cost at apple
so yes iMacs hold their value great if you find the right time for selling

 

[asfoorh]

Promise already have 6bay unit that support TB technology...but MP will happend in summer time after Computex (exibition show in Taiwan). I bet a lot of hubs and other type of devices will be out after Computex but key thing is nobody know when iMac will get update. If you planing to buy iMac i would wait until new is out it may take some time but it is not far far away.

Yeah, I decided to wait for now because I don't need a new computer right away anyhow...

SSD will not be standard for at list few more years..because it is money maker for as long as that is the case it will not be the standard, special not in big machines like iMac.

If you want to see if SSD worth of paying check video in my signature and you will see the difference between HDD and SSD

So, to get it right, the only deference between SSD and a normal HDD is the speed it boots up, right!?

 

[sasasule]

Yes, you can still have Firewire on the Thunderbolt connection, you just need the right adaptor.

Perfect TB hub would be at list for me.
1TB connector that go from iMac or MBP to hub, docking station and then connections that hub have to offer are listed below:

eSATA x 2
USB 3.0 x 5
firewire 800 x 2
HDMI x 2
DVI x 2
ehternet x 2

But it won't be available before Q2.

Like i told Mass production after computex = Q2

where are you living if Mac's after 3 years are down to 20% of their value , even the latest PPC Mac's from 2004-2005 are only going down that far here if you are lucky to be the only bidder . After 3 years your iMac must be in terrible condition with broken display broken hdd and totally scratched and dented before it even hits 40% of its value ,
thats the reason why people buy every year new Mac's because its only the first one they really have to pay for , the others only cost them about 10%-20%max of the price from apple, often less or just equal with the price apple care would cost them , if you take a mini its even better you would be a fool to keep a mini longer then a year ..always having the newest for a couple quid , a mate does that since 10 years , he lately sold his late 09 iMac 27" and his 09 mini and he payed not much for the iMac 27 initially because he sold his 08 iMac 24" for just short of the price new and he made even profit when he sold his 08 mini to get the 09 mini , when he sold his 09 iMac and 09 mini last month he only had to pay a whopping £150 towards a brandnew Macpro eight core
people are insane when it comes to Macs , the higher the price you ask the more bids you get , just include some software (not on disc's obviously as you still want to use the software on your next Mac) and they go really mad to get that Mac especially if you sell between november and january (christmas hint hint ) then they totally lose any sense for money and even pay very close to what a brandnew one would cost at apple
so yes iMacs hold their value great if you find the right time for selling

If you read what i wrought you would see that is exacly what i am pointing out first car or mac is investment after that is just small cash for upgrades that comes every year... maybe you missunderstood my post but we are on the same page hehe

So, to get it right, the only deference between SSD and a normal HDD is the speed it boots up, right!?

Every program that you will use that need to access HDD or SSD will show you huge difference...plus not to talk if you use more things example 3DS, A-Cad, some game...etc etc then fast accessing to data will be visible big time. Bootup was just easy way to show you how big difference is...Ofc maybe you could wait more for price drop but for now price will not go down so easy...at list not for 1more year.

 

[Hellhammer]

Ofc maybe you could wait more for price drop but for now price will not go down so easy...at list not for 1more year.

Based on what? Intel G3s will be out soon and it is expected that they carry a noticeable price cut. 512GB Crucial C400 will be 825$ while all current 512GB SSDs cost more than a grand. Prices are going down all the time.

 

[sasasule]

Based on what? Intel G3s will be out soon and it is expected that they carry a noticeable price cut. 512GB Crucial C400 will be 825$ while all current 512GB SSDs cost more than a grand. Prices are going down all the time.

Based on work that i do. 825$ is still big amount. When i say to go down i mean to go down that everyone can even consider to buy one. Drop from 1000$ to 825$ is big difference but still that is extremly high price...SSD will not be for everyones pocket at list for 1more year...plus i could give you prices that we are getting for our enterprise products were we actualy use SSD, HDD etc,etc but then we will need to talk away from forum..

Not to even mention SLC and MLC price difference.

