iMac Redesign for 2018?

[drthom]

Like I said, "naive question." Sorry, I am serious.

If someone offered this for $100 and it allowed me to buy the quiet i7 iMac experience that I want, then I would not hesitate to buy. Gotta include some kind of "flapper valve" (spring actuated? counterbalance actuated?) to prevent air resistance when internal fan is running alone and a HEPA filter ($15 replaceable cartridges?) to ensure clean air during high flow times. The clean air is important to me -- my old Mac Pro is full of pollen and cat hair.

Tom

 

[jmpage2]

Like I said, "naive question." Sorry, I am serious.

If someone offered this for $100 and it allowed me to buy the quiet i7 iMac experience that I want, then I would not hesitate to buy. Gotta include some kind of "flapper valve" (spring actuated? counterbalance actuated?) to prevent air resistance when internal fan is running alone and a HEPA filter ($15 replaceable cartridges?) to ensure clean air during high flow times. The clean air is important to me -- my old Mac Pro is full of pollen and cat hair.

Tom

You might be interested in that but almost nobody who has an iMac would be. If someone wanted an ugly box with a bunch of wires on their desk they would have bought a PC.

 

[drthom]

You might be interested in that but almost nobody who has an iMac would be. If someone wanted an ugly box with a bunch of wires on their desk they would have bought a PC.

Thanks for your viewpoint, you must be on target since there're no positive replies.

Guess I need to wait for new offerings, maybe something exciting will come next year...

Tom

 

[INoctilux]

I am not sure that an, hypothetic and welcomed, new cooling system will not imply some annoying new restrictions. When Apple introduce a new design this means, to oftenly, less freedom left to the consumer to, posteriorly, upgrade his machine as well as an outrageous profit for Apple when anyone needs a machine that stands more then 3 years : who can seriously hope using smoothly a MacBook Pro "touch bar" with 8 go of ram in 3 years ? Other exemple : all the IMac 5K are sold with Fusion Drive, a technology that is barely compatible with Apple's new OS: for more then 2 grounds, Apple sells you a machine that can't benefit from the APFS.

I started my Apple's journey with an Ibook 12" and I love the esthetic of Apple's produce (both software and hardware) but it seems that the company is taking the path of Leica in photography : a company that use an heritage aura (the creatives that used them) to sell luxurious and nice produces that professionals are abandoning because Apple neglected them (the sudden "death" of Aperture, the inability of upgrades, the incoherence like selling a Mac Pro that can drive 3 5k screens but developing with LG a panel that is artificially incompatible with them to boost the sell of the Macbook Pro's...etc.)

Ps. Sorry for my English.

 

[fathergll]

Personally I don't think they'll launch new iMacs so close to the iMac Pro - or if they do, they'll be "dumbed down" in some ways to leave a clear goal for the iMac Pro (although a 6-core, 65W i5 might be the acceptable face of dumbing down) but that's just speculation.

If I was a betting person i'd say Apple will dumb it down in order to favor design over functionality and to separate the iMac and iMac Pro.

 

[xgman]

I do think that after the imac pro release, any notion of slimming down the imac bezels will be out the window for a couple years at least. They are not likely to make the regular imac cooler looking than their top dog imac.

 

[CWallace]

When Apple introduce a new design this means, to oftenly, less freedom left to the consumer to, posteriorly, upgrade his machine as well as an outrageous profit for Apple when anyone needs a machine that stands more then 3 years : who can seriously hope using smoothly a MacBook Pro "touch bar" with 8 go of ram in 3 years ? Other exemple : all the IMac 5K are sold with Fusion Drive, a technology that is barely compatible with Apple's new OS: for more then 2 grounds, Apple sells you a machine that can't benefit from the APFS.

Apple has confirmed that a future release of High Sierra will support APFS with Fusion Drives. The betas all supported it and I know of no critical issues with those scenarios. The most-likely reason is it was not supported at launch is that SSDs are the easiest to upgrade so they did those first. There is also many technical users make their own Fusion Drives or have cracked their Fusion Drives into separate SSD+HDD partitions. Apple might be performing additional testing to support APFS in these scenarios before they make it available or they are preparing the legalese and Support Documents to indemnify them from responsibility for any issues with those edge cases.

 

[Mac32]

IMO the iMac design is perfect as is, and making it even smaller/thinner is pure nonsense. The iMac is already thermally challenged, and a new design with even bigger limitations for CPU and GPU is a terrible idea. Any new design should be on the inside, ie. better cooling.

