Why I canceled my order for a 2012 iMac?

kaelell said:

and how many of them watch DVDs on their computer instead of thier dvd £25 players, PS3's or Xbox's?

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Well hopefully they will get rid of their optical drives also.

kaelell said:

and how many of them watch DVDs on their computer instead of thier dvd £25 players, PS3's or Xbox's?

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plenty, I watched one on my MacBook the other night while waiting up to order my iMac. Sure, I could have watched it on the xbox, but as that TV is against my daughter's bedroom wall, and our BluRay player is in the master bedroom, my options were limited.

The tape thing

Hi Guys I just wanted to chime in on the glued in screen thing.
I was afraid to say anything about it before but now that a couple of other people have said it I want to back it up. This nonsense about the tape gluing in the screen forever is absurd. I have been using it for 25 years, I cant believe the screens havnt always been put in with it. It is supper strong, super easy to remove and super easy to replace and it is super cheap. The way these tear down posts talk about it makes it sound like it has to be applied by aliens. I have an i Mac but its for my kids. I use a mac pro, so I have no dog in this fight either. The tape thing is a very good thing, trust me.

Right, people. It's a rant/troll/rubbish thread when you don't share the same view and opinion with the OP. I thought this was a forum, not a fan site.

pukingpixels said:

2. A non issue for the majority of all consumers. Use USB sticks instead. It's way faster and it's a lot more safe for storage than CD/DVD. I honestly don't know anyone in person who still uses CD/DVD's for anything.

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People now still use CD/DVDs for physical distribution. You don't distribute USB drives.

Phil A. said:

When the iMac was first announced I thought it looked drop dead gorgeous and it was a case of "I must have one of them!". However, I agree with the OP now that there are simply too many compromises to get those gorgeous looks.
I've now decided to keep my 2010 iMac until it dies and then get either a mini or (if it's not discontinued by then) a Mac Pro

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But surely back then it was unthinkable that Apple could expect customers to buy a computer that had all sorts of vital equipment that any computer must be expected to have such as a 3.5" floppy disk drive, a parallel port for printers or a serial port for whatever it was we used to use them for. No standard PCI or ISA expansion slots either. And then there was that awful hockey puck mouse that was a triumph of style over function. Hindsight told us that the connectivity options removed were indeed not important to most users, and the worst mistakes were quietly corrected so that we forget how bad they were.

bflowers said:

plenty, I watched one on my MacBook the other night while waiting up to order my iMac. Sure, I could have watched it on the xbox, but as that TV is against my daughter's bedroom wall, and our BluRay player is in the master bedroom, my options were limited.

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Good thing your Laptop has a drive then. But I was refering to Desktop really.
And when talking about a Desktop its such a non issue because of external drives for this minority.


on reflection

I understand that like many things in life, it doesnt bother you until it effects you. But we need to step outside of that zone and looking at the bigger picture sometimes. Fair enough I might be saying something different had it of effected me directly.

note* I've have just ordered an external drive myself for burning DVD's but loosing it in the iMac doesnt bother me personally.

drlipo said:

I canceled my order for a 2012 iMac 27" because I concluded that, for me, this model is a huge step backwards from my December 2009 iMac 27". The less reflective screen is a definite plus. HOWEVER, the ridiculously thin screen edge required HUGE compromises: 1) SD card slot moved to a difficult to access location on the back 2) elimination of an optical drive. One has the option of purchasing an external optical drive for $70, but in addition to the cost that takes up desktop space and uses up one of the four USB ports 3) whereas the original announcement of the new iMac touted it as having even better sounding audio than the previous iMac, which I was very skeptical about, the early reviews of the new iMac confirm my worst fears -- the bass response is zero, resulting in a tinny sound! 4) while the Fusion drive is a great feature, it is way overpriced for its storage capacity at $250.

I believe the perfect upgrade to the iMac would have been to simply make the screen less reflective and have a more fairly priced Fusion drive, plus the processor and graphic card improvements. The thickness of the box should have stayed the same (already PLENTY thin), thus allowing the SC card reader to remain conveniently on the side, the optical drive to remain and, most importantly, the audio quality should have at lease been maintained, if not improved.

