Will there ever be a new large iMac (Pro)?

[krell100]

Yeah agree with that analysis, Apple need a new 'style cue' to hang their desktop range on so why not use what they've already developed? From a purely marketing perspective it would be a definite win. But I admit I'm biased as I'd love to see the XDR style on a new iMac/iMP.

 

[theluggage]

Would it be correct to assume that if nothing is mentioned in the next couple days, it's got to be WWDC?
For the specs, most people agree in order of likeliness it's; 10th Gen intel, Radeon 5x00, 8/16Gb, maybe T2 + SSD?

It doesn’t “got to be” anytime - the only urgency from Apple’s POV is to switch to T2 because I’m sure they’re eager to start the countdown on dropping non-T2 support.

Anyway, this year’s WWDC keynote is going to be an unknown quantity... Even looking at the way Apple has released things recently they’ll probably do it via a press release as and when they’re ready... unless it is some really radical change that warrants a fanfare and/or has developer implications.

 

[Dave245]

Looks like ARM Mac's will be announced at WWDC, i wonder if that increases the chances of them also announcing a new iMac?

Will they just announce the move to ARM, or will they also announce a new Mac that will be available next year maybe.

Bloomberg: Apple to announce its first ARM Mac chips at WWDC, as it starts transition away from Intel - 9to5Mac

Apple is reportedly going to announce its transition from Intel to ARM chips for its line of Macs at WWDC,...

9to5mac.com

 

[iPadified]

Looks like ARM Mac's will be announced at WWDC, i wonder if that increases the chances of them also announcing a new iMac?

Will they just announce the move to ARM, or will they also announce a new Mac that will be available next year maybe.

Bloomberg: Apple to announce its first ARM Mac chips at WWDC, as it starts transition away from Intel - 9to5Mac

Apple is reportedly going to announce its transition from Intel to ARM chips for its line of Macs at WWDC,...

9to5mac.com

Interesting, as I have said before, Apple has enough to talk about then a redesigned iMac. Please make a preWWDC release of iMac today and deliver next week fora BTO. No fuss; smaller bezels/chin, iMP cooling, recent i9, 5700(XT) and SSD only. Not worth a keynote in my opinion.

 

[Dave245]

Interesting, as I have said before, Apple has enough to talk about then a redesigned iMac. Please make a preWWDC release of iMac today and deliver next week fora BTO. No fuss; smaller bezels/chin, iMP cooling, recent i9, 5700(XT) and SSD only. Not worth a keynote in my opinion.

That would be brilliant, I would buy one! my 2012 is barely chugging along. I just wonder if Apple will announce ARM and possibly bring in a new Mac to show it off. I'm not sure if they will share the stage with a new iMac.

 

[ssong]

Looks like ARM Mac's will be announced at WWDC, i wonder if that increases the chances of them also announcing a new iMac?

Will they just announce the move to ARM, or will they also announce a new Mac that will be available next year maybe.

Bloomberg: Apple to announce its first ARM Mac chips at WWDC, as it starts transition away from Intel - 9to5Mac

Apple is reportedly going to announce its transition from Intel to ARM chips for its line of Macs at WWDC,...

9to5mac.com

I wonder how this would work cos the article says that they would announce first ARM chips for Macs, but not necessarily ARM Macs.

I wonder if they'd do a last intel refresh and do ARM Macs. Or do Intel refreshes for some models but the 23 incher would be a ARM Mac?

And FWIW some stores in the UK dropped the listing for 27 inchers... wondering if there's something incoming pre dubdub?

 

[DrRadon]

The cost of drilling a few holes in the case wouldn’t add mega bucks to the cost of an iMac.

Nobody speaks out against a cool looking way to keep the machine cool. It's just not going to be the look of the 14100€ pro lineup because thats not how product marketing works.

The design language right now is to hide the cooling, and according to reviews on the iMac Pro they found a solution to stick with that design language. It's just to bad that the RAM door falls in that same design language of "has to be hidden" because technically there would be oodles of space to put RAM Access in, even in the current 21,5 inch one.
[automerge]1591703229[/automerge]

I wonder how this would work cos the article says that they would announce first ARM chips for Macs, but not necessarily ARM Macs.

That was to be expected. Coders need to adjust to the switch.

 

[krell100]

If they announce ARM coming to Macs beginning next year then doesn't that mean anyone in the market for a new Mac would wait rather than buy an Intel Mac that will be transitioned from soon? I know it would make me think more than twice.. Seems like odd timing somehow for a new iMac with this looming over it.

 

[yellow_lupine]

After the rumor about the ARM transition announcement I highly suspect they won't release any new iMac at WWDC...

