canukstorm

bill42 said:

Upping the specs to mid level to match how I always buy new Macs, this Mac Mini alone would cost about $2000, and that's without a monitor. As an Apple snob who has not purchased a non-apple screen since my 21 inch Sony CRT for my 840AV back in 1991, I would want to buy an Apple screen. All we have available is a Studio Display starting at $1600.  I would prefer an iMac like my current 27" iMac from 2012, but the only iMacs available today have a screen just a bit too small for my taste. I really wish Apple would just make a new 27 or 30" iMac. It would be half the price of a Mac Mini with Studio Display, and it would sell like mad, just like the old 27" iMacs did when they dominated the graphics world.

dewme said:

canukstorm said:

dewme said:

DAalseth said:

dewme said:

The fate of the 27” iMac is anyone’s guess. At this point it’s a safe bet that we will never see a transitional version of the 27” iMac, i.e., where Apple shoves Apple Silicon magic into the same chassis the last Intel version 27” iMacs used. Personally, I think Apple will go in a totally new direction if they do a larger than 24” format all-in-one. They may not even call it an iMac and keep the current 24” iMac as the only iMac. I also think it may be a massive touch based device somewhat akin to Microsoft’s Surface Studio. Imagine a very large touch based all-in-one Mac with significant Apple Silicon based performance that can be used by itself but also be paired with a Mac Studio or Apple Silicon Mac Pro for extremely intensive 3D design, simulation, modeling, and tasks requiring unparalleled graphical performance capability. Of course this sounds like an exceedingly niche product, but as long as the Mac Studio and 27” Studio Display are still around, the music has stopped playing and all of the available chairs are already taken. The 27” iMac is the odd man out. 

Overall I agree with your analyses. I would doubt though that the replacement for the 27” iMac might be a touch screen. Apple seems to be very intent on keeping their touch devices separate from the Macs. If they ever do make a really big touch device I would expect it to run ipadOS. 

Yeah, it's a stretch.

Apple could seemingly do a quick & dirty Apple Silicon 27" iMac by putting the guts from a 14"/16" Apple Silicon MacBook Pro into a variation of the Studio Display. Would anyone buy it?

This is exactly what I expect Apple to do do and yes, people would buy it.  That would be my ideal Mac.

Interesting, more so because it seems so feasible. The current Studio Display already has a nontrivial computing element in it. 

I was thinking big iMac people would be hoping for something with a 32” screen size to further differentiate it from the 24” iMac and the Mac mini + Studio Display combo.

Of course a 6K screen is a much better fit for a 32” screen but there’s no way that Apple is going to put an XDR display in the thing and hit a price target that would attract iMac buyers other than those who were buying iMac Pro. 

What price are people willing to pay for a bigger iMac? A realistic price target for a midrange Mac Studio and Studio Display system including keyboard and trackpad is around $5K. Going with an M2 Mac mini (speculation) with a decent amount of memory and storage instead of the Mac Studio would probably lop a grand off that price, so you’d be at $4K. Where does a large iMac slot in price wise? If they stay with a 5K screen they could probably get in in the gap at $4.5K. A cost reduced 6K screen based iMac would probably blow through the $5K mark quite easily. 

Do these prices sound scary? Considering that adding an XDR display to a system BOM gets you to the $5K mark before you even select a computing platform I don’t think those prices are very scary. I’m still talking midrange systems, not the minimum memory and minimum storage ones or the high end ones that blow past $10K without blinking. 

No denying that the previous generation non-pro 27” iMac with 5K screen and a hot (in so many ways) Intel processor was a relative bargain. It will be interesting to see how Apple can pull off similar things with their own Silicon in the mix. I sometimes forget that even the original M1 is a significantly powerful processor compared to what we were getting with the old Intel Core processors. A Mac mini with M2 or pro/max variants of the M2 (or M1) is still a very solid basis for a personal workstation class system. 

dewme said:

DAalseth said:

dewme said:

The fate of the 27” iMac is anyone’s guess. At this point it’s a safe bet that we will never see a transitional version of the 27” iMac, i.e., where Apple shoves Apple Silicon magic into the same chassis the last Intel version 27” iMacs used. Personally, I think Apple will go in a totally new direction if they do a larger than 24” format all-in-one. They may not even call it an iMac and keep the current 24” iMac as the only iMac. I also think it may be a massive touch based device somewhat akin to Microsoft’s Surface Studio. Imagine a very large touch based all-in-one Mac with significant Apple Silicon based performance that can be used by itself but also be paired with a Mac Studio or Apple Silicon Mac Pro for extremely intensive 3D design, simulation, modeling, and tasks requiring unparalleled graphical performance capability. Of course this sounds like an exceedingly niche product, but as long as the Mac Studio and 27” Studio Display are still around, the music has stopped playing and all of the available chairs are already taken. The 27” iMac is the odd man out. 

Overall I agree with your analyses. I would doubt though that the replacement for the 27” iMac might be a touch screen. Apple seems to be very intent on keeping their touch devices separate from the Macs. If they ever do make a really big touch device I would expect it to run ipadOS. 

Yeah, it's a stretch.

Apple could seemingly do a quick & dirty Apple Silicon 27" iMac by putting the guts from a 14"/16" Apple Silicon MacBook Pro into a variation of the Studio Display. Would anyone buy it?

genovelle said:

This makes sense now. The minor updates with mainly moving to the M2 chip tells me they are attempting to have everything on M2 before January. There may be an unrevealed feature required to run apps compatible with rOS.  If they announce a headset in January, Integrations and app compatibility will be required. 

I also believe Apple has been laying a foundation for a convertible Tablet that can dynamically switch between Mac OS and iPad OS depending on how it’s being used, attached accessories, like a keyboard and mouse, and user preference. 

The work to bring interface behaviors and features to some parity and the ability to not only more easily port iPad apps to the Mac, but to natively run those apps natively via a universal binary seems to point to a move in this direction.  

Add in Continuity running between OS versions on device and you have a hybrid that is an iPad when you pick it up and a Mac when you add a wireless keyboard and mouse. 

Foldable maybe?