 

[EugW]

IMO the iMac design is perfect as is, and making it even smaller/thinner is pure nonsense. The iMac is already thermally challenged, and a new design with even bigger limitations for CPU and GPU is a terrible idea. Any new design should be on the inside, ie. better cooling.

Personally I'd be happy if they shortened it (to reduce/remove the chin) and made it thicker.

 

[mattg3]

I agree. The imac needs to go the way most flat screens have gone with almost non-existent bezel. The 27 would be close to the size of the 21.5 if the bezel were taken away.Making them fatter should not effect a user but the 27 inch now is a monster sitting on your desktop.

 

[Huddy]

So having held off an iMac purchase after I returned my 2017 we're likely half way through the cycle now before the new update comes to market.

Whilst a redesign is not of any real significance to me, the hardware changes will hopefully be worthwhile.

- Intel Coffee Lake
- Vega based GPU
- Improved cooling solution from the iMac Pro
- Space Grey option

If the 2018 iMac contains all four and I think they are pretty realistic then it'll be worth me waiting another 6 months.

 

[Precursor]

So having held off an iMac purchase after I returned my 2017 we're likely half way through the cycle now before the new update comes to market.

Whilst a redesign is not of any real significance to me, the hardware changes will hopefully be worthwhile.

- Intel Coffee Lake
- Vega based GPU
- Improved cooling solution from the iMac Pro
- Space Grey option

If the 2018 iMac contains all four and I think they are pretty realistic then it'll be worth me waiting another 6 months.

I don't believe Space Grey will ever be an option for the iMac, Apple clearly wants to differentiate between the plain and the pro versions. I also don't think the "improved cooling solution" will come to iMac, the pro uses 10-18 high TDP CPUs so Apple might just use the current cooling design for standard iMacs. Also the Vega based GPU in iMac will not be anywhere near the current desktop Vegas in performance (which are TDP monsters).

 

[Huddy]

I don't believe Space Grey will ever be an option for the iMac, Apple clearly wants to differentiate between the plain and the pro versions. I also don't think the "improved cooling solution" will come to iMac, the pro uses 10-18 high TDP CPUs so Apple might just use the current cooling design for standard iMacs. Also the Vega based GPU in iMac will not be anywhere near the current desktop Vegas in performance (which are TDP monsters).

It all boils down to production costs, why produce a low yield; high cost run of Space Grey chassis and peripherals when you can increase the numbers and reduce overall costs. Same goes for the cooling system and future internal iMac layouts. Apple will want to standardise as much as possible to reduce overall costs.

The iMac Pro will be a niche product especially with Apple having already confirmed that they haven't shelved the Mac Pro, it makes business sense to use some of it's hardware designs throughout the iMac range after R&D investments. Of course I'm not saying we'll definitely see it for the early/mid 2018 but it's not out of the realm of possibilities.

I'm not expecting a large GPU jump in the 2018, that was already had this year from the die shrinkage, but Vega in itself will provide a decent increase if not significant due to keeping TDP in check.

 

[klatox]

I don't believe Space Grey will ever be an option for the iMac, Apple clearly wants to differentiate between the plain and the pro versions. I also don't think the "improved cooling solution" will come to iMac, the pro uses 10-18 high TDP CPUs so Apple might just use the current cooling design for standard iMacs. Also the Vega based GPU in iMac will not be anywhere near the current desktop Vegas in performance (which are TDP monsters).

I agree about the color and cooling pieces. In terms of GPU I did read a rumor a while back about AMD releasing something to replace the 500 series Polaris GPUs. Perhaps we'd get lucky there.

 

[CWallace]

It all boils down to production costs, why produce a low yield; high cost run of Space Grey chassis and peripherals when you can increase the numbers and reduce overall costs.

I expect Space Grey is a finishing process applied to the aluminum so the cost of producing it is probably not very high. I am guessing the iMac Pro and iMac use the same base rear shell which then has the ports then machined out, but if they are separate parts stamped out, then there would be no cost savings offering it on the iMac.

Same goes for the cooling system and future internal iMac layouts. Apple will want to standardise as much as possible to reduce overall costs.

That improved cooling system requires the removal of the RAM access port as that is where the fan exhaust is. It would also require Apple to redesign the motherboard for the iMac to work with the iMac Pro's cooling system (which has the CPU/RAM on the left and the GPU on the right of the case). The former would upset a significant number of users and the latter would raise Apple's costs, not reduce them.

The iMac Pro will be a niche product especially with Apple having already confirmed that they haven't shelved the Mac Pro, it makes business sense to use some of it's hardware designs throughout the iMac range after R&D investments.

