Apple Announces Lighter, Thinner iMac Models with Fusion Drive

[pedrordep]

Not only tariffs and taxes. Basic iMac costs $1299 in USA. Adding around 72% (60% plus ICMS) from importing and local taxes, this turns into USD 2234,28. The exceeding USD 750,00 appears to be "the Brazil cost" which includes low scale, protection to exchange volatility and "whatever can harm Apple margins".
".

The fair price of the low end iMac should be a maximum of $2300,00 here.

There are all sorts of protective tariffs and taxes in Brazil. So prices are meaningless for comparison with other countries. It is apple with oranges.

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I'm too lazy to do it, but someone should dig up an old discussion thread from back when Apple released that first iMac without a floppy drive. I'm sure it would read *exactly* like this one.

Everyone freaked out, external floppy drives were still available, and the colored iMac went on to be a massive success. A few years later, floppies were gone for all intents and purposes.


You're losing your built-in optical drive sooner or later. Get used to it.

While it is tempting to equate the current optical drive exclusion with the floppy drive decision in 1998, they are not the same. CDs will still be used by millions over the coming years (especially by older farts like myself) because it is the standard in the music industry.

CD use is indeed declining and will eventually die, but it will take quite a long time. And not over the next five to six years which are relevant to many current potential buyers of iMacs.


Pedro

 

[Digital Skunk]

Yes,,, yes I would.

Glad you are glad about that… me, I'm not - again, performance IMHO should trump portability / thinness in the desktop arena.

Totally agree. Love the new design, but giving users of the 21.5" iMac a 5400 rpm drive just to cut down on thickness is insane. There was time that I considered the 21.5" with SSD a good replacement for some 6 year old Mac Pros but not anymore. With the 27" too wide, I'll have to buy the previous generation and pray that we can get it CTO'd with SSDs.

Being able to drop in a disc on my current machine has become a huge plus.

 

[whitesand]

It still wont change the fact that eventually physical media for the current purposes used by consumers today will be redundant. The old generations accustomed to them will die and the new will simply find it foreign to use such devices for the purposes they're being used to today. Therefore blue ray will die out in the same way VHS, casetes and other inferior storage devices that preceeded them.

Again, what superior storage device that's reliable for long term storage is it being replaced with ? If nothing the only change that's happening is storage is switching hands and that's not progress...meaning you've got to buy their product to view perhaps home movies made 10 years prior instead of having user controllable media that can be viewed on universal devices...Not good for the consumer...I'm all for new superior tech but I'm not for the consumer losing control over storage to view on any device.

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Well then let me put it this way: I'm glad I have a more international perspective on things, thanks to me living smack in the middle of europe.

It's your american side that got offended, right? Because your british side should know that irony is not a metal alloy…

You don't think their could be folks in every country that potentially think irony is a metal ? And if they did think irony wan an alloy it's just a matter of being taught the meaning of the term if they have yet to learn it....Intelligence or the lack of it has nothing to do with which country you happen to be born in or if you've been exposed to the definition to a particular word...

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Who needs them anyway? This is a very old technology. Flash drives are now so cheap and have much greater capacity. Anyway, all the developments in computers seems to be in direction of non moving parts like SSDs. This is the future not old mechanical drives.

Read the post above yours....USB long term reliability is nowhere near the capability of optical....I like future tech, but replace the bluray/dvd with something superior with the same long term reliability.

 

[whitesand]

CRAP!! I just went through the tech specs and the 21.5s are all 5400rpm.

Now I'll put up with no optical drive this is is just BS.

Good point....And now it's easy to see why all these folks saying dropping the optical drive is "apple setting new trends" or "moving forward" or "it's for old people have a hard time grasping new tech" are merely making a nonsensical argument when you've got a 5400 rpm hard drive in a computer that costs over a thousand dollars.

 

[CoolSpot]

I agree ... the optical drive is a joke. I have not used one more than a few times a year - if that. Plus like you said Apple ODDs are crap anywyas. It is easier to just go buy a good external one.

Gaming on Macs has always been iffy with their cheap use of GPUs. Now with current stand alone GPUs they should be just fine. The 6 series Kepler line is a beast. The I5 CPUs are OK for 21" but would of liked to see the I7 in the 27" for all versions.

It just worries me with the heat issues in such a tight place, but I guess time will tell if they really are a problem or not ..

