Leaked iMac parts suggest Apple set to release new model with thinner design - Page 2

 

Yep. Just several, though. Not always. 

 

NONE do natively. That's Haswell. Apple can add basically anything they want, though.

This is precisely why I'm happy that the folks at Apple does not listen to what the tech-heads think.  Time and time again it has been shown that most people will never open their computers or expand it after purchase.  They just don't do that.  I used to way back in the day when I made my own custom rigs.  I liked doing it, but in the end is was just keeping up with the Joneses.

It would be nice if Apple allows the easy upgrade of RAM and perhaps use user-serviceable MBA-style SSD cards that can be upgraded like the RAM cards are in current iMacs.  It would be nice.  Would I ever do it?  Probably not.  I usually max my system out at purchase and be done with it.  I won't lose sleep over it.
 

I think it's great.  If Apple pulls of a great design, thinner, lighter, etc... and not sacrifice performance, then I'm all for it.  Who wouldn't be?

 

 

Kicker. But absolutely.

 

But they don't tend to, do they?  They waited on the laptop chipsets until USB3 was supported natively to include them.

 

Plus, and we can only guess on timing on this, I think next year will see Apple add Retina support to the rest of the line.  The 13" MBP will come this year, with the MBAir first half as they can commoditize the cost of the screens, and improve battery and CPUs to support them.  Then to MacMinis, iMacs, and MacPros in the second half of the year, as the technology to push out 27" ACDs becomes available.

 

That's my guess anyway.  And if that make sense to you, then the release of HassleBridge Xeon processors and availability of Retina ACD make the second half of the year a better bet.  Plus, I think there's supposed to be a update to Thunderbolt next year as well.

I suspect the push to thinner iMacs is purely to leverage the emotional decision a purchaser makes, i.e. thinner = sexier = more desirable = more sales.

Edited by donvreug - 10/14/12 at 3:55pm

 

But didn't wait until Thunderbolt was natively supported to add it.

 

 

You know, it'd be great to do it now, but it doesn't seem feasible with the 4000 series. I think Haswell still, but hopefully I'm wrong.

 

The 21.5" iMac would be 3840x2160.

The 27" iMac would be 5120x2880.

 

That's INSANE for an integrated chip to push.

 

It's Haswell. And if so, they can say goodbye to virtually any Mac Pro sales between now and then, which kills a lot of their presence in that field.

 

Optical's nowhere near ready for primetime, I thought. Though 100Gbps up/100Gbps down in a port would be… Man.

Removal of the optical drive will be a major contributor to the thinness. I don't think they can innovate the iMac anymore. It hasn't seen a major redesign since 2005.

 

It's like a quarter of an inch thick and barely contributes to the volume of the product.

 

I wholeheartedly disagree.

Of course. For the average home user, performance is no longer the driver.

If Macs continue to sell well in their "thinner and lighter" incarnations, and if they continue to dominate PC consumer satisfaction, then Apple will have succeeded again. I see no reason they can't continue to keep Macs the Gold Standard of the industry. They're doing it with their Retina notebooks, after all. For now, it makes sense to assume they know what they're doing. 

Frankly I could care less what you think. Apple has removed the optical drives from most of their products. And considering the iMac was vigorously redesigned for the first 7 years of it's life and hasn't changed much since then, why don't you tell us why you wholeheartedly disagree since you seem to be so well informed?

 

And of course if there was no redesign but just an update of the innards people would be complaining because it looks just like the previous version. I'm very interested to see what they do here and with the MacPro.

Stand in line for humble pie when Apple does their next one.  To say Apple can't innovate a product anymore has more to say about the person saying that than Apple's capabilities.

I think there's a reason why Apple chose to wait so long to update their iMacs.  Methink Apple was marinating the iMacs for something big.  

 

So why should anyone listen to what you think, given that our opinions have equal worth? I care enough about what you think to at least have read it and replied to it. Show the same courtesy.

Yes, and? An iMac isn't a MacBook. The ODD, while still the bandwidth bottleneck, is not nearly as important a factor in internal space on the iMac as it is the MacBook family. It matters, just not nearly as much.

 

Let's see… "Vigorously redesigned" means three case redesigns over fourteen years. If you want to call the move from the G5 to the Core Duo case a "redesign", feel free. That's still just four redesigns.

 

Unless you want to count all the changes. That'd be 8 case redesigns, most of which happened in the last seven years.

 

Frankly, I could care less about what someone who says Apple cannot innovate something thinks. How's that? 

For those who are complaining that the current iMac isn't competitive enough in the PC specs wars, or that a redesign shouldn't focus on alleged thinness, I think you've completely forgotten what the iMac product is and has always been all about. 

 

Apple's marketing message for iMac has always been pretty consistent, and it's not about the megahertzes.

 

 

 

 

If this doesn't appeal to you, then the iMac is simply not for you.

 

It's my field (Pro Video) and people are already waiting.  And 8-12 months passes pretty fast when you're busy.  The people who are already deciding to leave Mac have already decided.  Those who haven't will wait.

 

 

 

I think I ready somewhere that there was going to be an intermediary upgrade between copper and optical.

 

I found this:

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Thunderbolt-Cactus-Ridge-Redwood-Ridge-Falcon-Ridge-20Gbps,16369.html

 

TB is a developing technology.  At 100Gb/s many of my problems go away. But as you say it's not there yet.

 

What about all these render people who buy the newest thing because it saves them seconds per frame, adding up to whatever over time? I've heard that argument a lot.

Forget the ultra-thin BS and give it a BluRay burner so I can produce HD video like it is supposed to be instead of compressed, banded, crummy web video.

