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iMac Pro Will there ever be a 27 inch iMac with the Apple silicon chip and more?
- Thread starter kenoli
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I don't quite understand this argument. I too prefer an all-in-one machine and I love my 2017 iMac 5K, but you would also be able to just buy a new display every 10 years that sports the latest technology, no? Personally I love the idea of an iMac and I love how much cleaner it looks. But does it make sense? I'm not sure. I hate that I'll probably feel the need to replace mine in a few years because of the potentially outdated internals while the display itself will still be perfectly fine. If those two things were separate (e.g. Studio Display + Mac Mini, for instance), that would not be an issue...
I'm sure that Apple would be quite concerned if no-one wanted to buy any of their products. I doubt they'd last very long.
The argument for separate display assumes user will upgrade Macs every 4-6 years.
For that use case then a separate display makes sense as the tech change is longer than that.
By 2033 I do not expect 27" 5K 218ppi displays to be sold as an Apple monitor or iMac. It may likely be 2x ppi with better than P3 color gamut and better than 600 nits of brightness.
If others are happy with using year 2003 displays at a lower ppi, lower nits of brightness and less than P3 color gamut then that's their business. They're making the most out of the purchase.
I also like the AIO for the industrial design, compactness and simplicity. I'd only replace after the final Security Update to a model that comes after. I had the good fortune that the year I bought my 2012 was the 1st year of the last Intel iMac redesign. To anyone else this looks like a 2020 iMac 27" 5K.
If this was the 1990s where replacing is every 3 years then I'd likely get a that decade's equivalent to a Mac mini + separate display.
From 1995-2005 I used laptops, tower PCs, iMac and Power Mac I never had a use case to fill in a ISA or PCI slot.
Improvements of performance per watt, raw performance, battery life, power consumption & I/O have people looking for "good enough" alternatives.
iMacs are good enough that looks good turned off and turned on. I'd be using 2015 tech on a 2023 iMac... heck even a 2023 iPhone chip to come in 3 months would outperform any 2012 Mac.
But if Apple notices that the iMac 27" is a niche with trending decling sales then I get why they have not refreshed it in 34 months.
Historically the iMac 27" were refreshed annually from 2009-2015 then mid-2017, early 2019 and 2020.
I wonder why no 2018 iMac 27"? Was it because of the late 2017 iMac Pro?
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Here's an application for a national broadcaster may find very useful for their TV/streaming field reporters.
iOS 17 enabled cinematic mode video editing in 3rd party apps.
I could imagine that would help reporters who couldn't lug their company-issued laptops, much less XDR 32" & Mac Pro Intel, to the field due to danger. So long as they have a 4G/5G/WiFi connection they can do higher quality video, edit and transmit all in 1 device.
Sony did something like this with Associated Press so that workflow is from a Sony MILC camera then a Sony Xperia smartphone to be edited and uploaded via 4G/5G/WiFi.
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I'd add to this to say that the only reason the 24" iMac even still fits in the lineup is because Apple doesn't sell a standalone 24" display.
Yes. Maybe the industries you are thinking about use primarily laptops. The places I've worked and been at use desktops and the laptops are secondary or personal.
Apple suffers from a hubris born of success. They also have a history of simplifying their product line to focus on fewer products. The difference is that during Steve’s tenure, Apple focused on four computing segments: consumer desktop & laptop, business desktop & laptop.
As the various categories mixed, Apple has focused fewer resources on making specific business desktops or being concerned with driving businesses away by the lack of it. They do so well on the MBP segment, yet are unconcerned about the true office machines, namely the MacPro and 27” iMac.
If the niche isn't profitable they scale down or outright abandon it.
Any/all business does this.
During Steve's time worldwide demand for towers with PCIe slots was relatively higher than now because laptops weren't powerful enough.
The Apple 4 quadrant product grid worked until they surpassed the tipping point of economies of scale.
That's why more form factors became a thing.
80% of computers are laptops
- MBA 13" & 15"
- MBP 13", 14" & 16"
20% of computers are desktops
- iMac
- Mac mini
- Mac Studio without PCIe slots
- Mac Pro with PCIe slots
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Have you investigated whether your workflow is possible on the current 24" iMac?
