doggone

It's the 16" MBP that I'm waiting for.  Actually I will be buying 2.  Can't wait to get my hands on those.  

It's funny that the Apple devices that can play lossless are the ones people never use to listen to music. Certainly not the iPhone with its small speakers, generally not an MacBook Pro.  Maybe an iMac but even that is a stretch.
Not coming up with a cable that can connect an iPhone to a IPM to play lossless is amazing

What if Apple were to provide the capability to transmit to a headset via wifi?  Better bandwidth compared to BT.  Sure you would lose battery life but it would be worth it.  

It would cost a lot of money but if it wanted to secure chip production in the near and mid term, Apple could buy TMSC. That chip manufacturer has proven themselves to be a good partner and has the skill set to implement Apple’s designs.  It would allow Apple to control a critical part of its products and restrict the competition from gaining insight of their technical advantage. 

Both iMac and Mac mini solutions are pretty cheap.  I have never gone for an iMac simply because I like the idea of having flexibility with my home office setup.  A Mac mini was a good option back in 2009 and I was able to keep it going for ~7 years with ram and SSD upgrades.  The mini now seems less attractive because of the lack of upgrades but, say that, the new M1 model will have years of headroom based on its superior processor. 
If connectivity is your main concern, being limited to 2 screens with either an iMac or mini, should not be an issue for most people.  A dongle can provide extendibility for most needs and USB-C hubs are cheap nowadays with plenty of options. 
My main concern for entry level Macs is the SSD drive size.  512 GB is really the minimum given that OS and applications can take a good chunk of a 256 GB drive.  I've run into space issues with the smaller drive especially if you have legacy data that you do not want to trust to a backup.  RAM for me is not as much of an issue but 16 GB would be preferable.  
In a way, if you want better aesthetics in a 2 monitor setup then the mini is the better option.  You can then have 2 identical monitors and hide the mini.  I like the option of being able to mount it to the back of a monitor.
For a single monitor setup the iMac makes more sense if you can afford it.  Still for me it would cost 1699 for a 512 GB SSD model with 16GB RAM.  However you could upgrade the base model with 512 GB SSD for a total of 1499.

oberpongo said:

I always wondered why they did not put the „Mac“ inside the base of an iMac stand in form of a Mac mini and simply produce the 24 inch screen only. 

A VESA mount solution wouldn't be available in that case.  The lightstand iMac used that approach.  The base was round and Pixar used that image for their animated mascot.