 

Talk about your BS…

Hi how do you get a printable version of Appleinsider+comments?

 

Cheers

I will wait for the next Mac I wish to buy to come out but in the meantime I may also buy a PC for a project I choose to use it for.

The "emotional decision" is what it is all about in terms of the look of the thing. And feel. Thinner and lighter are unquestionly better if the user experience remains as good or better as a result. Try putting an original white flat iMac on your desk and I guarantee at some point you will exclaim: "holy crap! This thing is heavy". Then when it's there you'll complain about the size and thickness. It's a beast by comparison to the present design.

The guy who posted the image said that the iMac is extremely thin on the side view but still has the chin on the front. He said it would be more expensive than the current iMac, which doesn't sound right.

It may just be the picture but this looks like the 21.5" model and it looks like a 2.5" hard drive judging by the size relative to the fan and screws. That might be a bracket that can hold two drives so the SSD just goes in the same bracket.

This is a view from the front so the screen still has to come out to get the to the drives. I wonder if they are actually going to hold the whole screen in place with magnets. What would be neat is if you could just pull the screen right off and it disconnects without messing with wires and you just clip it back on.

There's no GPU in the picture. That board below the HDD looks to be the PSU with the electricity symbol on it and the motherboard is on the right (basically the current layout rotated 90 degrees). I think the GPU will be plugged on where the red circle on the right is. This puts the CPU and GPU above the HDD and the cooling fans should keep the heat well away.

It certainly looks compact enough to get rid of the chin but they might have other reasons for keeping it.

I expect the Mini will tag along silently and the 13" rMBP less silently.

Mini 1 - Intel i5 + HD 4000
Mini 2 - Intel i5 + 512MB 640M
Mini 3 - Intel quad i7 + HD 4000
13" rMBP Intel i5 + 512MB 640M, 256GB SSD, $1499
iMac 1 - Intel i5 quad + 512MB 650M, 21.5"
iMac 2 - Intel i5 quad + 1GB 660M, 21.5"
iMac 3 - Intel i5 quad + 1GB 660M, 27"
iMac 4 - Intel i5 quad + 1GB GTX 680M, 27" (BTO i7-3770)

Yes please! Option for i7 2.9 GHz and for 1 GB on graphics.

 

Unless they're retina.

But did he mean calendar 2013 or Fiscal 2013

Also, under promise and over deliver is classic Apple. They know that folks as gunning for new desktops, which they might have thought wouldn't be ready for a few more weeks. But if they were wrong yes they might launch them now.get the holiday sales

Having trouble imagining a 27" retina screen. If they are having trouble making enough 13" retina screens, how bad will it be for 27"? However I'd hate to see them making it thinner and losing functionality in the process. Thinner is fine, but not if it means integrated graphics only for example.

If you merely define innovate in terms of external design, sure

Well most of us hope that Apple does more than just stick an Ivy Bridge processor in there. USB 3.0 and a cheaper SSD option would be huge improvements for me. Do I do professional video editing work? Yes, but I am also planning to drop 1.5k or more on a computer. Is it weird to want the best possible for that price point? 

Well you'll at least get the Samsung 830, IB Processor, and USB 3.0

 

The bigger issue is that Apple shot themselves in the foot with FCPX. Say what you like about it, but I know not a single sole in the professional world that still edits on it. Avid and Sony Vegas both work on PC (Vegas exclusively). So if the top tier of Apple doesn't shine, than people are gonna peace out for a computer that does. 

 

And yeah, when you're sorting through over 200 hours of footage, every second counts (albeit with 64mb programs, rendering is starting to be a thing of the past). 

 

I love MC6, I just want a computer that can run it now...

 

5 year old black MacBook still going strong with a whopping 35 minutes of battery life. 

 

PS: There are on average 24 frames per second. If a new computer saves a second (let alone "seconds per frame"), then that's a SHIT ton of time saved in the end. Once again, most people are working with hundreds of hours of footage, and with digital people record EVERYTHING. I'm working on a doc with 5 years of non-stop footage. We have over 12tb of footage. Every god damn second counts.  

 

I challenge that.

The iMac is too this as it is. I would rather see it a little thicker and loose the dreaded iMac chin. Much like the new Apple Thunderbolt Displays. In addition, a larger volume could possibly help with heat dissipation.

If the biggest problem people have with a product is an aesthetic opinion then Apple is doing something right.

If they kept the current iMac size would they be able to increase the heat dissipation and fit in a non M GPU? That would be the upgrade everyone really wants.

The desktop Macs are more outdated today than they have ever been. While Ivy Bridge is only about six months old, USB 3 is now several years old. Likewise OpenCL has been around a long time. Beyond that the need to use special purpose hardware like the hard drives really needs to be addressed.
Some arguements do sound silly but on the other hand most people see these machines as longer term investments. It just doesn't make sense to invest in severely outdated hardware if you expect to keep it for a few years.
The update processor wise is minor. What is a problem is the rest of the architecture which is significantly outdated.

Can't really get my head around "new shell design is said to be curved like a water droplet".

 

Wouldn't this look a bit weird?

 

Water droplets are flat on the bottom due to air pressure. The "water droplet" symbol is almost as accurate as the "heart" symbol.

But what can they do? Slightly faster RAM (still laptop RAM), same hard drive (spinning disc), and a modern GPU. Is that what you mean?

I hope they will have SSD / Flash as default option. There is absolutely no way a high priced Personal Computer like Mac does not have it as default.

And we shouldn't confuse a description with an exact representation. Tapered with a curve is probably more accurate but far too abstract to be useful as a description.