Oh, ok. If by desktop you mean laptop, then I agree that “Most business still runs largely on ‘desktop’ machines.”
I can understand how everyone’s individual experience can be very different. I’m sure there are those that have only ever used Linux in all their jobs and might even think that’s how most other folks work as well.
However, laptops have indeed been outselling desktops for years. And, while I’m absolutely certain that there are some pockets of desktop usage still surviving, all those laptops have to be going somewhere…
You missed my point.
Yes, desktops are 20% but that 20% drives another 15% or more of the laptop and mobile sales.
Apple knows their users. If they remove a feature/SKU then its a net gain at the end of the day.
Mac Pro with swappable parts? Not worth the extra R&D because dGPU, SSD, eGPU & RAM sales do not directly help the bottom line.
Restaurants discourage their customers bring food/drinks from the outside even if they do not offer it. Think of a KFC branch that does not offer steamed rice.
This is more like hiring a builder for a new subdivision who refuses to provide an option for, as an example, solar panels. Yes, they can get a quote but they just don’t want to deal with it. You may say that 80% of the homes don’t want solar but it’s not about that; it’s not just loosing the one house. It’s loosing the entire contract.
Wrong equivalence.
The builder has 1 contract for the whole subdivision with 1 real estate developr for 80% identical homes and 20% solar panel identical homes.
That's essentially 2 SKUs with X number of homes.
$7k Mac Pro M2 Ultra binned and $8k Mac Pro M2 Ultra non-binned.
To put it plainly Apple never entered the modularized world of PC desktop gaming because their tech, business processes will never compete in it. So why bother with any effort that results in a net loss?
This changed recently as PC gaming is heading towards SoC within 10 years. So by say year 2030 they will have the tech and business process in place to compete.
To repeat: Mac Pro with swappable parts? Not worth the extra R&D because CPU, dGPU, SSD, eGPU & RAM sales do not directly help the bottom line. That way of thinking is very last half century. They're looking forward to the next half century where all the money's at.
Below is the trajectory of Intel vs Apple chips. The raw performance gap would be so wide that AMD/Intel/Nvidia will have to bump up the PSU requirements kW to compete with Apple's <200W chips.
For 99% of use case they only care about "good enough" and not "perfect". If I was Apple I'd stick with the 80% of the most profitable part of the market. Let the rest squabble over the leftovers.
When the use case is too niche to service let Dell/HP/Lenovo service them.
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I have worked on every MacPro and PowerMac since G4. Even the 2013 had upgradable ram and GPU.Wrong equivalence.
The builder has 1 contract for the whole subdivision with 1 real estate developr for 80% identical homes and 20% solar panel identical homes.
That's essentially 2 SKUs with X number of homes.
$7k Mac Pro M2 Ultra binned and $8k Mac Pro M2 Ultra non-binned.
To put it plainly Apple never entered the modularized world of PC desktop gaming because their tech, business processes will never compete in it. So why bother with any effort that results in a net loss?
This changed recently as PC gaming is heading towards SoC within 10 years. So by say year 2030 they will have the tech and business process in place to compete.
To repeat: Mac Pro with swappable parts? Not worth the extra R&D because dGPU, SSD, eGPU & RAM sales do not directly help the bottom line. That way of thinking is very last half century. They're looking forward to the next half century where all the money's at.
Below is the trajectory of Intel vs Apple chips. The raw performance gap would be so wide that AMD/Intel/Nvidia will have to bump up the PSU requirements kW to compete with Apple's <400W chips.
For 99% of use case they only care about "good enough" and not "perfect". If I was Apple I'd stick with the 80% of the most profitable part of the market. Let the rest squabble over the leftovers.
When the use case is too niche to service let Dell/HP/Lenovo service them.
This is a game where Apple has been a serious player in ever iteration since 1997. Apple is making a statement that they no longer care about business machines.
When Steve came back as interim CEO, he spoke about the Mac being the primary machine in the creative arts and was committed to supporting that business for the rest of his life.
Apple then made the disastrous move of prematurely releasing FCPx which resulted in Apple losing the NLE game to premier. FCP 7 was great and had a lot of market share that was lost.
