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Apple updates its iMac line

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Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#121

Post by xuki »

bluedino wrote: post #19
BossingAround wrote: post #11

Huh... The title of their press release seems to me somewhat clickbait-y... Why not 'iMac got a hardware refresh; now with 2x performance'? When I read this, I thought, 'oh wow, Apple really outdid itself with their SW optimisations'. Overall, I'm kinda disappointed that the 21' and 27' macs get different CPU gens. Why? Why not just have the latest gen in both of them? Is it price, or is it more about artificial perf…

have you never seen an apple press release? Every product is 2x as fast as the old one, based on a cherry picked benchmark

In this case it's not just marketing speech: the new top end CPU is i9-9900k, it's ALMOST 2x faster than the previous top end CPU (i7-7700k) for multi-core benchmark.

https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/2548

https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/1779

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#122

Post by vbezhenar »

coldtea wrote: post #112
vbezhenar wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With healthy competition product price is reduced almost to component cost. Not the case with Apple, sadly.

There's tons of competition in the PC space. If nobody makes alternative Mac-like machines people want to buy for cheaper (or if Macs are seen as Veblen goods), that's a different matter. But Apple doesn't charge $4000 for a MacBook Pro for lack of competition in the laptop space. "But only Apple makes MBPs" is not an argument. Only Acer makes Acer machines, and only MS makes Surfaces too.

The argument is that only Apple makes computers that run macOS well. If they would allow macOS to run on other computers (legally), they would face real competition.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#123

Post by huffmsa »

dictum wrote: post #117
syn0byte wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, not defending Apple in any way but RPM isn't a very useful metric without other specs on the drive. Battery life and durability are better on 5400 drives. Performance is a tricky one too. Depending on use case, say a PC doing lots of large sequential data (Media)? 10/15k with high IOP and random access times don't actually help much when streaming home movies instead of serving up highly concurrent database reco…

This is Dongle Inc. we're talking about. These days, hard drives should be outside the iMac chassis, and its internal storage should be SSD only. Fusion Drive is a hack.

Fusion with optane would be acceptable. Or even m.2. but not SSD and HDD at the prices they want.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#124

Post by bluedino »

syn0byte wrote: post #104
tambourine_man wrote: post #24

Still selling brand new machines with 5400 rpm HDs. In 2019. It undermines the brand. Any Mac a customer buys should have good enough performance. 5400 spinning disk hasn’t been fast enough for a decade.

Meh, not defending Apple in any way but RPM isn't a very useful metric without other specs on the drive. Battery life and durability are better on 5400 drives. Performance is a tricky one too. Depending on use case, say a PC doing lots of large sequential data (Media)? 10/15k with high IOP and random access times don't actually help much when streaming home movies instead of serving up highly concurrent database reco…

Have you used a MacBook Pro (2012 or older) or iMac with a regular hard drive? You can't even surf the web with them and they take 2 minutes to boot up.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#125

Post by minikites »

aczerepinski wrote: post #105

I really wish I could buy a headless Mac with similar performance (including a real video card) and price. The mini doesn't quite meet my needs and the pro at $3k+ is way too expensive. These specs look good (although I would greatly prefer SSD) but I really don't want an extra monitor on my desk.

The Mac Pro is also unchanged since 2013 (they're selling a six year old computer at full price).

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#126

Post by resters »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #120
tambourine_man wrote: post #24

Still selling brand new machines with 5400 rpm HDs. In 2019. It undermines the brand. Any Mac a customer buys should have good enough performance. 5400 spinning disk hasn’t been fast enough for a decade.

It’s a fusion drive so most “normal people” likely won’t notice unless they have a huge photo library. My guess is they want 1TB so they can upsell you to 3 or 4TB, which would be prohibitively expensive with SSDs right now. Edit: I was wrong, the lowest tier iMacs actually have a 1TB regular drive. That’s crazy considering the lowest tier Mac is almost always the most popular.

I made the mistake of buying an iMac last year with a fusion drive. I assumed that since it was an Apple product it would have relatively good performance. It is unbelievably slow and negates the high performance characteristics of the rest of the system.

I have tremendous buyer's remorse and rarely use the machine. Whenever I do use it, the feeling I get is "how could Apple do this to its brand?". The machine cost over $3K and is slower than a $400 Intel NUC for all practical purposes.

The lack of upgradability adds insult to injury. Apple would be better off putting in solid state storage that is a few generations old, as it would still be orders of magnitude faster than the mechanical drive.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#127

Post by innagadadavida »

_red wrote: post #73
pixl97 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But we cant compromise profits of our high end line"

Sometime around 2013-2014 it began to be visible that Apple stopped trying to make "the best hardware in its class" and migrated to "how does this fit in a marketing matrix". Tim Cook and Steve Balmer have curious parallels. Both genius COO-types that can squeeze enormous profits from their processes, but both strategically undermined their brands severely. I think the board at Apple is going to discover that the cos…

The iMac has other configs and if you are a power user, you can get the specs you want. Maybe Apple does have some customers for the low end config that’s not obvious. Why should your opinions limit their choices?

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#128

Post by tannhaeuser »

zachruss92 wrote: post #66
eckza wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

vim lifer here, I'm dreading the day my 2015 rMBP dies.

Vim user as well. My 2014 rMBP died in 2017 and I've had the 13" MBP w/ touch bar ever since. I'm utterly disappointed with the machine. I don't like anything about the touch bar, it's literally completely useless to me, however, the escape key doesn't drive me insane. I work about half of my day using my laptop keyboard and the other half docked w/ a mechanical keyboard. I've tried mapping esc to the backtick (`) ke…

I considered that a month ago for doing some graphic stuff which doesn't run on Linux (on my XPS 13 main machine). But the Air w/ 16 GB is a bad deal compared to the MB Pro, and the low-end MB Pro (the only one without the freaking Touch Bar) has a worse display and specs than the high-end so I didn't buy anything. I'm wondering why Apple can not just get over the idea of coupling "Pro" machines with the Touch Bar. As a touch typist and vi hard-core user, I'm never going to buy a Touch Bar device, period.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#129

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

bluedino wrote: post #124
syn0byte wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, not defending Apple in any way but RPM isn't a very useful metric without other specs on the drive. Battery life and durability are better on 5400 drives. Performance is a tricky one too. Depending on use case, say a PC doing lots of large sequential data (Media)? 10/15k with high IOP and random access times don't actually help much when streaming home movies instead of serving up highly concurrent database reco…

Have you used a MacBook Pro (2012 or older) or iMac with a regular hard drive? You can't even surf the web with them and they take 2 minutes to boot up.

I'm writing this from a 2010 Mac mini with a regular hard drive. It's fine. Not snappy, but fine.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#130

Post by rudiv »

sudhirj wrote: post #116
systemtest wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did it once and removing the big glass plate assembly with magnets is nerve-wracking.

And no longer possible, think the newer models have fused glass.

Replacement is still possible (I used to work in a shop that did the same) but definitely way out of the reach of users. If I recall correctly, you have to order replacement adhesive from Apple, and when I was working there third-parties hasn't come out with their own replacement adhesive yet (Apple will not sell any sort of parts to users).
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