New 27" iMac Not Compatible With VESA Mounts

[MacRumors]

Apple has long supported VESA mounting brackets for its larger displays, including the 27" iMac, the 27" Thunderbolt and 24" and 30" Cinema Displays. With Apple's adapter bracket, the desk stand can be removed and the display can be attached to any VESA-compatible mount.

However, the new, thinner 27" iMac, does not support VESA mounting according to an email from Apple obtained by MacTrast. This is also noted in a compatibility note for the Apple VESA Mount Adapter Kit on the Apple Online Store.

Hi Glenn,

Thank you for your inquiry. The new iMac is not VESA mount compatible at this time.

We appreciate your feedback on this feature and will take it into consideration.

Thanks,
Laura

iMac owners frequently mount their machines to wall brackets for use as kiosks or other commercial displays, or to attach them to an articulating wall mount for flexible placement.

(Photo courtesy Flickr/Jaysin Trevino)

Article Link: New 27" iMac Not Compatible With VESA Mounts

[Andy-V]

The height of those iMac's on the wall looks uncomfortable.

[skunk]

Is it compatible with any mount at all?

[thekev]

Blah this is why I find the thinness obsession to be weird. It doesn't take up less desk space as the depth footprint of stand plus machine is virtually identical. In this case it lost functionality for the moment. The purpose of thinning out a design should be to better accommodate spatially constrained installations. I wonder if this will be updated.

[ka-spot]

No worries, I'm looking the old one!

[haruhiko]

Originally Posted by Andy-V

The height of those iMac's on the wall looks uncomfortable.

It's way too high and may cause neck problems.

[bflowers]

Old news MacRumors, we've known and discussed this since the first 27" iMac arrived in user's hands.

[lucidmedia]

While the recent imacs support VESA, they did not for a long time. Apple's history is spotty about this type of mounting, so I had no expectation that the new imac would be supported.

[Pegamush]

Originally Posted by Andy-V

The height of those iMac's on the wall looks uncomfortable.

the thickness of those imacs on the wall looks uncomfortable. they'd better upgrade to the new thinner ones.

[nagromme]

Swing-arm iMacs are the coolest. I hope the foot is at least removable from the new ones. Then third parties can make whatever mount or adapter they want.

The thinness of the new iMacs has ZERO benefit, except for style.

Then again, for a piece of furniture in your home/office, style matters a lot! (And optical drives were going to become a niche option no matter what.)

Speaking of style... come on, Apple! Make the keyboard keys and the mouse black! White cables? OK. That’s a signature Apple thing. But white peripherals? On a black computer? How much cooler would these iMacs look with black keys and mouse?

[Lancer]

It's a shame VESA is no longer supported, it doesn't affect me now but what if I wanted to change things in the future.

I wonder if some would be willing (or able) to cut of the bottom of the leg and attach an adapter to the remaining part to make it work?

Apple, two steps forward, one step back...

[All Taken]

Originally Posted by Lancer

It's a shame VESA is no longer supported, it doesn't affect me now but what if I wanted to change things in the future.

I wonder if some would be willing (or able) to cut of the bottom of the leg and attach an adapter to the remaining part to make it work?

Apple, two steps forward, one step back...

It would make more sense to take the stand off entirely (It's possible if you open the machine) and attach a makeshift mount.

----------

Originally Posted by OllyW

I'm sure he'd rather have that link going to his website than one going to his thread on our forums.

Or both, you could do both?

[zorinlynx]

Is it me or is Apple slowly turning from a respected maker of high-quality, versatile products into a company that makes "cheap disposable crap", only without the cheap part?

That's certainly what it looks like! Some examples:

- Screens held on with GLUE??
- No VESA mount for the iMacs
- Non-user replaceable hard drives on both models, and memory too on the smaller one
- Completely non-user-serviceable batteries in most mobile products (you can still swap the battery relatively easily in the iPhone and non-retina Macbook Pros but how long until the latter are discontinued?)

There's more... but it's disappointing. I wouldn't mind if there was a price reduction to coincide with increased product "cheapness" but it's all expensive as ever.

[turtlez]

All the people complaining that there is a lack of credit on this news article are probably the ones who say that Apple doesn't innovate lol...

----------

Originally Posted by zorinlynx

Is it me or is Apple slowly turning from a respected maker of high-quality, versatile products into a company that makes "cheap disposable crap", only without the cheap part?

That's certainly what it looks like! Some examples:

- Screens held on with GLUE??
- No VESA mount for the iMacs
- Non-user replaceable hard drives on both models, and memory too on the smaller one
- Completely non-user-serviceable batteries in most mobile products (you can still swap the battery relatively easily in the iPhone and non-retina Macbook Pros but how long until the latter are discontinued?)

There's more... but it's disappointing. I wouldn't mind if there was a price reduction to coincide with increased product "cheapness" but it's all expensive as ever.

I wouldn't call it cheapness. It is still made from aluminium and glass vs a plastic competitor. I wouldn't call pushing design further cheapness either even if you do not like the design.

