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Anyone prefer not to have the edge thin due to the fat bulge?

comatory said:
Relax, nobody was complaining about thickness when 2011 iMacs were around. Hey, I'm not happy about the prices either but you have to admit that there is nothing on the market like this right now.

And please, tell me how they'd stuff those internal components into 1" board. ?
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Exactly, the 2011 model wasn't too thick. So why is Apple charging $100 more for a thinner model, and one that actually isn't that much thinner other than the edges?

As for "stuffing" the components into 1", they don't seem to have a problem putting similar components into the retina MacBook Pros, which are less than 1" thick.

Looking at Apple's picture of the new iMac internals, I bet it's all less than 1" thick already except for the heatsink and the hard drive. Heatsink is no problem, there is clearly more than enough space to make it flatter and bigger, and make the fan bigger (or add a second fan). The hard drive is no problem, just switch it to a 2.5" model, which runs cooler and quieter anyway, and could run at 7200 RPM and be passively cooled in the 21.5" model too. Yes, you give up the possibility of a 3GB internal hard drive, but that's what all those great USB3 and Thunderbird ports are for.

So why didn't they just make it thinner, you might ask. Well, probably the main reason is that they wanted to stick with a 3.5" drive because they can be bigger (3GB) and also because they are a few dollars cheaper for the same size. Two, maybe they didn't want to have a (2x?) bigger exhaust vent for wider/flatter cooling hardware. Three, maybe the design of their stand/hinge puts a restriction on the thickness of the device and they didn't want to redesign it.

Anyway, it looks like I'll be picking up an almost-new 2011 27" iMac from Craigslist for $1150 in the next couple hours. I'm happy to save $650 vs. getting a fake-thin computer with a minor CPU/GPU spec bump, no optical drive and an SD card slot in the back.
 
I personally would rather have it like the 2011 model but flat on the back. I'm sure they could still shave off a lil bit, but I liked the look of the iMac when it was squared off alot more.
 
joeysarks said:
I personally would rather have it like the 2011 model but flat on the back. I'm sure they could still shave off a lil bit, but I liked the look of the iMac when it was squared off alot more.
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I was thinking about this too. Having rounded corners and a flat back seems like it would look pretty badass to me. Sort of like a giant iPhone.

I'm sure they could make such a device 1" thick, but I wouldn't mind if it was 1.5" thick, which could not possibly be a problem for them.

Plus the cooling system could be great. Imagine a giant heatsink stretching across the entire width of the computer at the top...
 
Yeah I'm not impressed by the design of the new iMac. As far as looks the thinness around the edges to me is pointless if you're going to have the bulge in the middle. It just seems like we're going to now pay more for less aluminum and yet it still takes up the same amount of space on the desk.

I would of been much more impressed to see just a slight reduction in thickness overall for the entire casing and then a reduction in the chin at the bottom like some of the mockups people have posted here. I would of also liked to seen a black anodized iMac that matches the new black iPhone 5 and iPad Mini.
 
I always felt it odd on Apple's devices when they add the 'wedge' that makes it physically larger than it has to be without adding anything in the wedge.

For example, the first MacBook Air's wedge serves no purpose. No useful bits are there. Even the latest MacBook Air's wedges are mostly for show. The Retina 13" MacBook Pro has a smaller footprint than the 13" Air.

Likewise with this, if they had just made the entire enclosure equally thick, at the thinnest it could be, they would have had room for more robust cooling to keep it quieter, potentially more thermal headroom for a better GPU, etc.
 
burningrave101 said:
... I would of been much more impressed to see just a slight reduction in thickness overall for the entire casing and then a reduction in the chin at the bottom like some of the mockups people have posted here. I would of also liked to seen a black anodized iMac that matches the new black iPhone 5 and iPad Mini.
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The chin doesn't bother me one way or the other. It's just there for marketing purposes. It's not like they can't make the computer smaller and fit behind just the monitor. It is funny that some people assume the entire computer is just in the chin.

