I’m not sure Intel support is going away just yet. That would piss off people who bought the Intel Mac Pro which still being sold 4 months ago. Apple usually supports Macs for around 6 years after their release, which means 3 more years for the Mac Pro released in 2019.
"Our review unit had a 512GB SSD" => How much RAM did your review consist of?
8GB. We use what we can get our hands on this early in the process.
Apple seeded beefy review units to YouTubers. We are not amongst that crowd.
This is something AI needs to work on. 😉
There’s too many YouTubers without real technical abilities. AI has access to people who’ve been in the business for years, providing real technical information. Time for AI to stand up and push for test equipment that people should actually buy.
As for Apple’s worthless base model, I’ve never bought that version for home use or for (huge) corporate use since 1989.
For whatever the reason, the "big three" meaning 9to5, MacRumors, and AppleInsider, don't get seeded with review units early, despite having our own YT channels, and for some of us, over 30 years of experience talking about and using this gear. We all try, and are greeted with silence.
Maybe it has something to do with spending all day, every day setting unrealistic expectations for Apple.
Is there any logic to that headline whatsoever? What about this iMac is a clear sign of intel support going away???
This is addressed in the text.
Where?!
I wondered the same, nothing really addresses that apart from saying some new features only work on Apple Silicon. The Apple Silicon only features are similar to features on newer versions of iOS only working on the latest generation iPhone, doesn't mean support for the previous generation(s) is going to be dropped imminently.
"Our review unit had a 512GB SSD" => How much RAM did your review consist of?
8GB. We use what we can get our hands on this early in the process.
Apple seeded beefy review units to YouTubers. We are not amongst that crowd.
This is something AI needs to work on. ߘ馬t;br> There’s too many YouTubers without real technical abilities. AI has access to people who’ve been in the business for years, providing real technical information. Time for AI to stand up and push for test equipment that people should actually buy.
As for Apple’s worthless base model, I’ve never bought that version for home use or for (huge) corporate use since 1989.
For whatever the reason, the "big three" meaning 9to5, MacRumors, and AppleInsider, don't get seeded with review units early, despite having our own YT channels, and for some of us, over 30 years of experience talking about and using this gear. We all try, and are greeted with silence.
Maybe it has something to do with spending all day, every day setting unrealistic expectations for Apple.
While I'm not quite sure what you're saying, it's more likely that we're more critical of Apple versus most of the folks that get pre-seeded units. And, frankly, I prefer not having that kind of arrangement floating over our heads.
Some do good work, like MKBHD. Most do not.
This avenue of conversation in this thread has concluded. If you wish to discuss it further, you are welcome to DM me.
"Our review unit had a 512GB SSD" => How much RAM did your review consist of?
8GB. We use what we can get our hands on this early in the process.
Apple seeded beefy review units to YouTubers. We are not amongst that crowd.
This is something AI needs to work on. ߘ馬t;br> There’s too many YouTubers without real technical abilities. AI has access to people who’ve been in the business for years, providing real technical information. Time for AI to stand up and push for test equipment that people should actually buy.
As for Apple’s worthless base model, I’ve never bought that version for home use or for (huge) corporate use since 1989.
For whatever the reason, the "big three" meaning 9to5, MacRumors, and AppleInsider, don't get seeded with review units early, despite having our own YT channels, and for some of us, over 30 years of experience talking about and using this gear. We all try, and are greeted with silence.
Maybe it has something to do with spending all day, every day setting unrealistic expectations for Apple.
The ones "setting unrealistic expectations" are people like Ming-Chi Kuo who throws anything out there to see what sticks. And when his rumours are proven false it's because Apple "changed plans" or has had "delays". Never that his wild guess was wrong. AI aren't inventing rumours. We know Apple doesn't like rumour sites, which is likely why they don't support their journalism.
Low RAM and low storage with terrible cost to upgrade, and very low caps on both undermine the value of it. I think this is probably intended as the swan song of the iMac line. Obsolete by design.
I think that they are moving to a model where you use a Mac Mini or Mac Studio plus a separate monitor at a substantially higher cost than the computer-monitor combo. I'ts unfortunate that the desktop Mac platforms have become so expensive and so much less competitive on memory and storage (doubly so for creators). I guess the question is whether or not Apple is JUST killing off the iMac line, or desktop Macs entirely.
The low memory low storage configurations are becoming a competitive liability for their laptops too. Apple really needs to work on curbing costs and keeping the specs up. The CPU is fast, but the rest is sort of decade-old specs.
"Users who care about performance or lack that patience, aren't the target market of the M3 24-inch iMac. It's as simple as that."
True, they're not the target market per se, but the idea that an M3 iMac isn't a machine if you care about performance is rooted in a long outdated belief that base machines are slow. And once upon a time, they were. Not anymore, especially after Apple Silicon. Unless you earn your living at jobs like video production, photography, high-end graphics, coding, etc., where you're relying on your machine to do computing-intensive tasks all day every day, an M3 iMac will provide all the performance you need. And it will do that for all the very tasks I just listed, albeit somewhat more slowly than Mac "Pro" machines, but perfectly fine for the prosumer and hobbyist.
