New iMac Is Bizarre

[Allyance]

There is no loss of performance by putting DC voltages on the ethernet cable. They have been using POE (power of ethernet) for years. Major companies like Cisco use POE to run their access points, I know because I have installed many. Ethernet is good to 300' without degradation, WiFi performance varies with the square of the distance, get 20 or 30 feet away or in the next room and performance slows down not uniform or trustworthy. I have installed numerous networks in businesses and hospitals, all using ethernet without any security issues.

 

[SuperMatt]

There is no loss of performance by putting DC voltages on the ethernet cable. They have been using POE (power of ethernet) for years. Major companies like Cisco use POE to run their access points, I know because I have installed many. Ethernet is good to 300' without degradation, WiFi performance varies with the square of the distance, get 20 or 30 feet away or in the next room and performance slows down not uniform or trustworthy. I have installed numerous networks in businesses and hospitals, all using ethernet without any security issues.

Is there a difference between AC and direct current in this regard? In the past, AC power would have been coming into the back of the iMac, but with the separate power brick, it is now DC.

 

[mmomega]

I think offering such an important product in your lineup in only pastel colors with white bezels is a bizarre choice. You are free of course to disagree.

(Yes the silver model is not pastel. But the silver looks especially super terrible IMO with white bezels.)

Something being important and someone wanting it to be important are also two entirely different things.
I don't think the Mac desktop line appears to be extremely important to this company at all any more.

Seeing as though there is an unfathomable level of critisicm on the forums through the decades but then backed with a very large amount of people using their money to purchase the things they critisize ..... you wonder. Should you even listen to someone that roasts a product for it's terribleness and then buys it after saying not to? It is ..something.

So you fine friend, happening to read and fall in to the complain and don't buy, your choice. So that in turn means I am not speaking to you so you don't have to sound off.

But if those similar to OP wind up in a few months with pictures in the "what did you buy recently " thread.... that speaks more than their post here I'd think.

And if you have been here long enough, you just see that level of, one moment complete disdain and the next is an excuse of why they purchased. Not because they wanted to, or because it was their own decision, something else made them. And the buck gets passed again.

My take... NO current model is my cup of tea and I'll see what comes this summer. Betting more normal space grey / silver / black models show up with those larger screens. If not, I'll pass again.
If ANYTHING rings true. Apple changes and changes and changes and changes.

 

[iDave]

I expect the new larger high end iMac, when it comes out, will be very similar, shape-wise, to the 24-inch model. Whether or not Apple sticks with silver and black remains to be seen. It's likely they will offer silver/black as an option even if there are other color options. Folks will flip out if it only comes in the same colors as we saw introduced last week. But I wouldn't bet against it. Silver/black has been around an awfully long time. I know I'm tired of it.

The iMac started out as a consumer Mac. Mac Pros were for pros. But then the iMac got good enough, and the Mac Pro weird enough that things changed. I ran a graphic design shop for several years and we wouldn't have even considered iMacs at the time. It was PowerMac G4, G5 or Mac Pro towers all the time.

 

[blairh]

I expect the new larger high end iMac, when it comes out, will be very similar, shape-wise, to the 24-inch model. Whether or not Apple sticks with silver and black remains to be seen. It's likely they will offer silver/black as an option even if there are other color options. Folks will flip out if it only comes in the same colors as we saw introduced last week. But I wouldn't bet against it. Silver/black has been around an awfully long time. I know I'm tired of it.

The iMac started out as a consumer Mac. Mac Pros were for pros. But then the iMac got good enough, and the Mac Pro weird enough that things changed. I ran a graphic design shop for several years and we wouldn't have even considered iMacs at the time. It was PowerMac G4, G5 or Mac Pro towers all the time.

The update to the 27" iMac will be rather fascinating now. If the 24" update had been a safe one, we'd say 'oh they will just make them bigger in the 30" range'. I don't feel that is the case now. I think physically they will look very similar to the 24" model regarding only the chin and no logo. But I think the colors will be very different. No white bezels. No pastels.

Just heard an interview on Upgrade podcast with an Apple employee. Says white bezels are great for light mode. What about dark mode? 😂 That’s when the contrast will really show.

 

[Silmakhor]

So many puzzling decisions by Apple with the iMac redesign.

