Apple Discontinues 512GB and 1TB SSD Configurations of 4K 21.5-inch iMac

[BaltimoreMediaBlog]

Well, this question confuses me just a bit. M1 uses the Arm instruction set architecture. Anyone can get a license from Arm for that architecture, and make a chip. Cloning the M1 microarchitecture is a different matter. Someone could reverse engineer the M1 netlist (would be an expensive undertaking) and clone it, sure. They’d presumably still need an Arm license. But in doing so they may very well infringe Apple’s patents, to the extent Apple has patented things that it does in the M1 circuitry.

The original AMD clone of intel’s chip was done with Intel’s permission at the insistence of IBM, who demanded Intel allow it so they could have a second source of chips. At least that’s the story I heard (it was before my time ). So that’s a different situation.

I'm always amused by the x86 clone and PC histories. Bill Gates basically robbed IBM through a bad licensing deal while now you say that IBM screwed Intel into giving up its copyrights. It's almost unimaginable that such smart business people could make such horribly bad decisions. That's why I asked the question about the cloning potential with ARM clones of the M1 chip.

Clearly the proprietary T2 chip and some other additives make this nearly impossible, but then I thought, well my 2010 Mac Pro doesn't have a T2 chip and still works just fine, so it makes one wonder about the possibilities. I refuse to believe that TSMC is doing something that no other company can do. I just believe Intel is so poorly managed that they cannot until it was flaunted in their face and PC centric publications like PC Mag and Tom's Hardware ridiculed them in serious benchmarks.

And finally patenting the hell out of things was definitely one of Steve Jobs talents. Makes you wonder if Tim Cook actually did that or not. It's certainly not something career wise that's in his wheel house.

 

[Benedict1234]

Just hours after officially discontinuing the iMac Pro, Apple has also discontinued the 512GB and 1TB SSD configurations of the 4K 21.5-inch iMac.

Last month, both options became unavailable for purchase, although it was unclear at the time whether it was a temporary issue due to a component supply problem or if it was a permanent decision to no longer offer the options.

Apple has now removed both of the affected SSD options from the iMac’s configuration page entirely, leaving a 256GB SSD and a 1TB Fusion Drive as the only options for customers.

An all-new redesigned iMac based on Apple silicon is expected to launch later this year, but a more specific launch timeframe isn't yet known.

Article Link: Apple Discontinues 512GB and 1TB SSD Configurations of 4K 21.5-inch iMac

Why choose a Mouse iso trackpad though...

 

[bmot]

What makes you think they won’t offer a “proper” iMac?

This article.

 

[leman]

I have a question I've not seen an answer to. What is to prevent some company from cloning the M1 architecture like x86 was cloned? ARM is an instruction set that existed long before M1.

And other ARM CPUs exist, they use don't get nearly close to Apple's efficiency. I can't really see how it can be cloned unless someone gets a hand on the entire technical documentation and the blueprints. These chips are insanely complex, reverse engineering them is no small undertaking.

And even if some other company will be able to figure out the tricks behind Apple Silicon, it would still take them years to build anything comparable. Even more, one of Apple's chief chip designers left Apple to start his own CPU company (NUVIA) — that was 3 years ago and they still haven't produced a single product. They've been bought by Qualcomm just last week, let's see how long it will take them to produce a rival.

I refuse to believe that TSMC is doing something that no other company can do.

Of course, not, unless you count the ridiculous amount of money, time and experience they have invested into building and improving their fabs. If you had couple of billions lying around, I suppose you could try launching your own fab, but it's far from straightforward.

And finally patenting the hell out of things was definitely one of Steve Jobs talents. Makes you wonder if Tim Cook actually did that or not. It's certainly not something career wise that's in his wheel house.

There are plenty of Apple patents related to CPU design.

 

[im_to_hyper]

I wonder if a M1 iMac will just be a quiet release?


I remember a few years back, there were many threads with people asking when Apple was going to update the iMac Pro. My thoughts back then were that the iMac Pro was an one-time release, a stop-gap until the Mac Pro.

Looks like that might be the case.

Apple probably lost any exclusive supply offers within tell once they announced the M1 Mac

 

[biffuz]

Of all the options, they left a dreaded record player... I mean, "Fusion Drive".
Seriously, I'm considering going all SSD even for my always-on NAS, and moving the HDDs for rarely used stuff to a second NAS to be turned on only when needed... selling desktop machines with a HDD should be a criminal offense nowadays.

 

[kerr]

effectively saying: this is not a product anyone should buy

 

[MikeyUnix]

Sometimes people prefer more storage than speed. Why is this difficult to understand? HDD prices are still FAR BETTER than SSD prices. I can get a 14 TB HDD for almost the price of a 1TB 980 Pro SSD.

I suspect you have wrong idea about comments on storage. If

Sometimes people prefer more storage than speed. Why is this difficult to understand? HDD prices are still FAR BETTER than SSD prices. I can get a 14 TB HDD for almost the price of a 1TB 980 Pro SSD.

you want terabytes of storage yes external hd far cheaper although the ultra fast external ssd's have come down considerably

Of all the options, they left a dreaded record player... I mean, "Fusion Drive".
Seriously, I'm considering going all SSD even for my always-on NAS, and moving the HDDs for rarely used stuff to a second NAS to be turned on only when needed... selling desktop machines with a HDD should be a criminal offense nowadays.

SSD is obviously the way to go. I think some misunderstand the criticism of the HD storage systems. Of course if you need 14Tb you can get external HD storage much cheaper, but you don't really need a system with a 14Tb drive if your main reason for that amount of storage is 'storage'.

For most home users a 256Gb. will be usable for systems/applications. Obviously the bigger the SSD the more it appeals to though that have intensive needs.

