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iMac 21" and 27" Late 2016 Wishlist vs. Reality

What's the most necessary upgrade for the iMac Late 2016?

  • Design

    Votes: 6 11.5%

  • GPU and Processor

    Votes: 36 69.2%

  • Storage (bigger and better)

    Votes: 23 44.2%

  • Pro Accessories

    Votes: 4 7.7%

  • Customisation (colors)

    Votes: 3 5.8%

  • Better Screen

    Votes: 5 9.6%

  • Upgradable components (from medium to high end)

    Votes: 19 36.5%
  • Total voters
    52
  • Poll closed .
richinaus said:
I glued over 300 different cladding panels onto my house over 10 years ago now and not one has ever failed. I would regard Apples designers and Engineers at the top level and cannot see why the use of adhesives is in any way an issue. Maybe they should sack Jonny Ive for not being a good product designer........
Click to expand...

If something inside the iMac goes dead I'd like to be able to easily fix it myself. I'd also like to easily swap out the hard drive with something off the shelf or put in a new CPU.

I get this isn't important to everyone, but it's important to me and I'm sure many others. There's no reason why they couldn't make an iMac that appeals to you and one that appeals to me.
 
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richinaus said:
I glued over 300 different cladding panels onto my house over 10 years ago now and not one has ever failed. I would regard Apples designers and Engineers at the top level and cannot see why the use of adhesives is in any way an issue. Maybe they should sack Jonny Ive for not being a good product designer........
Click to expand...

I'm not trying to generate controversy here. I'm an industrial designer myself and no doubt Jony Ive is, for me, the best industrial designer of our time (after Dieter Rams, who in fact inspired Jony Ive).

Glueing parts is not recommended not because something is gonna fall apart, but because:

1) Maintenance becomes a major problem.
2) When disassembling to recycle materials, it takes way more time (and that's not good).

An overwhelming majority of top industrial designers agree that glueing parts is a lazy design solution. But as in everything, nothing is written in stone; and if the greatest design company of our time does it; there is probably a good reason.
 
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agustinbg said:
Not just AMD's GPU, but Mobile AMD's GPU. :(
Click to expand...

Nvidia and AMD now are using the same chip for Desktop and Laptop, the base clock is slightly lower (2-3%) and the performance is almost the same, but honestly the Nvidia chips are way better, a shame if Apple won't use them.
 
PowerGala said:
If something inside the iMac goes dead I'd like to be able to easily fix it myself. I'd also like to easily swap out the hard drive with something off the shelf or put in a new CPU.

I get this isn't important to everyone, but it's important to me and I'm sure many others. There's no reason why they couldn't make an iMac that appeals to you and one that appeals to me.
Click to expand...

Of course there is, the demand for an upgradeable iMac is very low, it is just not worth their while from a business point of view, this is the only reason they need.

Despite what is written in tech blogs and sites like this the vast majority of people can barely turn their computers on and use a web browser.
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agustinbg said:
I'm not trying to generate controversy here. I'm an industrial designer myself and no doubt Jony Ive is, for me, the best industrial designer of our time (after Dieter Rams, who in fact inspired Jony Ive).

Glueing parts is not recommended not because something is gonna fall apart, but because:

1) Maintenance becomes a major problem.
2) When disassembling to recycle materials, it takes way more time (and that's not good).

An overwhelming majority of top industrial designers agree that glueing parts is a lazy design solution. But as in everything, nothing is written in stone; and if the greatest design company of our time does it; there is probably a good reason.
Click to expand...

Maintenance is less of a problem because glued and soldered parts go wrong less often. When recycling metals all glue plastics etc will be dissolved away with solvent it makes no difference.
 
Design for me. Bezels need to go, pronto. Thinner chin. Multiple metal color finish options.

A very close second for me would be expanded SSD storage options as well as being more affordable. I know I may be dreaming here, but hit me with a 1.5TB SSD BTO for the current price as the 1TB SSD option!
 
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Targeted display mode + Nvidia GPU + DDR4 are at the top of my wishlist. Oh another pure SSD storage option above 1tb would be great too.
 
Icaras said:
Design for me. Bezels need to go, pronto. Thinner chin. Multiple metal color finish options.

A very close second for me would be expanded SSD storage options as well as being more affordable. I know I may be dreaming here, but hit me with a 1.5TB SSD BTO for the current price as the 1TB SSD option!
Click to expand...

I heard somewhere that bezels helped to focus on the screen and not getting distracted by the background... that kinda sounds logical from a cognitive/ergonomic point of view, however, it certainly makes it look dated.

I'd not hesitate to buy the largest SSD if it was not because it's waaay toooo expensive. The Apple tax there is amazingly high (even for their standards).
[doublepost=1472695479][/doublepost]
EJ Lala said:
Targeted display mode + Nvidia GPU + DDR4 are at the top of my wishlist. Oh another pure SSD storage option above 1tb would be great too.
Click to expand...

• DDR4 is not so far-fetched; it might actually happen this October (I hope).
• If they get rid of the HDD and adopt 1TB Fusion Drive as standard, we'll probably see a jump on storage options.
 
agustinbg said:
I heard somewhere that bezels helped to focus on the screen and not getting distracted by the background... that kinda sounds logical from a cognitive/ergonomic point of view, however, it certainly makes it look dated.

I'd not hesitate to buy the largest SSD if it was not because it's waaay toooo expensive. The Apple tax there is amazingly high (even for their standards).
[doublepost=1472695479][/doublepost]

• DDR4 is not so far-fetched; it might actually happen this October (I hope).
• If they get rid of the HDD and adopt 1TB Fusion Drive as standard, we'll probably see a jump on storage options.
Click to expand...

