New iMac Is Bizarre

[SsSsSsSsSnake]

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...
View attachment 1779302

i agree,i would not have liked black myself

 

[rumorguy]

I have not read all the comments, maybe someone mentioned that dbrand makes skins for the new iMac, in matte black. A black bezel or front skin is $50. A body skin is $500. https://dbrand.com/shop/apple-imac-24-2021

 

[KennyJr]

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.

Edit - I actually like the new thinness with respect to how light the machine now is. It makes the idea of bringing it to the Apple store for repairs much less daunting.

At Apple Insider there's picture of a pastel green iMac with white bezels. I'm trying to imagine a better color for those bezels. What would you suggest? As for the headphone jack, I suppose they could have made the iMac thicker so they wouldn't have had to put that jack on the side, But I think it's a small price to pay for the iMac's thinness. And for that matter, won't it be nice to no longer have to reach around back to find the socket to plug in your headphones. Sorry you don't like the brick. I have one with my Mac mini M1 LG display. It's really no big thing and it's easy to put out of the way. It gets warm, but I don't think it's a bad thing moving that heat producer away from the primary electronics.

 

[CPTmom2wp]

I purchased a 24" LG Ultrafine monitor to go with my M1 Mac mini a few months ago. It is really thick with a wide black plastic frame around it. I have it VESA mounted. I kept it b/c I needed something that size to fit the space and don't need anything larger. It has a nice screen, but can't even begin to compare to the elegance of an Apple product, even if you don't care for white bezels or a chin. (I miss the apple logo, as well). If we don't like the product, it is easy to wait a year for the next iteration. Personally, I'm enjoying the change of scenery as well as the amazing screen and performance specs of the M1.

 

[pasamio]

nice to no longer have to reach around back to find the socket and plug in your headphones

This is something I’ve thought about for a while that it’s really useful to have some ports on the side with headphones being a big use case but even stuff like ad hoc USB port for a thumb drive would be nice.

 

[DanTSX]

I have not read all the comments, maybe someone mentioned that dbrand makes skins for the new iMac, in matte black. A black bezel or front skin is $50. A body skin is $500. https://dbrand.com/shop/apple-imac-24-2021

That website is worse than the pastel chin.

it won’t even fully load.

 

[DanTSX]

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

Apple is still innovating their business model. The moves into media production will grow then for a while. They are hinting at transportation and augmented reality solutions as well, which can potentially transform Apple like the iPhone had from a computer company to a technology and communications company.

Microsoft merged with NBC. All that did was make web searches worse, make network tv worse, and spawn a left-center version of Fox News network. An elaborate consensus building tool to manipulate those looking to fit a progressive professional image. Yet after all this, MSFT remains a decent investment.

 

[Serban55]

I care about both form and function. I already have an iMac that looks great and has enough power for me. Why would I waste money on something I don’t like even if it’s a little faster than what I have now?

Form is the same, slimmer, just a little bit bigger with bigger display, i was talking about bezels here
If you care about bezels and form then you are a consumer and you should clearly not buy this one if you dont like it

 

[Racineur]

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.

Edit - I actually like the new thinness with respect to how light the machine now is. It makes the idea of bringing it to the Apple store for repairs much less daunting.

Then I hope you will buy a top of the line iMac 27 that Apple still sells before they go away. Talking about the chin, you surely know that an iMac without a chin is not an iMac. It's a screen. So that means Mac mini + any size of screen you want. Is it not what you desire? Correct me if I'm, wrong, there are fantastic monitors on the market with those dear black bezels.

 

[SsSsSsSsSnake]

OK. the bezels are NOT WHITE they are what I would call LIGHT GREY,definately NOT WHITE, so I really hope for people that want BLACK bezels that Apple fulfill your wishes and produce what you really would prefer.
I love the LIGHT GREY bezels personally, YMMV.