2012 iMac - next big date?

[iMcLovin]

These guys are all over the place. They still insist that there were 3 models, but now they suggest the entry level model was cancelled.

Haha, yeah so it seems. Well I guess we can choose to believe the news we would like now. I go with this one. I want the entry level to go out and high end to ship

 

[Lancer]

I've just about given up on guessing, just hoping one morning I'll wake up, come and check here to see the new iMac has been released over night in the US. (I'm in Australia)

But if I was to guess then I'd say its looking more and more like a redesign. If it was just an Ivy Bridge update (like the MBP) then why the wait and why mess with the LCD screens that for all their glossiness have worked for the last few years, if a redesign is coming in 2013?

I know the iMac is not as 'sexy' as the iPhone or iPad but the original helped saved Apple, wish they would show it some respect!

 

[PKWY]

I know the iMac is not as 'sexy' as the iPhone or iPad but the original helped saved Apple, wish they would show it some respect![/QUOTE]


Exactly!

 

[DakotaGuy]

Considering the new iPhone slipped to 2 weeks in one hour I'd say the iMac is the last thing they are worried about right now. They could exit the desktop computer market tomorrow and it would hardly dent their bottom line.

iDevices are the future of Apple. If the Mac survives in the long run it will just become a minor side product. Tim Cook stated many times in the keynote that we are in a post PC era and Apple is committed to focusing most of their effort on mobile devices. Look at the Mac Pro and that will give you a good idea where the Mac line especially the desktops are headed.

 

[ivoruest]

Considering the new iPhone slipped to 2 weeks in one hour I'd say the iMac is the last thing they are worried about right now. They could exit the desktop computer market tomorrow and it would hardly dent their bottom line.

iDevices are the future of Apple. If the Mac survives in the long run it will just become a minor side product. Tim Cook stated many times in the keynote that we are in a post PC era and Apple is committed to focusing most of their effort on mobile devices. Look at the Mac Pro and that will give you a good idea where the Mac line especially the desktops are headed.

I agree with this. Apple should care about having Mac programers happy. Even though the mobile market is the future applications need to be programed in a desktop or laptop at least. If they fail to continue providing good and updated hardware to them I don't see anything good that can come out of this.

 

[AlphaMF]

Haha, yeah so it seems. Well I guess we can choose to believe the news we would like now. I go with this one. I want the entry level to go out and high end to ship

Seriously digitimes.... Wtf. It seems like they are guessing just like we are. And their articles are always so vague and useless.

 

[CoreyLahey]

Considering the new iPhone slipped to 2 weeks in one hour I'd say the iMac is the last thing they are worried about right now. They could exit the desktop computer market tomorrow and it would hardly dent their bottom line.

iDevices are the future of Apple. If the Mac survives in the long run it will just become a minor side product. Tim Cook stated many times in the keynote that we are in a post PC era and Apple is committed to focusing most of their effort on mobile devices. Look at the Mac Pro and that will give you a good idea where the Mac line especially the desktops are headed.

Doesn't make sense, MacBooks are also Personal Computers (Cook was referring to windows mainly), and the Mac Pro has been confirmed by Tim Cook for 2013.

2 days ago I bought a low spec iMac to hold me over until the release of new iMacs. It's my first Mac ever, and I'm really impressed, I would not understand it, if they ever were to axe that product.

 

[DakotaGuy]

Doesn't make sense, MacBooks are also Personal Computers (Cook was referring to windows mainly), and the Mac Pro has been confirmed by Tim Cook for 2013.

2 days ago I bought a low spec iMac to hold me over until the release of new iMacs. It's my first Mac ever, and I'm really impressed, I would not understand it, if they ever were to axe that product.

Of course the Macs are PCs and listening to Cook confirms that Apple indeed believes that PCs are pretty much the thing of the past. They will continue the product, but with little focus in the coming years. An all new Mac Pro remains to be seen no matter what Cook said.

 

[motrek]

Why would you do this? Why?

Simple. Hard disks have a random access latency of around 8-9 ms. I don't know what kind of latency FireWire adds but I assume it's less than 1 ms, so that means a FireWire SSD is going to be 10+ times faster than a hard disk for everything except transferring large files.

 

[AlphaMF]

I wrote TC an email, but I guess its not everyday he replies personal mails.