The thin edge of the display and weight reduction are meaningless for a desktop machine. The edge thickness will only be noticed by looking at the computer from the side, but never noticed when actually viewing the screen. Ironically, the ultra thin screen edge required the iMac to bulge out to the rear and the new model may actually be even thicker than the previous model. The lighter weight is not important for a desktop machine. This is not a portable unit! Mine has never been moved from my desktop in three years!

One of the things I love most about my older iMac is the superb audio quality. There is NO WAY I would upgrade to a new model with significantly reduced audio quality, to say nothing about the absent optical drive and hard to reach SC card slot.

When Apple addresses all of these issues, only then will I purchase a new model. Or, I may choose to go back to one of the great new PC's.

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Reading your post almost seems as if you never even placed an order to begin with and are instead coming up with reasons as to why you don't like the new iMac. Honestly if what you say is true I would have thought that anyone who would be putting out over a $1500.00 on anything would *conclude* ALL things prior to purchasing. Because you can't make way to owning a new one, coming up with all sorts of reasons why you don't like it is nonsense, especially when you're acting like you canceled an order because one second after I placed it I *concluded* that it was all so wrong for me.

sfilingeri said:

Wow I really cant believe people calling DVDs "legacy" and "most people just don't use"

http://www.the-numbers.com/dvd/charts/annual/2012.php

Make sure you read how many #1 DVDs sold, over 6 million units, and thats just ONE DVD TITLE, but yeah forget all the other thousands of thousands of DVDs out there that are selling millions of copies, but your right nobody buys that crap anymore.

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Now you are switching the subject. You are talking about movie DVDs, I am talking about optical media for personal computers (e.g. backups, external storage and data sharing - optical media are rather poor choice for all of these). It was the same with tapes - they stayed as a popular media carrier long after they disappeared from personal computers (yes, I know that tape storage is a popular enterprise backup system, but I am specifically talking about personal computers).

Anyone who cares about audio quality will have real speakers on their desk. Silly to think internal speakers can give any decent audio.

kaelell said:

Good thing your Laptop has a drive then. But I was refering to Desktop really.
And when talking about a Desktop its such a non issue because of external drives for this minority.


on reflection

I understand that like many things in life, it doesnt bother you until it effects you. But we need to step outside of that zone and looking at the bigger picture sometimes. Fair enough I might be saying something different had it of effected me directly.

note* I've have just ordered an external drive myself for burning DVD's but loosing it in the iMac doesnt bother me personally.

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If I had a newer Apple laptop, there would be a good chance that it wouldn't have had an ODD. That, I could understand more. The whole appeal of an Air is the weight. I don't own one, but if my family net income was double or more, then I might. On a desktop, I disagree with the Apple Brass. It is not a dead or dying tech like floppies were when the iMac came out. I was forced to buy an external floppy for my PowerBook, as professors still wanted some things turned in that way. Namely programs for CS classes, but papers as well. Flash drives weren't available yet, or if they were, they were extremely cost prohibitive at the time. Compared to DVDs, Flash drives still cost more per Gig than DVDs.

As someone pointed out earlier, what professional is going to want to distribute via flash drive when a DVD is just as easy, and a magnitude cheaper.

I can give you a very simple reason that Apple really made the iMac thinner, and cut the ODD. iTunes and iCloud. Why not push their own sales in media distribution and cloud storage by making the desktop computers a little smaller? Sure you need lots of compression for HD video to fit it on the average home's bandwidth, but they don't care. You'll never get the picture quality of a Blu-Ray that way. Nor do they care that most ISPs are putting data caps on wireline internet as well. Sure, 150-250 Gigs seems like a lot today, but it isn't when you start watching HD video.

Brave is offered as a 720p/1080p download and comes in at 3.38/3.44 Gigs. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the 1080p is compressed a bit more, which may lead to more compression artifacts. Then, you have to either store all those movies, requiring more HDDs, or redownload them the next time the kids want to watch it! And, they don't even bother to give you a discount for them not having to press the optical disc, package and distribute it!