 

[MacHamster68]

some people might even buy charcoal for a high price if you tell them that it will become a diamond one day
and i agree for now big ssd's are just to expensive , you get a whole iMac 27" for the price of a 1 tb ssd , and yes these are available even 1.5 tb ssd's are in production , but you dont need them really, for most a 32/64gb ssd will do , i would get a 64mb ssd as primary drive for osx and apps or a 128gb max , only for storage a bigger ssd is not really suitable because of the waste of money as just calculate how many TB hhd's you can buy for $825 .... and ok some people might want to access a file instantly like their holiday video from 2001 , but most of us can wait the bit it takes to move the file

 

[room271]

Add in a 24" model in addition to the 12.5 and 27 inch models

Oh, and

lose the optical drive lose the optical drive lose the optical drive

We need to move forward, and optical media aint' the future

I agree except from one massive thing called BLU-RAY. Apple may have ignored this technology but do you really want to have to download HD films at 20gb a pop from iTunes and then not even own them or be able to play them on other devices? And not everyone has fast-enough internet connections for this anyway.

The 27inch iMac has an incredible screen which would be perfect for HD films.

***Edit*** Just to say I am aware of the possibility of external BR devices but it would still be nice to have the option in-built.

 

[MacHamster68]

I agree except from one massive thing called BLU-RAY. Apple may have ignored this technology but do you really want to have to download HD films at 20gb a pop from iTunes and then not even own them or be able to play them on other devices? And not everyone has fast-enough internet connections for this anyway.

The 27inch iMac has an incredible screen which would be perfect for HD films.

***Edit*** Just to say I am aware of the possibility of external BR devices but it would still be nice to have the option in-built.

yes,
but if apple builds in ssd only and no optical then they can make the iMac even thinner , i am sure you will appreciate a thinner iMac instead of a old fashioned optical drive inside , as apples optical drives are even in the newest iMac's a bit outdated to be polite , so losing these old things ...would not be a loss
thats why you get thunderbold now to hang on everything you need externally
and the iMac can become thinner then a MacBook Air

 

[mrsir2009]

Yeah, I decided to wait for now because I don't need a new computer right away anyhow...



So, to get it right, the only deference between SSD and a normal HDD is the speed it boots up, right!?

No, its the overall speed of the drive. Such as opening applications or copying files.

 

[mrsir2009]

yes,
but if apple builds in ssd only and no optical then they can make the iMac even thinner , i am sure you will appreciate a thinner iMac instead of a old fashioned optical drive inside , as apples optical drives are even in the newest iMac's a bit outdated to be polite , so losing these old things ...would not be a loss
thats why you get thunderbold now to hang on everything you need externally
and the iMac can become thinner then a MacBook Air

There's only one prob with making it much thinner, and that is the power cord. Its quite large and it delves quite deep into the iMac. I think if Apple wanted a thinner iMac they'd need to re-design the power attachment so it was smaller... Maybe it could go into the back of the computer slanted or something?

 

[mrsir2009]

I agree except from one massive thing called BLU-RAY. Apple may have ignored this technology but do you really want to have to download HD films at 20gb a pop from iTunes and then not even own them or be able to play them on other devices? And not everyone has fast-enough internet connections for this anyway.

The 27inch iMac has an incredible screen which would be perfect for HD films.

***Edit*** Just to say I am aware of the possibility of external BR devices but it would still be nice to have the option in-built.

Optical media is on the sink no matter what you say. Removal of it in the Macs will help push the process along a big Besides, Apple isn't going to put in Blu-Ray now, the want you to buy your media from THEM.

And externals, I mean, a USB powered external wouldn't be THAT bad on a desktop, cmon'.

