The semi-annual community college district auction came calling, so I looked around for something unique to add to my collection. Hidden away in the listings were a pair of iMac Pros, which I anticipated because Apple stopped OS support for those with Sequoia. I was able to score one of them for $210 plus taxes and fees, and picked it up yesterday.
As usual for these auction machines, it didn't come with a keyboard or mouse/trackpad. Otherwise the iMac Pro was in excellent shape save for some dust, no damage or blemishes to the screen glass. I took some wipes and a microfiber cloth to clean it, and when I put it on my desk it still looked pretty new. Powering it up showed that it was indeed fully wiped, so I booted into the EFI partition and started Internet Recovery to Catalina. After Catalina was loaded I got a good look at the whole package with all the pixels lit - absolutely gorgeous. I also had a USB boot drive inserted just in case, but I forgot that the T2 chip won't allow that. so that was out. I then followed with Software Update straight from Catalina to Sequoia, let it do its thing, and an hour later I had a fully functional, updated iMac Pro ready to go. It's the base model 8-core Xeon with a 2 TB SSD.
Previously I had a 2015 27" iMac that I liked except sometimes it felt slow in Boot Camp and on the OS X side it was frozen to Monterey without using OCLP. That made my attempts to use both the iMac and my M2/M4 MacBook Air somewhat frustrating due to different UI interaction methods between Monterey and Sequoia when I tried to use Continuity. That will also happen to an extent with Sequoia and Tahoe, etc., though I can live with that since there's less of a gap. I like the idea of the iMac Pro being a Mac of particular moment (2017), a one-off borne of frustration from the userbase. Most of my old Macs haven't been updated beyond certain points because I like how they act as software time capsules. The 2020 iMacs and the 2019 Mac Pro continue to be supported for the time being. Sadly, their time is also coming soon.
As usual for these auction machines, it didn't come with a keyboard or mouse/trackpad. Otherwise the iMac Pro was in excellent shape save for some dust, no damage or blemishes to the screen glass. I took some wipes and a microfiber cloth to clean it, and when I put it on my desk it still looked pretty new. Powering it up showed that it was indeed fully wiped, so I booted into the EFI partition and started Internet Recovery to Catalina. After Catalina was loaded I got a good look at the whole package with all the pixels lit - absolutely gorgeous. I also had a USB boot drive inserted just in case, but I forgot that the T2 chip won't allow that. so that was out. I then followed with Software Update straight from Catalina to Sequoia, let it do its thing, and an hour later I had a fully functional, updated iMac Pro ready to go. It's the base model 8-core Xeon with a 2 TB SSD.
Previously I had a 2015 27" iMac that I liked except sometimes it felt slow in Boot Camp and on the OS X side it was frozen to Monterey without using OCLP. That made my attempts to use both the iMac and my M2/M4 MacBook Air somewhat frustrating due to different UI interaction methods between Monterey and Sequoia when I tried to use Continuity. That will also happen to an extent with Sequoia and Tahoe, etc., though I can live with that since there's less of a gap. I like the idea of the iMac Pro being a Mac of particular moment (2017), a one-off borne of frustration from the userbase. Most of my old Macs haven't been updated beyond certain points because I like how they act as software time capsules. The 2020 iMacs and the 2019 Mac Pro continue to be supported for the time being. Sadly, their time is also coming soon.
