I could never justify getting an iMac. All the downsides of a laptop & desktop in one; not upgradeable and not portable. Leaves me wondering how many of these Apple actually sell. A Mac Mini with a separate screen feels like it makes far more sense.
My uncle is on his third iMac. He owns them for a decade at a time. When he sends emails, the subject is always "From " because he shared an email account with my aunt years ago and even though he no longer does, he still puts his name in the subject. That's the target buyer.
Very easy. You sell it on eBay and buy a Logitech MX Master.
Does the Logitech MX Master come with a driver that overcomes Apple's "unintentional" hobbling of non-Magic mice?
Apple is not nefariously gimping mice, they just don't see a world where people use non-Apple mice which have a touch surface for smooth scrolling. AFAIK this isn't an issue that can be solved with drivers. Logi's software has a persistent daemon that can convert your scrolling to smooth scrolling, but that requires leaving it open in the background. You can also use one of the dozens of open source apps that do the same thing.
As someone who mucks around with running LLMs and other large models on my computer the 32GB maximum RAM is a show-stopper for me. I'm on a M2 with 64GB at the moment and I'm already regretting not going for 96 or even 128. I want to be able to run a large model AND other apps at the same time.
This is the chief reason I’m closely watching this week’s releases from Apple. I’ll hopefully be switching from UnRAID to a Mac Mini or Mac Studio and a multi-drive enclosure, but the Mac needs to support enough RAM for my various services (Plex and Immich primarily) as well as enough to test some large LLM models as a replacement to constant Claude/OpenAI API utilization.
As someone who mucks around with running LLMs and other large models on my computer the 32GB maximum RAM is a show-stopper for me. I'm on a M2 with 64GB at the moment and I'm already regretting not going for 96 or even 128. I want to be able to run a large model AND other apps at the same time.
It's an iMac, the target market is not running local LLMs or doing machine learning research
I really wish that "elite" LLM folks like yourself or many others in the field would just abandon apple/mac. Yes, they make better laptops from a hardware perspective. No, M series chips are not actually competitive with Nvidia hardware on anything except cheap (and relatively slow) inference of big models. The fact that windows laptops are considered DOA despite the insane amount of inertia behind Nvidia GPUs is jus…
Most of the world is x86/Windows machines, developers included. I would bet that for every MacBook issued there's at least a hundred Precision/Latitude/ThinkPad/Optiplex machines that went into someone's hands. The Apple hard-on is from a specific region and culture where the technical "elites" have made a bajillion dollars working on shitty phone apps and other such light work where it's possible for your trackpad/k…
> It sounds a bit mean-spirited, but I think it's pretty telling that as the gravity of the work increases, you see less and less Apple products being used to do it.
it does sound like envy. I hate macos post 10.8ish myself, but the hardware is pretty solid. my 12 year old Mac book air would be enough for my work although I have to use a windows laptop issued by work. I don't want to dox myself, but I'd say my work is of international interest even though it's quite niche.
No. If you’re that kind of power user, the iMac isn’t for you. Get a Mac mini or studio.
A lot of people in this thread commenting without making an attempt to understand who this is for.
> A lot of people in this thread commenting without making an attempt to understand who this is for.
Why do you seem defensive? I asked a reasonable question of a group of people I thought might have product knowledge I lacked. I am not a Very Pink Apple Product SME, and stated as much in my question.
I own a MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021) Apple M1 Max 64 GB. I'm just adding to this that at the time of purchase, this was Apple's top-of-the-line MacBook Pro model, and it's just not that great, in my opinion. Apple's new hardware pales in comparison to the relative abilities of what features existed on a 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K Display 10 years ago. All of the power of modern computers come primarily from their GPU…
Can you elaborate on this? It’s my understanding that the CPU alone on that machine even blows the iMac Pro out of the water in terms of performance. Can you share where you’re finding inadequate performance? Genuinely curious to know
Unless Op has a very special use case that requires an Nvidia card or something then he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The M2 Max fully specced 14” is insane. Being able to take the laptop anywhere and not need to plug it in and still get all the same power I normally get if it’s plugged in without the worry of the battery dying in 30m is incredible.
As someone who mucks around with running LLMs and other large models on my computer the 32GB maximum RAM is a show-stopper for me. I'm on a M2 with 64GB at the moment and I'm already regretting not going for 96 or even 128. I want to be able to run a large model AND other apps at the same time.
And here I am with 1GB and 512MB as ZRAM on an Atom Netbook. With SBCL.
> The screen is such a major point of failure. The screen of an iMac (at least the 5K 27" one) is the part that still has value, so its annoying when you can't use it on new hardware.
Yes, that is annoying. There’s also such a massive price difference between 4K and 5K monitors. I’ve decided just to accept 4K everywhere because it’s so much cheaper. But I would consider getting a 5K iMac.
I have a MacBook Air on my desk plugged into a Apple 27-inch 5k Studio Display next to my work MacBook Pro plugged into a cheap AOC 27-inch 4k display via HDMI and frankly there's not much difference.
The speakers and mic in the Apple display are nice, but if you're just concerned about the display itself save yourself the bucks and stay with the 4k.
As someone who mucks around with running LLMs and other large models on my computer the 32GB maximum RAM is a show-stopper for me. I'm on a M2 with 64GB at the moment and I'm already regretting not going for 96 or even 128. I want to be able to run a large model AND other apps at the same time.
It sounds like you should buy products in the "pro" line.
I think the OP's point is that Apple is forcing people to pay a lot more for something that doesn't cost Apple that much (extra RAM) and is part of artificial product lines. One could claim the product lines are important for ultimate profitability, but Apple makes so much money it's hardly critical if they wanted to be a truly incredible consumer focused company. Apple has gotten far away from the idea of a home computer someone can hack with, where hacking includes local AI these days. In this period we know more memory is important for many applications of local AI, which they claim is a goal to provide for people, so it's hard not to say Apple's approach is optimized for shareholders, not end users.