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New iMac with M4

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Re: New iMac with M4

#611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple is only "green" in their presentations - in reality they care more about inifite sales only. needs citation. I say this as someone who worked several years in engineering at Apple, and they were extremely environmentally conscientious years before it was a thing.

It's not that they actively do bad things, it's that they only dedicate real resources in the direction of self-interest. Tim Cook likes to point to their solar investments and accessibility as examples of "doing good" when in reality the former is a good long term financial bet and the latter is generally under-resourced (or "cheap" to them). They'd use M.2 SSDs in their Macs instead of soldering flash chips to the…

> (maybe) take more time to engineer

Apple, the richest company in the world, who spends millions in money and engineering hours on stuff like making sure the packaging having the right neutral smell, and the box sliding out with the right amount of friction when you open it, and on security teams/mercenaries able to pull family members of workers from warzones, and you're telling me they have to nickel and dime their HW team for routing an NVME slot on the board instead of soldering the NAND chips because that would cost some more engineering time?

Thanks for the chuckle, I loved it. I think Apple spends more on toilet paper or hand soap in a month than the effort would cost their HW engineers to do that.

Re: New iMac with M4

#612
post #403
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first LCD monitor is still actively used in our house, about 18 years old now. My mother has gone through several computers, kept the same screen for 15 years. Apple Consumers are not "Average Consumers". Starting at $1300, it's a luxury desktop.

That’s a mid-range desktop at most in a world where people pay more than that for individual components at the high-end, especially when you look at pricing for equivalent quality displays. The correct criticism of iMacs is that it links two parts with different lifespans. There should be a legal requirement that all-in-one computers have an external connector so that if some other component fails or simply becomes o…

I agree that the iMac needs to be usable as a monitor. Both Dell and HP all-in-ones that I looked at do this (I did not do an exhaustive search, so it may not be as common as my 'look at two' makes it sound, but it's not UN-common)

However, let's be real clear, iMac is not a mid-range desktop, price-wise. Amazon's all-in-one category's HIGHEST non-apple price in the top-10 is $599. There are three non-apple all-in-ones over $1k in the top-50. [1]

Obviously, once we separate the pieces out, things become even more clear cut. You can buy the beefiest "mini-pc" from amazon and pair it with a 28" or 32", flat or curved 4k monitor for $200-400 and still have money left over.

The iMac is NOT high-end, but it is luxury, and that's an important distinction.

1: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Electronics-All-in-One-C...

Re: New iMac with M4

#613
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially egregious when you consider older iMacs could be used as external displays - https://support.apple.com/en-gb/105126

While it is a shame it was never brought back, at the time it was removed it was unavoidable since the bandwidth required for 5k was beyond what could be carried across a single display port cable.

Displayport 1.3 which supports 5k 60fps became widely available with the NVIDIA 900 series just 5 months after the 5K iMac released. AMD followed suit 1 year after.

They could have very soon added support for it, maybe even launched with DP 1.3 support if they worked something out with AMD.

Re: New iMac with M4

#614
post #459

I'm surprised they are still shipping these with 256GB of storage base. I had a Macbook with a ~500GB SSD in 2012 (I installed it), and a 500GB spinning disk in like 2008 (also user installed). A 500GB SSD can be had for <$50 these days, and a 1TB for <$100. Still plenty of profit for Apple, even if they bump up the base storage to 512GB and make 1TB a $200 upgrade...

This is a desktop so I think the assumption is that the savvy can attach a USB3/4 device with appropriate storage (e.g. for your massive photo library - it's easy to change the location).

The problem with any sort of external storage device is how easy it is to accidentally unplug it while something is using it.

Re: New iMac with M4

#615

Right now, the Apple computer lineup is totally out of alignment for me. The iMac is too small and the laptops are too big. I'd like a minimum 27" display for the iMac, maybe 31". For a laptop, give me something more portable, like the old 2 pound, 12" MacBook.

iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard might not be too far off for the tiny laptop one. Though those are 11” and 13”, and you’re on iOS instead of macOS.

