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New iMac with M4

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Re: New iMac with M4

#281

Post by Wytwwww »

samatman wrote: post #253
Wytwwww wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how can we tell. The Mac revenue has peaked back in 2022 and has been declining since. But assure, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people use their Macs as they would an iPad (i.e. at most a single app and/or browser and 8GB might be enough for that).

How we can tell what? That they sell a lot of stock MacBook Airs? They do. I don't find the topic interesting enough to find a link, but I'm pretty confident on this one. > a lot of people use their Macs as they would an iPad A lot of people have pretty undemanding requirements in a laptop, yes. 8GiB is more than enough for some web browsing and light document editing, a bit of photo retouching, that kind of thing. T…

> but I'm pretty confident on this one.

I just doubt there is actual meaningful data available (at least that's publicly accessible). We'd need to measure the proportion of base config MBA users who regularly get OOM warnings?

> many Chromebooks

Yes. People just have different use cases. I mean almost nobody who does anything that might require > 16-32 GB of memory would likely buy this iMac (even if Apple sold such configs).

It's an entirely different product than the 27 inch "Pro" iMacs with Xeons from back in the day.

Hardly anybody "needs" a desktop PC these days (outside of gaming and some niche applications). So this is just basically a generic office / front desk PC for people who don't need laptops.

Re: New iMac with M4

#282

Post by saylisteins »

notatoad wrote: post #230
aphantastic wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents have had an iMac in their living room sitting quietly doing stuff (web apps, mainly) for 9 years now. Still works fine for all their use cases and the 5k screen remains a delight to behold.

i know a few people who have an iMac in their living room like that, with the same logic as the people who still have landlines - the laptops and cell phones get put away when you get home (or stay in the home office), so you can be present with your family. but sometimes you still need a computer for stuff , like controlling the music or quickly looking something up on google. but if it's not your computer, and it's…

It's surreal for me how something so expensive can be thought as "perfect" for this usecase. I'd say in cases like this having a cheap laptop or even a cheap all in one desktop computer is good enough. Why spend $2000 to browse the internet?

Re: New iMac with M4

#283

Post by internetter »

foldr wrote: post #185
Wytwwww wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days 8 GB is absurdly low for a ~$1300 PC. Hopefully they might have finally realized that selling crippled products (just to force its users to pay the predatory price for memory upgrades) is hurting UX and their reputation. I mean they claim: > Compared to the most popular 24-inch all-in-one PC with the latest Intel Core 7 processor, the new iMac is up to 4.5x faster.1 But is that really true if your "ultrafa…

> your "ultrafast" Mac grinds to a halt when you have a couple of Electron apps and a browser open at the same time? The 8GB models could easily handle this kind of load.

can confirm

Re: New iMac with M4

#284

Post by madeofpalk »

aqfamnzc wrote: post #252
baron816 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now if only they could figure out how to allow charging the Magic Mouse while it’s being used. I guess that technology is still years away.

Putting the plug on the bottom is an intentional choice by Apple. It's because they don't want you to plug it in to charge, then never remember to unplug it. Mandatory wirelessness.

I don't believe this.

I believe (unfounded) originally it was made for asthetic reasons, as to not interrupt the sushi shape, and that not being able to use it while charging was not considered to be that much of a downside. And then since then Apple just hasn't bothered spending engineering effort on 'fixing' that design decision ever since.

Re: New iMac with M4

#285

Post by thecopy »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #238
bsimpson wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Studio Display is priced as if it's an iMac. It's insane that we've had retina displays for over a decade, and Apple still seems to be more-or-less the only game in town for a 5k 27" display.

I will never purchase the Studio Display on principle. It's an idiot product.

For what its worth, I am extremely satisfied with my Studio Display. The 5K resolution makes 2x pixel perfect scaling look great, built in webcam which fantatic for meetings, good speakers, and charges the MacBook Pro with the same cable, and acts as an USB-C hub.

Re: New iMac with M4

#286

Post by falcor84 »

cududa wrote: post #239
klodolph wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but to be honest, I don’t think you should be shipping a high-spec computer with a built-in screen. Anything high-spec should be broken into at least a separate screen and computer. The screen is such a major point of failure. I’ve seen so many iMacs and MacBooks with broken screens where the end solution is to replace the entire device, which is a waste. It’s that much more of a waste if you are getting a high…

Great. But plenty of consumers disagree with you, which is why this product exists. Not everything you see is designed to be useful for you specifically

> plenty of consumers disagree with you

What do you mean? This was just announced, no? Are there any sales/pre-order figures already?

Also, how would you even go about analyzing the counterfactual of whether the number of people who would buy this spec are "plenty" compared to the number who would have bought a spec with more RAM had it been available?

Re: New iMac with M4

#287

Post by hoistbypetard »

emadabdulrahim wrote: post #62

Curious who uses iMac over a MBP with an external monitor? Is it mainly for front desk, businesses, and perhaps people with large homes and need stationary mac?

It might also be a good choice for those who always work at one desk, have established a work/life balance such that they don't need a portable computer, and would prefer not to pay extra to have portability that they just don't require.

An M4 iMac with 10 CPU cores, 10 GPU cores, 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD costs $1700.

A 14" MBP with 8 CPU cores, 10 GPU cores, 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD costs $2000. Before you add a 27" monitor and desktop keyboard/pointing device.

Why pay that premium if you don't actually need to carry your desktop PC around?

Re: New iMac with M4

#288

Post by fwip »

lisper wrote: post #223
simonw wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's my biggest complaint with iMacs: I want to be 100% certain I can repurpose them as monitors later in their lives. I have a ten year old iMac at the moment that would make an amazing second monitor... but it doesn't quite have the features I need to use it like that. An HDMI input would be great.

> An HDMI input would be great. There is a reason that is difficult to do: the licensing terms for HDMI require manufacturers to put DRM in place to make it impossible (or at least not straightforward) to record from an HDMI source. It's nearly impossible to meet that requirement on a computer.

Couldn't you "just" wire the HDMI port to the panel control logic? That is, the HDMI-in doesn't connect to the computer part of the iMac, just to the display circuitry.

Edit: nevermind, I see you addressed this in another comment.

Re: New iMac with M4

#289

Post by bhouston »

madeofpalk wrote: post #270
bhouston wrote: post #261

I guess it is just me, but I cannot stand working on small screens on the desktop. I will accept a small screen on a laptop because it is inconvenient carrying around something larger, but on a desktop, there is no reason to compromise. I use a 48" OLED with my MacBook Air M3 and for me that is a near ultimate web development experience both on desktop and when travelling: https://bsky.app/profile/benhouston3d.bsky.s…

What's the actual resolution of this? The idea of using something with such low pixel density seems really painful to me.

It is 4K. I wish it was higher. But practically, I cannot find an affordable 6K OLED monitor. And 8K is both unaffordable as well as not supported by my MacBook Air:

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/macbook-air/apd8cdd74f....

I do set my MacBook resolution to maximum and it works well.

Re: New iMac with M4

#290

Post by geodel »

skeaker wrote: post #236
015a wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should do a "Most HackerNews HackerNews Comment Of The Year" award each year; in homage to the O.G. [1]. I'd like to nominate this comment. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

I agree with the premise but this isn't a great nomination, I think saying "this device won't appeal to the niche LLM gadgetry crowd" is valid in this case since yeah, it won't.

Agree. LLMs are really next generation requirements. Previously people would run a dozen docker containers in Kubernetes cluster on Mac or further before a dozen linux VMs etc and predictably but sadly macs never worked well for these requirements.
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