What would make you upgrade to the M4 Macs?

[turbineseaplane]

Perhaps a bit harder (?) on the 2015 MBP since you need an adapter and an OS update.

Probably a wash as there's no thermal paste situation to deal with on the 2015 MBP

All of it -- on Surface or 2015 MBP -- is well within the realm of any moderately experienced PC user/builder/enthusiast though.

That's all I've wanted from ASi options -- just the ability to do it.
I don't want or need Apple to support or encourage it ... or advertise it!

I just would like it to be possible to swap in my own NVMe storage upgrade (RAM would also be nice, but NVMe is easier to support)

So much would be solved on ASi for me with 16GB RAM base across the board and slotted NVMe
Suddenly a wide world of preowned Macs are open as options

 

[NEPOBABY]

The Mac Pro M4 will be the one that should have been released in the first place. The M2 model was just a stop gap. The Studio M4 will be a monster of course.

 

[mr_roboto]

Because "we" really like em. I understand people getting something else but I will hold on to my 2015 iMac until it dies because the only interesting thing in the eh "updated OS's" is Stage Manager to me. I'm sure the newer machines blow the doors off the 2015 iMac as far as speed but I don't mind waiting a few seconds/minutes. I'm sure there are people that get all excited about the incremental updates with the chips and etc...but wake me when the software gets an eh upgrade. I'm sure the OS's have been upgraded to some extent. I've been using Macs since the performa and the PR has long worn out on me. I do understand others will eh "think different" like 8 of ram and 256 of storage is okay and etc...have at it . We use to be consumers now we are the product.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing Apple but I will hold on to this sometimes painfully slow puter until it dies.

I mean, if that's your perspective, what I'm hearing is that you wouldn't buy an Apple Silicon 27" iMac even if Apple put one out tomorrow. Please don't take this the wrong way, but it feels as if you've made 27" iMac ownership into sort of a tribal identity thing, and you'd like to see the tribe continue on even if you have no intention of upgrading.

My perspective: the 27" iMac was always an awkward solution to the problems Apple created for itself (and us) by ratcheting the price of Mac Pros ever upwards. It filled the moderately-priced high performance desktop slot in Apple's product lineup, but with a lot of compromises forced by trying to cram a high performance computer into the enclosure of a LCD monitor. We are better off with the computer in a separate box. (I, for one, do not miss the way my 2019 i9 iMac loved to imitate a jet spooling up its engines for takeoff at the slightest provocation.)

Are there problems with how Apple replaced the 27" iMac? Sure, as I believe I mentioned before, the price of a Studio Display and an entry level Mac mini is higher than an entry-level 27" iMac used to be, and you could upgrade that iMac's RAM with third party RAM. But these are not issues caused by putting the computer part in a separate box, which is where it should be. They're just Apple being Apple, with a side of inflation. If they'd chosen to build a 27" Apple Silicon iMac, it wouldn't have expandable RAM and they'd have figured out how to charge you more for it.

So, I'm still puzzled by the persistence of 27" iMac fandom. It wasn't a great design which had good reasons to exist, it was just the only option Apple offered for a while. They now offer other options which should have (IMO) broader appeal.

 

[mr_roboto]

So much would be solved on ASi for me with 16GB RAM base across the board and slotted NVMe
Suddenly a wide world of preowned Macs are open as options

I agree, but we're never seeing slotted NVMe. Apple's invested a ton into providing high grade data security for the masses, and the proprietary SSD controller integrated into Apple's SoCs is a big part of it. They can't offer the same security guarantees with a third party NVMe.

What they could do is modularize the flash in all Apple Silicon Macs, and make them user accessible. You'd still have to buy proprietary flash modules, but at least they would be upgradable. They already offer this today for the Apple Silicon Mac Pro, and there's no technical reason they couldn't do it across a lot more of the product line. I wish they would.

 

[Abazigal]

So, I'm still puzzled by the persistence of 27" iMac fandom. It wasn't a great design which had good reasons to exist, it was just the only option Apple offered for a while. They now offer other options which should have (IMO) broader appeal.

I have been using a 27” iMac since 2011 and I love the design for a couple of reasons.

1) It offered an excellent screen for a reasonable price at the time.

2) It took up less space on my desk and just looked great overall. No need to fiddle with wires and peripherals like a webcam or speakers.

3) Like you said, it was the only decent Mac Apple sold at the time. The Mac Mini was too underpowered while the Mac Pro was overkill.