"Users who care about performance or lack that patience, aren't the target market of the M3 24-inch iMac. It's as simple as that."
True, they're not the target market per se, but the idea that an M3 iMac isn't a machine if you care about performance is rooted in a long outdated belief that base machines are slow. And once upon a time, they were. Not anymore, especially after Apple Silicon. Unless you earn your living at jobs like video production, photography, high-end graphics, coding, etc., where you're relying on your machine to do computing-intensive tasks all day every day, an M3 iMac will provide all the performance you need. And it will do that for all the very tasks I just listed, albeit somewhat more slowly than Mac "Pro" machines, but perfectly fine for the prosumer and hobbyist.
Yup, I said essentially this in the paragraph above what you quoted.
Full quote: "Anyone in the market for an all-in-one Mac, or even a computing appliance of any sort, will find the new 24-inch iMac a good choice. "
"It is not a 'Pro' iMac. There are faster Macs to be had. That said, like we always say, the only thing "Pro" means to Apple is the highest spec. You can use any Mac, even that older Intel one to get the job done, depending on your level of patience."
"Users who care about performance or lack that patience, aren't the target market of the M3 24-inch iMac. It's as simple as that."
What this is not, at this price, is a M3 Max with 32GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD. And it's certainly not the as-yet unreleased Ultra.
You can use any Mac, even that older Intel one to get the job done, depending on your level of patience."
Even with the installed Brainstorm accelerator, my Mac Plus is just taking forever to do 4K transcodes... 8 months and still not 1% complete! I don't think I have that much patience.
You can use any Mac, even that older Intel one to get the job done, depending on your level of patience."
Even with the installed Brainstorm accelerator, my Mac Plus is just taking forever to do 4K transcodes... 8 months and still not 1% complete! I don't think I have that much patience.
Is there any logic to that headline whatsoever? What about this iMac is a clear sign of intel support going away???
This is addressed in the text.
Where?!
I wondered the same, nothing really addresses that apart from saying some new features only work on Apple Silicon. The Apple Silicon only features are similar to features on newer versions of iOS only working on the latest generation iPhone, doesn't mean support for the previous generation(s) is going to be dropped imminently.
Very true. Also, this machine is physically identical to the one it replaced save for the SOAC. Nothing this machine tells us is new. If this machine signals the end of Intel support, so did the last one, which we can see did nothing of the kind.
You can use any Mac, even that older Intel one to get the job done, depending on your level of patience."
Even with the installed Brainstorm accelerator, my Mac Plus is just taking forever to do 4K transcodes... 8 months and still not 1% complete! I don't think I have that much patience.
That's not an Intel one!
Still a Mac... and a REAL mac at that! none of this UNIX mumbo-jumbo.
Something that is interesting in Apple's increasing moves to their own architectures for the many components in a computer is perhaps (as I don't know reliably) the locking out of new Apple systems to groundbreaking advances by others. Moving away from Intel is great and increasingly doing the work of say, Qualcom components with in-house designs is a sign of the times but what happens if a new, truly revolutionary architecture surfaces and cannot be called upon by Apple silicon? For example, IBM has released their go at a hardware AI system-on-a-chip - https://research.ibm.com/blog/ibm-artificial-intelligence-unit-aiu. Not plugging this product but it will be interesting to see if Apple can readily incorporate new paradigms into their internal designs. (That said, Apple must be scrambling in AI right now with SIRI looking like a stone-age tool next to some of the AI tools that are readily available today.)
24-inch iMac M3 review - A welcome change, for Intel Mac users
The 24-inch iMac does have a wide opening available for one market: Intel Mac owners who have yet to make the jump to Apple Silicon. Intel owners, that noise you're hearing isn't your Mac's fan, it's the sound of inevitability. Apple will discontinue Intel Mac support in macOS sooner rather than later, and we're already seeing signs of that, with Apple Silicon-only features.
Despite the headline, there is no clear evidence to back this statement suggesting Apple's support of Intel machines in OS will be less or sooner than the standard legacy policy Apple has applied to date.
24-inch iMac M3 review - A welcome change, for Intel Mac users
The 24-inch iMac does have a wide opening available for one market: Intel Mac owners who have yet to make the jump to Apple Silicon. Intel owners, that noise you're hearing isn't your Mac's fan, it's the sound of inevitability. Apple will discontinue Intel Mac support in macOS sooner rather than later, and we're already seeing signs of that, with Apple Silicon-only features.
Despite the headline, there is no clear evidence to back this statement suggesting Apple's support of Intel machines in OS will be less or sooner than the standard legacy policy Apple has applied to date.