I highly doubt apple are seeing the iMac as obsolete. They are still eating a big chunk of the desktop Pie and it guarantees their ecosystem to a great extent. As long as iMacs gennerate more business than it costs, there is no reason to drop it. And with the profit margins they have, they could just update the iMac once every year indefinitely and still make money (until people truly stop buying desktops)

There is no reason to believe that Apple hasn't intended for a new iMac to come out. I think the iPhone was supposed to launch later, but they moved it forward to make room for the other launches later in the year. Launches that were unable to be ready fora sept. launch.

I'm not hoping for apple to get their act together and launching the iMac, because apple wants this as much /more than us (we want a toy, Apple wants to make money). I'm hoping the issues with the suppliers are solved and the products have a problem free shipment to retailers.

 

[22mac]

The next date will be the 18th September. Who knows it could be updated.

 

[Lancer]

Considering the new iPhone slipped to 2 weeks in one hour I'd say the iMac is the last thing they are worried about right now. They could exit the desktop computer market tomorrow and it would hardly dent their bottom line.

First a 2 week delay is nothing new, unless you can get one in store I would expect them quickly, but they will come.

It would matter in the long run IMO.

iDevices are the future of Apple. If the Mac survives in the long run it will just become a minor side product. Tim Cook stated many times in the keynote that we are in a post PC era and Apple is committed to focusing most of their effort on mobile devices. Look at the Mac Pro and that will give you a good idea where the Mac line especially the desktops are headed.

I still think the iMac (or some computer) should be the center or Hub for other devices and in the short term this is not going to change, weather it ends up being based in a laptop and not desktop only time will tell.

 

[AlphaMF]

If they launch procts every two weeks, it would look like this:

25th sept: maybe iMac, rMBP
9th/16th oct: iPad event
23rd/30th oct: nothing.

Alternatively the iMac would launch 23/30th instead. I really hope for the former and not the latter, bu the latter is prob more likely.

 

[Nandifix]

So last Monday they said they were shipping and now they say they are expected to be shipping soon. As for the three model they really don't have a clue but it's pretty easy to guess that we will still have the basic 21.5 and 27 inch displays.

 

[Yeroon]

If it would have been just a spec bump, it's obvious that Apple would have announced the new iMacs at WWDC of shortly after. Now, it's clear that they had some kind of problems with manufacturing, which says it's a redesigned product with different components than the previous iMacs, apart from Ivy Bridge (new screen or new design or retina). I can understand all that.

The only thing I don't understand is why Apple is so quiet about it. Sure, they always are, but in this case the whole world knows the iMacs are long overdue (500+ days!), so why not give a timeframe? Just give their loyal (and new) customers some information that there's something coming next month (of next year, whatever), and cut the price on the current products with old hardware (that is far more cheaper for Apple to buy).

I think they are losing customers over it. And I know resellers aren't happy because they don't sell many iMacs anymore. I am about to spend a fortune on a new iMac (with SSD, usb 3.0 and Thunderbolt storage), but I refuse to buy old hardware which is 500+ days old for the same pricetag as May 2011. Come on Apple! Care a bit more about your customers! Or isn't the desktop market of importance to you? If so, just say so instead of keeping everybody waiting.

I'll wait for October. If nothing then, I'll buy a pc (a Hackingtosh probably).

 

[richest]

Yes, I agree.

Plenty of advanced rumours for iPhone iPad mini iPad. Etc, leaked by Apple et al.

No iMac leaks from Apple, WHY?

 

[skaertus]

Yes, I agree.

Plenty of advanced rumours for iPhone iPad mini iPad. Etc, leaked by Apple et al.

No iMac leaks from Apple, WHY?

Could be for lots of reasons: (1) it's far less popular than the iPhone and the iPad, so people are not so excited in getting their hands on it; (2) it's much bigger than an iPhone and an iPad, so it should be much harder to get one; and (3) it's not getting a release any time soon.

 

[segovius]

Yes, I agree.

Plenty of advanced rumours for iPhone iPad mini iPad. Etc, leaked by Apple et al.

No iMac leaks from Apple, WHY?

Apple pretty much have everything locked down now. If things leak it's probably because Apple want them to. Free advertising and hype. iMac doesn't inspire that sort of buzz so no need to do it.

 

[skaertus]

If it would have been just a spec bump, it's obvious that Apple would have announced the new iMacs at WWDC of shortly after. Now, it's clear that they had some kind of problems with manufacturing, which says it's a redesigned product with different components than the previous iMacs, apart from Ivy Bridge (new screen or new design or retina). I can understand all that.

It's quite strange that Apple has not yet released a spec bump of the current iMac.

