James.M

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.

Meh.

An iMac with a tiny screen, little base RAM, and tiny base storage with no way to expand either... It doesn't seem that the style or processor speed would make any difference - it'll still be a sub-standard choice for the sort of things you'd use a Mac desktop for, particularly creative work like photography, video, music. It'll still be a sad afterthought of a computer.

If they released a Mac mini with a high memory configuration, and a couple of M.2 slots, the iMac would die off in an instant.

It seems to me that speed is becoming less of an issue compared to storage.

Across all current Mac models, internal storage is very expensive (for that matter, RAM is too), and it's limited. You can quickly fill your HD while editing video or keeping a moderately large photo library. You cannot expand that storage either (even on a desktop Mac). More practical storage options are needed.

The other issue with storage is that APFS works great -- until it has a hiccup, and then it's a crap shoot whether or not you can recover the data.