The primary difference between the i5 and i7 is hyperthreading which has been shown to increase performance in some specific circumstances. I wouldn't consider the i7 to be a vastly superior processor by any stretch.

To your next point, I would think with ivy bridge and kepler the thermal performance would be greatly improved over the previous generation.

 

[Xiroteus]

Good point....And now it's easy to see why all these folks saying dropping the optical drive is "apple setting new trends" or "moving forward" or "it's for old people have a hard time grasping new tech" are merely making a nonsensical argument when you've got a 5400 rpm hard drive in a computer that costs over a thousand dollars.

They make little sense at times, what they are really saying is, we want you to buy overpriced itunes content (music is fine overall) so we are talking it out, a company has little room to talk about dated or living in the past (optical media is still current Apple!) when they have such slow hard drives.

 

[Stevamundo]

Why does my desktop need to be lighter? I'm not using it on my lap... Give me an optical drive please.

I totally agree. I love my 2011 iMac with the build-in optical drive.

Apple needs to stop obsessing how to make EVERYTHING thinner. In laptops I somewhat understand. However with the iMacs it's kind of ridiculous.

Oh well, I'm kind of glad that the '12 iMacs don't impress me much. I don't feel the urge to upgrade like I usually do.

 

[xbjllb]

I'd like to hear your reason for saying that.

You proved it when you said Apple lossless is a joke.



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Because people like me actually hear the difference between a pristine PCM, a lossless file and dumbed don AAC or MP3.

Just because it doesn't matter to you (and granted - on loudness wars tracks it really doesn't matter that much) doesn't mean that there ain't a difference. Heard Slash's new album? Well - the dynamics are quite gorgeous on it. I refrain from even touching an AAC of that!

x1000.

You get what you pay for.

By the way.... loving the new automatic multi-quoting in here. After years of kvetching and complaints and warnings, THE single BIGGEST leap in "Apple" technology in twenty years.

 

[eda]

I suppose being less fat and weighing less are pretty pointless in a desktop, but I wouldn't have thought that would be off putting to buyers. I still think the iMac looks cool, and I've planned on buying one for a while, it'll be fine for everything I use a computer for.

I think people need to remember this isn't a pro machine, yet still a very powerful piece of kit.

 

[xgman]

Totally agree. Love the new design, but giving users of the 21.5" iMac a 5400 rpm drive just to cut down on thickness .

huh? Nothing to do with size. It's a mom's kitchen computer.

 

[jennyp]

When Apple Yesterday Anounced that the New iMac had a "new fully laminated design to improve optical quality" this sounded a bit like an admission of a known design flaw

The iMac Displays of the previous generation's had a problem with dust Entering the display. So Many People had this issue that sites are all around the net warning people about " Grey Smudge / Dark Patches on iMac screen's "

Perhaps this is the fix for all the displays that had to replaced under warranty claims.

Also i noticed that they have pulled all the previous 2011 model from there site even though the new model is not shipping yet !

Anybody had the issue ? and what's your thoughts on this ?

Yep. I was a victim of this design flaw. Panel replaced under AppleCare, but it's beginning to happen again, as it does with everyone. I feel like asking for one of the new models, but they wouldn't give me one, because then they'd have to do the same for everybody. Stuck. ANGRY.

 

[Stevamundo]

Yep. I was a victim of this design flaw. Panel replaced under AppleCare, but it's beginning to happen again, as it does with everyone. I feel like asking for one of the new models, but they wouldn't give me one, because then they'd have to do the same for everybody. Stuck. ANGRY.

Huh? NOT with everybody! My 2011 iMac's display looked perfect when I got it AND still looks perfect now.

 

[macleod199]

True, but the previous entry-level iMac had a 7200 rpm drive, could have its memory upgraded by the user, and its CPU upgraded as a CTO.

This entry level iMac is a dead end.

Maybe it will be a useful dead end for many people, but a dead end nonetheless. I was looking to recommend the entry-level iMac to a couple of friends, but I can't do that in good conscience with this one.

Once I push them to level two, it starts to get expensive and perhaps not worth it for them -- we're at $1500 and still have a 5400 rpm drive. The Fusion option is what, $250 more? So we're pushing $1800 there. Not cost-effective, in my opinion. And the people I'm talking about will not spend $1800.

