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Apple updates its iMac line

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Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#391
post #379
post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I do understand most of their trade-offs. But these little m2 nvme sticks should be just as easy to expose as ram is. That'd make a huge difference for me. Being locked in to a purchase-time decision doesn't sit well with how quickly SSD capacities and prices evolve.

Yup, I’ve upgraded two Apple laptops already with NVMe adapters and Samsung SSDs.

https://www.amazon.com/Sintech-Adapter-Upgrade-2013-2016-201...

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#393
post #356

@dang typo: This has been up for 5 hours with the title "Apply" instead of "Apple"?

Typing fail—sorry!

The submitted title was "iMac gets a 2x performance boost" but I changed that about 15 minutes before you posted, because we try to avoid press-release language on HN.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#394
post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I did a quick check on Macbook Pros:

* 10.8 (2012) dropped support for original Core 2 Duo (2006) — 6 years

* 10.12 (2016) dropped support for 2009 MacBook Pro — 7 years

* 10.14 (2018) dropped support for 2011 MacBook Pro — 7 years

The releases in between didn't drop support for any (mbp) hardware.

The longest support I found with a spot-check was:

* 10.12 (2016) dropped support for 2007 MacBook Pro — 9 years

Apple tends to release updates for about 3 years for each OS. 10.11 (2015) got its last patch in 2018. 10.12 (2016) got an update in January and is expected to receive updates through September.

I should have looked up desktops, since that's what most of the discussion is in this thread, but I don't have much firsthand experience with them. So assuming you buy the hardware the day its released, you can expect to have the newest software support for 6-9 years and have security updates for 9-12 years.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As times goes on I find Mac loyalists more and more absurd What purposes does your comment serve? It's not that hard to understand that he found the rest of the laptop valuable enough to spend 3.5k on it (despite the keyboard, which isn't that bad anyways). His viewpoint isn't that uncommon either, plenty of businesses buy fully loaded MacBook Pros in bulk because it increases productivity. If you're using the lapt…

The only case I ever saw of a company buying Apple hardware in bulk, the decision had zero to do with specs or productivity, and all to do with wanting to project an image of success.

Yeah, it's a status symbol for consumers and tech companies alike.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#396
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…

For me the incredibly obvious flaws are (a) not having a monitor line anymore despite pushing USB-C stuff, (b) the really awful keyboards on the laptops now, (c) the Touch Bar being completely pointless†, and (d) the price tags on prepackaged spec upgrades being absurd.

† The weirdest part of this is that there's an obvious high-value use case using exactly the same hardware: use that strip as a Dock replacement with app icons, so everyone can reclaim the bottom half-inch of their main screen.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#397

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…

I have the 5k iMac with slow hard drive. I ended up getting a USB3 SSD and booting the system from that drive. Works great. much faster.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#398
If you’re in the market for this model, do yourself a favour and don’t buy the base configuration with the unusably slow 5400 rpm HDD. I bought the previous model with that hard drive and the startup performance is appalling

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I maxed out the CPU and got a lot of RAM, I assumed the drive would have enough cache that I wouldn't notice the spindle aspect.

And now that you see it isn’t the case after that you couldn’t just say “my bad” and spend the < $200 for an SSD drive?

I think the SSD would have been $500 more, which I would have happily paid if I had realized how poorly the fusion drive would perform.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#400

I just wish there was a way to run OSX on a high-performance server, or a cloud virtual machine, for continuous-integration purposes. The iMac Pro doesn't cut it, and is a pain to host anywhere. I'd like to test-build applications for OSX alongside CI builds for Linux and Windows, and there's no sensible, legal, scalable solution for that.

Searching for "macos hosting", here are the first seven links I found:

XCLOUD - macOS Cloud Hosting - https://xcloud.me XCLOUD is an enterprise-class IaaS for macOS. It is perfect for developers and companies that need to run one or hundreds of dedicated macOS VMs in the Cloud. In fact, each XCLOUD instance is a dedicated virtual machine running macOS version of your choice .

MacStadium | Apple Mac Infrastructure & Private Clouds - https://www.macstadium.com MacStadium is the only provider of enterprise-class Apple Mac infrastructure. Whether you need to deploy a private cloud for large-scale CI/CD or just need a single Mac mini to test your iOS app, MacStadium has a solution for all of your Mac development needs.

MacHighway | Mac Web Hosting | Website Builder & VPS Hosting - https://www.machighway.com MacHighway's renewable energy initiative means that not only do we reduce our environmental impact, but you do, too - simply by choosing us as your hosting provider. We purchase enough wind energy credits from Renewable Choice Energy to cover what our servers, network center, and offices use.

macOS Server Hosting - Colocation America - https://www.colocationamerica.com/dedicated-servers/mac-os-x... Colocation America has a dedicated server for all the Mac heads out there that are looking to run the latest Mac Operating System (OS) server hosting with their favorite operating system. Reap the benefits of Apple's latest macOS with its airtight security features and its world renowned user-friendly interface.

CloudXMac - Mac VPS macOS VPS Cloud - https://cloudxmac.com High-quality macOS VPS with incredible support from multiple locations around the world.You can connect to the macOS VPS from any devices to use iMessage, develop iOS and Xcode applications, run any MAC software and more!

HostMyApple: Mac VPS cloud Hosting of macOS - https://www.hostmyapple.com/macvps.html With up to 8GB of RAM and the option to expand storage HostMyApple offers powerful and affordable Mac VPS hosting. With no hardware to purchase, running your own macOS server is an easy choice for anyone looking to host their own website, share files, run mail services or develop iOS applications, all with the power of macOS Mojave.

macOS in the cloud. - Mac mini Hosting & Colocation - https://www.macminivault.com/try/ macOS in the cloud. We specialize in hosting Macs in data centers. Our two data centers (Milwaukee and Phoenix) host thousands of Macs. We have high density cabinets for both the Mac mini and Mac Pro.

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