So, for me, I'll stick to buying movies on physical discs. I can send them with the kids to grandma's house, lend a movie to my sister, rip it and put it on the iPad or phone for the family trip, etc.

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leman said:

Now you are switching the subject. You are talking about movie DVDs, I am talking about optical media for personal computers (e.g. backups, external storage and data sharing - optical media are rather poor choice for all of these). It was the same with tapes - they stayed as a popular media carrier long after they disappeared from personal computers (yes, I know that tape storage is a popular enterprise backup system, but I am specifically talking about personal computers).

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DVDs, though preferably Blu-Ray are a perfectly reasonable backup medium, if backing up specific things, and not cloning drives. I back up our photo library on DVDs, and leave the copies off site. Easy to store incremental backups of family photos and home movies this way, and stash them somewhere safe. The $99 I spent for a 3TB HDD on Black Friday was a good deal, but $99 will get me a lot of blank single or rewritable optical media for long term storage,

Switchback666 said:

Wtf ? Are you serious ?

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Wow man, yeah I have seen it all now from Apple fans. iTunes quality better than CD?! I was shocked like yourself to read that one. I think the govs need to shut ol apple down for a couple years and these people need a break from the iWorld. Some of the defenses are scary.

Good Decision

Your 2009 iMac 27 inch is still a perfectly serviceable and good machine which has lots of life left in it. Enjoy it.

drlipo said:

I canceled my order for a 2012 iMac 27" because I concluded that, for me, this model is a huge step backwards from my December 2009 iMac 27". The less reflective screen is a definite plus. HOWEVER, the ridiculously thin screen edge required HUGE compromises: 1) SD card slot moved to a difficult to access location on the back 2) elimination of an optical drive. One has the option of purchasing an external optical drive for $70, but in addition to the cost that takes up desktop space and uses up one of the four USB ports 3) whereas the original announcement of the new iMac touted it as having even better sounding audio than the previous iMac, which I was very skeptical about, the early reviews of the new iMac confirm my worst fears -- the bass response is zero, resulting in a tinny sound! 4) while the Fusion drive is a great feature, it is way overpriced for its storage capacity at $250.

I believe the perfect upgrade to the iMac would have been to simply make the screen less reflective and have a more fairly priced Fusion drive, plus the processor and graphic card improvements. The thickness of the box should have stayed the same (already PLENTY thin), thus allowing the SC card reader to remain conveniently on the side, the optical drive to remain and, most importantly, the audio quality should have at lease been maintained, if not improved.

The thin edge of the display and weight reduction are meaningless for a desktop machine. The edge thickness will only be noticed by looking at the computer from the side, but never noticed when actually viewing the screen. Ironically, the ultra thin screen edge required the iMac to bulge out to the rear and the new model may actually be even thicker than the previous model. The lighter weight is not important for a desktop machine. This is not a portable unit! Mine has never been moved from my desktop in three years!

One of the things I love most about my older iMac is the superb audio quality. There is NO WAY I would upgrade to a new model with significantly reduced audio quality, to say nothing about the absent optical drive and hard to reach SC card slot.

When Apple addresses all of these issues, only then will I purchase a new model. Or, I may choose to go back to one of the great new PC's.

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SUH-WEET! Maybe mine will come sooner now that yours is outta the way! Thanks!

You have a 3 years old 27" imac, so you do not need a new one that much.
That's it.
The rest is just showing your self esteem...
Don't do that next time when you really do not need sth.

leman said:

Also fair enough. Nevertheless, optical drives are legacy media and most of people out there just don't use any. I surely haven't touched an optical disk in over two years. My point is that complaining about the lack of ODD is like complaining about the lack of a tape media - both have their uses, but nowadays these are rather niche.

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CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays are readily available for purchase brand new and loaded with modern content. Please do yourself a favor and look outside of your little world. Not everyone lives somewhere that makes it easy to purchase content as easily as in optical form.

dontpannic said:

Right.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-SE-...UE2O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1354544036&sr=8-1

£20 for an external USB drive. If you're spending £1000+ on a PC, then a £20 optical drive is a drop in the ocean. You'll spend more on other accessories.

