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iMac M4 „realistic“ wishlist
- Thread starter vahramas
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Lol but doesn't the M5 handle AI better or it's suppose to?Yeah, just like a 2024 model car is "moot" because of 2025 models.
The only compelling addition to the OS that thrilled me was Stage Manager but I guess I will keep on using Mission Control. I'm sure there are many other pluses but...
Yeah, unfortunately iMac is going to remain an iPad on a stick.
The amazing iMac Pro is no longer of interest to Apple.
What could have been.
Sure - you don't have to junk your Mac the day it doesn't get the latest OS update - or even when it stops getting patches. Heck, I'm still using Monterey even though my Studio is supported by the latest OS - but there's a slowly growing list of software updates that require a newer vesion, so I will need to upgrade in the next year or so. Anyway, this isn't about how long some people can usefully hang on to a vintage Mac that still does what it did on day 1 - it's about how long people typically wait between hardware updates, and support for the latest software is definitely a factor in that.
It's amazing that they managed to fit a Xeon space heater and workstation-class GPU into the iMac form factor - but just because you can doesn't mean that you should. It wasn't a system that many people buy for personal productivity or re-touching holiday snaps: it's a system for professional or pro-sumer content creation, scientific computing etc. (and even then it was single processor, single GPU system up against scaleable Xeon systems with 50 cores and multiple GPU boards...) - a lot of the target market will have special requirements for displays, specialist I/O interfaces, large amounts of RAM and storage etc. for which an all-in-one simply isn't a good choice. Moreover, they will also have specialist requirements for displays - multiple displays, arm-mounted displays, displays meeting certain reference specs for colour (not necessarily the highest resolution)...
The value of the 5k iMac and iMac Pro has always come down to whether the 5k screen was exactly what you wanted. It was a lovely display potentially worth ~$1000... unless you wanted/needed a different size/resolution/technology, a pair of matching displays or already had a good display. In that case it wasn't worth $1000 to you and the main value proposition of the iMac went away.
For one thing, the iMac Pro target market overlaps with the Pro XDR display market - but another part of that market wouldn't pay that much for a screen (and yet another part actually need that $20k dual layer HDR reference display which the XDR isn't.) - Apple would need to make a 5k iMac Pro, a 32" 6k iMac Pro and a headless Studio for the none-of-the-above cases and each would have a different niche market. Or, they could just make the Studio/Mini + Studio Display + Pro XDR Display and let users mix and match, while also being able to sell the displays to the much larger MacBook market.
Couple that with the issue that, post Apple Silicon, until you get to a Mx Ultra, there's no longer any night-and-day performance advantage to having a desktop over a MacBook - they're running the same processors - so many customers who previously had both will now be happy with just a MacBook Pro,potentially taking a huge bite out of the desktop market. The Studio Display is clearly designed as much as a laptop dock as a display for desktop Macs. Among the major reasons for choosing a Mac desktop today are that you want to choose your own peripherals or that you're going to be connecting a lot of cables and want to install it semi permanently.
Also bear in mind that the iMac Pro started at $5000. Today, $4000 gets you a M2 Max Studio, upgraded to 1TB and the better GPU and a Studio Display that is substantially more powerful (modulo post-ASi GPU pros/cons). The M2 Ultra is more comparable to - and cheaper than - the higher-end iMac Pros that cost $7400+
Huh? There's no such chip as an M5 (yet), and you can't even get an M4 Mac yet. But if you want to hypothetically shop for a Mac that won't be out for 1-3 years, I guess go for it!
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Depends on what you call "good as new". If you freeze the OS and software installed, totally, your experience should be identical barring some hardware failure.
But if you keep updating things, increasing software demands start catching up with you and that same machine seems like it's "getting slow". (When in fact it's no slower, but the work it's doing is harder. It would be like if your car stayed the same but all roads you drove on were increasingly all uphill
)You can use an Apple Watch for that. Alternatively: https://www.macworld.com/article/673887/how-to-unlock-a-mac-with-an-iphone.html
Thanks for reminding me. I heard of that but forgot. I was thinking about getting one in the last days and am not sure if I really need it.
But isn't this only to login from the lock screen? Or does the Apple Watch automatically unlock anything password locked what supports Touch ID?
At the moment I always have two keyboards connected. One only for Touch ID and the other one for anything else.
I agree but if the M5 will handle AI better is it way off base to assume when the chip gets into a computer that will also handle it better? I don't really care and maybe I'm not getting a handle on what seems to be a chip a year thing. I do somewhat understand each chip is suppose to be an improvement.
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I'm assuming the rumor of larger iMac sizes not being until 2028 w/ OLED is due to that need for a redesign. With the lower heat output from OLED, and space savings of not having a backlight, it may give them the space and thermal headroom they need for a better CPU.
I guess we'll find out four years from now.
I guess we'll find out four years from now.