 

[MacHamster68]

There's only one prob with making it much thinner, and that is the power cord. Its quite large and it delves quite deep into the iMac. I think if Apple wanted a thinner iMac they'd need to re-design the power attachment so it was smaller... Maybe it could go into the back of the computer slanted or something?

a external power brick which could also house the thunderbold port , so every external can be connected without cluttering up the top of the desk ...ah hang on that would then be like a mini attached to a cinema display ..so not a good idea as then it would not be a all in one any more ...
and there is still the huge stand sticking out of the back , so thinner does not make any sense anyway , so make the iMac deeper again with all full desktop components including GPU and Powersupply , true high performance parts without compromise , room for perfect cooling ..problem solved the footprint would still be the same and considering the size of even the 21.5 " iMac it would not have to get deeper then the original iMac G5 if the internals get arranged wisely without wasting space, most components today got smaller or? and if the hdd's i had 2 in mind optional as there would be a ssd somewhere inside and if these HDD's mounted in the chin and accessible like i had in mind earlier ...... perfect all in one computer for even the most demanding gamers

 

[Hexley]

Thunderbolt operates through PCIe, meaning that you can connect nearly anything to it. FireWire PCIe cards exist already. I have't seen any announcements of TB to FW adapters yet but technically it's possible and most likely someone will do it sooner than later.

That is comforting to know! So in the event Apple does whole hog on Thunderbolt by way of just having that as the sole connector then USB, FW, DP and all the other acronyms can operate through it? Even gigabit ethernet and the modem ports?

 

[Hellhammer]

So in the event Apple does whole hog on Thunderbolt by way of just having that as the sole connector then USB, FW, DP and all the other acronyms can operate through it?

It's possible but a lot depends on how the industry and people think about TB. It has potential to replace most of the existing ports but at least USB is still something that must be found from every computer without a need for an adapter. Time will tell us but the good thing about TB is that nearly anything can operate through it.

Even gigabit ethernet and the modem ports?

Even 10Gb/s Ethernet should work. I don't know what you mean by modem ports but if there is a PCIe card for that, then it's technically possible that there will be a TB adapter as well.

 

[old john]

Optical media is on the sink no matter what you say. Removal of it in the Macs will help push the process along a big

I don't see any point in pushing the process along until there's a good replacement for all the uses. Although I have other ways of backing up, for those of us in slow internet areas, the optical drive is still useful in all sorts of ways.

Besides, Apple isn't going to put in Blu-Ray now, the want you to buy your media from THEM.

I don't understand. What media do you have in mind that Apple sells? I think they want to sell content, not media. The media they use are iTunes, the App Store etc, but then they don't sell those, only via them.

And externals, I mean, a USB powered external wouldn't be THAT bad on a desktop, cmon'.

The fewer wires criss-crossing my desk the better . . . and each time I need to move one, it always seems to need careful disentangling from the others!

For the time being I hope they keep the optical drive. I can't see that thinner iMacs are much of an advantage as it hardly affects the footprint size.

 

[MacHamster68]

some just see progress if something old gets replaced by something new ...i mean cars still have wheels and they are already over 100 years old , hardly any progress or is it ?

i want to say first was the floppy then the cd , then the dvd and now blue ray , still basically the same round thing , only more advanced , and on a blueray you can get up to 50gb data, so it still is ideal to have as backup for important files , i still use dvd's for backups just in case the hdd i use for backup fails
so what i really want to say , i wont need thunderbold now maybe in 10 years or so , but i may have use for a blue ray burner inside a iMac , and no external is not a option as it would clutter up the desk, totally counterproductive for a all in one solution like the iMac is, thats why i want to have the option of 2 hdd inside the chin too with easy to access , so even less technically minded can replace them , and no clutter with externals on the desk..as that was the whole idea behind a all in one computer

and despite apple using new materials , there is actually no change in design if you compare the original iMac g5 with the new iMac 27" , somehow apple is in a dead end there , where is the imagination , its more a evolution but no where near as radical redesign as the iMac g3 , iMac G4 or the iMac G5 had been

 

[mrsir2009]

and despite apple using new materials , there is actually no change in design if you compare the original iMac g5 with the new iMac 27" , somehow apple is in a dead end there , where is the imagination , its more a evolution but no where near as radical redesign as the iMac g3 , iMac G4 or the iMac G5 had been

Well the reason they dropped the iMac G3 design was because of the flatscreen technology... Not too sure about the iMac G4 design, perhaps it was too radical and not practical or something? Anyway, the current design looks good and seems to work, so there's no rush to change it until they think up something that is better than the current one.