Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iMac Redesign for 2018?

Apple could go with a wider (possibly custom) display with some curvature to it. It's pretty much what the rest of the industry has done to make working with very large screens more manageable.

I'm really torn right now on upgrading. My 2012 i7 iMac is still fast enough for my needs but I'd really like the upgrade to the new 5K display.

Do I upgrade now to a noticeably faster machine and SSD while my 2012 machine still has some resale value? Or do I hold off another 1.5 years until Apple does a possibly major refresh to the platform?

There's another elephant in the room which is Apple's rumored facial recognition technology coming to iPhone Pro. If that arrives there's little reason Apple won't soon incorporate it into their Mac line... that feature alone would make it worth waiting for the upgrade.
 
jmpage2 said:
Apple could go with a wider (possibly custom) display with some curvature to it. It's pretty much what the rest of the industry has done to make working with very large screens more manageable.
Click to expand...

The issue with that is the resolution is "downgraded" from 5K to 4K (unless someone decides to offer a 5K panoramic LCD). It would still look decent enough, I am sure, but not as nice as the 5K.
 
I just purchased the 2017 27" with 1TB SSD and 40GM RAM (upgraded the 32GB RAM myself). If Apple does have a redesign next year, I am not playing keep after the Jones'. However, I do wish Apple would integrate TouchID into the Magic Keyboard and or Trackpad. I am surprised that that hasn't been done already.
 
BasicGreatGuy said:
I just purchased the 2017 27" with 1TB SSD and 40GM RAM (upgraded the 32GB RAM myself). If Apple does have a redesign next year, I am not playing keep after the Jones'. However, I do wish Apple would integrate TouchID into the Magic Keyboard and or Trackpad. I am surprised that that hasn't been done already.
Click to expand...

That is most surprising to me too. At least give us a wireless keyboard that has TouchID and the new touchbar that is on the newest Macbooks.

iMac is always the poor cousin.
 
jmpage2 said:
That is most surprising to me too. At least give us a wireless keyboard that has TouchID and the new touchbar that is on the newest Macbooks.

iMac is always the poor cousin.
Click to expand...
I couldn't care less about TouchID for my iMac, even though I love it for my iPhone. It's a bonus for my iPad but not critical, since I don't do contactless payment with my iPad.

But the writing may be on the wall for TouchID, if the iPhone 8 doesn't get it, as the rumours are predicting.
 
So my vote is this. I think the "effort" Apple puts it's time/energy/resources is:

1) iPhone
2) iPad
3) Macbook Pro and other mobile devices (macbook air) to a lesser extent
4) iMac
5) Mac Pro/iMac Pro
6) Projects like Apple TV/HomePod

So I think Apple gives "glances" to the iMac and the Mac Pro. I would believe that the most revenue comes from 1 & 2 and then 3 at a the margins. So getting a glance from Apple on 4 is amazing (what we seen from them in June).

BUT I do not believe that they are going to expend energy and resources into a redesign for a design that already is sufficient. I would love to see a thinner design with no 1" bezel but I can't believe it is a huge priority for Apple.

My expectation is that the iMac/Pro lines will be less relevant as Apple puts more focus on more mobile devices that can process as quickly as a desktop. There might be a solution in the future that gives us a scalable high def display that negates the iMac (which I buy for the display over the innards) based on the facts that Laptop processors are catching up quickly to desktop processors. So someday we could just have a high def display, keyboard and mouse and possibly not even need to "dock" the Macbook Pro to connection to the "workstation". But this is all in the future. I know at my company we are moving users away from desktop computers and even the techs are getting laptops because of portability and the processors on the laptops are competitive with desktop processors.
 
a redesign imac 2018 should come, and i think will come. i wonder, if with the new 8th gen Intel cpu, Apple will have new dGPU? does Vega has some dGPU/Gpu around 90-120W ?
 
fokmik said:
a redesign imac 2018 should come, and i think will come. i wonder, if with the new 8th gen Intel cpu, Apple will have new dGPU? does Vega has some dGPU/Gpu around 90-120W ?
Click to expand...

There is supposed to be a "Vega Gaming Edition" that might fit in that TDP range.
 
EugW said:
I couldn't care less about TouchID for my iMac, even though I love it for my iPhone. It's a bonus for my iPad but not critical, since I don't do contactless payment with my iPad.

But the writing may be on the wall for TouchID, if the iPhone 8 doesn't get it, as the rumours are predicting.
Click to expand...

I do a decent amount of online payments with my Mac and would appreciate touch ID or whatever facial cyborg scanning thing is going to be replacing it.

The keyboard touch bar would be very useful in some applications as well.

I don't expect any of it, iMac doesn't get much love from Apple.
 
jmpage2 said:
I do a decent amount of online payments with my Mac and would appreciate touch ID or whatever facial cyborg scanning thing is going to be replacing it.
Click to expand...

Actually - that's a good point, if they're moving to facial scanning (a la Microsoft) then it could be much easier to build that into a future iMac than figuring out a way to incorporate a "secure enclave" in the (interchangeable) keyboard. I'm sure the people using third party/custom/specialist keyboards would prefer it that way, too.

Might explain why they haven't tried to bring TouchID to the current generation...
 
theluggage said:
Actually - that's a good point, if they're moving to facial scanning (a la Microsoft) then it could be much easier to build that into a future iMac than figuring out a way to incorporate a "secure enclave" in the (interchangeable) keyboard. I'm sure the people using third party/custom/specialist keyboards would prefer it that way, too.

Might explain why they haven't tried to bring TouchID to the current generation...
Click to expand...