Today, my dad is semi-retired and spending more time at home and he has more or less commandeered the iMac for himself (mostly for watching videos and light computing). What would get me to upgrade? I guess right now, it would be a combination of price (the studio display is just too expensive for my tastes) and time (ie: when my current Macs no longer suffice for their purpose).

But right now, my devices still work and I don’t see that as a bad thing.

 

[EugW]

I have been using a 27” iMac since 2011 and I love the design for a couple of reasons.

1) It offered an excellent screen for a reasonable price at the time.

As others mentioned, that was because you could upgrade the memory yourself as you know. The math would not be as favourable these days even if the 27" still existed, because of the non-upgradable RAM.

Today, my dad is semi-retired and spending more time at home and he has more or less commandeered the iMac for himself (mostly for watching videos and light computing). What would get me to upgrade? I guess right now, it would be a combination of price (the studio display is just too expensive for my tastes) and time (ie: when my current Macs no longer suffice for their purpose).

For my 2010 27" i7, I disassembled it and installed a 256 GB SSD. Runs quickly with High Sierra. Unfortunately, neither your 2011 nor my 2010 officially are supported by any version of macOS past 10.13 High Sierra, and the major browsers have stopped supporting anything less than 10.15 Catalina.

Fortunately, I can still run my 2010 in Target Display Mode, with any PC or Mac with DisplayPort, but I don't do that either because stuff like controlling brightness is kind of annoying and because it isn't Retina or near Retina.

 

[Abazigal]

For my 2010 27" i7, I disassembled it and installed a 256 GB SSD. Runs quickly with High Sierra. Unfortunately, neither your 2011 nor my 2010 officially are supported by any version of macOS past 10.13 High Sierra, and the major browsers have stopped supporting anything less than 10.15 Catalina.

Fortunately, I can still run my 2010 in Target Display Mode, with any PC or Mac with DisplayPort, but I don't do that either because stuff like controlling brightness is kind of annoying and because it isn't Retina or near Retina.

I should have been clearer - I started with the 2011 27” iMac and then upgraded to a 5k iMac in 2017 (which I am currently using). You are right about the ability to upgrade the ram manually (I upped it to 40gb). I also paid to have a 1tb SSD installed. However, the performance of my iMac hasn’t been that great of late and it often feels laggier compared to my M1 MBA with just 8gb ram.

I suspect a Mac mini with 16 gb ram would fit the bill just nicely.

 

[JouniS]

As others mentioned, that was because you could upgrade the memory yourself as you know. The math would not be as favourable these days even if the 27" still existed, because of the non-upgradable RAM.

That was because of the display itself. If Apple wanted to create something as impressive as the early 27" iMacs, it could be something like a 6k iMac for $2k.

I'm still using a 2020 27" iMac daily, because Apple's current desktop offerings are underwhelming. Largely because the display options are so bad. macOS doesn't work well with cost-effective 4k displays, especially if you want to go above 27", while 5k and 6k monitors are poor value for money.

 

[EugW]

I suspect a Mac mini with 16 gb ram would fit the bill just nicely.

I'm using a Mac mini with 16 GB RAM and 1 TB internal storage. I got it used in 2022 for CAD$1099 / US$820 with barely any power on time. It works very well, but the one main drawback with it is its relative lack of ports. I'm using a Thunderbolt 4 hub, but I'd prefer not to have to use a hub at all.

 

[Flowstates]

RAM limitations, faster inference for local LLMs would be nice, may go 16'' this time.

 

[MrGunny94]

You can do it yourself
It's not much more complex than doing the same thing on my 2015" MBP

Not a big deal at all if one is at all tech inclined
I'm just happy it's not soldered down!

Yeah the 2015 MBP was a hell of a laptop, my dad is still using my old one to this day however running Ubuntu. Only had to swap the battery 8 years in.

 

[MrGunny94]

View attachment 2382678

RAM limitations, faster inference for local LLMs would be nice, may go 16'' this time.

Are you connected to any external displays by any chance? If I have dual 4K displays and a lot of apps open, I literally do around 5GB of swap daily.

 

[Matt2012]

A desktop machine than can better a 4090, which is getting on for 2 yrs old now and a rumoured 5090 coming this year.
I want power/performance and am happy to pay the Apple tax.
I wish Apple would push the wattage up more on desktops as I'm not overly bothered in saving a small amount in electric bills If I'm spending 6k plus on a Mac.

 

[AL2TEACH]

what I'm hearing is that you wouldn't buy an Apple Silicon 27" iMac even if Apple put one out tomorrow.

