> available in fresh colors
Is this really so important that it needs to be in the title? We are talking about computers here, not a clothing brand!
New iMac with M4
811–820 of 1001 posts
Re: New iMac with M4
#812Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
You're thinking of HDCP, not HDMI. HDMI recorders exist (Elgato built an entire brand off selling them for console game streaming) but they are not allowed to speak HDCP because gestures vaguely at DMCA 1201 . In the specific case of the iMac: - USB-C video outputs are all either DisplayPort[0]. HDMI Forum was promoting an HDMI USB-C altmode but it was never implemented. USB-C HDMI adapters are all DisplayPort adapte…
> USB-C HDMI adapters are all DisplayPort adapters that additionally tunnel DVI traffic
Not tunnel, convert: these are active adapters that take in a DisplayPort signal from the computer and re-encode it as a DVI/HDMI output signal. The computer doesn't need to know or care that there's HDMI happening downstream, because it's still just outputting DisplayPort signal. It's not like Thunderbolt where DisplayPort traffic is tunneled inside a different signalling mode that the host machine supports.
This is why USB-C to HDMI adapters are unidirectional (at least, all the mainstream commodity ones). You'd need a different converter chip to do the conversion in the other direction.
Re: New iMac with M4
#813Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I think it's extremely overestimated by the technical crowd how many people would ever upgrade their RAM or SSD in their Macbook. I honestly doubt it's even in the single digit percentage points. The energy, engineering and material wasted on having connectors probably vastly outweighs the environmental savings by having that one tech person upgrade their RAM or SSD,
Agreed, it's just minority of users trying to defer extra $2500 upfront, and also about managing RAM capacity arms race. There is no engineering reason a laptop has to be upgraded _later_ to e.g. 8way/192GB/6TB configuration.
That said, I do think upgradable laptops are important as a resistance force against constant upgrades and planned obsolescence; if you could hypothetically add 2x32GB DDR4-2100 to a decade old ThinkPad and run stolen Apple Intelligence LLM just fine, the humanity wouldn't need $5k worth of labor wasted on one laptop per person per year.
Re: New iMac with M4
#814Earlier quoted context omitted.
The citation is common sense.. if your business is consumerism, you are by definition the opposite of "green". Putting some idiots on stage every year to carefully gesticulate to soft music about how "green" creating immense amounts of industrial waste are and thinking it is real is getting high on your own supply.
Define "consumerism"
There is very little change from one iPhone to the next but very much marketing which underscores the true intentions. The business model is built on a revolving demand cycle that is unrelated to long term thinking, maintainability, efficiency, nor sustainability. One may argue well that Apple is better than the other players in the field but it doesn't undercut the overall impact of producing incredibly complex and rapidly obsoleting assemblies. It's not just soldering some chips to a board and snapping it together, each individual component potentially has global impact as the raw materials and finished pieces move into their final form. The magnitude of what is going on is not immediately intuitive unless you are an insider or read a well researched book like "The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone"
The fundamental problem, which is out of sight out of mind from the consumer, is how much energy is required to produce and move assemblies around. See also the automotive industry, where the "green" thing to do is drive and maintain older vehicles for a long time.
And to be honest, this doesn't bother me that much, but if I'm not on the take as an engineer I have no particular qualms punching through the bullshit smokescreens as a customer of a company that takes my money. The attention and empathy fatigue of the bullshit does take away from things that do matter such as national versus international manufacturing.
Re: New iMac with M4
#815Sorry for this stupid tangential question. I had read that newer MacBooks with the M line of processors give a great battery life for a number of reasons like using ARM instruction set, the SoC architecture. I noticed that some Windows laptops now come with ARM processors too though they are touted as AI ready and not much else. Do these Windows laptop have improved battery life as well? Or have other manyfacturers n…
They have better battery life and in some cases can come out ahead of Apple.
But battery life alone isn’t a full story. You have to consider performance off the charger, and the percentage of compatible apps. Apple still pull ahead there.
Re: New iMac with M4
#816Apple doesn’t excite me anymore.
Re: New iMac with M4
#817Earlier 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'll also never let the iPad run macOS, because if people could own one device instead of two, that would be bad for their profits. They'll keep them cleanly differentiated for as long as they can.
They also don't have profiles on the iPad because then families could share devices which would be bad for their profits. Instead it is one iPad per person.
Re: New iMac with M4
#818Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
> Or please tell me how to use the magic mouse while it's charging? Am I just holding it wrong? is that really a deal-breaking decision to buy an iMac? Yeah, sure, I agree it's super silly design that they put the port under the mouse; but c'mon, does it really matter? As far as I can tell, I have never had to explain to my 61 year old Indian mother how to use a Mac as much as I have had to debug every little thing o…
How can you say "does it really" matter to something as stupid as the chargig port under the mouse? It's in-your-face, outrageously bad design and very much in line with "not just works".
It's one thing to pay a comparative fortune for a mouse that's got mostly looks going for it; it's another to have to uproot your work/free time because your mouse ran out of batteries and you didn't routinely charge it like a phone overnight.
Yes, of course it matters. It matters because it's dumb and we pay the dumbness price. People paying for it regardless is the reason it continues the way it is.
Re: New iMac with M4
#819Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple should hire a couple hackers to create “end-of-life” firmware for their obsolete devices; give them new life as super-specialized devices. Part green program, part customer delight, even some wacky art projects. Maybe if an iMac doesn’t have a video input—have it boot as an AirPlay-only monitor. I’ve got 2 old EOL appleTV boxes sitting in a drawer—again, one last firmware update to make them dedicated AirPlay r…
> "Apple should hire a couple hackers to create “end-of-life” firmware for their obsolete devices; give them new life as super-specialized devices." They've actually done this in a few cases! There's a whole generation of obsolete Airport Express Wifi base stations that got a final firmware update which gave them AirPlay 2 functionality. Now they're still quite sought after as a device to make old stereos/speakers wi…
I was so confused when I noticed people could still use those devices recently.
I think my AirPort Extreme got a pretty late update a few years ago too, I assume security related
Re: New iMac with M4
#820Earlier quoted context omitted.
> (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 thei…
It's to reduce unit costs, not engineering costs. They integrated an NVMe controller into the SoC and they can now just buy NAND chips instead of full SSDs. Soldering them to the board is just an asshole thing to do though, especially since these machines can't boot off of USB if the NAND dies. Surely some elastomer BGA sockets wouldn't cost that much. There's no sane explanation other than they're doing it so you ha…
They can boot off Thunderbolt, though