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Anonymous Freak said:
... For example, the first MacBook Air's wedge serves no purpose. No useful bits are there. Even the latest MacBook Air's wedges are mostly for show. The Retina 13" MacBook Pro has a smaller footprint than the 13" Air. ...
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Not sure what you mean by "wedge"... the MacBook Air is pretty chock full of important things.

If you mean that it's thicker towards the back, that thickness is necessary because of the height of the ports and the cooling hardware.
 
I really don't like heavily curved backs. I hated it when the iPhone 3G had it.

So I don't think it's much of a surprise to say I don't think the new design is that attractive. I honestly preferred the old one.
 
comatory said:
Everything looks better than "Molar Mac".

Yeah it's a little show off but still a great feat of engineering. Apple does what they always do, something crazy and it takes two years for competition to catch them up. At that time they usually do some another crazy thing. Brilliant marketing.
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I don't know if anyone's going to be running to catch up with this. I don't particularly think it adds to the overall looks of the computer and I would prefer Apple concentrate on making it more powerful at the same price. That would make it far better and more innovative than what it is now. Finding ways to squeeze out more performance without sacrificing price is a lot more attractive to the user.
 
Icaras said:
The ODD is not a feature for many, myself included, so I'm very happy Apple removed it.

The vast majority of low end users will never attempt to upgrade their machine, and most likely will never need to go beyond 8 GB of RAM of the lifetime of their machine, which mind you, is already an upgrade from last year's 4GB.
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The question is: are you losing too much because of it being thin?
And, more importantly for me, PAYING MORE "just" because it's thinner?
Yes, I know there are improvements, too, but...I still think the emphasis is too much on it being thin (at the edges!)...

I was expecting to pay the same price and would order it NOW. But at 200EUR more...I'll probably wait for a while. Frustrating...
 
Personally, I'm loving the new look of the machine. I think the thin design looks great. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I got an external superdrive already, so that isn't a problem for me. I will need an firewire 800 adaptor, but that's the price of moving forward.

I think the top 27 BTO is a beast of a machine and simple don't see how anybody can say it's a compromise. Sure it's gonna be exxy, but Apple is never the cheapest cookie in the jar.

In saything that, I'm getting the top 27 with fusion and ram the only additions. All up I'm looking at around 200,000 yen (guesstimate based on mini pricing). That's actually my budget, so i'm stonked to come in at the price I was hoping. (I get educ. discount)

I remember paying double that for a Blue and white G3 Mac way back in 98ish.
 
I like the look of the old machine. I don't mind the look of the new machine. Frankly, I don't really care. They could have kept the same shape, since this "new" shape is hardly doing any wonders to the aesthetics, nor is it something that is necessary in a desktop computer. It looks like a redesign purely for the sake of a re-design. There is nothing functional about it.

I am excited about the internals though.
 
JayLenochiniMac said:
Go watch the keynote. It didn't look bad at all when Schiller pivoted it for all to see.
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That was a pivotal moment for me. It looked sleek and svelte up to that point.

And then Schiller clumsily yanked the beauty round a bit and its ugly bump rolled into sight. Ugh. It was a huge letdown. In that brief moment, all of Apple's prior design subtlety was replaced by blatant, fat-shuffling trickery: No diet this time, just a corset.
 
Arran said:
That was a pivotal moment for me. It looked sleek and svelte up to that point.

And then Schiller clumsily yanked the beauty round a bit and its ugly bump rolled into sight. Ugh. It was a huge letdown. In that brief moment, all of Apple's prior design subtlety was replaced by blatant, fat-shuffling trickery: No diet this time, just a corset.
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Why is this a problem? Do you spend long periods of time staring at the back?
 
theSeb said:
Why is this a problem? Do you spend long periods of time staring at the back?
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By this logic you could easily have the new iMac 2x bigger than the 2011 iMac and it would not be a problem, so saying that it's not for starring at the back is not solving the problem.