The macrumors.com narrative certainly seems to be that the iMac Pro will be a niche product, but the macrumors.com narrative has been proven wrong many times before and I believe it will be proved wrong on this, as well.

 

[Glideslope]

So having held off an iMac purchase after I returned my 2017 we're likely half way through the cycle now before the new update comes to market.

Whilst a redesign is not of any real significance to me, the hardware changes will hopefully be worthwhile.

- Intel Coffee Lake
- Vega based GPU
- Improved cooling solution from the iMac Pro
- Space Grey option

If the 2018 iMac contains all four and I think they are pretty realistic then it'll be worth me waiting another 6 months.

Would you wait longer for Black/White Ceramic?

 

[Glmnet1]

Would you wait longer for Black/White Ceramic?

Even though I think Apple would make it look absolutely gorgeous, isn't ceramic quite bad at dissipating heat?

 

[Glideslope]

Even though I think Apple would make it look absolutely gorgeous, isn't ceramic quite bad at dissipating heat?

No. Ceramic is superior for heat dissipation. Serious Heatsinks are made of Ceramic. Let's not forget the most recognized of all, The Ceramic Heat Tiles on the US Space Shuttle (self plug-my uncle worked on their development in the 60's- 70's at Rockwell.) Cost would be the most prohibitive issue IMO. It would be cool as heck though.

 

[Glmnet1]

No. Ceramic is superior for heat dissipation. Serious Heatsinks are made of Ceramic. Let's not forget the most recognized of all, The Ceramic Heat Tiles on the US Space Shuttle (self plug-my uncle worked on their development in the 60's- 70's at Rockwell.) Cost would be the most prohibitive issue IMO. It would be cool as heck though.

I'm far from an expert but a quick Google search made me understand a few things:
- Regular ceramic has a very low thermal conductivity, so technically it would keep all the heat inside the computer case. Edited: nvm, heat tiles on shuttles do dissipate heat very fast. I read that wrong!

- But you're right, there are some advanced type of ceramic that conduct heat very well such as Aluminium Nitride and they also make those micro porous ceramics that allow much more air to come in contact with the heat. So these type of ceramics are indeed great for a heat sink, much better than metals. Yet they are very frail and I'm not sure it would be a great idea to use them on a computer case, even a desktop.

Please let me know if I'm wrong, I'd like to know more about these materials!

 

[Glideslope]

I'm far from an expert but a quick Google search made me understand a few things:
- Regular ceramic has a very low thermal conductivity, so technically it would keep all the heat inside the computer case. Edited: nvm, heat tiles on shuttles do dissipate heat very fast. I read that wrong!

- But you're right, there are some advanced type of ceramic that conduct heat very well such as Aluminium Nitride and they also make those micro porous ceramics that allow much more air to come in contact with the heat. So these type of ceramics are indeed great for a heat sink, much better than metals. Yet they are very frail and I'm not sure it would be a great idea to use them on a computer case, even a desktop.

Please let me know if I'm wrong, I'd like to know more about these materials!

All correct. The unknown IMO is what has Apple been top to with their Liquid Metal development. Have they designed new alloys? Could there be a possibility of mitigating some of the fragility in ceramic alloys? I just don't see an iMac redesign being another Aluminum Chassis. I'm more curious about the chassis than the Geek Bench Scores.

 

[Precursor]

No. Ceramic is superior for heat dissipation. Serious Heatsinks are made of Ceramic. Let's not forget the most recognized of all, The Ceramic Heat Tiles on the US Space Shuttle (self plug-my uncle worked on their development in the 60's- 70's at Rockwell.) Cost would be the most prohibitive issue IMO. It would be cool as heck though.

The ceramic tiles on the shuttle are not there to conduct heat, they're there to insulate from heat. Ceramic doesn't conduct heat like metal (aluminium/copper) at all so they can't be used for dissipation of heat. And ceramic is much cheaper than metal. Nowadays they're testing ceramic+aluminium alloys as heatsink (thermally conductive, electrically non-conductive) but that's not cheap nor as efficient.

 

[Glideslope]

The ceramic tiles on the shuttle are not there to conduct heat, they're there to insulate from heat. Ceramic doesn't conduct heat like metal (aluminium/copper) at all so they can't be used for dissipation of heat. And ceramic is much cheaper than metal. Nowadays they're testing ceramic+aluminium alloys as heatsink (thermally conductive, electrically non-conductive) but that's not cheap nor as efficient.