1. White bezels are terrible for content consumption. If you use dark mode it's going to make the bezels stick out so much. There is a reason just about no monitor, TV, etc, is white these days. Yes I'm aware Apple used white bezels back in the day. No I don't think that's a good reason to use them again. They could have either matched the bezels with the colors of the machine, gone with silver, or used less pastel colors. At the very least offer the silver model with a black bezel.

2. Yes, the bigger future iMacs will look very different. But what if you want a cheaper/smaller iMac with no white bezel? You are SOL.

3. The chin looks bigger without the logo. It also looks like an unfinished product without it.

4. The ports on the base model are pathetic. No ethernet unless you pay for it on the power brick or get the next up model. Two USB 4/Thunderbolt ports and nothing more is a joke for a machine that starts at $1,300.

5. The power brick is embarrassing. The whole appeal of the iMac is that it is an all-in-one device. A power brick is such a junky addition.

6. Headphone jack on the side sucks if you use wired speakers.

7. This obsession with thinness on a desktop makes no sense to me. Other than taking an iMac to the Apple store for service, who cares how light your iMac is? I'd rather have a thicker iMac and not have a power brick, not have a headphone jack on the side, and potentially not have a chin either.

8. 8 GB of RAM is really cutting it close and not very future-proof. My iMac struggles at times and I'm a light user with the same amount of RAM. Luckily I can manually update mine if needed. You cannot manually update the RAM on this iMac so you have to pay for 16 GB at purchase if you are unsure if 8 GB will be sufficient.

9. The look of this iMac itself is very polarizing. Pastels combined with white bezels is a bold choice of course but with such choices you are going to turn off a lot of consumers looking for something less bold and/or more professional. Another reason why a silver/black bezel model would have made sense as an option.

1. They're fine.
2. See 1.
3. This is a completely inconsequential/subjective cosmetic issue, much like 1.
4. Agreed. I could be using six or seven USB ports on my 2011 imac, but I am stuck with swapping out what I need on a task-by-task basis.
5. It's fine. It's better than fine because it improves the thermals. And it's replaceable in the event of a failure, unlike everything else on the machine.
6. Mild inconvenience for speakers, much better for headset users.
7. I agree that thinness on a desktop computer is a silly thing to obsess over. But I also feel the same way about bezels, power bricks, and chins.
8. If reports are correct, the RAM is more than what the target market will need. I would prefer more, personally, at a reasonable price.
9. Yes, it's polarizing. Silver is there if you dislike the colors though.

The bigger issues I have are
- It would be downsizing from my current imac.
- The future proofing issue with regards to the processor. No way to upgrade and extend the longevity.

 

[Silmakhor]

This logic is silly mate. You need to connect things to your computer. There really is no getting around that. The user is better off having more ports as they need them.

And by adding a new power brick it's less all-in-one.

Well said.

I somehow don't see apple offering an AIO with all of the following included in its monolithic aluminum chassis. Call me crazy.


- A graphics tablet
- Customizable split keyboard
- Recording interface box
- 51" of monitor screen size
- Back up HD
- trackball
- gaming mouse (That is actually used in graphics apps in addition to games)

Ports matter. I don't expect any machine to provide as many as I need in exactly the right configuration, but a reasonable mix is appreciated.

 

[SuperMatt]

The bigger issues I have are
- It would be downsizing from my current imac.
- The future proofing issue with regards to the processor. No way to upgrade and extend the longevity.

The video from Apple made it abundantly clear that this is the replacement for the 21.5-inch iMac. So if/when you replace your 27-inch machine, it might even have a 30-inch screen…

I thought the 2011 27-inch supported a processor swap, but only for the same generation processor it came with, not newer ones. Did you upgrade your processor in yours? How did it turn out?

 

[Silmakhor]

The video from Apple made it abundantly clear that this is the replacement for the 21.5-inch iMac. So if/when you replace your 27-inch machine, it might even have a 30-inch screen…

I thought the 2011 27-inch supported a processor swap, but only for the same generation processor it came with, not newer ones. Did you upgrade your processor in yours? How did it turn out?

I have not replaced the processor. It still works fine most of the time other than some laborious startups. I have the 3.1ghz I5, which was the mid-tier processor for the 27, if I recall correctly?

ETA, it's starting to choke with some of the larger graphics files I work with.

And yes, I am hoping that the larger Imacs will be announced in June. Unfortunately that seems unlikely at this point.

 

[mj_]

Its no point quoting POE when that is NOT what Apple are using in the new iMac and nowhere does it mention POE in the specs, its a power supply and an Ethernet connection.

