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Apple Announces New iMac With M3 Chip
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Sadly, a skip for me. Would like 32gb of ram and more ports. So an M3 Pro MBP 14” or 16” is an eventual purchase.
This is what I don’t understand about Apple’s tiers.
- Tier 1 could be 8/256 (though it should be 12GB and lower in price)
- Tier 2 could be 16/512
- Tier 3 could be 24/1TB
- Tier 1 could be 8/256 (though it should be 12GB and lower in price)
- Tier 2 could be 16/512
- Tier 3 could be 24/1TB
Scary bad Mac still doesn’t come with FaceID that was on iPhone X 6 years ago. Ridiculous.
Seems unlikely we'll ever see more ports on the iMac. USB-A literally could not fit on the back (too thin!).
Just picked up a refurb M1 for my wife with 16GB. $600+ saved. 🤷♂️
Probably not Apple’s intention but this M3 iMac sold us an M1.
Nothing she’s gonna notice in the M3. She’s just on Zoom and her browser 99% of the time. A little Spotify and YouTube sometimes.
Probably not Apple’s intention but this M3 iMac sold us an M1.
Nothing she’s gonna notice in the M3. She’s just on Zoom and her browser 99% of the time. A little Spotify and YouTube sometimes.
It definitely feels like Apple is letting the iMac die. With the Mac Mini, Mac Studio, and Studio display in the lineup why would they want people buying the iMac? They’ll get more money with some combination of Mac + Display rather than having it combined.
From the consumer level this isn’t honestly the worst thing either. Don’t need the insane quality of the Studio Display? Spend $500 or less on a nice UHD monitor and paired with a base Mac Mini you’ve got nearly the power of these new iMacs with a $400 savings and you don’t have the throw the whole thing out of the screen breaks.
I’ve long been a fan of the iMacs, they run well and they look great but I don’t know, with the Studios being beasts and the Mini’s being better than ever it’s hard to justify an iMac unless you really want that screen.
From the consumer level this isn’t honestly the worst thing either. Don’t need the insane quality of the Studio Display? Spend $500 or less on a nice UHD monitor and paired with a base Mac Mini you’ve got nearly the power of these new iMacs with a $400 savings and you don’t have the throw the whole thing out of the screen breaks.
I’ve long been a fan of the iMacs, they run well and they look great but I don’t know, with the Studios being beasts and the Mini’s being better than ever it’s hard to justify an iMac unless you really want that screen.
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I bought the previous M1 iMac that I use for my home office and for music production, and went with the 16gb upgrade, based on my prior Intel biases. The M series architecture and memory management is Byzantine to say the least, and I won’t pretend to fully understand it, but I’ve since taken the deep dive into any number of published benchmarks and none of them showed any significant difference in a variety of challenges, including GeekBench, until it was tasked with known memory hogs like Final Cut Pro and the most graphic-intensive games. I have a memory utility app installed on mine, and although I’m glad I went for the upgrade (I need it with the way I clutter my desktop), it is rare that I ever utilize the extra space, and when I do I can’t say for sure that the M1 chip couldn’t make do just fine without it. for the average user I don’t think the expense is justified.
The iMac to me has never been a serious computing platform—I see it as a self-contained, tidy little desktop that’s designed to handle the needs of the average business user, with a nice-looking built-in monitor and a very slight profile for those who value desk space. I see it as sort of the desktop version of the Air (I said sort of), with the Mac Studio and the Pro models leveraged for those seeking mammoth specs. And the latest M3 Max MacBook Pro TOTL is fairly ridiculous in that regard. I don’t think the vast majority of users need anywhere near that amount of power, despite how much we seem to want it whether it’s used or not.
Nevertheless, for those who want to beef it up, it comes with optional upgrades to 24gb RAM and a 2TB SSD, for an extra grand, and the arrival date where I am is less than two weeks. I do wish it came in a larger screen size option, but I just don’t think that’s what this model is designed to fulfill—Apple, if anything, knows what it’s doing in terms of sales, despite what some paraprofessional accountants here and there proclaim—and apparently the 27” iMac was phased out for a reason.
