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New iMacs???
- Thread starter Mac2004
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Maybe they could just put different hats on the old ones and call them new releases lol.
1) Mark Gurman is saying new iMacs running M3 by the end of 2023
2) The 24" iMac, while old technically, comes with the most up to date form factor Apple offers
3) The same model, especially with 16 GB RAM, serves 100% of the target customer's need at a good price
Doing something like adding an M2 now would add almost no functionality with an increase in price.
The M1 is an incredible chip - machines bought today running the original M1 will last several more years
2) The 24" iMac, while old technically, comes with the most up to date form factor Apple offers
3) The same model, especially with 16 GB RAM, serves 100% of the target customer's need at a good price
Doing something like adding an M2 now would add almost no functionality with an increase in price.
The M1 is an incredible chip - machines bought today running the original M1 will last several more years
I agree with everything you said except for the 24" iMac serving 100% of the target customer's need(s). If you look at the forums on this and other sites, you will see many who are current 27" iMac users looking to upgrade to another 27" or higher AIO iMac. Please note that "needs" here equals "preferences" or put more succinctly, what one is willing to pay for.
Most of us are buying bridge machines until the new ones come out. I have a iMac 24" with 16GB/2TB as a bridge machine until a new one comes out. My personal needs are a screen that is 27" or higher and 32GB of memory or higher. Can I work with what I have? Sure, no problem. But I am happy to pay Apple for a bigger screen and more memory. I will not pay Apple for the Studio and separate display however.
The plan is to have this M1 iMac 24 last 2 - 3 years. It will certainly last that long without obsolescence issues in that time period.
judging by the studio display price a 5K iMac is probably going to be much more expensive than the older models
Approaching end of cycle is one step short of soon. So not in the next two months, but maybe end of March?
yesterday I was looking at the iMacs on th e store and they seem enticing if they are functional and fast as the MacBook airs and the price is not bad for a really good computer, even an extra $50 for a fingerprint reader on a BT keyboard is worth the extra cost. Th eBlu one looks very nice as well.
I dont see making anything exterior changes beside eliminating that white line
but that could there for better screen reception.
I dont see making anything exterior changes beside eliminating that white line
but that could there for better screen reception.
I guess the current iMac (24") is for people who would have got the small one in the past, or maybe an entry level 27". For the power users, there is the Studio (Mac + Display) instead.
Also, the Studio package is more like 3,6k.
Or Apple and their suppliers are working on a larger-than-27" cheaper-than-pro-display-XDR retina panel...
24" and 27" just seem too close together in size. But I could see the coloured M1/M2/etc 24" model, along with a 'pro-coloured' iMac Pro with, say, a ~30" M2/M3 Pro with a Max option...
Every two years.
That seemed to be the general update cycle for iMacs for years during the intel phase and I’d suspect apple will continue this. My assumption is laptops get updated every year and desktops every two. However the pandemic, supply shortages, and the transition make this hard to truly guess as I don’t think apples been able to stay on track as well as they’d hoped (I.E. we should’ve seen a new 14” & 16” MacBook Pro this year but they likely got delayed).
That seemed to be the general update cycle for iMacs for years during the intel phase and I’d suspect apple will continue this. My assumption is laptops get updated every year and desktops every two. However the pandemic, supply shortages, and the transition make this hard to truly guess as I don’t think apples been able to stay on track as well as they’d hoped (I.E. we should’ve seen a new 14” & 16” MacBook Pro this year but they likely got delayed).
But when you think about it... I think the 17" MacBook Pro died for a simple technical reason. A retina 17" would have had to be 2x 1920x1200, i.e. 3840x2400, which is above the 4K limit that governed a lot of display things (remember when Apple overclocked a timing controller a few years later to get a 5K Retina iMac?).
I presume by now, the technical limits are gone, but... with the slim bezels, etc, a modern 17" MBP would be... what? 18.x inches? That's a big size...
Also, worth noting, in Windowsland 17" and bigger has largely been reserved for low-end consumer laptops, a few mobile workstations, and a few very heavy gaming laptops. There's something uncool about bigger laptops, particularly for the type of influencers Apple seems to care about - it actually amazes me (as a happy 16" owner who traded in a 15.4" retina) how most of the press/youtube/etc coverage on the M1 Pro MBPs favours the 14" model. You get the impression most of these people "tolerated" the bigger size in the Intel days because that was the only way to get the most cores, the discrete GPUs, etc, but as soon as Apple Silicon changed that... they want the 14".