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In other words, you have to go out and buy one. Which is what I said

dontpannic said:

You have a bluetooth mouse, bluetooth keyboard (presumably, using the keyboard and mouse supplied with the machine). Even if it's wired, it would only take 1 USB socket, (Apple kit or wireless desktop sets). Presumably some sort of printer over USB, (or network), external storage. Even with all that I only count 3 USB's in total. I'm sure one could be used for an external USB DVD drive.

That's providing you're using it 24/7. If you're using it to watch a DVD or burn something, you can quite easily take it out of a drawer, plug it in and use it, and put it back in the drawer when you need to use the USB port for something else.

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Here are my externals:

- External HDD
- Color Laser Printer
- Multifunction
- Scanner
- Professional Ink Jet Printer
- Wired mechanical keyboard & mouse (I would never use Apple's chicklet board or mouse)

That doesn't leave room for even a thumb drive without performing a reach-around on an iMac to unplug something else. I suspect many people may have almost as many peripherals as this. Four USB ports is quite spartan these days compared to the six most PC mobos come with as standard now.

dontpannic said:

It's a minor inconvenience. I wouldn't class it as a step back for the machine (which is what was stated in the first post) because there are so many new features that outweigh the loss of optical drive and the movement of the SD card slot.

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An inconvenience (however minor) where one didn't exist before, is still a step backwards.

dontpannic said:

As stated above, professionals obviously require optical drives still, which I accept. I was mainly talking consumers. Consumers won't give two ***** about pro-audio and will quite happily download music and videos from iTunes. They won't care that it's not pixel perfect BluRay quality. Heck, I even know people who can't tell the difference between SD and HD!
In which case, professionals can easily afford the £20 it costs for an external DVD drive and the "less than 10 seconds" of inconvenience of plugging the thing in.

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Congratulations, not only did you attempt to speak for all consumers, you missed the entire point of the OP. Inconveniences that weren't there before represent a step backwards. Think about it.

drlipo said:

I canceled my order for a 2012 iMac 27" because I concluded that, for me, this model is a huge step backwards from my December 2009 iMac 27". The less reflective screen is a definite plus. HOWEVER, the ridiculously thin screen edge required HUGE compromises: 1) SD card slot moved to a difficult to access location on the back 2) elimination of an optical drive. One has the option of purchasing an external optical drive for $70, but in addition to the cost that takes up desktop space and uses up one of the four USB ports 3) whereas the original announcement of the new iMac touted it as having even better sounding audio than the previous iMac, which I was very skeptical about, the early reviews of the new iMac confirm my worst fears -- the bass response is zero, resulting in a tinny sound! 4) while the Fusion drive is a great feature, it is way overpriced for its storage capacity at $250.

I believe the perfect upgrade to the iMac would have been to simply make the screen less reflective and have a more fairly priced Fusion drive, plus the processor and graphic card improvements. The thickness of the box should have stayed the same (already PLENTY thin), thus allowing the SC card reader to remain conveniently on the side, the optical drive to remain and, most importantly, the audio quality should have at lease been maintained, if not improved.

The thin edge of the display and weight reduction are meaningless for a desktop machine. The edge thickness will only be noticed by looking at the computer from the side, but never noticed when actually viewing the screen. Ironically, the ultra thin screen edge required the iMac to bulge out to the rear and the new model may actually be even thicker than the previous model. The lighter weight is not important for a desktop machine. This is not a portable unit! Mine has never been moved from my desktop in three years!

One of the things I love most about my older iMac is the superb audio quality. There is NO WAY I would upgrade to a new model with significantly reduced audio quality, to say nothing about the absent optical drive and hard to reach SC card slot.

When Apple addresses all of these issues, only then will I purchase a new model. Or, I may choose to go back to one of the great new PC's.

Click to expand...

Thank You!!! Because according to Apple somebody else just moved up a spot in line... Could be me!