Overall I’m still very happy with my 2021 M1 model, which seems to be cozying up to Sonoma quite nicely. I don’t think this newest model justifies the trade up expense, at least for me. Perhaps if they eventually upgrade some aspect of the hardware other than the CPU (such as a substantial upgrade to the screen performance), I’ll consider it—but if I were looking for power, I’d look to another product line altogether—such as the next generation Studio, where I wouldn’t be tied down to an all-in-one, “build it and live with it” option.
Others’ experiences are welcome!
I think Apple will upgrade the 13" and 15" Airs at the same time, but since the 15" was recently released they need to wait a bit.
It can easily fit an M3Pro and has dual fans to support it thermally as well. Apple just decided that the 24" iMac is only an entry level desktop. Maybe someday they will decide to release a large screen iMac but that seems far off.
If you want ports… better buy the mini. Or a dock with ports.
Meh. My iPhone 14 has Face ID and candidly I don’t care for it. I prefer Touch ID.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. While I do like having an iMac G3 and Core Duo and an eMac G4 in my collection of older Macs, they're mostly just for collectible purposes. For regular desktop use, I'd definitely prefer a headless Mac desktop, which is why I'm leaning towards the M2 Pro-equipped Mac Mini. I could even use it with my older Thunderbolt display before I decide to upgrade to an UHD monitor (not an Apple one, but a model that's at least 27", has built-in speakers and am HD webcam, and maybe extra USB ports).
With the refreshed iMac, the only difference is the M3 chip, to the point where they even discontinued the M1 version! At least this is definitely a decent performance boost, as those new iMacs are even good for moderate audiovisual production; not feature films or anything, but more like for a school's video editing lab.
The 27" iMac was Apple's best selling iMac and I don't know anyone who got rid of their 27" to downgrade to the 24". Apple discontinued the 27" and then took its 5k monitor, added a camera and upgraded the connection ports and relabeled it as the studio display and is selling it for a whopping $1599 (should be less than $1k). Keep in mind the 27" iMac with the same exact 5k display had a starting price of around $1799 so now you know why Apple killed it off with the release of the M series of processors.
Would buy a 27" screen option in a heartbeat.
Source?
Lots of bleating over the 27 by a vocal minority. If the 27 iMac was so in demand Apple wouldn’t have dropped it.
No it really can't and keep the same chassis specs as it has now. There is lacking about '1/2' empty space inside the 24" iMac chin (which is where the SoC is located) that is empty. ( vs M1/M2 Mini ).
The chin also hold the speakers. If you haven't looked, the logic board is much smaller/narrower than you probably think.
There is physically no room there for a substantially larger package.
M3 ( about same size as M2/M1 package )
The M3 Pro
The M2 Pro die is around twice the size as the M3 die. The M3 Pro package as more memory packages... which also takes up more space.
The M1 iMac 24" logic board ( the Gold border around the M1. ) . There is no room for another set of memory package(s) on the other (top) side of that border to the edge of the logic board. And the M2 die is bigger.
iMac M1 24" Teardown
Is the new M1 iMac just a silly-sized M1 iPad, a detached-keyboard M1 MacBook, an M1 Mac Mini stretched out like pizza dough? We’ll only know by...
www.ifixit.com
If Apple changed the chassis so it was thicker, the chin taller ( which would get howls of protests ), or went back to intel era chassis or ... basically did something substantially different, then there would be room.
As for the "dual fans". That again is driven by the chin being so narrow. Those two fans don't deliver colossal thermal coverage. They are probably moving less air mass than the MBP 14" fans are ( which are not as much diameter width constrained).