I would think that whatever facial recognition tech is coming to the new iPhone would be trivial to implement on the iMac or MacBook.
 
lets not fortget the facetime camera from now on, will be 1080p i guess, starting with imac pro
 
BasicGreatGuy said:
I just purchased the 2017 27" with 1TB SSD and 40GM RAM (upgraded the 32GB RAM myself). If Apple does have a redesign next year, I am not playing keep after the Jones'. However, I do wish Apple would integrate TouchID into the Magic Keyboard and or Trackpad. I am surprised that that hasn't been done already.
Click to expand...

jmpage2 said:
That is most surprising to me too. At least give us a wireless keyboard that has TouchID and the new touchbar that is on the newest Macbooks.

iMac is always the poor cousin.
Click to expand...

My guess is cost.

With TouchID the TouchID itself, Secure Enclave coprocessor, memory (shared) and device CPU are integral to the way it operates. Keep in mind there is all sorts of security and encryption going on between them with ephemeral keys, shared keys, session keys, plus unique IDs and anti replay counters entangled with those keys all operating through heavy always changing layers of encryption. All are for the Secure Enclave that is essentially isolated from the OS and its apps to say "allow it" or "deny it". Also keep in mind this is secure even on a hardware level and secures your keychain and such.

I read up on it a while back and was nothing short of impressed. Not so much by the level of security involved but how seamless Apple has made it. For example when you use TouchID to unlock your device it doesn't know your passcode (kind of obvious) but it doesn't even know the key used to unlock it, it wrapped a different key around the one generated from your previous use. Its working in tandem but independently of Data Protection storage encryption.

I feel the iMacs keyboard being wireless could be the hold up actually. The obvious problem is the encryption is all based and secured around unique and device IDs, if they don't match the data can't be unencrypted. So the Secure Enclave needs to be in the iMac. However the TouchID and Secure Enclave use a shared key to verify they match. So the Secure Enclave should be physically near the TouchID to maintain their key. But the CPU itself is what operates the TouchID and passes the data onto the Secure Enclave. So they should be near each other. Blah blah etc etc.....

I'm sure it can be done but it needs to be near foolproof to the point all financial institutions will stay on board with TouchID.

Currently their ApplePay solution for Macs via an iPhones TouchID seems to work well for me. I think their solution for a TouchID wireless keyboard will be a proprietary wireless transmission that they can lock down more than bluetooth and also give them the ability to update/alter it at a whim for security issues. That will also make it more difficult to snoop on its broadcast.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Apple_Robert
pixelatedscraps said:
Eww.
Click to expand...

Haha I was thinking the same thing.

Just being practical here. Apple released a new iMac after not updating for 2ish years. They didn't include Touch ID in that update.... why would they redesign it all in 2018 and include Face recongnition. It doesn't make any practical sense and doesn't match their historical practices.

"To predict future behavior look at what they did in the past"
 
jmpage2 said:
Apple could go with a wider (possibly custom) display with some curvature to it. It's pretty much what the rest of the industry has done to make working with very large screens more manageable.
Click to expand...

I would LOVE a nice slightly curved 32" 8k iMac next year, with six cores and cheaper SSD...
 
  • Like
Reactions: mdbradigan
I think the 2018 is the year of redesign imac because that will be the selling point since the big hardware improvments were this year
 
fokmik said:
I think the 2018 is the year of redesign imac because that will be the selling point since the big hardware improvments were this year
Click to expand...
They should've done that with the iMac Pro. That tells me they wont do much with redesigning.
 
From money point of view, they will redesign the imac next year. And not starting with the imac pro this year
 
So regarding the "reduced chin" that the Foxconn Leaker (foxconninsider) stated, based on a claim by a Macrumors member (Ph.D) who has allegedly seen one of the two Mac Pro reference designs (as with the MacBook, Apple appears to be studying two designs before choosing which one to go forward into production) and the OLED 8K display, said display has a very thin chin to house a "phased array of directional speakers" and a FaceID system. So the presumption is that Apple will make a 5K version of this display, as well, and use it as the case design (with a deeper back) for the 2018 iMac refresh.
 
CWallace said:
So regarding the "reduced chin" that the Foxconn Leaker (foxconninsider) stated, based on a claim by a Macrumors member (Ph.D) who has allegedly seen one of the two Mac Pro reference designs (as with the MacBook, Apple appears to be studying two designs before choosing which one to go forward into production) and the OLED 8K display, said display has a very thin chin to house a "phased array of directional speakers" and a FaceID system. So the presumption is that Apple will make a 5K version of this display, as well, and use it as the case design (with a deeper back) for the 2018 iMac refresh.
Click to expand...

Face ID on a 2018 iMac? Seems a bit soon. So I take it there will be a redesign of the iMac in 2018, based off this information.
 
Lesser Evets said:
I think the general form, color, texture of the current iMac is close to "immortal". If the chin vanishes, so does most all personality. If the chin reduces greatly, it just becomes a DELL with an Apple Logo (in appearance). Apple thrives on unique design, so a floating screen would kill that instant recognition and uniqueness Apple has made a welcome trademark across the last 4 decades.
Click to expand...

While I agree that that the chin gives the iMac it's personality, so did the iconic home button for Apple's flagship product and they just axed it like that. And now we have a folks calling it an Android look-a-like now. Because of this, I don't think Apple will have a problem de-chinning it, particularly for a product that probably represents a sliver of their earnings.

Lesser Evets said:
Final thought--the future redesign will probably be relatively minor and nothing that will change the paradigm the way the original Mac or first iMac did.
Click to expand...

Yea I agree with this. Next redesign will be pretty minor.
 
  • Get rid of the chin and nearly everything else, making the display as light and thin as possible.
  • Connect it to a G4 style arm.
  • Connect the arm to a base with front facing USB A/C and SD card ports, more ports on the back, access ports for RAM, SSD, HD.
The new Mac Pro? New modular interconnecting bases with more of everything.

What could be simpler? ;)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Moonjumper
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back