Personally, I would prefer to have the same or just sightly thinner than 2011 and have at least the sd card on the side, but ok, while this thin edge does look great from the pictures apple has on the website, I find the 2011 better looking because is more even. Then again I did not see the new one in person so the opinion could change.
 
george-brooks said:
Wow, the bulge looks so much bigger in this photo than in the other photos I've seen. Perhaps the angle is exaggerating it a bit? Apple's own photos sure know how to capture the right angles to make this thing look razor thin. I want to see it in person. If the bulge is as bad as it looks in this photo, we have an even bigger problem then we already do!
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Apple is working those camera angles man! Its like in the movies, lets only do extreme close ups to hide something until we can't anymore! But seriously they had what I thought were beautiful pictures of this new albeit not my cup of tea per se iMac...Looks like someone took a tube TV and put it on a diet instead of turning it into a wall mount LCD/LED! :eek::eek:

Bendrix said:
It's skinny fat, like those skinny dudes with beer guts.
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First thing that came to mind. Second thing that came to mind (for you younger guys and maybe older "hip" gentlemen) was those girls that look GORGEOUS in pictures and on Facebook and then when you see them in person its not even reminiscent of the pictures...
 
The Phazer said:
I really don't like heavily curved backs. I hated it when the iPhone 3G had it.

So I don't think it's much of a surprise to say I don't think the new design is that attractive. I honestly preferred the old one.
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I agree, I wish the back was just squared off like the newer Iphones, the side thickness is not important, unless it was 5 mm all the way across but then the internal components would have to be in the base or square off the bulge like a step design.
 
I like it, it's different to anything else on the market.Why does a computer need to have uniform thickness?
And I have always been a fan of the chin, I don't want it to look like a TV.
 
It would look infinitely better if they had just taken the edge to about 0.5" instead of 5mm. 5mm makes it look too fragile, and it makes the reveal of the bulging back that much more ridiculous.

They should have considered making the back black like the '08 model to disguise/slim the bulge more visually, if they are so into using optical illusions to shrink it.. I even think it would have looked more modern/better if the back was a shallow pyramid with hard edges centering in on the stand hinge, as apposed to a shallow cone with no edges/curved. That would seem more honest somehow.

If it weren't for the vastly improved display (less glare, laminated to eliminate dust, improved contrast) I would be buying a 2011 model right now.
 
so it's cool!

imacconcept.jpg
 
I think another poster in one of the other threads summed up this upgrade pretty well - Laptop on a stick. The thing is Apple aren't on their own here as Windows OEM AIO computers seem to be popping up everywhere at present, with towers now an endangered species.

As I said in another thread, I don't hate the new iMac but I do prefer my mid 2011 model and TBH if this is the way Apple are taking the iMac then I'm tempted to go with a Mini next time around. I consider the latest Mini is starting to make the brand a quite attractive option. The latest bench tests show the new Mini matching the 2010 Mac Pro - now who would have thought you could put those two things in the same sentence?
 
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Structurally, I can see a reason for the curvier back. In the previous iMacs the back shell was the chassis that all components were mounted to, therefore the aluminum would be fairly thick, with good rigidity. In the 2012 iMac the chassis is now a flat plate directly behind the screen, so the rear is an empty shell, probably of thinner aluminum. Since the support point is at the very back, a continuous curve will be stronger than a squared off shape. Another consideration is that in the previous iMacs the weight of the internal components was centered around the mount. Now, the center of gravity for the iMac is more forward, away from the mount. The screen will be lighter, but you now have an aluminum chassis at the front.
 
They should just make an iMac thats an inch thick at the most, flat on both sides, holes along top and bottom, and 2 or 3 fans sucking it thru the bottom and shooting it out the top. Uber life span, uber speeds, uber at cooking marshmellows on the top:)
 
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