When they made it an 'iPad on a stick' that was mostly true. The M3 isn't really 'entry level' though when coupled with decent RAM and storage. ( the price goes up... but that really isn't an 'iMac' things. Apple charges about same BTO price increases for RAM/SSD across the whole line up. )
Don't bet on it. At least at the old $1,799-2,199 price point lots of 27" users jumped in at. Apple may bring back an 'iMac Pro'. ( decent chance to sell more future XDR panels. )
The M3 Pro Mini and M3 Max Studio are going to be even more capable. The 3rd party Display market is getting more competitive every year. Those are not exact equivalents for a 27" all-in-one , but likely 'peel off' a ton of folks who used to be herded by Apple into buying an iMac 27" when they didn't want to.
Leaving a small enough submarket that Apple just won't bother. If it is move to a big screen, the draw would likely be even fatter margins; not volume. Apple stated in the presentation they already have the best selling All-in-one just solely with the 24" model.
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Gotta say, I'm glad I went the way I did. I agonized over giving up hope of a 27" iMac, but now that I went Mac mini + Studio display, it's a solid choice. I get the screen size I want with all the speakers and camera, and upgrading to the next Mini will always be the least expensive option. In a way, I'm sorry to be right on this one, because I do still miss the clean setup my 27" iMac afforded, but yeah, I'm good. Nothing here for me this time around.
I assume since the original large screen iMac was 24" and then they released a 27" and then a 21.5" so eliminating these two and going to a 23.5" seems too small. The new M3 iMac starts with 256GB of SSD - seriously Apple this is a joke right? Fast 3.5GB/sec M.2 SSD are less than $50 for 1TB from Amazon - Apple most likely would get them for less than $40 but they give us 256GB and then charge us $400 to upgrade to 1TB. $400 for a $20 upgrade!!!!!
So much for all those who were sure we wouldn’t get M3 until 2024 and the best we could expect was M2 for the iMac.
The iMac is simply a toy computer now. It's for kids and grandma who just want to send emails and play garageband.
If you want to actually do work on a Mac, you'll have to sell a kidney and buy the Mac Studio. And even then, a PC at half the price will still outperform a Mac Studio.
Every Apple event (for Macs) over the past 4-6 years has been a colossal disappointment. Every single one. How many more times are people going to get fooled into thinking Apple will release an iMac with a bigger screen, or get rid of the chin, or provide more ports, or increase the memory/storage on the base model, or completely redesign it, or make it with better cooling, or at least stop making it thinner and thinner, etc.
How many more events is it going to take? Lol...I know what you're thinking. "If I wait till 2025, maybe Apple will finally release the iMac I've been waiting for!"
We are NOT getting a larger iMac.....ever.
If you want to actually do work on a Mac, you'll have to sell a kidney and buy the Mac Studio. And even then, a PC at half the price will still outperform a Mac Studio.
Every Apple event (for Macs) over the past 4-6 years has been a colossal disappointment. Every single one. How many more times are people going to get fooled into thinking Apple will release an iMac with a bigger screen, or get rid of the chin, or provide more ports, or increase the memory/storage on the base model, or completely redesign it, or make it with better cooling, or at least stop making it thinner and thinner, etc.
How many more events is it going to take? Lol...I know what you're thinking. "If I wait till 2025, maybe Apple will finally release the iMac I've been waiting for!"
We are NOT getting a larger iMac.....ever.
Apple's thought processes seem to be divided (interntally) into two camps:
1) iMac and Mac Pro;
2) Mac Mini and Mac Studio.
Camp 1 thinks having the best looking, high priced (compared to the, albeit uglier and not as well integrated) machine is the goal;
Camp 2 thinks that modularity and maximizing capability per $ is important.
I do not believe the iMac should be killed. The Mac Pro needs a rethink.
Not switching out Lightning for USB on the accessories is really telling. It says to me that Apple themselves were not planning to update the current iMac. That Mac Book Pro laptops are obviously the big push, and the iMac is now looking like a legacy line that Apple's chief monks have yet chart the next path.
The stick logic board in the iMac chin is too small ( not wide enough) for a pro chip and heatsink. The iMac is too thin, the only location for the logic board in the existing chassis is in the chin
24” m1 iMac logic board and heatsink (on right side
For comparison, 14” MBP M2 Pro logic board and heat sink (in middle). The Mac mini Installation is similar