Apple updates its iMac line • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#461

Post by reanimated » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 8:54 AM UTC

PascLeRasc wrote: post #433

8draco8 wrote: post #409

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…

I would question the competency of the IT person, who had never heard about the SSDs

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#462

Post by thirdsun » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 9:07 AM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #293

turtlebits wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you're using a desktop, what's wrong with the 2018 Mac Mini? Upgradable RAM, storage and GPU can be added externally. Dual 4k support out of the box or a single 5k should be enough for your single monitor?

I wonder if there's a product or market for those who want a Mini core but don't want the dongles visible (ie, make a breathable ITX/DTX box but you put the Mac Mini, dongles and peripherals inside). This would be my choice over a hackintosh for parents or other family. Sounds like something that could be 3D printed or

Interesting idea. There are countless companies manufacturing quite beautiful accessoires for Apple hardware. I'm sure soemone like Grovemade [1] could design a premium looking wooden enclosure for a Mac Mini with cable management as well as ample room and several compartments for external hardware.

[1] https://grovemade.com/monitor-laptop-collection/

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#463

Post by thirdsun » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 9:13 AM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #419

Crontab wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Apple's current lineup but I do think they have lost a certain segment of users: people who don't care about appearance or thinness and just want a modestly priced, upgradeable box.

"people who don't care about appearance or thinness and just want a modestly priced, upgradeable box." Not sure those people were ever Apple customers.

That's an overgeneralization. With Apple's move from a niche to a more mainstream platform in recent decades of course their customers choose Apple for all kinds of and increasingly varying reasons.

Personally, I use Apple for their software. Having that software in an affordable, customizable, upgradable package would be very welcome. I can get beautiful hardware from most manufacturersand brands these days, so that isn't a unique selling point any longer.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#464

Post by noir_lord » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 9:23 AM UTC

thirdsun wrote: post #459

noir_lord wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why you need 5K@27 for 3 columns. I have 2x27" 4K LG's and they comfortably fit. The effective DPI may be higher on 5K at 27" than 4K at 27" but at a reasonable distance I fail to see any difference (approx 220ppi vs 170ppi at 3 feet).

5K at 27" enables you to use 2x scaling which is much lighter on your hardware. Scaling 4K at 2x leads to a sizing which looks like 1080p (just much sharper), which may be too large depending on your distance from the screen. Using anything but 2x scaling will tax your hardware, slow down the computer and blur the image. Read more about it here: https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/

Ah Mac.

I'm on Linux and I just use fractional font scaling (1.5 usually) and everything works fine and it has no performance impact I can discern across AMD RX at work, intel hd or rtx2080.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#465

Post by noir_lord » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 9:26 AM UTC

jwr wrote: post #436

noir_lord wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why you need 5K@27 for 3 columns. I have 2x27" 4K LG's and they comfortably fit. The effective DPI may be higher on 5K at 27" than 4K at 27" but at a reasonable distance I fail to see any difference (approx 220ppi vs 170ppi at 3 feet).

I currently use a 24" at 4K and to fit 3 columns I need to use a smaller font size, which makes the code hard to read. I used to have a 27" at 4K, and indeed you can fit 3 columns then, but the blurry/jagged fonts annoyed me. 4K really isn't enough for 27". My conclusion was that I need exactly 5K at 27" (and not larger, because then you have to turn your head to see everything) for coding.

Interesting, you must have excellent eyesight 170ppi at arm's length and I can see a pixel or any jaggedness.

I agree with you about size though running two 27" (on VESA mount arms) is the max I'd want for comfort as it was I had to get a 80cm deep desk to sit slight further back.

https://i.redd.it/tctxa7hs16l21.png

That desk is 120x80 and the monitors still over shadow it.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#466

Post by thirdsun » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 9:43 AM UTC

davnicwil wrote: post #118

_red wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Hasn't Apple always been more of a 'pretty good hardware, nicely integrated and packaged, for a premium price' proposition? I personally can't remember a time when this wasn't so. Not sure outside their exhibition pieces which nobody really buys (10k fully specced mac pros etc) they've ever been going to market with a 'best hardware in class' story, have they?

It depends. Their SSDs are state of the art and among the fastest you can get. Their 5K display still hasn't any serious alternatives. Their own mobile (for now) CPUs are pretty much unmatched.

Most other desktop components can obviously be found in various PCs as well.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#467

Post by resters » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 11:33 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #430

resters wrote: post #399

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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.

So you would have been willing to spend $500 morethen but not spend much less and buy an external drive now?

I’m not unwilling to buy an external drive, but I’d rather have a better internal drive.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#468

Post by thirdsun » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 1:23 PM UTC

noir_lord wrote: post #464

thirdsun wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5K at 27" enables you to use 2x scaling which is much lighter on your hardware. Scaling 4K at 2x leads to a sizing which looks like 1080p (just much sharper), which may be too large depending on your distance from the screen. Using anything but 2x scaling will tax your hardware, slow down the computer and blur the image. Read more about it here: https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/

Ah Mac. I'm on Linux and I just use fractional font scaling (1.5 usually) and everything works fine and it has no performance impact I can discern across AMD RX at work, intel hd or rtx2080.

While it's true that fractional scaling works differently on Linux and Windows, it's my understanding that many apps don't handle scaling well, or at all, over there.

Meanwhile on macOS basically any app scales properly - I think I have never seen one that doesn't. You can use fractional scaling on a mac, but in that case your whole output will be rendered in 5K and scaled down to the target resolution, which is of course an intensive task - I wouldn't recommend it and instead always use true 2x scaling.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#469

Post by Fnoord » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 2:58 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #65

drewg123 wrote: post #53

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…

That's just a weird decision on Apple's part - don't they want the best perceived performance? I mean they could just put some soldered storage in there for the OS at the very least.

It's a marketing decision. They don't want you to buy the cheapest model. They want to drive people towards the middle model by making the cheap model look less attractive.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#470

Post by mixmastamyk » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

NicoJuicy wrote: post #431

mixmastamyk wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. However we forget that 8GB was an ungodly amount of memory in the late 90's; it required industrial gear like an SGI Origin to get that much. That a browser would fill it is another abomination.

Late 90's is almost 20 years ago. OP mentions 10 years ago

Yes, and browsers worked fine back then. Their improvement has been quite inefficient memory-wise compared to native apps.