Fair enough. Personally I'm more annoyed by the lack of user-replaceable battery, hard drive, etc., on the MBP - but that's a long dead issue. At least they're opening up more Apple stores in Canada, so it's not impossible to take stuff in.

 

[Jezzantora]

What a disappointment! Desktops don't need to be this thin. It's totally impractical to remove the optical drive for this reason. I'd rather have better processing power for my resource hungry apps like Cubase, Final cut and photoshop than a thinner design.

 

[pacfolly]

Amazement Turns into Disappointment

When I first saw the new iMac on Apple's site (pictured from the side, of course), I let out a gasp after seeing how amazingly thin it was, or so I thought After watching the Keynote, however, I realized that the slim edges gradually taper off and that the back of the iMac is still rather thick.

As someone who originally had a 2006 20" iMac and who currently uses a 2009 27" one, I do not feel at all compelled or even tempted to upgrade, for the benefits of the new iMac (some perceived and some real thinness and a better display) do not outweigh the huge upgrade cost and the downfalls of the new machine.

Firstly, like many others have noted, the lack of an optical drive is rather disappointing, and the placement of the SD card slot on the back is an aesthetically-pleasing but annoying place for it. I am also disappointed that Firewire 800 has been removed completely in favor of Thunderbolt ports, but it is nice to see that Apple is putting two high speed ports on the iMac again (my 2006 iMac had two Firewire ports unlike the 2009 model which had one). They did remove its display port, however, so it would have been nice if they added an HDMI port to the right of the Thunderbolt ports.

One of my main concerns with the new iMac, however, is its lifespan. I can't help but wonder how cool it will be able to run with all the components crammed inside such a small enclosure, and it is disappointing that RAM is not user-upgradeable on the 21" model (although I wouldn't be surprised if all Apple computers are like this soon). Also, with the new Fusion drive (add-on), I wonder if replacements will only be available through Apple, something that wouldn't surprise me. Additionally, I am curious to see an iFixit teardown of the new iMac to see just how difficult it will be to take apart in case something needs to be replaced (something that is already a feat the average user cannot easily do).

Overall, while the new iMac looks cool at first glance, I will be sticking with my current iMac for as long as it remains a solid running computer, and when the time comes to upgrade, I may or may not purchase another Mac if Apple continues to accelerate its focus on form over function and computing power instead of a balanced mix of the three. Additionally, if Apple keeps heading down the road of making increasingly unserviceable and un-upgradeable computers and their devices become "disposable" machines with a limited lifespan (such as the semi-serviceable Retina MacBook Pros), I will have very little interest in purchasing Apple's beautiful but pricey computers that are increasingly starting to fully embody the concept of planned obsolescence

 

[Zmmyt]

the iMac was already thin, but there's a point where you sacrifice usability for design. you see this all the time in LED televisions, the thinnest sets are edge lit by the LED's and you get odd screen uniformity and lighting issues from doing it in this fashion. the question is do you notice it or is going another 2-5mm thinner than full array led displays worth it. for some yes for others no.

it's all relative, I think what myself and others have said is that we feel this design choice on an already relatively thin machine does have some drawbacks. how much it affects you is up to you just as with the tv argument.

at the end of the day there isn't a one size fits all in all-in-one computing even though we sometimes pretend there is or can be

The previous iMac was flat. It's not like it had a CRT monitor.

i absolutely agree and i apologise if i came across a bit rude...bloody beers. but all these comments about it being stationary and what not. that's what TVs are and in some homes they take up a huge amount of space.

they are not valid anymore.

and i agree with the argument that they are sacrificing functionality, but most of us know apple is just leading the way to a different kind of computing.

so, yes people are upset about the so called "draw backs" but so many "up"votes for such, excuse me, ignorant posts, blow my mind.

 

[michaeljohn]

Cannot wait to get a 27 inch to replace my mid 2010! Love the design and specs!

 

[Fonzarello]

Burning DVDs/CDs

Optical drives aren't just about playing CDs or loading software - they are how you burn removable media as well. How do I create a DVD home movie to share with extended family on a new iMac? Buy an external ODD and create clutter on my desk. Ironic, considering the thinner approach is supposed to be more aesthetically appealing.

Was anything other than a slim edge gained by not including an ODD? That is the question. Saying they will become obsolete because only a few people use them is like saying car manufacturers should remove AM from the radios in their cars. Sure, most of us don't listen to AM radio. Ever. But enough people do that AM is always included. And it's easy to include.