That being said, to be clear, I agree that the 27" size is likely not coming back. But I think there's room in the lineup for something a little bigger... some kind of AIO form factor with an Mx Pro/Max, more memory, etc. I wonder if they could get the production cost on panels the size of the Pro Display XDR down, and do a 32" iMac Pro-type thing.
I think a larger iMac is coming. Production delays, shortages, and the M-series lineup etc. changed their plans.
For example, they can’t release an M1 Max iMac 6 months after they announced the M2 chip. It’s the one drawback to apples chip lineup: they’d likely want to announce ALL M1 products before M2 comes along, but they can’t delay M2. So something like the larger iMac gets delayed until the next available opportunity which would be either an M2 Max or M3 Max chip.
Also other rumors suggests the larger iMac is supposed to get an XDR display with ProMotion and the display industry has also had some issues in the past years so both these reasons are why I think apple decided to wait.
The Mac studio in my opinion is sort of a stopgap product to curb iMac Pro / Mac Pro demand. Its success could keep it around for longer though. Who knows.
Or they could adopt some of the GPU industry's marketing shenanigans and call something an "M2 Max" when in reality it is a mildly modified version of the M1 Max rather than a "Max" version of the M2...
(This has been seen in GPUs before, where, say, for a given generation "x", the x900 is new, the x800 is new, then the x700 is really a barely upgraded version of the (x-1)800 or (x-1)700 model and doesn't have any of the big marquee features and architectural improvements of the architecture underlying the x900/x800 models.)
An M2 Max, XDR, 27” iMac is really an iMac Pro - such a machine would probably start at $3,000, maybe even $4,000. A 27” iMac maybe should have a Max option, but really a base M2 should really be the default, no?
I would like to believe you are correct. I would love a 30" or 32" or XDR iMac. However, with that size retina display, the panel becomes the most expensive component of the iMac by far (like 80% to 90%), and rationally it then makes more sense to separate the display from the computer. (For lots of reasons which not everyone will agree with, but it is only Apple's reasoning that counts)
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I don't think that would be consistent with the rest of the lineup. Excluding the anachronistic M2 MBP for a second, you see a trend of
- models with more colours, more consumery-appeal, etc... and M1/M2s, e.g. the M2 MBA, the M1 iMac, etc
- models with fewer colour options, a more pro focus, etc... and M1 Pro/Max/Ultra.
So, either they make a larger-screened version of the current 24" iMac with the consumery playfulness, colours, etc, and that should have an M2, or they're making a pro product, in which case it should be space grey or silver and an M2 Pro/Max.
One interesting observation - Apple has traditionally associated larger screen sizes with "pro" and beefier internals. If you want anything bigger than 13.3-13.5", you're buying a MBP with a serious processor, discrete graphics, etc in Intel land or M1 Pro/Max in AS land for big money. Same thing in iPads - if you want the big 12.9 iPad, you're getting the iPad Pro - no 12.9" option with the low-cost internals of the $400 iPad for you. Same thing in Intel iMacs - the 27" was always offered with higher-end internals than the 21.5". Same thing in iPhones until this year - you wanted the biggest iPhone, you were buying the most expensive (notice how they never made a "big screen" version of the SEs)... and the word on the street seems to be that the lower-cost/lower-end "iPhone 14 Plus" is a flop. Which is funny, because I thought it would have had great potential... but maybe only if it had this year's processor.
Now, the rumoured 15.x" MBA would be a BIG move away from this strategy. And I think it would be a great product for a lot of people who want big screens but don't need beefy internals. But...
27” screen - same quality as current iMac (no XDR)
M2 chip
RAM configurable up to 64 GB
Same exact form factor as current iMac (colors, etc)
Starting price of $1,999
Is this the machine people are asking for?
M2 chip
RAM configurable up to 64 GB
Same exact form factor as current iMac (colors, etc)
Starting price of $1,999
Is this the machine people are asking for?
IPhone 14 Plus is a huge flop mainly because it is a worse phone than the 13 Pro Max. It needed to have the current year processor and three cameras at least
How is it competing with the 13 Pro Max, though? At least here (Canada), the 13 Pro Max is largely off the market - don't think you can get a new one at this point...
... and the 14 Pro Max is $300 (CAD) more than the 14 Plus.
I would have thought there would be a market of people wanting a big screen phone who don't want to pay $300 more for the 14 Pro Max. But maybe those people (e.g. my parents, whose XRs are still fine for what they do) are sitting out this year's models. And it's not like the 13 Pro Max is an option for those folks if they can't get their hands on one...