MacQuadra840av

The white bezels.  Why do you think Apple switched to black in 2007?  Better on the eyes.  Don't compare iPods, iPhones, and the all white iMac G4s and iMac G5s to these pastel colored 24" iMacs with a white bezel.  Big difference when the entire computer is white.  The colored iMacs were cute for about a year, then Apple discontinued them.  

Not a fair comparison of the cost of these various iMac models, especially pointing out the $8K price tag of the 27" iMac, when NO ONE buys a 27" iMac with upgraded memory from Apple.  Apple charges $2,600 for 128GB of RAM.  OWC charges $629 for the same 128GB RAM upgrade, and the 27" has user-upgradable memory.  Something all new Macs no longer have, therefore increasing the price of the new models over the Intel models, especially if they do start to offer 32, 64, 128.  

You can already see the writing on the wall.  The 27" iMac replacement will have less memory, less storage, and less ports, and the inability to drive two external displays up to 6K.  You will have dongles hanging off your iMac so you could plug in your existing USB-A devices, such as printers, scanners, etc.  The headphone jack on the side?  The last thing I want is a cord sticking out of the side for my powered speakers with subwoofer, which will always sound better than Apple's internal speakers.  The loss of the SD slot.  I don't want a dongle to plug in an SD card, that I use very often with my DSLR camera.  And still no height adjustment, unless you do the VESA option.  I guess most will have to invest in a Thunderbolt dock to sit on their desk to make up for the lack of ports.

"It shows how good Apple's integrated GPU is against discrete GPUs."  'Good enough' still falls short compared to discrete graphics.  Even the discrete graphics upgrade in the 21.5" model beats the M1, and the upgraded graphics in the 27" smokes the M1.  The M1 graphics are fine in a base model MacBook, but removing the discrete graphics in the 24" model is a loss, especially at what Apple is charging for these new models.

The 27" 10-core iMac smokes the M1.  It even beats the 8-core iMac Pro in most tests.  Did people trip over iMacs and yank them off desks?  Who asked for a magnetic power cord on a desktop Mac???  The maxed out iMac 24" will be $2,599.  Since the M1 is the same for everything, the upgrades will be $900 (same as the mini).  So you will pay $2,599 for an iMac with 16GB RAM, 2TB of storage, and maybe 10Gb Ethernet, if they offer it.  The 10-core iMac is a better deal, and you get more ports.  I remember people complaining about 16GB RAM, and now they think it is awesome???  All you are going to accomplish is excessive read/writes on the SSD when you try and use large files and power-hungry apps.

These iMacs were made with MacBook parts because the world-wide chip shortage is affecting everything.  Apple needed to release something, so they likely just took the MacBook and grafted a 24" display on it.  These iMacs are stop-gap models, just like the Mac mini, MacBook Pro 13" and Air.  Apple, and everyone else, is getting hit hard by the chip shortage.  Maybe they had better plans for the 24" model, but had to scrap them.  It won't be a two-year transition with the chip shortage.  It has been a year since the announcement and all Apple has is the M1 for base model units.  People want more in a desktop, and these iMac 24" models are not it.

hammeroftruth said:

I believe that they will introduce a new line of processors for the desktop line of Macs. Maybe the M in M1 stands for mobile? If so, maybe they come up with a D series for desktops. 

With the chip shortages everywhere, I wouldn’t bet anything will be available until June except for airtags if they release it. 

The M means Mac.  Apple's mobile processor is the A-series.  They should have a more capable desktop variant of the Apple Silicon chip, one that supports more than 16GB RAM, more than 2TB storage, more than two USB ports, and hopefully discrete graphics (discrete graphics cards are still significantly faster than the M1).  The current iMac supports 128GB RAM, 8TB storage, 4 USB/2 USB-C Thunderbolt.  Apple won't downgrade the iMac to the M1 limitations.

melgross said:

What I’ve wanted is for Apple to put the FaceTime sensors and front cameras on a long side. It’s ridiculous that they have it in the portrait position. Who really uses an iPad that way most of the time? This is a horizontal device. FaceTime isn’t as useful because on the side, it doesn’t always work, because you hold it by the sides.

You are completely wrong.  Browsing the web and using 99% of apps are in portrait mode, you can see more of a page in portrait mode.  The only time people use it in Landscape is for video and some games, or for the small percentage of people that bought a keyboard for it instead of a MacBook.  FaceTime with a person is more ideal in portrait mode than landscape mode.

Finally an article that clearly points out the unfortunate limitations of the M1.  Everyone is so blinded in tunnel vision of 3x performance that they are completely missing out on the fact that the M1 is a low-end base model CPU with less features than the models it replaced.  

It was not long ago that all the commenters were complaining of soldered memory, soldered storage, no upgrades, etc.  All Apple has to do is slap an Apple logo on a pig and the fanatics think it is the best thing in the world.  It wasn't long ago that people were complaining about 16GB RAM in the MacBooks and then they cheered when Apple bumped it up to 32GB and 64GB.  Now suddenly they are all happy that the M1 is capped at 16GB?  Suddenly they are excited that integrated graphics in the M1 are faster than the integrated graphics on the intel Macs, but still much slower than discrete graphics?  WTF?  

Could you imagine if Apple introduced an iMac with only 16GB of RAM (instead of 128GB), 2TB of storage (instead of 8TB), two USB-C (instead of 4 USB/2 Thunderbolt), and integrated graphics driving a 27+" 5K display?  It would be a joke!  Or a Mac Pro with those specs?  Suddenly people think a 16GB M1 can do anything?  Not when you throw a huge graphics file at it.  Let's not forget about the excessive read/writes that is occurring in the M1 Macs, wearing out the flash storage prematurely.

Hopefully the next iMacs have specs that meet or exceed the current 2020 models.  There is a big reason why Apple is still selling the Intel models because they have more features than the M1 models.  Notice how fast M1 Macs appeared in the refurb store?  High customer returns triggered that.  Unfortunate that Apple intends to solder everything to the board.  No more replacing bad memory DIMMs or swapping out a bad drive.  Now when that goes bad outside of the warranty, the Mac will end up in the trash because replacing the motherboard is an expensive repair and people will throw it away and buy a new Mac.  I have high hopes for the iMac and MacBook Pro 16", but the M1 was too limiting in features to consider buying.

lkrupp said:

xyzzy-xxx said:

I hope that some of the limits of Apole Silicon will be lifted:

1. no target disk mode

2. more / expandable ram

3. 3rd party graphics hardware 

If you consider those ‘limits’ then just move on. ASi is a new paradigm where those considerations are moot. If that’s what you want just stay with legacy Intel boxes running Windows.

You are dead wrong, as always.  Look at all benchmark results and discrete graphics continues to blow away the M1.  Apple is not going to release an iMac, MacBook Pro 16, or Mac Pro with the inferior integrated graphics, even on the M1.  The 16GB RAM limit of the M1 is embarrassing, and it is a big deal.  Large graphics files would choke on it.  Especially embarrassing when the previous Intel models had more features than the M1 models.  But of course you hate Apple as evidenced in all your comments.