You are right about the tomorrow range but I would get it in about a month due to price, and having to get a hub along with 2 external SSD because Apple refuses to have decent storage without ripping the consumer off.

ownership into sort of a tribal identity thing

Not at all. I'm not a graphic artist but I wonder how much better is Apple's monitor compared to an iMac's monitor. I'm somewhat tribal when price is involved. I refuse to get on some bandwagon that the price of a monitor should be almost the price of a computer that thought process is insane to me. Unless, I was a pro in the graphics field and the monitor was ssooo much better than an iMac monitor. Just the computer's monitor.

puzzled by the persistence of 27" iMac fandom.

Some people like laptops for various reasons, some like desktops with or without design, some are dandy with just a phone or tablet and some like a 27" iMac and some don't for various reasons. Maybe, I'm just a loony bin but I still have the Cube because the design was so wonderful at that time lol.

1) It offered an excellent screen for a reasonable price at the time.

I would bet someone's right arm that Apple's monitor is grossly overpriced.

I guess right now, it would be a combination of price (the studio display is just too expensive for my tastes) and time (ie: when my current Macs no longer suffice for their purpose).

I more than agree if that's possible
A friend has the Studio display and computer and I played with it to see the difference. Other than speed, the look of the OS and Stage Manager, I don't see much difference. I will explore more of course to get a better handle on it because I'm sure there has to be a world of difference it just didn't smack me at the time. Maybe the M4 along with OS improvements will make me think uh oh.

 

[Iwavvns]

What would make me upgrade to M4? When my M1/2 no longer work or are no longer supported.

 

[Flowstates]

Are you connected to any external displays by any chance? If I have dual 4K displays and a lot of apps open, I literally do around 5GB of swap daily.

Touché, the slowdowns are real tho

 

[MrGunny94]

Touché, the slowdowns are real tho

If you try with Sidecar there's a even bigger Window server memory leak.. It sucks.

My next Mac for sure I'm opting for 30GB+ memory, sharing GPU & CPU memory definitely shows that 16GB is not enough for dual 4K monitors

 

[l0stl0rd]

If you try with Sidecar there's a even bigger Window server memory leak.. It sucks.

My next Mac for sure I'm opting for 30GB+ memory, sharing GPU & CPU memory definitely shows that 16GB is not enough for dual 4K monitors

Yup people seem to forget that, that is why I think 8GB is a joke. Glad they said Copilot+ minimum is 16 GB makes sense.
I have the same rule for Mac as for Windows 32 GB min
Especially on Apple silicon or APUs in the Pc world or the upcoming Snapdragon.
They all shave shared memory.

 

[MrGunny94]

Yup people seem to forget that, that is why I think 8GB is a joke. Glad they said Copilot+ minimum is 16 GB makes sense.
I have the same rule for Mac as for Windows 32 GB min
Especially on Apple silicon or APUs in the Pc world or the upcoming Snapdragon.
They all shave shared memory.

I bought my M1 Pro with 16GB. then it ended up swallowing the battery and Apple gave me a M2 Pro due to stock.... However next time I'll definitely go for 32GB minimum

 

[MrGunny94]

View attachment 2382678

RAM limitations, faster inference for local LLMs would be nice, may go 16'' this time.

Hey mate, here's mine just to give you an idea:

I use Office Suite and Teams at work. I have various web apps on Edge for Remote Desktop Client, Azure portal and some other things

I'm connected to dual 1440p 180hz displays.

 

[galad]

Death by hundreds of Chrome/Electron cuts.

 

[Flowstates]

Hey mate, here's mine just to give you an idea:

I swear I hit 30Gbs of swap yesterday. Did not screenshot, was too focused. If you know where to retrieve the data retroactively.

 

[MallardDuck]

A desktop machine than can better a 4090, which is getting on for 2 yrs old now and a rumoured 5090 coming this year.
I want power/performance and am happy to pay the Apple tax.
I wish Apple would push the wattage up more on desktops as I'm not overly bothered in saving a small amount in electric bills If I'm spending 6k plus on a Mac.

unified memory is impressive for integrated graphics, and Apple is king there for sure, but no cpu integrated gpu will ever come close to a multi-slot 450 watt discrete card.

it’s especially nice in the winter!

 

[l0stl0rd]

unified memory is impressive for integrated graphics, and Apple is king there for sure, but no cpu integrated gpu will ever come close to a multi-slot 450 watt discrete card.

it’s especially nice in the winter!

True but in some things M3 max is about as goot as a 4060 which is not bad for an integrated GPU. It they get it to 4070 or even 4070Ti level with M4 it would be great.

 

[MrGunny94]

Death by hundreds of Chrome/Electron cuts.

Not much I can do, it's the apps I use