Thanks for the info.

 

[chinmaythosar]

I know Apple just released updated iMacs after no updates in 2016, but I was disappointed in the lack of a new design.

With the iMac Pro not being released until December of 2017, and looking the same as the current iMacs just in Space Gray, what's the likelihood of an iMac Redesign in 2018?

Apple already stated new Mac Pros will be announced in 2018, so I doubt iMacs will get anytime for announcements at WWDC 2018, and I feel announcing an updated design only 6 months after the iMac Pros begin shipping isn't the best decision

I want a new iMac design with thinner bezels and a touchbar keyboard, but I don't know if Apple will skip 2018 like they did for 2016, or will everyone have to wait until 2019 for the redesign

Personally, I think the current iMac has the worst design out of all Macs being sold currently.

The iMac looks thin sure, but at the centre its got this bulge thats really annoying to look at from the sides. All of Apples Macs that have curved bodies (the MacBook, MacBook Air and iMac) waste a lot of internal space. Apple has spent lot of time making things thinner and using all the available space but using curved space is quite tough and not worth it for something like an iMac. Take the MacBook for example. They had to develop layered batteries to fill up the space with batteries. The MacBook pros on the other hand are boxed. No curves. In my personal opinion, the boxed shape of the MacBook Pros allow it to use every cubic inch inside the MacBook Pros at its best and get the most performance out of it, and yet it is incredibly thin.

The new iMacs need a similar redesign. First of all I'd lose the ugly aluminium bezel at the bottom. The Thunderbolt Display had an all black bezel making it one of the best designed displays in the market. The iMac should follow the same design. Need more space? Make it 16:10. All the MacBook Pros are 16:10 and so was the 24" apple display few years back. 16:10 is ideal for Macs I believe. 24" 3840x2400 with all black front bezels and thin boxed design (no tapering at the edges) could help with thermals and airflow and also would make the Macs look really solid work machines.

24" 1920x1200 i5/i7-8550U, 8/16 DDR4 256GB+ NVMe (seriously Apple, Kill the spinning hard drives already) 1099$ +

24" 3840x2400 i5 6C/6T or i7 6C/12T 8GB/16GB/32GB 256GB+ Desktop custom 1060/1070/1080 1499$ +

27" 5K i5 6C/6T, i7-8700k 8GB/16GB/32GB/64GB 256GB+ Desktop Custom 1070Ti/1080Ti 2199$ +

 

[Glmnet1]

Personally, I think the current iMac has the worst design out of all Macs being sold currently.

The iMac looks thin sure, but at the centre its got this bulge thats really annoying to look at from the sides. All of Apples Macs that have curved bodies (the MacBook, MacBook Air and iMac) waste a lot of internal space. Apple has spent lot of time making things thinner and using all the available space but using curved space is quite tough and not worth it for something like an iMac. Take the MacBook for example. They had to develop layered batteries to fill up the space with batteries. The MacBook pros on the other hand are boxed. No curves. In my personal opinion, the boxed shape of the MacBook Pros allow it to use every cubic inch inside the MacBook Pros at its best and get the most performance out of it, and yet it is incredibly thin.

The new iMacs need a similar redesign. First of all I'd lose the ugly aluminium bezel at the bottom. The Thunderbolt Display had an all black bezel making it one of the best designed displays in the market. The iMac should follow the same design. Need more space? Make it 16:10. All the MacBook Pros are 16:10 and so was the 24" apple display few years back. 16:10 is ideal for Macs I believe. 24" 3840x2400 with all black front bezels and thin boxed design (no tapering at the edges) could help with thermals and airflow and also would make the Macs look really solid work machines.

24" 1920x1200 i5/i7-8550U, 8/16 DDR4 256GB+ NVMe (seriously Apple, Kill the spinning hard drives already) 1099$ +

24" 3840x2400 i5 6C/6T or i7 6C/12T 8GB/16GB/32GB 256GB+ Desktop custom 1060/1070/1080 1499$ +

27" 5K i5 6C/6T, i7-8700k 8GB/16GB/32GB/64GB 256GB+ Desktop Custom 1070Ti/1080Ti 2199$ +

I'd buy that kind of iMac right away! It would be gorgeous with an even MacBook Pro like body, even if the borders are thicker.

From the ifixit teardown, the heatsink, exhaust and hinge seem to be taking up most of the space of the bulk, the rest is pretty flat already. I'm not sure how easy it would be to reduce all that without sacrificing heat management too much.

 

[KensaiMage]

any new leaks/info?