I just ordered. I'm not what's considered a 'power user' anyways. I am looking forward to checking out that 5k screen. I haven't seen it in person yet.
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Will Apple release new iMac in March?
- Thread starter ndolebay
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I just ordered. I'm not what's considered a 'power user' anyways. I am looking forward to checking out that 5k screen. I haven't seen it in person yet.
the screen is amazing (which is nice, but least of what i care about). i only wanted the 4k 21.5" but couldnt get it with anything other than 5400 rpm drive at best buy (and don't want to monkey with trying to replace it myself) so had to go with the 27". the 5k makes it all worth it lol, looks better than the best tv in the store.
The 9.7 will probably be available soon after the event, with the larger models taking longer. So Apple could still announce them all in March. After all, they have announced products months before they were available a number of times.
I agree - not unusual for Apple to do this.
My money is leaning towards an April update for the MacBook and iMac now, and the iPad event just for those.
With Apples release of a file system (APFS) which is optimized for SSD's on the horizon I wonder how this will impact future Macs. And if this is another reason causing them to wait a bit longer.
Not sure how exactly they could pull it off (no same spec SSD's available for 3tb replacement) but it would be cool to see SSD's use exclusively across their entire Mac line.
I might be overthinking it, its not like APFS is unoptimized for HDD's but SSD's are something even the most computer illiterate user can notice sitting down at a Mac.
EDIT: Thinking about it, they could have 2 SSD's to make one logical volume for 3+tb. Or maybe a Fusion of PCIe SSD and SATA SSD.....I must be high with these fantasies.
Not sure how exactly they could pull it off (no same spec SSD's available for 3tb replacement) but it would be cool to see SSD's use exclusively across their entire Mac line.
I might be overthinking it, its not like APFS is unoptimized for HDD's but SSD's are something even the most computer illiterate user can notice sitting down at a Mac.
EDIT: Thinking about it, they could have 2 SSD's to make one logical volume for 3+tb. Or maybe a Fusion of PCIe SSD and SATA SSD.....I must be high with these fantasies.
I think you are right. Apple already has gotten rid of HDDs in their laptops, and the desktops are soon to follow. APFS will work on anything, but I'm sure its designed for SSDs. Apple sees every computing device it sells (including iPhones and iPads) as having a small amount of local storage (16 GB to 1 TB), backed up by cloud storage if you need it. iOS and macOS will move data between the cloud as needed.
Finally people that say OS X/MacOS is designed for an SSD will be somewhat right. lol
The thing that makes me wonder though is the current base model 21" iMac and Mac Mini is they have a 5400RPM HDD. 5400RPM! The last 5400RPM HDD I had had ~40-50mbs read and write.
As much of an Apple Fanboy as I am I find that decision nearly inexcusable.
Questionable GPU choices, questionable operating temps, questionable software decisions etc etc I can justify or least explain away however no matter how hard I try I can justify a 5400RPM HDD. Last I check I couldn't find a 5400RPM that was cheaper, MOST were speciality drives so they were more expensive (like surveillance drives or something designed for 24/7 write). So even from a profit margin stance it doesn't make sense, at least not enough to justify the performance. Unless Apple discovered a crypt containing a stock pile of 5400RPM drives. It doesn't even make sense to push sales because the 7200RPM can do that and still provide a reasonable user experience.
Point being I think my all SSD Mac fantasy will remain exactly that for a little while longer.
I enabled iCloud document sync on an old MacBook pro with a 5400 RPM drive and it was so slow. I'm talking days to synchronize with the cloud. It wasn't the data transfer that was slow, it was the process of crawling through the drive to figure out which files are changed. I think this feature almost requires an SSD.
I will not wait much longer than April to see if this happens. Ugh Apple leaving the desktop faithful in the dark is agonizing.
Meh, nature of the business. If you were to pick a particular product line from any given manufacturer you'd find varying release dates. Not sure why people are so critical of Apple in this respect. Unlike the iPhone they are at the mercy of the component manufacturers.
Besides all their updates are incremental and the iMac will be the same way. Kaby Lake won't benefit most users and be virtually indistinguishable from Skylake, AMD's next notable GPU bump is coming with Vega. So we are looking forward to hurry up and get a CPU with negligible performance and a GPU that will be out of date in a few months?