No one is saying that Apple is using the PoE standard for this as it wouldn't make any sense at all. What we are saying is that Apple is using a cable transporting a low-voltage direct current, most likely no more than 24V, to also transport the Ethernet signal over. The high-voltage side is completely isolated from the low-voltage side on that power supply meaning that there isn't giong to be any AC interference at all (which is, as you should know if you really know your Volts from your Amps, much more intense and requires much thicker shielding). This isn't new and groundbreaking technology but has been done before time and again, see PoE. What @Allyance and I are saying is that there is no loss of performance, increase in jitter, or increase in latency in PoE connections either. They are capable of transporting 57V/1.75A combined with a clear and jitter-free 1 Gbit/s Ethernet signal over a simple unmodified CAT5 cable using two twisted pairs of copper intermingled with the remaining two twisted pairs of copper used for data to transport the low-voltage direct current.

The ethernet port on the power supply is really a non-issue.

 

[AGSP]

So many puzzling decisions by Apple with the iMac redesign.

1. White bezels are terrible for content consumption. If you use dark mode it's going to make the bezels stick out so much. There is a reason just about no monitor, TV, etc, is white these days. Yes I'm aware Apple used white bezels back in the day. No I don't think that's a good reason to use them again. They could have either matched the bezels with the colors of the machine, gone with silver, or used less pastel colors. At the very least offer the silver model with a black bezel.

2. Yes, the bigger future iMacs will look very different. But what if you want a cheaper/smaller iMac with no white bezel? You are SOL.

3. The chin looks bigger without the logo. It also looks like an unfinished product without it.

4. The ports on the base model are pathetic. No ethernet unless you pay for it on the power brick or get the next up model. Two USB 4/Thunderbolt ports and nothing more is a joke for a machine that starts at $1,300.

5. The power brick is embarrassing. The whole appeal of the iMac is that it is an all-in-one device. A power brick is such a junky addition.

6. Headphone jack on the side sucks if you use wired speakers.

7. This obsession with thinness on a desktop makes no sense to me. Other than taking an iMac to the Apple store for service, who cares how light your iMac is? I'd rather have a thicker iMac and not have a power brick, not have a headphone jack on the side, and potentially not have a chin either.

8. 8 GB of RAM is really cutting it close and not very future-proof. My iMac struggles at times and I'm a light user with the same amount of RAM. Luckily I can manually update mine if needed. You cannot manually update the RAM on this iMac so you have to pay for 16 GB at purchase if you are unsure if 8 GB will be sufficient.

9. The look of this iMac itself is very polarizing. Pastels combined with white bezels is a bold choice of course but with such choices you are going to turn off a lot of consumers looking for something less bold and/or more professional. Another reason why a silver/black bezel model would have made sense as an option.

So, Apple ala Jobs and Ive was a design and technology Company. Many would disagree, but they made beautifully designed and quite expensive gear that just worked. I still have 10+ year old Mac gear that still works and does everything I need it to.

The current Apple Company is a services company that is mostly interested in making money, lots and lots of money. It has lost the ability to make anything other than a "slab" with silicon inside to further revenue streams from music, games, fitness, useful and useless home accessories, most of which will end up in landfill. What the product looks like is irrelevant. How much revenue it generates is king. Tim Cook may have a BSc in Industrial Engineering but Jobs employed him as COO........so basically he's only just a sort of Accountant after all.....revenue, revenue, revenue.

When Apples decline comes, and it will just like Microsoft, Nokia before etc.... they won't notice. Before that expect many more bland products!

The idea of a Mac that turned heads and also worked for much longer than the competitor offered has sadly passed

 

[4sallypat]

No one is saying that Apple is using the PoE standard for this as it wouldn't make any sense at all. What we are saying is that Apple is using a cable transporting a low-voltage direct current, most likely no more than 24V, to also transport the Ethernet signal over. The high-voltage side is completely isolated from the low-voltage side on that power supply meaning that there isn't giong to be any AC interference at all (which is, as you should know if you really know your Volts from your Amps, much more intense and requires much thicker shielding). This isn't new and groundbreaking technology but has been done before time and again, see PoE. What @Allyance and I are saying is that there is no loss of performance, increase in jitter, or increase in latency in PoE connections either. They are capable of transporting 57V/1.75A combined with a clear and jitter-free 1 Gbit/s Ethernet signal over a simple unmodified CAT5 cable using two twisted pairs of copper intermingled with the remaining two twisted pairs of copper used for data to transport the low-voltage direct current.

