My new 2012 iMac 27" is fantastic!

[jdavtz]

I haven't read all the threads with complaints, but I just wanted to post to say that I've had my new iMac for 36 hours and I love it.

I've been waiting to upgrade for over a year, and I'm coming from an April 2008 iMac 24" 2.8GHz Core2Duo/6GB/500GB/ATI2600HD

I now have 27"/i7 3.4GHz/8GB(+16 on order)/3TBfusion/680GTX

• it arrived a week before the estimated delivery date!
• it really does look thin. I know it doesn't "matter" as such, but it does look a lot more elegant on my desk.
• The build quality appears superb
• Aperture runs loads faster
• I don't know what they've done to the screen, but the amount of reflection is massively reduced (see pic attached)
• The monitor is decently calibrated out of the box; the ColorMunki only made minor adjustments (and you can actually manually turn down the brightness to a sensible level (out-of-box mid brightness is 110cd/m2), unlike previous models).
• My display appears uniform whatever colour is on screen, I haven't seen any dead pixels and there's no backlight bleed or intrusion at the brightness I'm using (120cd/m2)
• The SD card reader is easier to reach than I thought it would be, being around the back
• Aperture really shouldn't stop you using it for anything else when you're consolidating a previously-referenced library from external disc to internal (42000 pics - took half a day over USB3!)
• X-Plane 10 has become loads more fun

Hope that's encouraging for anyone unsure about whether the 2012 model is good enough!

[Kirkle]

Just a little note to let you know that I hate you.

[bobright]

Ditto for me I am just in love with mine. Its flawless.

[TypeMRT]

Congrats on the upgrade. I'm glad to see that an Aperture user has surfaced. Would you mind sharing how Aperure is performing on the new iMac?
I'm considering the regular internal HD and adding an external SSD, but my Aperture won't fit on the SSD. I think that's we're the 3TB Fusion Drive has an advantage: the OS would figure which parts of the library to keep on the SSD no matter how big the library file gets.

[iSayuSay]

Well congratulation on the iMac purchase. I understand the over excitement but don't get hyped though since my 2011 iMac WAS perfect and shiny the day I bought it. Well it has to!

Problems would likely appear some time after. And that's when shiny means nothin

[Ocgasman]

Originally Posted by TypeMRT

Congrats on the upgrade. I'm glad to see that an Aperture user has surfaced. Would you mind sharing how Aperure is performing on the new iMac?
I'm considering the regular internal HD and adding an external SSD, but my Aperture won't fit on the SSD. I think that's we're the 3TB Fusion Drive has an advantage: the OS would figure which parts of the library to keep on the SSD no matter how big the library file gets.

I'm coming from a 27" 2.8 i7, 8gb ram, ATI 4850, 1 TB HD to the new 27" 3.4 i7, 8gb (waiting on 32gb from Crucial), 680MX, 3 TB Fusion (Ordered Dec. 2, delivered Dec. 24, way earlier than expected, yea!). Anyway, I do heavy duty PP on my iMac with Aperture 3 using plugins from Nik, Photomatix, Topaz and of course round trip to PS. I shoot Nikon, with the D300 12 mp files, no prob on my old iMac, import and rendering were no big deal, maybe some slow down with brushes, but with the D800 gigantic 36 mp files, really bogged down Aperture. Drove me up the wall. I know that increasing ram might of fixed a lot of the issues, but I was due for a new iMac anyway so decided to wait and wait and wait for the new iMac to come out and when it did ordered one fully loaded sans the memory which will be third party. Night and day difference even with the same amount of ram, hard to say what is the major accelerator, faster processor or graphics card or fusion drive. I don't care, it's way faster with PP. Can't wait for my ram to arrive from crucial and see what that does.
I don't game at all, sorry no experience to share on that end.

As an aside, some ppl say that the iMac isn't good for photographers. I call BS. Like the OP, I hardware calibrate my iMac using X-rite i1Display and the i1Profiler software for lion. I print to an Epson 3880 using all kinds of different papers using manufacturer's paper profiles...prints are spot on.

Also, no bad pixels and back light bleed and that kinda stuff would drive me batty with my photo editing. All in all, love the new iMac. Actually, there is one thing that I hate. The lack of an optical drive is dumb to me. Was anyone clamoring for a thinner lighter DESKTOP iMac??? Whatever. I don't use the optical drive that much, but do need one on occasion. I picked up a used MB Air Superdrive for $40 and was kinda worried that the attached usb cable was too short. But it fits perfectly right on top of the stand.

[Roller]

My experience has been the same as the OP's. Aperture is much more usable than it was on my '09 iMac. I also just downloaded the X-Plane demo today and it's very smooth at high settings.

[Arman]

Originally Posted by TypeMRT

Congrats on the upgrade. I'm glad to see that an Aperture user has surfaced. Would you mind sharing how Aperure is performing on the new iMac?
I'm considering the regular internal HD and adding an external SSD, but my Aperture won't fit on the SSD. I think that's we're the 3TB Fusion Drive has an advantage: the OS would figure which parts of the library to keep on the SSD no matter how big the library file gets.

I have about a 120GB Aperture library. Program feels like it opens very fast (1-2 sec). Flipping between projects and folders is also instantaneous. Photo adjustments have no lag. Very fun to play with. I have over 170GB of data on my fusion drive and I have not seen any subjective change in performance in relation to the fusion drive.