Apple designs there products not to be opened by the user otherwise they would be making fat boxes like PCs to gain access to every component. They like to keep things simple and easy to choose. Imagine if there was a build your own mac where you could buy all the parts you needed from an Apple store and assemble it yourself. Apple would have a whole new nightmare to deal with. Steve Jobs said "don't spread yourself too thin".

While Apple may prevent access to user replaceable parts, it focuses on other things that competitors don't. Maybe you can call competitors cheapness for their lack of design innovation too but we already all do that anyway.

[Porco]

Apparently Tim Cook wasn't quoted as saying:

"Yeah, it's true, new iMac is not compatible with VESA mounts. This is because once you buy enough iPads, you will find they are so magical, the magic will rub off on the user - they will find they can soon make iMac levitate by the sheer power of thought. We're doubling down on magicalness. Or should that be doubling up? Either way, we're doubling it."

[cBraunDesign]

I'd take this as less of a "it's never going to be compatible" and more of a "we haven't developed a bracket that's the right shape for the new bubble back yet." I wouldn't be surprised if we see a new part number VESA bracket in the future. They already sell two different brackets for the old flat displays and the later curved back models.

[TheBearman]

Originally Posted by cBraunDesign

I'd take this as less of a "it's never going to be compatible" and more of a "we haven't developed a bracket that's the right shape for the new bubble back yet." I wouldn't be surprised if we see a new part number VESA bracket in the future. They already sell two different brackets for the old flat displays and the later curved back models.

I think it's more than just a new bracket. Looking at the pictures of an open 27 would seem to suggest that the placement of the screws holding the stand would only be accessible from the inside.

[Doctor Q]

It might seem to make sense for the editors to merge news threads with user-started threads because it's nice to have all comments in one place, but in practice it's usually a disservice to other users.

Sometimes it's not practical, such as when there are different conversations already going on in the two threads (so they wouldn't make sense merged), the user-started thread has gone off topic or doesn't cover exactly the same news item, or the editor doesn't know about similar forum threads. It also breaks users' thread subscriptions and bookmarks for the thread that is merged away.

More importantly and more often, the news story will include details, links, and often a photo or graphic (as is the case here), making a better presentation of the news for those who haven't already heard about it. When threads are merged it's chronological post by post, so the news story might not even end up on the first page of the thread. Often a user posts a quick link yet an editor actually knew about the story sooner and is researching it and writing it up. And moderation is stricter in news threads so a user-started thread, depending on the forum, may have posts that were fine in that thread but would be too much clutter in a news thread. For these types of reasons it's better to credit a user who submitted a news story than to merge the news thread with a thread started by another user.

It's easy to second guess when you're not the one making the call, but it's an issue we've considered and talked about. We used to merge news threads with other forum threads routinely, and it caused problems regularly.

MacRumors has no reason to cheat users out of credit. Quite the contrary. Everyone wins when we encourage people to submit news and rumors by rewarding whoever is the first to provide a tip.

If you want to discuss news thread merges further, please start a separate Feedback thread. Thanks.

[Osxguy]

The iMac is so light the "spider" could handle it. Give third party people a chance I bet they can come up with something good!

[chrf097]

Hi Glenn,

Thank you for your inquiry. The new iMac is not VESA mount compatible at this time.

We appreciate your feedback on this feature and will take it into consideration.

Thanks,
Laura

Seems like some people are completely missing this. You should change this to "Current VESA mounts". They'll easily come out with a new way to make them compatible. Give them time. Not everything happens instantly.

[iSayuSay]

Originally Posted by chrf097

Seems like some people are completely missing this. You should change this to "Current VESA mounts". They'll easily come out with a new way to make them compatible. Give them time. Not everything happens instantly.

Most of the time. "At this time" means "I'm sorry but you're screwed. Deal with it"
Don't take PR on every words. It's part of the job.

[daneoni]

...and for what, a few more millimetres of thinness. Form over function at its finest.

[fastred]

Originally Posted by zorinlynx

Is it me or is Apple slowly turning from a respected maker of high-quality, versatile products into a company that makes "cheap disposable crap", only without the cheap part?

....

It is you...

[britboyj]

Originally Posted by chrf097

Seems like some people are completely missing this. You should change this to "Current VESA mounts". They'll easily come out with a new way to make them compatible. Give them time. Not everything happens instantly.

Didn't they need to do the same thing when they moved from either the white-backed PowerPC/1st gen Intel to the Black-backed ones? Or maybe it was the move from plastic-backed to the unibody?

They've done it before...

[Stridder44]

Originally Posted by thekev

Blah this is why I find the thinness obsession to be weird. It doesn't take up less desk space as the depth footprint of stand plus machine is virtually identical. In this case it lost functionality for the moment. The purpose of thinning out a design should be to better accommodate spatially constrained installations. I wonder if this will be updated.

Pretty sure everyone feels this way. The thinness factor only really works up to a point, and even then...