I hope so friend. :)
 
PowerGala said:
If something inside the iMac goes dead I'd like to be able to easily fix it myself. I'd also like to easily swap out the hard drive with something off the shelf or put in a new CPU.
Click to expand...
I'd love to see this, but unfortunately that seems not to be in the direction Apple is going.
 
Apple like to claim that the iMac is the ultimate desktop, a claim which I suspect few believe. They could improve it considerably though by switching to Nvidia and offering a choice between a 1060, 1070, and 1080. They could also improve all recent iMacs by simply fixing their terrible OpenGL driver. It's around 25% slower than the same hardware running Windows.

Oh and Vulkan. For the love of all things shiny. Vulkan please Apple, please keep with the times. Metal is dead, it's time to move on.
 
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Sakurambo-kun said:
Apple like to claim that the iMac is the ultimate desktop
Click to expand...
If you only use Macs as the comparison then that claim holds some water, since Apple's other desktops (Mini and Mac Pro) hasn't been updated for years
 
I like your #1, #2, #5 & #6.
Apple start button would be cool. Very feasible.
The stock wireless keyboard sucks. The magic wireless battery & stuff is fine, but usability ... sucks.
The drive options are lame. 8T drives are available. But can only get 3T in a Fusion config.
I just bought a new 27" iMac. The drive options were frustrating. 3T Fusion was too small, so I went 512G SSD and plan on all other storage is external. Did I mention the stock magic keyboard sucks.
[doublepost=1472820710][/doublepost]I need to update my sig.
The iMac is almost the ultimate desktop. I have a gaming PC with 2 2500x1600 27" screens at work.
My new iMac is a much better machine. Anti virus software boggs even the best Windows machines.
Since I run 2 screens, an Apple 27" 5k secondary screen would be awesome. I've always found that non Apple screens always suck beside an Apple computer. A GPU on said screen would be cool. Extra USB 3 ports would be great. And lets throw in some "slots" or what ever for extra SSD drive space.
 
PowerGala said:
Which is very unfortunate. I'd love to get a new Mac, but I want one that fits my needs.
Click to expand...
Apple's approach is to make its computers disposable appliances that cannot be easily opened up to upgrade or repair.

Just look at this: https://www.macrumors.com/2016/04/25/2016-12-inch-retina-macbook-teardown/

Where there's a mention that Apple added anti-tampering compound to some of the screws. Without getting into the nitty gritty of that action, I think it shows an intent by Apple in continuing to lock down Macs
 
maflynn said:
Apple's approach is to make its computers disposable appliances that cannot be easily opened up to upgrade or repair.

Just look at this: https://www.macrumors.com/2016/04/25/2016-12-inch-retina-macbook-teardown/

Where there's a mention that Apple added anti-tampering compound to some of the screws. Without getting into the nitty gritty of that action, I think it shows an intent by Apple in continuing to lock down Macs
Click to expand...

It's silly stuff like this why my newest Windows PC is less than a year old and my newest Mac is more than 6 years old... I guess it's foolish to think that they still want me as a customer.
 
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One my my most-wanted features is a dead cert luckily: USB 3.1 Gen 2.

Well, it's my most-wanted feature, but my bank account would disagree! :D

Because with Gen 2 I will then have no excuse not to migrate to full SSD everything - including backup. I have had my eye on the SanDisk Extreme 900 for a while.

1TB built-in flash + 2TB external flash = Phwaorrrrrr...

If Apple adds a 2TB flash option, I guess I'll have to sell a kidney!
 
Haven't been able to keep up with all rumors. Is the 21" expected to be upgraded this fall (based on new processors etc)? Have been really long since last time. I could buy the new one but I just refuse to pay a lot extra for something that I think should be default in 2016 (SSD).
 
poobear said:
Haven't been able to keep up with all rumors. Is the 21" expected to be upgraded this fall (based on new processors etc)? Have been really long since last time. I could buy the new one but I just refuse to pay a lot extra for something that I think should be default in 2016 (SSD).
Click to expand...
There is a lot of conflicting information. Intel has still not released Skylake chips with integrated graphics suitable for driving a 4K display, so there is still little prospect of the 21.5" iMac being updated in the near future because it would necessitate either 1) adding discrete graphics (unlikely) or 2) updating the line but keeping Broadwell processors (definitely not going to happen). A third option could be Kaby Lake, but that's not going to be until next year.

Meanwhile the 27" is ripe for an update. It's already on Skylake chips however, so the processors won't be getting a boost - again as Kaby Lake isn't ready. But the recent AMD contract Apple signed could mean an iMac spec bump except processors. They could bring USB 3.1 Gen 2, Thunderbolt 3/USB-C, a 2TB Flash option, and the graphics improvements.

But would Apple update the 27" and not the 21.5"? Hard to tell. That hasn't happened before in the iMac line from what I remember, but has happened to the MacBook Pro for instance.
 
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My wish list is pretty simple, in order of priority:

BTO option for 6800K, 6850K, or 6900K
Update to modern graphics chip (don't care if it is AMD or NVIDIA since I don't do much gaming)
TB3/USB-C
Flash standard with second user upgradeable M.2 slot (you could choose your system SSD size, and still have a spare slot to load on your own).
No more spinning disks.
Finish options to match new iPhone/iPad/MacBook.

At this point, even with large Fusion options I'd prefer to just have HDD in external enclosure or NAS.
 
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