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27-inch iMac gets a major update

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Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#91

What on Earth are these bezels in 2020????

What on Earth is everybody's sudden aversion to bezels?

To be fair I'm biased because the shift to bezel-less (on phones) was accompanied by a shift to humongous screens that I can't use. Now I'm stuck with the new iPhone SE as my only viable upgrade.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#92
post #6

I'm sitting here on a 2012 imac with a fusion drive. This drive never seemed to give much performance but it absolutely tanked once it converted to APFS. The computer became unusable to the point that I had to buy an external SSD and use that as my main disk. Now i'm very disappointed that it doesn't support Big Sur despite being only 8 years old. I will wait for the apple silicon because i don't anticipate that inte…

> Now i'm very disappointed that it doesn't support Big Sur despite being only 8 years old.

This can hardly come as a big surprise given that a maximum of 7-8 years of support for latest MacOS has been the norm for pretty much forever.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#93
post #15

It just feels wrong to buy anything new from Apple with "Intel Inside" - when they're clearly going to dump it soon, in favor of ARM (excuse me for not using the cringey term Apple Silicon).

Isn't it way more risky to buy their first gen ARM computer than to buy something that will definitely work reliably (Intel)?

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#94
post #48
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will almost certainly be a low end macbook. In fact, there's a non-pro 'macbook'[0] that already exists which would be perfect, it was discontinued a year ago, but used ultra-low power CPUs. In fact when they were talking about them (prior to release) they thought they would have ARM CPU's back then. They are fanless and have a 5W thermal envelope, which fits in with the current A12X too. The major criticisms of t…

the 12" macbook is my favorite laptop of all time. Mine is the 2016 version and it's starting to feel dated and I'm hoping that they rerelease this on the new silicon first. I'll be smashing the buy button the day it's out.

Mine is a Macbook pro 2012 and it is still phenomenal.

2yrs ago, my screen used to flicker. I contacted everyone and they said 'change motherboard' and Mac support people were like buy a new laptop. so I kept the laptop in cupboard for a few months and I open it to check if it works, had decided to sell it and buy a new one and viola, it was working perfectly fine.

~5yrs with no issues.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#95
post #47

I'm always interested in the differences between Apple's Intel OEM CPUs and the ones Intel lists in their catalog. There is no 10th-gen Core i9 CPU that exactly matches what Apple is selling here. In the iMac Pro they are installing a Xeon-W part that has almost twice as much cache as the standard part (43MB vs 25MB). They're not saying how much cache is in the new 27" iMac.

I'm picturing some binning shenanigans on Intel's part and Apple doing enough benchmarks to pick a minimum amount of cache. Or maybe Intel offered them something with odd specs that they have too many of?

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#96

Solid spec bump. Interesting how much emphasis they put on the camera, speakers, and mic; makes total sense in the age of Zoom. I’d also speculate this means iMac won’t be the first computer getting Apple Silicon. I wonder if it will be the last? What’s the consensus guess now? Perhaps a new MacBook Air with good performance but the real “breakthrough” is > 12 hours battery life?

Interesting how much emphasis they put on the camera, speakers, and mic

People realized how crappy the camera (an well mic) was on Macs compared to other computers now that we are all video conferencing. Its sad that every PC user with a Logitech looked much better.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#97
post #84
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Single USB-C port Are their hubs yet that can turn one USB C port into several? Or do they still only turn one USB C port into several USB A ports? A couple years ago what I read was that the hold up was that this required more complicated chipsets that would not be available for a few months and would be expensive. More recently, I've read that this won't happen until USB4.

Yes, my girlfriend works with a 2 TB port macbook pro and has a dock like this: https://www.webhallen.com/se/product/313438-ALOGIC-USB-C-Doc... She uses it with a USB keyboard/mouse and PS4 controller and an external 1440p screen.. works without issue.

That appears to only have a single C port.

It's a strange thing, you can get these super complicated docking stations with all sorts of different ports, but can't get a 4-port hub that's only usb-c connectors.

At least neither tzs nor I have found such hubs.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#99
I definitely agree with the general consensus here that this is a solid spec bump, and most welcome at that!

And like others, it made me think of their transition to ARM. I know the first ARM Macs this fall will be their lowend MacBook and 13" MBP line, but at WWDC they said the Intel to ARM transition would be complete in under 2 years (like they said with the PPC to Intel transition). And since the PPC to Intel transition only took a little over a year, it could mean that ARM-based iMacs may be here next year to replace the current iMac lineup, and I'm dreadfully curious as to whether they'll be lower performing than this iMac update (which is quite impressive, performance-wise). Or perhaps they'll use multiple ARM CPUs to boost performance. Regardless, every time I see a spec bump now from Apple, I can't help but think of these things.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#100
post #19
post #15

It just feels wrong to buy anything new from Apple with "Intel Inside" - when they're clearly going to dump it soon, in favor of ARM (excuse me for not using the cringey term Apple Silicon).

Why does it matter? There will be a period where the Intel Macs are still supported and probably more stable, and it could be ~2y before your upgrade is available if it's ARM based. If you have a retina macbook pro from 2014~ it definitely makes sense to upgrade to a macbook pro 16" today. The thing will see you through another 5-6y easy.

My fear isn’t around Apple and OS-level support. My fear is around smaller or indie developers who are already being asked to support macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android and now have to support another target. It’s not uncommon to see these devs not supporting Android or Windows because they can’t keep up. So how long before those devs drop support for Intel Macs (or don’t support ARM Macs for several years)?

For most apps it’ll be fine, emulation and cross compiling will be enough. There will be some apps where this isn’t enough though. When the App Store switched to 64-bit, how many apps just disappeared, never to be seen again?

I fully support the transition and I think it’s a logical step for Apple, but it’s going to be one more thing that indie or smaller devs have to worry about. Which means it’s one more thing everyone on this forum has to worry about.

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