OP, all I can say is, thank you for bumping me up the queue.

Thunderbird said:

In other words, you have to go out and buy one. Which is what I said



Here are my externals:

- External HDD
- Color Laser Printer
- Multifunction
- Scanner
- Professional Ink Jet Printer
- Wired mechanical keyboard & mouse (I would never use Apple's chicklet board or mouse)

That doesn't leave room for even a thumb drive without performing a reach-around on an iMac to unplug something else. I suspect many people may have almost as many peripherals as this. Four USB ports is quite spartan these days compared to the six most PC mobos come with as standard now.




An inconvenience (however minor) where one didn't exist before, is still a step backwards.



Congratulations, not only did you attempt to speak for all consumers, you missed the entire point of the OP. Inconveniences that weren't there before represent a step backwards. Think about it.

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Dude haven't u ever used a USB hub? Ur not limited to the 4 ports.

spyguy10709 said:

Does ALAC, FLAC and HQ H.264 not exist? The new iMac can cut through encoding like butter.

And if you're burning from an iMac.... chances are you're not missing much in your source from going to WAV to MP3... just saying.

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This post makes no sense....... None at all.....

People use drives in the business I'm in, that's all.

Thunderbird said:

Here are my externals:

- External HDD
- Color Laser Printer
- Multifunction
- Scanner
- Professional Ink Jet Printer
- Wired mechanical keyboard & mouse (I would never use Apple's chicklet board or mouse)

Click to expand...

Why do you have two printers a scanner and a multifunction? I thought multifunctions were a printer and a scanner combined. Why do you need three printers and two scanners? If you're that serious about printing, I would have thought a networked printer would be more appropriate than USB. Also, isn't bluetooth standard for wireless keyboards/mice? For that matter, how many PCs out there come with 6 USB as standard, which seems to be how many you seem to be asking for? Certainly no mac ever has.

Why

Why is Apple so concerned about SAVING SPACE. Seriously since the Apple ll Computers have been about the same size and no one has a problem. So what's the obsession with making computers weigh 1oz and appear thin?

Just give me a compute that is fast, has all the bells & whistles and actually works.

kendall69 said:

Why is Apple so concerned about SAVING SPACE. Seriously since the Apple ll Computers have been about the same size and no one has a problem. So what's the obsession with making computers weigh 1oz and appear thin?

Just give me a compute that is fast, has all the bells & whistles and actually works.

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For many reasons.

1. Shipping. If Apple reduces the weight of each iMac significantly they reduce their shipping costs. Ditto if they reduce their overall shipping packages.

2. Safety- the new boxes allow you to open the side of the box rather than bending over and potentially hurting your back lifting a 30 lbs computer at an awkward angle.

3. Flexibility. More weight is good for an anchor but there's no reason to make something heavier than is can be. We still have the same class CPU and GPU so we lost little.

4. Improved quality - I noticed the lower glare on the 21.5" that's a good thing.


We pretty much new the Superdrive was going to be history. The Air, Mini and now Retina MBP don't have them. The people that need them can purchase.

iWas said:

CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays are readily available for purchase brand new and loaded with modern content. Please do yourself a favor and look outside of your little world. Not everyone lives somewhere that makes it easy to purchase content as easily as in optical form.

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Well, I know what you mean and I understand your point. However, this debate is getting a bit circular. Frankly, there are no 100% convincing arguments for any side of it. You can come up with an counterargument to anything I say and via versa.

In the end, what matters is the overall trend and/or the will to change it. And Apple had some success with setting trends, as we all know. For optical media, the current time is time of transition, and there is an unmistakable trend for its phasing out. Few years ago, almost all content for computers came with CDs/DVDs; nowadays, the trend is digital distribution. I have no doubt that optical media will continue to exist in the following years, but its role will diminish to media content only (movies/music), basically, it will follow the path of tapes. Apple decided to accelerate this trend by ignoring ODD in their entirety. Some people support that decision, some don't. In the end, we can debate whether its good or not all day long, but the fact is that the ODD is gone from Apple products and its not coming back.