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Apple updates its iMac line

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Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#441
post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your budget is $1.5k+ you could put an external GPU on a Mac Mini and call it a day.

That would suck because you're paying the consequences (money and thermal) of that mac form factor but you're still gonna have a big ugly mess on your desk.

That's my concern too. I'm surprised Apple hasn't made hard drives and/or eGPU enclosures that are meant to stack with the mini.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#442

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 & P…

I'm aware of such services; however, I said "high-performance server". Where do I get a 72-thread server I can build OSX software on? Nowhere.

More importantly, who has a scalable cloud where I can spin up as many such servers of varying sizes as I need?

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#443

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.

This can't be good for Apple's reputation amongst kids in school though! Apple is basically pulling what Chrysler and GM used to do with rental cars where they sold an even cheaper version for rental use. It gives a terrible first impression of your product.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#444
post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. To some, the point of using a Mac is to be able to develop and test software for Mac hardware using Apple's frameworks, and having to spend 3x the price tag just to get the hardware is something that makes little to no sense. I mean, wher…

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Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#445
post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is $11/GB a high DRAM price? That's the cost of a standalone stick. Apple DRAM costs 2x, and any other PC vendor's DRAM costs 1.5x-2x but that's vendor lock-in, not collusion.

I used to get more life out of my MBP by spending about $400 on max memory and a faster hard drive. Even with inflation $350 for memory seems a bit high (assuming there comes a day when you can put 32G in one of these things :/ )

> assuming there comes a day when you can put 32G in one of these things

That day came last October, assuming you are ok with a 15” MBP (not available for 13”) and slightly less battery life.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#447
post #242
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 curious why you think that. I mostly write code for a living and apart from the notebook line catastrophe (I'm stuck on a 2014 model of a MacBook Pro and waiting for something to come out with a reasonable keyboard and perhaps more than one port that I can use), the desktop line is improving quickly. I've been really tempted by the Mac Mini, I would buy the iMac Pro if I could afford it, and now I intend to get t…

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Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What seems worse to me is that the default drive for the 21.5" is a 1TB 5400 spinning rust drive, not even a fusion drive. This is just shameful. People who don't know any better will get the cheapest drive, and have horrible performance. This is exactly what happened to an older friend of my wife. And since it is an iMac, it is next to impossible to replace the drive later (on some models, you need to unseal the LCD…

I've felt this pain too. 2 years ago I bought a Mac mini (2014 model) off eBay for $340 mainly as a build machine for iOS binaries. It was the lowest end model which had a 5400rpm HDD in it and 4GB of RAM. It took ~3 minutes to get to a usable desktop. Opening XCode took long enough for me to go grab a coffee or scroll through Facebook. It was swapping like crazy. I honestly couldn't believe they were selling this co…

I've recycled a 2011 mac book pro with snow leopard, put in a SSD instead of the dead spinning disc and WOW it was flying!

I/O is definitely the biggest pain point.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#449
post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why you think that. I mostly write code for a living and apart from the notebook line catastrophe (I'm stuck on a 2014 model of a MacBook Pro and waiting for something to come out with a reasonable keyboard and perhaps more than one port that I can use), the desktop line is improving quickly. I've been really tempted by the Mac Mini, I would buy the iMac Pro if I could afford it, and now I intend to get t…

To the parent's point... I'd recommend a hackintosh Intel NUC. I got blisters stuffing RAM SIMMs into daughter cards. I've agonized over IRQ choices for peripherals. I'm so over fiddling with my daily driver. I've got Audrinos and RPi projects for scratching that itch. Uncertainty over the keyboards is precisely why I postponed replacing my laptop. I'd probably use my iMac more if I could find a keyboard & trackpad c…

Have you seen https://bullettrain.com/products/express-keyboard-platform? I have an older version of this and I love it.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even soldered, they could came up with some fancy marketing name for slowest SSD drive in their line up (lets call it eSSD) and just drop-in 2.5" SATA SSD for $20 (retail cost of 120GB SSD on Amazon) instead of spinning rust. No need of redesigning chassis, no need of changing any factory procedures, machines, robots etc. Just give a box of SSDs instead of HDDs to the person that is responsible for putting them i…

The comment below you is dead and downvoted to hell, but it's correct even though I agree with you. I can't convince the IT person at my job that SSDs are faster than HDDs. He had never heard of them until we were looking at new PCs and he refused to approve any orders with SSDs since he thinks they're a scam. I even brought in my laptop with a PCIe SSD and he said he didn't notice a difference in boot time, and if t…

To me as a tech person, this would feel as talking to a flat-earther. I switched to SSDs in all my machines literally a decade ago and never looked back, the performance was just that much better. Early models for sure had reliability issues but if an IT professional would claim today that SSDs are scams, he'd lose all my respect in a second.
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