Digitimes reports that a retina version of the iMac is coming. But I have my doubts on that. A retina 21" iMac would have a screen resolution of 3840x2160; and the 27" iMac would have an even higher resolution, of 5120x2880. Considering that Apple uses mobile video cards (because of heating issues, probably) to keed the iMacs so slim, I wonder which video cards it would put inside those machines. Is there any video card that actually supports this resolution? I mean, the high end NVIDIA cards could easily support these, at least theoretically; a GTX 690 can handle four monitors at 2560x1600 (although 5120x2880 is not currently supported, some tweaks could sort that out, if both Apple and NVIDIA were interested in that). But is it really feasible for an all-in-one such as the iMac?

 

[Yeroon]

Digitimes reports that a retina version of the iMac is coming. But I have my doubts on that. A retina 21" iMac would have a screen resolution of 3840x2160; and the 27" iMac would have an even higher resolution, of 5120x2880. Considering that Apple uses mobile video cards (because of heating issues, probably) to keed the iMacs so slim, I wonder which video cards it would put inside those machines. Is there any video card that actually supports this resolution? I mean, the high end NVIDIA cards could easily support these, at least theoretically; a GTX 690 can handle four monitors at 2560x1600 (although 5120x2880 is not currently supported, some tweaks could sort that out, if both Apple and NVIDIA were interested in that). But is it really feasible for an all-in-one such as the iMac?

I think it's possible. Apple has made clear the future is retina. First a retina iPhone, then the iPad, then the MacBook Pro, so the only other product that's logical (apart from an Air) is a retina iMac. A retina iMac is even more logical than a MacBook Pro in my mind, because photographers, illustrators and video-editors probably would prefer the screen of an iMac over the relatively small screen of a 15,4 inch Macbook Pro.

Technically it should be possible too. As you said, if the current cards support four monitors, why not one with a major resolution? I don't think 5120x2880 is necessary, as the distance you watch a 27 inch monitor is further than that of an iPhone, iPad or MacBook. I think everybody would be happy if a retina iMac would offer a 4k resolution (also in line with 4k tv's that are available now). And ideal for video-editing (2k, 4k). And that should be possible when Apple and Nvidia are working together on this. If a mobile GPU can't do it, maybe Apple will switch to a tweaked desktop GPU. They have done that before; iMacs use desktop CPU's already.

 

[skaertus]

I think it's possible. Apple has made clear the future is retina. First a retina iPhone, then the iPad, then the MacBook Pro, so the only other product that's logical (apart from an Air) is a retina iMac. A retina iMac is even more logical than a MacBook Pro in my mind, because photographers, illustrators and video-editors probably would prefer the screen of an iMac over the relatively small screen of a 15,4 inch Macbook Pro.

I'm not saying it's impossible. But perhaps it's not feasible now, this year. Next year we will get new CPUs, new GPUs and the mass production of high resolution displays will be much higher. All Apple products will, sooner or later, get a retina display. But I guess the iMac will have to wait until 2013.

Technically it should be possible too. As you said, if the current cards support four monitors, why not one with a major resolution? I don't think 5120x2880 is necessary, as the distance you watch a 27 inch monitor is further than that of an iPhone, iPad or MacBook. I think everybody would be happy if a retina iMac would offer a 4k resolution (also in line with 4k tv's that are available now). And ideal for video-editing (2k, 4k). And that should be possible when Apple and Nvidia are working together on this. If a mobile GPU can't do it, maybe Apple will switch to a tweaked desktop GPU. They have done that before; iMacs use desktop CPU's already.

It should be technically possible too, but I don't know if mobile GPUs can currently handle that.

 

[CWallace]

I do not believe we will see a retina iMac this refresh. The price of the panels are still very high and I am skeptical Apple would be able to command a significant premium for a 27" retina iMac considering how far most people sit from their screens. I suppose it could be a BTO option, however.

There are rumors Apple has gone to a new process for the LCD, bonding it similar to what is done with the rMBP. These same rumors say the 27" bonded LCD is having serious yield problems so this probably explains why Apple has not yet announced the refresh - customers won't want to have to wait weeks for delivery and Apple probably is a bit fearful of a high return rate if they rushed.

So if there are production issues, until Apple's suppliers resolve them, we're probably in a holding pattern.

 

[Mad Sativa]

October 5th, 1 year anniversary. The IMAC was Steve's baby.

 

[flopticalcube]

October 5th, 1 year anniversary. The IMAC was Steve's baby.

hmmm... Steve Jobs Memorial Edition.... could be.

 

[davidgnomo]

What pisses me off more is that nobody of us will benefit of the Back to School offer ...