The ethernet port on the power supply is really a non-issue.

YES!
Should be interesting to see how this power brick handles a POE network connection.

My network ports (Cisco) are all POE capable and will auto switch power if needed on a device (WAP, VOIP, etc).

What I love about the power brick is the DC power (no 50/60Hz AC) and Ethernet is running on the same line to the iMac.

What a great concept being able to combine network and low power DC on the same cable bundle without worry of line frequency cross talk between DC and network twisted pairs.

I'll be ordering the base iMac with $30 Ethernet option in blue to match my iPhone 12 pro.

 

[Silmakhor]

The idea of a Mac that turned heads and also worked for much longer than the competitor offered has sadly passed

None of us have any idea how long an M1/M2 mac will last. None, whatsoever. In my experience macs have a long track record of lasting for years and working well. What specific evidence do you have that this is changing?

 

[hans1972]

This logic is silly mate. You need to connect things to your computer. There really is no getting around that. The user is better off having more ports as they need them.

And by adding a new power brick it's less all-in-one.

Except for power you do not. I have an iMac today with only a power cable connected to it. I have been running like this for 6 years now.

We aren't talking about all kinds of computers but an all-in-one. To me that means I have everything I need in the computer and can interact with it wirelessly. If I need to connect stuff all the time to it, I bough the wrong all-in-one computer.

If you connect things to it you are going against the one in all-in-one.

 

[hans1972]

I think it should be 16 GB standard.

So, you think that Apple should increase the price of the standard modell by $200 and have 16Gb of RAM?

It seems to me that you want 8Gb more RAM without paying extra for it. To me that is complaining about money.

 

[blairh]

Except for power you do not. I have an iMac today with only a power cable connected to it. I have been running like this for 6 years now.

We aren't talking about all kinds of computers but an all-in-one. To me that means I have everything I need in the computer and can interact with it wirelessly. If I need to connect stuff all the time to it, I bough the wrong all-in-one computer.

If you connect things to it you are going against the one in all-in-one.

The definition of an all-in-one computer is that the computer itself is housed in the monitor. Nothing more.

Some people still need to connect things with wires to an iMac. Nobody is going against the definition of such a machine by doing so. Saying that an iMac is the wrong choice for someone because they still need I/O ports is completely ridiculous.

 

[blairh]

So, you think that Apple should increase the price of the standard modell by $200 and have 16Gb of RAM?

It seems to me that you want 8Gb more RAM without paying extra for it. To me that is complaining about money.

They wouldn't have to increase the price by $200.

 

[Silmakhor]

Except for power you do not. I have an iMac today with only a power cable connected to it. I have been running like this for 6 years now.

We aren't talking about all kinds of computers but an all-in-one. To me that means I have everything I need in the computer and can interact with it wirelessly. If I need to connect stuff all the time to it, I bough the wrong all-in-one computer.

If you connect things to it you are going against the one in all-in-one.

Who cares? People have peripherals. It's a thing. If the next Mac no longer qualifies as an "all in one," it will have precisely zero effect on anything.

 

[za9ra22]

Except for power you do not. I have an iMac today with only a power cable connected to it. I have been running like this for 6 years now.

We aren't talking about all kinds of computers but an all-in-one. To me that means I have everything I need in the computer and can interact with it wirelessly. If I need to connect stuff all the time to it, I bough the wrong all-in-one computer.

If you connect things to it you are going against the one in all-in-one.

Frankly, that's quite bizarre as an argument. As much as I appreciate the fact you and some others likely operate your All-In-One systems this way, I doubt that is common.

I know in my case, I have two 27-inch iMacs, and both have all USB ports full, including one with an external USB hub. I have a superdrive, a time machine backup drive, mechanical keyboard, USB trackball, SD reader for building Raspberry Pi cards and others, USB sticks for file transfers, and an external monitor. I doubt this is all that unusual.

That simply means that if I were interested in a new iMac at this point, I'd be looking at a couple of external hubs perhaps to plug into it, so no big deal, but to suggest ports are not even needed really doesn't fly.

 

[SuperMatt]

They wouldn't have to increase the price by $200.

So it is about the cost, not about the capabilities. 8GB will be enough for some people. For those that need more, $200 will be worth it to them.

 

[ucfgrad93]

So many puzzling decisions by Apple with the iMac redesign.