Mike can speak for himself, but I don’t think he is suggesting that. Standard legacy policy means 2018 machines (including the 2018 Intel Mini) won’t be supported beyond macOS 14 Sonoma.
macOS 15 will be the last for all 2019 machines except the Mac Pro (and possibly the old iMac Pro). macOS 16 will be the last to support Intel. This is “inevitably” happening.
I would go a bit further than Mike, and say the M3 Retina 4.5K iMac is a thank you to average Retina 4K and 5K iMac users. Making the iMac the flagship for M3 sends a good message to them.
Note: I’m not talking about myself, someone who spent north of $4000 on my last Retina 5K iMac, all told. My thank you was the Mac Studio, and I hope, next year, some newfangled displays to choose from.
I'm going to go out on a limb to say that the 2024 MacOS release will be the last one that supports Intel machines unless Sonoma is already it. There's is no way that Apple will support a 2020 iMac in 2025, five years later.
I'm going to go out on a limb to say that the 2024 MacOS release will be the last one that supports Intel machines unless Sonoma is already it. There's is no way that Apple will support a 2020 iMac in 2025, five years later.
What about the Intel Mac Pro which was still sold a few months ago? Only a year of software support for someone's new machine? I don't think so. Sonoma supports the iMac Pro from 2017, that is 6 years. So not sure why there's "no way" Apple will support something for 5 years. They only just dropped the iPhone X from 2017 with iOS 17.
24-inch iMac M3 review - A welcome change, for Intel Mac users
The 24-inch iMac does have a wide opening available for one market: Intel Mac owners who have yet to make the jump to Apple Silicon. Intel owners, that noise you're hearing isn't your Mac's fan, it's the sound of inevitability. Apple will discontinue Intel Mac support in macOS sooner rather than later, and we're already seeing signs of that, with Apple Silicon-only features.
Despite the headline, there is no clear evidence to back this statement suggesting Apple's support of Intel machines in OS will be less or sooner than the standard legacy policy Apple has applied to date.
Mike can speak for himself, but I don’t think he is suggesting that. Standard legacy policy means 2018 machines (including the 2018 Intel Mini) won’t be supported beyond macOS 14 Sonoma.
macOS 15 will be the last for all 2019 machines except the Mac Pro (and possibly the old iMac Pro). macOS 16 will be the last to support Intel. This is “inevitably” happening.
I would go a bit further than Mike, and say the M3 Retina 4.5K iMac is a thank you to average Retina 4K and 5K iMac users. Making the iMac the flagship for M3 sends a good message to them.
Note: I’m not talking about myself, someone who spent north of $4000 on my last Retina 5K iMac, all told. My thank you was the Mac Studio, and I hope, next year, some newfangled displays to choose from.
That means support for intel isn't going away sooner, more to the point there is nothing about the M3 iMac that shows any sign either way. The suggestion there is pure clickbait.
If anything we may see some M1 Models go legacy in the same release as the last of the Intel models.
Comments
Some do good work, like MKBHD. Most do not.
This avenue of conversation in this thread has concluded. If you wish to discuss it further, you are welcome to DM me.
I think that they are moving to a model where you use a Mac Mini or Mac Studio plus a separate monitor at a substantially higher cost than the computer-monitor combo. I'ts unfortunate that the desktop Mac platforms have become so expensive and so much less competitive on memory and storage (doubly so for creators). I guess the question is whether or not Apple is JUST killing off the iMac line, or desktop Macs entirely.
The low memory low storage configurations are becoming a competitive liability for their laptops too. Apple really needs to work on curbing costs and keeping the specs up. The CPU is fast, but the rest is sort of decade-old specs.
True, they're not the target market per se, but the idea that an M3 iMac isn't a machine if you care about performance is rooted in a long outdated belief that base machines are slow. And once upon a time, they were. Not anymore, especially after Apple Silicon. Unless you earn your living at jobs like video production, photography, high-end graphics, coding, etc., where you're relying on your machine to do computing-intensive tasks all day every day, an M3 iMac will provide all the performance you need. And it will do that for all the very tasks I just listed, albeit somewhat more slowly than Mac "Pro" machines, but perfectly fine for the prosumer and hobbyist.
"It is not a 'Pro' iMac. There are faster Macs to be had. That said, like we always say, the only thing "Pro" means to Apple is the highest spec. You can use any Mac, even that older Intel one to get the job done, depending on your level of patience."
"Users who care about performance or lack that patience, aren't the target market of the M3 24-inch iMac. It's as simple as that."
macOS 15 will be the last for all 2019 machines except the Mac Pro (and possibly the old iMac Pro). macOS 16 will be the last to support Intel. This is “inevitably” happening.
I would go a bit further than Mike, and say the M3 Retina 4.5K iMac is a thank you to average Retina 4K and 5K iMac users. Making the iMac the flagship for M3 sends a good message to them.
Note: I’m not talking about myself, someone who spent north of $4000 on my last Retina 5K iMac, all told. My thank you was the Mac Studio, and I hope, next year, some newfangled displays to choose from.
If anything we may see some M1 Models go legacy in the same release as the last of the Intel models.