Apple is also very susceptible to the Osborne Effect (company prematurely announcing products kills their current sales) so they tend to try to minimize it to the best of their ability.
Polaris is a notable jump over the 28nm GPUs in iMac. Moreover, while Vega is arriving, it is well-known that it covers only the higher spectrum of GPUs, so it might not overlap with/succeed Polaris at all. Let's not forget the iMac 5K stack has multiple tiers, and while the top-of-the-line could be the small Vega, the rest gonna be Polaris if Apple stays with AMD.
I think the article about Apple Park said that the theatre wouldn't be available until later in the year.
Surely USB-C is a given now that they've made the switch on the MBP. Apart from removing the chin on the iMac I wonder how radical a design-change they could make?
Will be interesting to see if they integrate TouchID on the new machines, whether on a new external keyboard or maybe even into the body of the machine itself although that doesn't seem like a very Apple thing to do.
Will be interesting to see if they integrate TouchID on the new machines, whether on a new external keyboard or maybe even into the body of the machine itself although that doesn't seem like a very Apple thing to do.
It just feels to me like nothing but an 'oh so minor' update at best is in store. I sure wish we had something exciting to look forward to though, even if only primarily in it's design. It's sad to think that our beloved desktop lines are getting such little attention in r&d overall which is pretty well apparent and frankley somewhat understandable from a marketing perspective.
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I guess it depends what you consider a minor update. Probably a good expectation for the refresh will be Intel Kaby Lake chips, an AMD RX 480 based GPU and thunderbolt 3. That sounds like a pretty good update to me. Bonus features would be a touchbar keyboard, revised enclosure or an AMD Ryzen CPU (assuming the performance is as good as rumored).
Yes, exactly. My worry is that if they do more than that, they will also bump the price, as they did for the MacBook Pro.
All I want is the better GPU and TB3 with Kabylake being a minor upgrade but also a bonus would be a new design [will be like the MBP though, incremental modernising only, nothing radical].
I am not expecting anything too exciting to be honest. Spec bumps and if we are lucky a bit of finessing to the enclosure.
which is probably why we have no rumours.
Hopefully out by end of April otherwise I may have to jump ship [for business]. If MS put some more great hardware out I will be very tempted indeed....
Dont get me wrong. I'll be more than happy with Polaris in an iMac. We need to also keep in mind Apple is the board manufacturer. So a lot of its limits are imposed by Apple themselves, notably VRAM. Top end iMacs use 4gb of VRAM which isn't AMDs top spec. Also I'm not sure on board manufacturers limits on the use of HBM which maybe limited directly to AMD themselves, thus we won't see it.
I think it will be awhile before we see a mobile version of Vega. At least after this generation of iMacs. That's just my guess though.
There have been some updates on this since our post. Seem to make it seem like a large leap over Polaris.
[QUOTE="Stacc, post: 24348998, member: 54765" or an AMD Ryzen CPU (assuming the performance is as good as rumored).[/QUOTE]
uh..hmm. maybe not so much.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3176...-or-why-you-should-never-preorder.html?page=2
uh..hmm. maybe not so much.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3176...-or-why-you-should-never-preorder.html?page=2
Well the 1700 is the lower model, and those results are against an overclocked Intel CPU (3.5ghz stock to 4.2 ghz overclock). I was expecting a little bit more but not in gaming where generally single core performance will shine. I have little doubt in productivity task that can leverage the 8 core the 1700 would could out on top.
If we take a look at their other review of the 1800x (500 dollars) vs Intels 5960x (1099 dollars). We see more what we would expect. But using a substantially less power, I was expecting better but not that much better.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3175...breathing-apex-of-amd-power.html?page=3#toc-3
Same applies to the 6900k according to LinusTechTips.
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Yes, usually if they release a new model, wouldn't the old model show stock shortages?
If Apple was going to a significantly new design that could be the case as production would be shifting over. But I fully expect the mid-2017 iMac to look just like every iMac since the Late 2012 model so the only real difference will be the internals (mainboard, CPU, GPU, SSD) and the back case (to accommodate USB-C ports as opposed to USB-A). So Apple could conceivably co-build both models if stock is running low on the current models or they have sufficient stock on hand to meet demand up to the formal switch-over.