3.4/32GB/1TB Fusion/675MX

[msg362]

Agree with OP. I've installed 32 GB RAM, fusion 680 Mx and it runs Premiere Pro like thee's no tomorrow, I was having real problems on an early 24" dual core. All gone. Screen beautiful, multi camera works now. I'm using USB 3.0 drives as externals as the cost of Thunderbolt drives is just silly at present. No complaints, just one highly satisfied customer ( mine arrived early- 16th December)

[bugbear99]

i feel the thinness every-time i'm turning the iMac on.

[shenan1982]

Originally Posted by Roller

My experience has been the same as the OP's. Aperture is much more usable than it was on my '09 iMac. I also just downloaded the X-Plane demo today and it's very smooth at high settings.

Pardon the dumb question, but how do you install and use x-plane 10 without a DVD drive?

[colday]

Originally Posted by shenan1982

Pardon the dumb question, but how do you install and use x-plane 10 without a DVD drive?

External drive or use drive sharing off a Mac that has a DVD drive.

[lucasfunkt]

Mine came yesterday and I'm very happy with it.

The biggest issue I have is adjusting to the updated OS X 10.8.2 from 10.6.8 I have on my macbook pro.

When ever you have something in finder on my old macbook pro you'd get a tool bar at the bottom showing you how many items there are and how much space is available. This I find is very useful especially when you're transferring lots of files between external hard drives.

I can't find the option to add this info bar at the bottom of any finder window any where on my iMac?

Just looks and feels like it's missing something (also all the icons on the left hand side seem to have no real colour to them which is also something I miss that my macbook pro has, not as big an issue that one but if I can get them back it would be handy).

[iWaiting]

try view from the menu bar

from there you can show /hide the path and status bars

that help

[scottrichardson]

Originally Posted by lucasfunkt

I can't find the option to add this info bar at the bottom of any finder window any where on my iMac?

Press Command+/ (slash/question mark) on your keyboard to hide and show the bottom bar of finder windows. Note the same command works within Safari to bring up a similar, bottom bar.

Scott

[lucasfunkt]

Ah of course, so easy when you know how.

Thanks guys.

How about the icons on the left of the finder menu, Applications, Desktop, Documents ect. Not sure why the default is to have them all the same colour/color, do you guys know how to change that to like it is on the macbook pro?

[RobertMartens]

Originally Posted by iSayuSay

Problems would likely appear some time after. And that's when shiny means nothin

You probably don't get invited to parties much.

[jdavtz]

Originally Posted by shenan1982

Pardon the dumb question, but how do you install and use x-plane 10 without a DVD drive?

I converted it to a Disk Image, which I mount before running the x-plane app.

The scenery etc. was installed on the old iMac so I just copied the folder across.

[Virtual Steve]

Originally Posted by lucasfunkt

Ah of course, so easy when you know how.

Thanks guys.

How about the icons on the left of the finder menu, Applications, Desktop, Documents ect. Not sure why the default is to have them all the same colour/color, do you guys know how to change that to like it is on the macbook pro?

As long as you don't mind using beta software (it's been very stable in my experience), SideEffects will add back the color icons to the Finder sidebar that were changed to monochrome icons in Lion/Mountain Lion:

http://macmatrix.blogspot.hu/p/sideeffects.html

[Furifo]

Originally Posted by jdavtz

I haven't read all the threads with complaints, but I just wanted to post to say that I've had my new iMac for 36 hours and I love it.

You're making me want to buy one, now!

Glad you're enjoying yours! Incidentally, are you from the UK? I see a road tax disc on your desk

[lucasfunkt]

Originally Posted by Virtual Steve

As long as you don't mind using beta software (it's been very stable in my experience), SideEffects will add back the color icons to the Finder sidebar that were changed to monochrome icons in Lion/Mountain Lion:

http://macmatrix.blogspot.hu/p/sideeffects.html

Thank you, works nicely.

Can't really understand why they decided to change the icons to monochrome, seems a step back..?

[jdavtz]

Originally Posted by TypeMRT

Would you mind sharing how Aperure is performing on the new iMac?

I can only compare it with my 4.5-year-old previous iMac, but it's really obviously faster in everything - launching, adjustments, exporting, everything. And even more so now that I have another 16GB RAM from Crucial.

Launch is about 1.5 seconds (one bounce in the dock) and everything is there instantly once the program is loaded. The "Loading..." does appear sometimes when moving from one picture to another, but it only shows for maybe half a second.

I'm hoping/trusting that the OS will smartly manage which files are on the SSD and which are on the HDD, as the 768GB SSD is out of my price range and not large enough. I'm sure pure-SSD would be quicker, but this is a good compromise for me for the next few years. And Thunderbolt SSDs might be an option in a couple of years.

[steve119]

Ditto

[mchoffa]

I came from the same machine (except 4gb ram) and am now on the same machine (except I got 32GB ram) and it is amazing how much nicer the experience is now.

[shenan1982]

Originally Posted by jdavtz

I converted it to a Disk Image, which I mount before running the x-plane app.

The scenery etc. was installed on the old iMac so I just copied the folder across.

I guess I'll have to buy one of those silly external DVD drives. I have an air and an iMac 2010 but once I upgrade to the 2012 the 2010 will be gone, lol