Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple updates its iMac line

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 480 posts

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#361

Post by gowld »

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.

> lowest tier Mac is almost always the most popular.

Because 90% don't need computing power; they just browse Facebook and Spotify.

The Fusion Drive is available for $100 more, if you actually need to access local storage.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#362

Post by microtonal »

imdsm wrote: post #311
fiblye wrote: post #13

Bought my iMac 7 years ago with 8GB as the default memory option and a 1TB fusion drive. And here we are, nearly a decade later. Still 8 GB in the newest models. Still 1 TB fusion drives. GPUs haven't even seemed to take a jump over last year's models.

I bought an iMac Pro (base model) last year. I see it as investing up front in an already upgraded machine, that I can now use for the next 10 years.

But Apple does not support macOS for most Macs that long. E.g. last year's Mojave does not support iMacs from before 2012. You may be lucky and they might support the iMac Pro a bit longer, but it is unlikely that you'll get an up-to-date secure OS for ten years.

If they transition to ARM at some point, the lifetimes of Intel Macs may even be shorter.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#363

Post by joncrane »

Kudos wrote: post #145
joncrane wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now you have to carry an external HDD around with you and plug it in every time you want it to boot up?

We're talking about iMacs. In case it's not clear, that's a desktop system not a portable one.

Ah. I got mixed up. Thanks.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#364

Post by snowwrestler »

resters wrote: post #126
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

If it's less than a year old, it's under warranty. Take it in (or send it in) and make Apple look at it. It should not be that slow.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#365

Post by kbutler »

scarface74 wrote: post #220
huffmsa wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem in the 80s was that the margins were both ridiculously high and the Mac’s were slow. When Windows became good enough, no one bought Macs and it almost killed Apple. Apple never claimed any iMac was for Pros except the iMac Pro. You are free to choose any combination of memory, hard drive, processor speed trade offs that meet your budget.

> Apple never claimed any iMac was for Pros except the iMac Pro.

Apple explicitly claims the iMac is for "pros" in the article this page is discussing:

"iMac is ideal for pros"

"iMac is loved by consumers and pros alike."

"the most demanding pro workloads."

"even a pro studio."

and more.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/03/imac-gets-a-2x-perfor...

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#366

Post by IOT_Apprentice »

johnvanommen wrote: post #314
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…

> 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. It feels like these products are just an afterthought for the company.

They are using them as cash cows to just exploit. It is a closed ecosystem, so they can afford to overcharge and under offer.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#367

Post by novok »

js2 wrote: post #307
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'm in your boat. My history with Apple goes back even longer, to the Apple II and Mac SE. I've lost track of how much Apple gear I've purchased in the last three+ decades. The only non-upgradeable part that cheeses me is the storage. And the battery should be user swappable. Aside from reliability issues like the keyboard/display which Apple obviously has to fix, those are the only two parts which I almost always ne…

For me, I think something like an sd express slot and their 1000MB/s performance profile, where cards would be flush with the laptop case, would be a good solution.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#368

Post by jwr »

derefr wrote: post #253
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…

If someone could figure out a legal way to offer recommended-hardware Hackintosh builds as a service†, that'd be pretty ideal for what you're talking about, in the sense of "you could buy one for your mom", and it would "just work" (and hopefully continue to "just work" through updates, if they do it right.) † I guess, if you were to operate a "Hackintosh OEM", you could sell the hardware build itself without actuall…

Having used Hackintosh builds for several years, it's not something I want to do anymore. The whole point of using Mac hardware is to get Mac software along with it and be able to concentrate on actual work instead of endless fiddling with the system to get it to work. The Hackintosh experience is cool, but not for people whose goal is to get work done.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#370

Post by scarface74 »

kbutler wrote: post #365
scarface74 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem in the 80s was that the margins were both ridiculously high and the Mac’s were slow. When Windows became good enough, no one bought Macs and it almost killed Apple. Apple never claimed any iMac was for Pros except the iMac Pro. You are free to choose any combination of memory, hard drive, processor speed trade offs that meet your budget.

> Apple never claimed any iMac was for Pros except the iMac Pro. Apple explicitly claims the iMac is for "pros" in the article this page is discussing: "iMac is ideal for pros" "iMac is loved by consumers and pros alike." "the most demanding pro workloads." "even a pro studio." and more. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/03/imac-gets-a-2x-perfor...

Not the same iMac. If all iMacs should be for consumers and Pros should they also sell them all with the highest performing graphics card and 64GB of RAM?
Post reply on HN