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Apple updates its iMac line

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Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#201

Post by todd8 »

It's just frustrating, I switched the household over to Apple devices when OSX came out, and now there really aren't any systems from Apple that look interesting to me.

I've been programming since before the (Unix) dawn of time, and Apple devices have been good development machines for me since OSX was released 18 years ago. I'm comfortable on Linux, but the Apple iOS devices and computers are all over my home and integrate well with my development machines. Furthermore, the family does well with MacOS, and they don't need IT help with their email, iPhone, music, homework, printing, etc. like they used to under Windows.

I'd love to see Apple make a system that supported upgradeable memory, SSDs, High capacity hard drives, graphics, and separate larger monitors, but that doesn't look like that will ever happen. By locking down the hardware to just certain configurations, the very successful stores can handle problems (hardware, software, and user related) at locations all over the world.

Even if Apple can't make the machines more upgradeable because of customer support issues, the new machines don't seem to be well designed for me. They have become too thin and too sleek and overpriced because of features I don't want (over sharp display, touchbar) and issues caused by the pursuit of sleekness and style (crap keyboards, thermal limits).

Lenovo (Thinkpads) offers thin, light, somewhat upgradeable, good looking laptops that are light to carry and easier to grip with great keyboards. I wish Apple could start with something like one of those and equip it with an Apple touchpad and MacOS.

I've been waiting and waiting for Apple to improve its line up (I'm writing this on a Mac Pro from 2013 with a nice 34 inch ultra-wide monitor). It looks like I'll never replace it. I know there are alternatives, my home/office are littered with computers, Thinkpads running Linux, Microsoft laptops, Dell Servers running FreeBSD, and homemade PCs running Windows (for gaming); but I'm going to miss using MacOS as my daily-driver.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#202

Post by SkyPuncher »

xutopia wrote: post #161
narimiran wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you tried remapping esc to capslock? (Or ctrl to capslock and esc to ctrl) ¿Why not both? I have (on Linux, not on Mac, but it shouldn't matter): * "caps lock" + key = Ctrl+key * "caps lock" (release) = Esc It works like charm and I can definitely recommend it.

How do you map it to do that?

Karabiner - https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/

I have mine mapped to:

* caps (no other key) => esc * caps + home row => corresponding symbol key

Extremely nice for programming when '(' and ')' are on 'L' and ';' keys - directly under my fingers.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#203

Post by pier25 »

o10449366 wrote: post #108
ceejayoz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of folks use an iMac as the primary family machine - email, homework, some Netflix, kids' basic games. 8 GB is entirely sufficient for that. Hell, four probably is. If you're doing Photoshop plus a half dozen VMs, you buy it with more RAM.

Chrome + Slack alone took up ~3 GB of RAM on my 4 GB machine and forced me to upgrade.

I use Slack in the browser instead. No more Electron crap.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#204

Post by _fzslm »

todd8 wrote: post #201

It's just frustrating, I switched the household over to Apple devices when OSX came out, and now there really aren't any systems from Apple that look interesting to me. I've been programming since before the (Unix) dawn of time, and Apple devices have been good development machines for me since OSX was released 18 years ago. I'm comfortable on Linux, but the Apple iOS devices and computers are all over my home and in…

> I'd love to see Apple make a system that supported upgradeable memory, SSDs, High capacity hard drives, graphics, and separate larger monitors, but that doesn't look like that will ever happen.

You may want to keep your eyes out for the new Mac Pro that's meant to release this year.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#205

Post by protomyth »

scarface74 wrote: post #133
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.

Apple usually reduces the price even further for educational sales. It has to be cheap when you are selling them for a lab setting. It’s good enough for those settings.

The only time we use it for labs is running Adobe stuff, and given what students want to learn, you do need decent performing machines and something with a 5400 rpm drive is not it.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#206

Post by S_A_P »

subpixel wrote: post #68

re: RAM, I bought a 2015 iMac with a 1TB drive on Craiglist last month, thinking it might be the perfect machine to edit and store/serve family photos (mac --> Google Photos and mac --> BackBlaze). It never in a million years would have occurred to me that 1) 8GB on a 2015 machine would be utterly, pathetically underpowered for even browsing the web, or 2) that an iMac would be sold in 2015 that would not let you upg…

I bought one of those from best buy and quickly hit the wall with the 5400 rpm drive. I bought the iMac repair kit from ifixit and put a 1tb ssd in its place. It screams now. I have literally never had a drive swap make such a HUGE performance improvement.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#207

Post by naravara »

_fzslm wrote: post #204
todd8 wrote: post #201

It's just frustrating, I switched the household over to Apple devices when OSX came out, and now there really aren't any systems from Apple that look interesting to me. I've been programming since before the (Unix) dawn of time, and Apple devices have been good development machines for me since OSX was released 18 years ago. I'm comfortable on Linux, but the Apple iOS devices and computers are all over my home and in…

> I'd love to see Apple make a system that supported upgradeable memory, SSDs, High capacity hard drives, graphics, and separate larger monitors, but that doesn't look like that will ever happen. You may want to keep your eyes out for the new Mac Pro that's meant to release this year.

Even if the Mac Pro is the computer of all our dreams, I doubt it will meet the poster’s needs. Seems like they want a fairly bare-bones, minimalist and simple computer. I doubt a Mac Pro is going to come in at under $3.5k at the entry level.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#208

Post by huffmsa »

scarface74 wrote: post #137
huffmsa wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cook is doing exactly what he's best at, which is what you said. Optimizing every last cent out of a process. Great for the bottom line, but unlike in a supply chain, your cash source (customers) will eventually want something different.

So you don’t remember back in the first Apple heyday of the 80s when Jean-Louis Gassée was leading the charge (no he wasn’t the CEO) to sell overpriced Macs with 40% profit margins?

There's nothing wrong with a high profit margin. I'm all for it.

I'd gladly overpay for Apple products if they were bleeding edge tech because I love the touchpad. Give me optane + m.2 + SSD, huge RAM, lots of ports, etc.

But you cannot claim you're "for the pros" and offer a spinning disk as base storage. Archival? Sure.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#209

Post by tillinghast »

resters wrote: post #194
jsymolon wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pulled the screen off and installed an SSD. Easy to do

Any links to a tutorial on how to do this? I'd love to do that but also don't want to crack the screen in the process.

ifixit.com has _extremely_ well done step-by-step upgrade guides: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iMac_Intel

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#210

Post by acdha »

resters wrote: post #193
acdha wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite the opposite of my experience where only very cold data is not SSD-level performance. Do you have anything like anti-virus software which might be interfering with the HSM mechanism?

In my experience most of what I end up needing ends up cold. Even XCode builds take forever on it due to the slow storage.

Now I’m wondering how to get visibility into it. I work with a ton of repos and never see this - it’s usually just things like old VMs.
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