Re: New iMac with M4

#616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple is only "green" in their presentations - in reality they care more about inifite sales only. needs citation. I say this as someone who worked several years in engineering at Apple, and they were extremely environmentally conscientious years before it was a thing.

It's not that they actively do bad things, it's that they only dedicate real resources in the direction of self-interest. Tim Cook likes to point to their solar investments and accessibility as examples of "doing good" when in reality the former is a good long term financial bet and the latter is generally under-resourced (or "cheap" to them). They'd use M.2 SSDs in their Macs instead of soldering flash chips to the…

“They only dedicate real resources in the direction of self interest”

Wow, it’s almost like they are a publicly traded company with a legal obligation to do so!

Re: New iMac with M4

#617
post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope they also plant one or two small trees somewhere! And promote the use of refillable water botles on campus!!

I hope more companies start recycling their own products. It makes me sad to see so much valuable electronics, so many "totalled" cars just thrown away on the same heap as other rubbish (and old cars respectively). Such a waste of resources is surpassed only by war.

Consumer electronics have a negative recycling value - the raw materials are worth significantly less than the extraction cost (in both financial and carbon terms), making recycling nothing but environmental theatre. If electronics manufacturers actually care about sustainability, they must extend the working life of the product by designing for longevity, repair and reuse.

Apple have a very mixed track record in this respect. iMacs used to work as an external monitor when the in-built computer became obsolete, but that feature has been removed. Most components in an iPhone are locked to that device, preventing their re-use as spare parts. Apple computers are almost entirely non-upgradeable, greatly limiting their potential useful lifespan.

Re: New iMac with M4

#618
post #599

Reading this on 2017 iMac 27" - is the first 5k iMac that couldn't be used as a monitor after the computer inside is irrelevant. I hope EU will push for some law that requires all AIO computers to work in monitor-only mode if internal hardware is no longer good enough or no longer supported by software updates. I love the 5k screen on this iMac but the CPU is too old for photo or video editing as software got so much…

I went from a 2560x1600 27” 2012 iMac to a 5K 2015 iMac. The 2015 model was the first not to offer target display mode, so it’s even worse than you say. For a while I ran the 2012 as a second display for the 2015. The 2012 iMac is long gone, passed to a friend, but I still daily drive the 2015 5K. I’m interested in the new iMac but the 24” screen feels like a downgrade. The 27” studio display seems like a nice option…

I used your iMac as the daily driver for years, and now use the 27” Studio Display. I don’t know what’s more frustrating: that it’s still effectively the same panel 10 years later, or that it’s still the best one (for reasonable money).

Re: New iMac with M4

#619
post #591
post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iMac are the perfect example though. The horror of putting a DVI/HDMI port on that thing seemed so horrendous that they'd rather let the whole thing go to waste. Reading OP it seems like this has been corrected? But generation of generation of devices didn't have any sensible reason to exist. Apple is also the king of integrated batteries. First with phones, then with laptops. I'm still baffled they got away with…

This would require additional hardware in every iMac sold. Many people (I suspect the vast majority) would not reuse the iMacs as displays. Would the total amount of extra hardware inside discarded iMacs (those not used as displays) be less than the amount of hardware saved by reuse of the others?

> This would require additional hardware in every iMac sold.

Hardware that costs a few cents at Apple's volumes and adds about 1mm of thickness and 2g of weight.

Also, it's standard hardware

Re: New iMac with M4

#620

Right now, the Apple computer lineup is totally out of alignment for me. The iMac is too small and the laptops are too big. I'd like a minimum 27" display for the iMac, maybe 31". For a laptop, give me something more portable, like the old 2 pound, 12" MacBook.

> For a laptop, give me something more portable, like the old 2 pound, 12" MacBook.

MacBook Airs or your iPad Pro is perfectly portable.

Absolutely love, love, loooove Apple finally upped the MBPs to 14 inch.

Such a QoL improvement over 13inch.

I'd never buy a 12 inch computer, ever.

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