 

[DrRadon]

If they announce ARM coming to Macs beginning next year then doesn't that mean anyone in the market for a new Mac would wait rather than buy an Intel Mac that will be transitioned from soon? I know it would make me think more than twice.. Seems like odd timing somehow for a new iMac with this looming over it.

Yes. Thats probably why this iMac release was planed for March but got delayed due to covid.

WWDC seems to be shaping up quiet big. Prosser said something MacBookPro (probably heavily ARM related) and AirTags are happening. Also Apple TV 4k is suppose to happening for gaming. New Headphones are said to be ready to ship... and asides that the usual WWDC updates on iOS and MacOS.
I feel like i still could have been right with my iMac launch for last Wednesday, but i assume at this point apple will just be like "f this" and just make WWDC a big event. Or it just drops tomorrow, or next week. Keeping the tension high.

 

[Moonjumper]

I wonder how this would work cos the article says that they would announce first ARM chips for Macs, but not necessarily ARM Macs.

I wonder if they'd do a last intel refresh and do ARM Macs. Or do Intel refreshes for some models but the 23 incher would be a ARM Mac?

And FWIW some stores in the UK dropped the listing for 27 inchers... wondering if there's something incoming pre dubdub?

For a while it has seemed likely that Arm for Macs will be announced at WWDC. I have previously said that it was unlikely Apple would introduce a new machine from the old Intel era at the same event. But maybe they want to send the message that Bootcamp support is not going away until usage reduces to a low level. I suspect this will be a slower transition than last time because of the Windows compatibility options, but not endless.

I believe Apple will only switch to Arm if they see advantages for customers and themselves, both it terms of cost and performance. That may prove more interesting for many than Bootcamp/virtualisation, and allow Apple to complete the transition without a large outcry.

 

[ssong]

this actually puts my purchase plans into a bit of a limbo... wouldn’t want to purchase an intel iMac if the ARM transition is happening but wouldn’t want to buy the first gen product of an arm Mac if it means it will have impact on my day to day work flow

 

[krell100]

After the rumor about the ARM transition announcement I highly suspect they won't release any new iMac at WWDC...

Yeah must say it does seem that way...

 

[craigrusse11]

I wonder how this would work cos the article says that they would announce first ARM chips for Macs, but not necessarily ARM Macs.

I wonder if they'd do a last intel refresh and do ARM Macs. Or do Intel refreshes for some models but the 23 incher would be a ARM Mac?

And FWIW some stores in the UK dropped the listing for 27 inchers... wondering if there's something incoming pre dubdub?

I'm sure there were some rumours a few years ago about iMacs that would have an Intel chip and an ARM chip on the same main board in an always on mode that would work like a supercharged T2 chip. It would power things like siri, face id and iOS app compatibility. Not sure if that ended up actually becoming the T2 or if there is plans to go beyond this and the ARM plans are not to replace intel but to supplement it?

Personally, I'm not sure if having ARM chips as the main CPU in a mac is the best idea, and instead having them as a powerful co processor might make more sense? The Intel chips have much more complex instruction sets and pipelines that allow them to run a huge array of computing tasks in parallel that give a great desktop experience. I'm certain that if you tried to do the same with an A13 for example, running a full desktop OS it would bog down heavily. And if it said chip was 'scaled up' to be more desktop class, and in turn needed to be actively cooled, well your back to square one with how Intel chips are actively cooled!

 

[krell100]

this actually puts my purchase plans into a bit of a limbo... wouldn’t want to purchase an intel iMac if the ARM transition is happening but wouldn’t want to buy the first gen product of an arm Mac if it means it will have impact on my day to day work flow

Same. I might just stay put for a year or so and see how it all plays out...

 

[ssong]

I'm sure there were some rumours a few years ago about iMacs that would have an Intel chip and an ARM chip on the same main board in an always on mode that would work like a supercharged T2 chip. It would power things like siri, face id and iOS app compatibility. Not sure if that ended up actually becoming the T2 or if there is plans to go beyond this and the ARM plans are not to replace intel but to supplement it?

Personally, I'm not sure if having ARM chips as the main CPU in a mac is the best idea, and instead having them as a powerful co processor might make more sense? The Intel chips have much more complex instruction sets and pipelines that allow them to run a huge array of computing tasks in parallel that give a great desktop experience. I'm certain that if you tried to do the same with an A13 for example, running a full desktop OS it would bog down heavily. And if it said chip was 'scaled up' to be more desktop class, and in turn needed to be actively cooled, well your back to square one with how Intel chips are actively cooled!