Don't tell me price: price points went up $100 on the 27" models for marginally better specs. Base 27" gained 2.9GHz over 2.7Ghz. Ram increased to 8GB from 4GB, albeit at 1600MHz instead of 1333MHz. Newer graphics card with the same 512Mb of memory. Exact same hard drive size, screen resolution, screen size, and connections, although the SD reader moved to the *BACK* of the computer for less convenience.

Also i noticed that they have pulled all the previous 2011 model from there site even though the new model is not shipping yet !

Anybody had the issue ? and what's your thoughts on this ?

The mid-2011 release iMacs have been moved to the refurbished section of the store with some hefty discounts. They are not customizable, but I bought one anyway. Hopefully it will last me long enough for technology to catch up to Apple's vision.

 

[Xiroteus]

Optical drives aren't just about playing CDs or loading software - they are how you burn removable media as well. How do I create a DVD home movie to share with extended family on a new iMac? Buy an external ODD and create clutter on my desk. Ironic, considering the thinner approach is supposed to be more aesthetically appealing.

Was anything other than a slim edge gained by not including an ODD? That is the question. Saying they will become obsolete because only a few people use them is like saying car manufacturers should remove AM from the radios in their cars. Sure, most of us don't listen to AM radio. Ever. But enough people do that AM is always included. And it's easy to include.

Don't tell me price: price points went up $100 on the 27" models for marginally better specs. Base 27" gained 2.9GHz over 2.7Ghz. Ram increased to 8GB from 4GB, albeit at 1600MHz instead of 1333MHz. Newer graphics card with the same 512Mb of memory. Exact same hard drive size, screen resolution, screen size, and connections, although the SD reader moved to the *BACK* of the computer for less convenience.



The mid-2011 release iMacs have been moved to the refurbished section of the store with some hefty discounts. They are not customizable, but I bought one anyway. Hopefully it will last me long enough for technology to catch up to Apple's vision.

Sarcastic comment to follow - Wait, I never use the radio at all thus meaning no else does or should and must be removed at once because it takes up space everywhere! Or give an option to have it there or not.....what an idea!

Even if they felt they just had to remove the optical drive why not leave it about the space size and give it some more power, making it cost more for less just because they took off an inch on the side seems out there.

 

[xgman]

How did withme get on here with this spam?

 

[talmy]

Optical drives aren't just about playing CDs or loading software - they are how you burn removable media as well. How do I create a DVD home movie to share with extended family on a new iMac? Buy an external ODD and create clutter on my desk.

OK, it was a rhetorical question, but to give it another answer, if you extended family has Internet access, use the cloud, for instance, like this.

Delivery is basically instantaneous and free, instead of buying and burning media and sending it out via snail mail.

 

[Fonzarello]

OK, it was a rhetorical question, but to give it another answer, if you extended family has Internet access, use the cloud, for instance, like this.

Delivery is basically instantaneous and free, instead of buying and burning media and sending it out via snail mail.

I appreciate the helpful comment, but several of my family members struggle to understand even the most mundane aspects of using a computer. Facebook, saving a file, etc. Plus, some of them live where high-speed internet is either unavailable or exorbitantly expensive.

My bigger point is we lost functionality and gained very little in other areas with the new, thinner, more expensive iMac. Will the new iMacs be faster? Yes. Can you do more with them than previous generations? ...Not really. And keep in mind Fusion Drives will be an upgrade. The 1TB 7200rpm HDDs are still standard. So a lot of the speed gains will only come at a premium.

I still love Apple products and I'm still a loyal customer. I just think they fumbled this one. Unless they come out with a wireless ODD

 

[talmy]

I must agree. I still use the drive, but I've got a lot of systems and only need a drive on one of them. Like others I see no benefit to a thin iMac and removing the drive while at the same time raising the price seems like an insult.

 

[MythicFrost]

I must agree. I still use the drive, but I've got a lot of systems and only need a drive on one of them. Like others I see no benefit to a thin iMac and removing the drive while at the same time raising the price seems like an insult.

They may be a little more expensive but it's also touting 8GB of RAM and a 1 TB HDD compared to before.

 

[Xiroteus]

They may be a little more expensive but it's also touting 8GB of RAM and a 1 TB HDD compared to before.

Funny when that is a leap forward for them when this is something I would think of standard for at least a couple years.