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27-inch iMac gets a major update

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Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#311

Post by firekvz »

briandear wrote: post #287
damnyou wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only rich schools that buy them, and most places that do would be better off without them.

Until you have to manage a lab full of Windows, then MAC becomes a much better value. With a Mac you don’t have to buy MS office, you get iWork. You also get iMovie, GarageBand and other Apple software that covers almost everything a typical school would need. And you never have to buy updates for either the OS or the other Apple software. You also have less malware to deal with. Having worked at a school with labs f…

Whole MS 365 suite is free for schools, even the windows licenses are free, so... What are you talking about?

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#312

Post by baddox »

enterprise1 wrote: post #272
osrec wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do their customers tolerate this?! I know some people love Apple (their hardware does look great), but this is extremely annoying.

Because not everyone can be a computer nerd. Apple has put a huge amount of real effort into direct outreach and support of their customers, really. Microsoft chased business. Apple chased people. Google is chasing its own tail. For the markup over the retail price of the SSD, someone else does the installation, validation, built dumb stupid restore and backup services to boot. Dell? Lenovo? Microsoft? Still ramming…

I agree with your overall idea, but not your sentiment. I think that plenty of computer nerds use Macs. It's still a popular platform for software developers and computer enthusiasts. There's no need for gatekeeping between "normies" and "computer nerds."

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#313

Post by rbanffy »

freehunter wrote: post #186
rbanffy wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's trivially easy to build software for both ISAs from within Xcode, unless, of course, you are playing with Intel or ARM intrinsics or other pathologically non-portable thing, in which case it's anything but trivial. It's not much harder than supporting Linux on x86 and ARM.

And yet with the Raspberry Pi being so popular and being on the market for so long, there are still a lot of packages that don’t support ARM. It’s trivially easy to compile your iOS app for 64-bit as well, but like I mentioned... that transition left a lot of dead apps in its wake.

Some packages don't support ARM because there is little demand for that. People won't use RPis for heavy number crunching or any demanding application. Until recently, you could barely go beyond 2 GB of RAM on any ARM platform and still very few ARM boards will support more RAM than that. Another issue is that most ARM hardware is underpowered and it takes a long time to build and test software on it. Not everyone is willing to do that.

Apple is going to change the landscape with a mainstream ARM platform that can compete in specs with Intel desktops and laptops. Let's see what happens then.

The dynamics of proprietary software are somewhat different from open source - unless you make a steady revenue from an app you launched some time ago, there is little incentive to dedicate resources to port it to a new platform (even if it's from 32 to 64 bits) unless you expect it to drive new sales. There is no penalty apart from lost potential revenue and a huge incentive to focus on the next product.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#314

Post by byset »

avianlyric wrote: post #184
n3k5 wrote: post #134

“SSDs across the line with quadruple the storage” 1/4 TB of storage in the $1800 model, 1/2 TB in the $2300 one. Ugh. (So before the lower-end one had 64GB? [Edit: Nope, 1 TB Fusion Drive, thanks smnrchrds!] That would be FULL just from installing the one game the press release mentions.) What kind of magic fairy dust SSDs are they using that you can't have a sensible amount of storage space at those prices? Looking…

> What kind of magic fairy dust SSDs are they using that you can't have a sensible amount of storage space at those prices? The kind where Apple can make a 300% or more margin, knowing that people will still pay. Don't think Apple have ever sold SSD upgrades at anything remotely resembling competitive $/TB prices. Clearly they don't need too because people still buy their machines.

As I see it it's basically price discrimination.

Apple wants a certain profit margin for the model as a whole. Yet for customers who will never pay prices that will give Apple that full margin, they offer a model at a low price point with a compressed margin, but with a painful aspect that will encourage customers who can pay to go with a higher priced unit — here, the painful thing is the small SSD size.

So the idea that the minimal-SSD model is somehow the "real" price and Apple is selling SSD space at an exorbitant markup, isn't quite right.

You could almost think of it as Apple offering a discount if you'll go with the smallest SSD, so they can capture more of the market while still keeping their average profit margins high.

If Apple charged "competitive $/TB prices", the small-SSD option would likely be more expensive, rather than the larger-SSD options being cheaper.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#315

Post by vondur »

snapetom wrote: post #260
smnrchrds wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They learned their lesson and made storage, RAM, etc. non-user replaceable in newer versions. You used to be able to buy a Mac from Apple and upgrade its RAM at a reasonable price on your own. Not anymore.

The iMac and Mac Pro has user upgradeable RAM. https://www.apple.com/imac/specs/

On the 27" iMac, the memory upgrades are able to be done easily by the user. The 21" Models require taking it to an Apple Store to do so. I believe the iMac Pro also needs to be taken apart in order to upgrade the RAM.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#316

Post by rsynnott »

obmelvin wrote: post #140
oneplane wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of Mac users with a logitech as well ;-) works just fine.

It may work fine, but its slightly absurd to need a better webcam for a recently made 2k USD laptop

Few if any laptops have decent cameras. This is partially because until recently most users didn't actually care that much, but also for practical reasons; modern laptops have very slim lids, so you can't really fit decent optics (a phone is a good bit deeper).

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#317

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

skohan wrote: post #204
rimjongun wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? My $3k Dell, and $3k Lenovo have horrible cameras.

It seems like you own a lot of expensive laptops.

Work in IT long enough and it's not hard to use a lot of hardware:)

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#319

Post by rsynnott »

mamon wrote: post #217
onepointsixC wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but having an integrated camera that is absolutely awful completely defeats the point of having that there in the first place. It really noticeable when you Facetime with someone on an iPhone and you compare the video quality of the two.

Which is riddiculous, because if they can fit good front camera in iPhone they should be able to do that in the much bigger device, like laptop, right?

Probably not, at least for the laptops. The phone is a lot thicker than a laptop lid.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#320

Post by rbanffy »

graeme wrote: post #299
rbanffy wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but my Macbook enters "hairdryer mode" every time I push it a little (which is often). I'd like a quieter device without the constant fan noise.

Yup. That was the issue. I tried a MacBook pro with an external before my imac pro. It did not like it. I also do audio/video recording, and driving that + my external display really made the fans spin.

When the apocalypse started my daughter got my "burnerbook", a Fedora-based cheap low-end x86 laptop without a fan or hard disk.

I miss the absolutely silent (albeit slow) computing it afforded me.

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