It does excite me to see that ARM may finally get the proper chance to challenge Intel given the amount of progress Apple's ARM chips have made over the years and this may actually put the benchmark results into a real world comparative setting with the Intel chips so we may finally get to understand if ARM really do have that advantage over Intel chips in terms of performance per wattage.

The early adopter in me can't wait to get my hands on this thing and if the 23rd incher turns out to be a redesigned ARM iMac then I'd imagine it would be more in the nature of a dev kit to get an ARM Mac into the hands of companies that need to start making ARM variants of their software. So cooling may not be ideal, design choices may not be ideal either, and there may be a lot of growing pains for this first iteration.

The logical buyer that would have to drop a couple thousand in for a device is saying that this year is a pass year for purchasing. I'd need a few IDEs and VM software for my day to day work and I just don't know how well this would run or even if it's possible at all. The cost may be cheaper in subsequent years as well as the R&D costs for the design would be factored into the dev kit to an extent and the consumer models coming out next year would probably have a lower cost as Apple would be making its own chips. I'd also expect them to make subtle changes to the design for better efficiency in the subsequent consumer models next year.

If an ARM 27 inch redesign was meant to come next year following a 23inch ARM release this year then even if it had subtle cooling differences, Apple can easily play it off as a design difference that happened due to the difference in size (think RAM access door in 27 inch vs 21.5 inch right now).

I'm in a very conflicted position with a lot to ponder over the next 2 weeks now....

 

[Azrael9]

P.s. My favorite drinking game at this point is taking a shot whenever Azrael9 posts his thoughts about the situation. Take a shot of your favorite drink each time his optimism cheers you up.

Mine's a 'gulp' of Cider and Black 'chaser' inbetween pints of Guiness.

We could also add the rule of every time we hear a 'new' Twitter rumour...we raise said glass.

I get the feeling we're going to hear some more juicy bits of iMac gossip in the now...'two weeks' to WWDC.

The count down...has begun.

Azrael.
[automerge]1591706264[/automerge]

I do not think the iMac will have RDNA 2.0 if it ships this month because

...AMD's history is littered with paper launches for GPUs. (In volume? I'd had it down as early next year. RDNA2 is a product that will be in some demand, a cheaper alternative to Nvidia's product and AMD have to ship to the consoles as well. So a paper launch some limited availability with shipping in volume approaching late fall/early next year?)

Their cpu division has had a kick up the backside and come out the other side.

Their gpu division is still working through the mire it had got itself in...but the RDNA2 is the light at the end of the tunnel with the RDNA3 with a good shot of putting Nvidia in their place.

Azrael.
[automerge]1591706371[/automerge]

There will first probably be the usual boring product sales information pep talk from Tim Cook and I imagine something about how much Apple cares about everybody. Apple will be announcing the next macOS which will be of most importance with all it entails. New Apple hardware announcements, if any, stuck in somewhere before the end.

Something like that. Pre-ramble with Mac hardware about half way through (as the Mac gets its turn to shine after all the sales updates and iOS stuff.)

Azrael.

 

[DrRadon]

I don't drink. I win the game.

 

[Azrael9]

Things in the GPU market 'hotting' up. A £150 cooler on the Ampere alone? :O

The good news is AMD Radeon have to compete and that puts pressure on prices.

What this means for iMac? Whilst Ampere in any iMac or Mac Pro any time soon...is unlikely...the purported 50% efficiency for the Big Navi 2 suggests a pitstop on the iMac Pro late 2020/early 2021 with the iMac to follow next year. (Though how this squares with the Mac ARM rumours next year...) Sure, the 'huuuuge' top end Navi 2 won't make it's way into an iMac perhaps. But there are other products in the Big Navi stack (AMD have officially said it's a full stack...unlike the low end Polaris and the 'mid-range' 5700XT...) that may be appropriate.

I'll have to contend with being grateful if they put the Navi 1 in there this year. And I don't have a working Mac to wait it out. But I suspect this year, there will be other compensations than just a gpu update. The SSD, the design, the ram, perhaps a 32 inch screen (go on, Apple my san...get in there...) with 6k.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 cooler could cost up to 150 USD alone - VideoCardz.com

NVIDIA has allegedly begun an investigation into the GeForce RTX 3080 leak. NVIDIA PG132 board to launch with three graphics cards Igor Wallossek from Igor’sLAB has new information on Saturday’s leak of RTX 3080 cooler design. The company has allegedly started an investigation. Two...

videocardz.com

Azrael.
[automerge]1591706833[/automerge]

I don't drink. I win the game.

Neither do I...as a rule...

But upon occasion...and with 'good company'...

Azrael.
[automerge]1591707020[/automerge]

Why cant they just make a normal desktop like Mac Pro? All in one desktop has its limitation and most of them are using a mobile CPU because of that. iMac's cooling system is terrible as long as they keep AIO design.