1. White bezels are terrible for content consumption. If you use dark mode it's going to make the bezels stick out so much. There is a reason just about no monitor, TV, etc, is white these days. Yes I'm aware Apple used white bezels back in the day. No I don't think that's a good reason to use them again. They could have either matched the bezels with the colors of the machine, gone with silver, or used less pastel colors. At the very least offer the silver model with a black bezel.

2. Yes, the bigger future iMacs will look very different. But what if you want a cheaper/smaller iMac with no white bezel? You are SOL.

3. The chin looks bigger without the logo. It also looks like an unfinished product without it.

4. The ports on the base model are pathetic. No ethernet unless you pay for it on the power brick or get the next up model. Two USB 4/Thunderbolt ports and nothing more is a joke for a machine that starts at $1,300.

5. The power brick is embarrassing. The whole appeal of the iMac is that it is an all-in-one device. A power brick is such a junky addition.

6. Headphone jack on the side sucks if you use wired speakers.

7. This obsession with thinness on a desktop makes no sense to me. Other than taking an iMac to the Apple store for service, who cares how light your iMac is? I'd rather have a thicker iMac and not have a power brick, not have a headphone jack on the side, and potentially not have a chin either.

8. 8 GB of RAM is really cutting it close and not very future-proof. My iMac struggles at times and I'm a light user with the same amount of RAM. Luckily I can manually update mine if needed. You cannot manually update the RAM on this iMac so you have to pay for 16 GB at purchase if you are unsure if 8 GB will be sufficient.

9. The look of this iMac itself is very polarizing. Pastels combined with white bezels is a bold choice of course but with such choices you are going to turn off a lot of consumers looking for something less bold and/or more professional. Another reason why a silver/black bezel model would have made sense as an option.

1. I don't really like the white bezels either.
2. Either get used to the white bezels, wait for larger iMac, buy different brand.
3. I don't mind the chin, but Apple should have kept the logo on it.
4. I like the ethernet on the power brick, one less cord to have to snake up from the behind my desk/cradenza.
5. Most computers have them, not a big deal.
6. I like the jack on the side. Don't have to reach behind the computer to plug them in, wire doesn't drag on the bottom of the computer.
7. I agree that thinness on a desktop isn't too important.
8. It does stink that you can't upgrade RAM after you buy it.
9. I agree with you, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[Arsenikdote]

So, you think that Apple should increase the price of the standard modell by $200 and have 16Gb of RAM?

It seems to me that you want 8Gb more RAM without paying extra for it. To me that is complaining about money.

He is paying for the computer and he is not complaining about spending the money. However, he does want it for no additional cost. I also want a LOT of things for no additional cost. However......

 

[Geoff777]

This has probably been said already (there are quite a few well populated new iMac threads and I can't read them all!) but..... those companies that make phone screen protectors could make a KILLING!!! A Gorilla Glass cover for the iMac, with black or coloured bezels at the edges and a smart logo (or license from Apple) for the chin! They'd sell like hot cakes! 🤣

EDIT - Oops, scrolled down and found this. Already in hand! 👍

Business opportunity for people that don’t like the new bezels

If you’re one of the people that don’t like the new light colored bezels, here is a business opportunity for you. Make dark wraps for the bezels in the color you want. Precision cut film should do the job well. Like the wraps that some use on their MacBooks.

forums.macrumors.com

 

[usagora]

Because some people don't want a power brick as its something else to find a place for?

I genuinely don't mind either way, but I get why some people liked the old iMac with no external brick.

Very easy to mount under the desk or table that the iMac is on.

 

[4sallypat]

YES!
Should be interesting to see how this power brick handles a POE network connection.

My network ports (Cisco) are all POE capable and will auto switch power if needed on a device (WAP, VOIP, etc).

What I love about the power brick is the DC power (no 50/60Hz AC) and Ethernet is running on the same line to the iMac.

What a great concept being able to combine network and low power DC on the same cable bundle without worry of line frequency cross talk between DC and network twisted pairs.

I'll be ordering the base iMac with $30 Ethernet option in blue to match my iPhone 12 pro.

Love my new M1 iMac!

Then thin light gray bezels are great - they literally melt past the borders while watching videos.
Much better than black bezels where it's so intrusive on the edges....

The chin is very subtle light pastel blue and not distracting.

Will be comparing it side by side to my 24" old Cinema and 27" Thunderbolt display as second displays this weekend.

So far, it's not ugly at all - Apple really hit out of the field!

And this M1 iMac screams even with it's criticized & paltry 8GB Unified Memory...