Apple is now turning their backs on the entire pro community by sunsetting one pro product after another. X Serve, FCP hardware (never released), iMac 27”and unfocused and delayed upgrades to the MacPro.
The 2013 was a solution to a problem that didn’t exist. The G5 enclosure, used for 2009 and 2012 MacPro was perfect and could’ve easily been upgraded with newer chips for at least another decade. Apple killed it off in favor of the trash can which sat on the shelf for nearly 7 years. The 2019 more than tripled the cost of a typical editing machine from roughly $5K - $7K to more than $20K.
Now, Apple releases a MacPro that does precisely what the pro market didn’t ask for. They released a machine, nearly twice the cost of a Studio that still lacks what pros want: control over the hardware. That’s it.
Is Apple’s plan to sit back and kill off one product after another due to poor sales numbers when the reason for the poor sales numbers is due to Apple not providing what businesses want in the first place? Again, a consumer buys one or two MacBook Airs every 5-7 years. Businesses buy lots of machines, for various needs, with much shorter churn.
It seems like Apple is looking to become a consumer product company and shut down the pro business altogether.
The market has change.
Your use case is very valid but with dwindling user base that have switched to other Mac form factors.
Steve was forced to move from PowerPC to Intel because a G5 laptop was impossible. As early as 2005 he knew that 80% will be laptops & 20% are desktops.
You must have been pissed off that you had to buy new Intel-only apps as you've invested in PPC apps.
Apple was forced to go Apple Silicon as Intel was stuck at 14nm from 2014-2020, had Skylake issues and going SoC would widen the gap between Mac & PCs even further.
I see the Mac Pro to stick around and be refreshed with the Mac Studio. Eventually it will return to 1.5TB unified memory, allow for PCIe 5.0 and have GPU cores that outperform any top-end dGPU with the added bonus of doing so at under 415W total CPU max.
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The FCP transition was interesting. My interpretation (in hindsight) was that Apple made a conscious choice to support the YouTube creator industry over Hollywood Steven Spielberg wannabes, and it showed in how many tech YouTubers proselytised about how they loved the Mac and using FCP over Premiere for their workflows, which I saw as a form of free marketing to their user base.
So I saw this as a classic example of Apple skating to where the puck was going to be, at the expense of its current users.
I think the reason is, as someone has pointed out, that Apple simply has no interest in serving those markets you mentioned. Apple likely knows how well they will do, and even at their best, it will still be too small a market to be worth their while.
What they seem to be trying to do is migrate these users to other hardware, but it won't be a clean 1:1 transition.
For example, a 27" iMac user may either be served by the M1 iMac, or a M2 Pro Mac Mini or Mac Studio paired with a Studio Display. As a current 2017 5k iMac owner, this is my present dilemma, but maybe it's also the push I need finally be free of being stuck with a gorgeous 5k display that I have no idea what to do with when the desktop portion of the iMac is no longer supported.
Likewise, it's clear Apple is never going to release an affordable modular Mac for the exact reasons that people want 1 - they would lose out on hardware sales because people can just keep upgrading the internals with third party hardware.
So to answer your question, I don't think Apple is blind to the needs of their user base, but their business model means that they won't always be able (or willing) to give users exactly what they say they want. Apple will try, but it will always be on their terms.
as a fellow 2017 5k iMac owner, so when is it the time to make the transition? My system works well enough, but wish I didn't hear those fans when pushed and not excited that Sonoma is not supported (even though there's not much new to it). I have been eyeing a Studio Display and Mac mini, but it feels disappointing to essentially end up with an identical screen. How much is it really a performance boost for non-content creators?
I don’t hear the fans, but I find my iMac has been taking quite long to boot up and feels pretty sluggish when opening apps (this is despite having replaced the Fusion Drive with an SSD many years back.
The main thing about sonoma which intrigues me is the ability to play windows games. Otherwise, my iMac does what I need it to well enough, and the 5k display continues to hold up very well even today. It’s really the screen that drew me to it; my computing needs are pretty modest otherwise.
I guess until some part of it breaks down?