Answers on a postcard to Tim Cook.

Just create a separate Power Computing brand for the 'tower' market. Mail order only. They could reach an entirely different set of users.

Won't happen though.

I'm very sympathetic to the Tower buyers in Mac land. It's very frustrating from their/my point of view.

The last time Apple appeared to take it seriously was in the G3-G5 era.

Azrael.
[automerge]1591707365[/automerge]

Personally, I'm not sure if having ARM chips as the main CPU in a mac is the best idea, and instead having them as a powerful co processor might make more sense? The Intel chips have much more complex instruction sets and pipelines that allow them to run a huge array of computing tasks in parallel that give a great desktop experience. I'm certain that if you tried to do the same with an A13 for example, running a full desktop OS it would bog down heavily. And if it said chip was 'scaled up' to be more desktop class, and in turn needed to be actively cooled, well your back to square one with how Intel chips are actively cooled!

You've got an idea there about using Mac ARM as a powerful co-processor.

Opening up 'Mac' to the entire library of the iOS software market could vastly increase Mac sales. It's super nova territory.

ARM chips are so cheap compared to Intel cpus...that they 'could' do this.

But Apple aren't a company to do things by 'half' even when they mis-step. They'll probably go all in on Mac ARM because for what they're paying INtel to use their cpus, they may as well run over clocked ARM chips and pocket the difference themselves.

I think if you put an A14X cpu in an iMac...for 9/10 things most users wouldn't notice. And you'd get a dramatic iMac 'Air' machine design out of that. I have high confidence that Intel is very vulnerable right now...and next year they're still going to run hot cpus and that's the time for Apple to strike with the A14X. It won't be pretty. For intel.

Losing Apple as a customer and the mindshare of losing Apple.

Azrael.

 

[ssong]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1270331388185554945

Apparentlly GPUs are coming as well?

 

[FrankySavvy]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1270339867491184644

 

[Azrael9]

I think that a new iMac Pro needs to come out first before a redesigned standard iMac is out.

I think we may find (relative to the sun...) that the 'new' iMac 'IS' the iMac Pro. At least in terms of the 1st of 2nd tier iMac Pro.

ie. Apple will bring the 1st two tiers of iMac Pro to the masses. 'The rest of us.' And that's? A 'good thing.' TM.

Imagine a £5k iMac Pro at £1750-£3560 price range. So that's a £1500-3200 price cut. Each iMac model will put pressure on the 1st tier iMac Pro. Obviously the £1750 iMac isn't going to have 32 gigs of ram and a 1TB SSD. But the cpu and gpu with SSD as standard puts pressure on the iMac Pro's performance argument at £5k. And if we're lucky, Mike the Sound Guy gets some nice sound system with the new iMac and a lick of Space Grey as an option.

Of, course, that 'relative' performance argument changes again if Apple upgrade the iMac Pro to something looking like the XDR with 6k screen and Navi 2 parts... But that's looking like late 2020 and more likely...2021. (The one glimmer of hope is that the iMac Pro is 3 year's and counting. And that the iMac Pro will probably get a reboot within half a year of the big Navi launch. Just a gut feeling based upon how long it's been not updated, how Apple updates and the availability of the tech' and when it's likely to be shipping in volume.)

Any Navi 2 iMac Pro is going to bury the current iMac Pro for certain work.

Azrael.
[automerge]1591708353[/automerge]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1270339867491184644

"New iMac incoming at WWDC. iPad Pro design language, with Pro Display like bezels. T2 chip, AMD Navi GPU, and no more fusion drive ."

Good catch, Franky!

Looks like Apple's design direction on the iPad Pro and Pro Display are coming to the new iMac after all.

Colour me unsurprised. Do you want the flagship desktop looking iStale or face front like a true believer reading to sell to the hoardes of Apple Store buyers that like sexy computer kit? All Apple's new design language is going in one direction. And it aint huuuuuge bezels.

I know what Steve Jobs would be pushing for. Visionary would all over echoing the iPad in the iMac.

Sexy new bezels. Navi gpu. iPad design language. (And the FUSION drive is DEAD! *uses his Tony Soprano voice.)

*gets wallet out.

Azrael.

 

[fokmik]

So its happening at WWDC
macbook pro first with ARM..i really thought that the first one will be the 12" MB or macbook air
So we can expect Macbook Pro, Over-ear headphones and air tags...lets hope for iMacs too

 

[FrankySavvy]

So excited for WWDC now!

 

[fokmik]

Is Sonnny Dickson a realilble source? I mean for the imac to have ipad pro deisgn language is bold move from apple in the last over 10 years