I don't believe people are criticising anyone who buys a 14TB external hard drive if they need that amount of storage, but are criticising fusion drive, because its a poor substitute for SSD's let alone the latest implementation of them.

 

[gnasher729]

For most home users a 256Gb. will be usable for systems/applications. Obviously the bigger the SSD the more it appeals to though that have intensive needs.

People who need 256 GB don't use a 1TB fusion drive, that's common sense, so why are you bringing this up? People who want 1TB of storage buy a fusion drive because it is a lot cheaper. I always have the impression that on this forum many people have no problem spending other people's money. Here's a simple fact: My kids have rich parents; I don't. I do whatever is best for my wallet.

And a fusion drive is a lot, lot more practical than two separate drives. For example, on my MacBook, all the fonts that I rarely use but that I want to be there just in case are on the hard drive. My huge record collection is on the hard drive, except the album art is on the SSD. If you have an app with gigabytes of training videos inside the app, once you're done with it, the training videos move to the hard drive. All these things are _impossible_ with two separate drives. So with a fusion drive, you actually have more space on your SSD drive. Plus every gigabyte on the SSD drive will be used. If your SSD is 256 GB, all those 256 GB will be used.

 

[oldmacs]

Not really. They're cheap and high capacity. For some people, that's more important than speed. Don't foist your preferences on them.

They should have created a 2nd gen fusion drive with a fast SSD + a SATA SSD. That would be a good way of offering a better fusion drive than what they currently do.

I just think its ridiculous that such an expensive machine has such an outdated drive setup.

 

[MikeyUnix]

People who need 256 GB don't use a 1TB fusion drive, that's common sense. People who want 1TB of storage buy a fusion drive because it is a lot cheaper. I always have the impression that on this forum many people have no problem spending other people's money. Here's a simple fact: My kids have rich parents; I don't. I do whatever is best for my wallet.

I love the comment. about the kids....Its going to be academic anyway soon as I don't believe Apple can continue with the fusion drives just like the Macintosh external disk drive, unidisk 5.25, duo disk 5.25, unidisk 3.5, etc. etc.

 

[theSeb]

M1 iMac? Nonsense. It will be an M-series like M1X or M2.

It does not seem unlikely for Apple to release an entry level iMac with an M1 chip, possibly replacing the 21.5" with a 24" and the M1X or M2 going into the new "pro" iMac, possibly updated to a 32" 6k screen. This would give them a great excuse to bump up the RRP too on these models. All speculation of course. My leak / rumour hit rate is 0 out of 0.

 

[jefhai]

Apple doesn’t make chips. Even when they design them, others make them. And those manufacturers have lots of customers to supply.

Companies get contracts and Apple gets the biggest ones. Apple consumes most of TSMC advanced processing manufacturing... I read it’s not about other customers to supply it’s about sub straight constraints. So they have the chip but not the substrate to glue it to

 

[ikramerica]

Why choose a Mouse iso trackpad though...

I choose a trackball myself. For large screens it becomes second nature, and it takes a small, fixed amount of desk space.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

It's almost unimaginable that such smart business people could make such horribly bad decisions. That's why I asked the question about the cloning potential with ARM clones of the M1 chip.

I worked for a medical startup that would have saved a single hospital around 6 million a year, on the low end, and we could scale almost indefinitely. Granted it was probably the best case outcome, but still...

Due to a bad legal agreement, we ended up owing the founders of the company (who had long since left before we literally re-wrote the software) some untold millions. The backers of my company simply closed up shop and shut down.

Good ideas get killed all of the time, due to smart people making idiotic choices.

The lawyers didn't lawyer properly.
The founders were more concerned with getting a cut than they were over people's health.

Ultimately, people are less healthy than they could be, because of reasons like that.

Multiply it across millions of businesses and industries, and it's a wonder that anything ever gets accomplished.

 

[Juicy Box]

Why choose a Mouse iso trackpad though...

I would ask the opposite.

Personally, I much rather use a mouse than a trackpad, and I do use mice with my laptops whenever I can.

 

[EdT]

Exactly. Apple is optimizing its chips right now to prevent iPhone delays. We know this is getting updated this year, but Apple is choosing not to keep the old models in stock until the new one comes out. It’s unprecedented.

Up until the M1 series of Mac Air’s and MacBooks late last year the processors for all Macs were Intel chips and the processors for phones and iPads were in house designed and privately contracted for production ARM chips. Stopping production of an Intel based product doesn’t help iPhone production at all

 

[Zdigital2015]

366 comments and counting about Apple discontinuing a couple of storage tiers while they prepare to move the iMac to M-Series SoC’s versus 72 comments about Apple investing over a BILLION Euros in a silicon design center in Munich tells me all I need to know about the majority of the forum crowd around here. To those I respect in this thread, you are not included in this assessment.

 

[macsareveryinteresting]

More stuff being discontinued. These aren’t very smart moves Apple.

 

[curmudgeonette]

For example, this could be something that a Apple could do with the 27" iMac. Make all SKUs 16Gb - theoretically maxing out the on-package unified RAM on the M1. Anything added via the slots would then be accessible by the CPU only.

It is very suspicious that Apple included the LPDDR* on the M1 daughterboard. Why didn't they solder the M1 onto the logic board with the RAM soldered right next to it? I take this as a clue that Apple is planning on replacing the LPDDR with HBM on higher end successors of the M1.

Consider this possibility: An M2 with 16GB of HBM. This module is used alone in the MBP13. Base model MBP16s and iMacs also use this M2 module with no extra RAM. Expanding RAM in these models is done by adding DDR memory, soldered in the laptop, socketed in iMacs. This extra RAM isn't available directly to anything on the SoC. Instead, virtual memory paging is used to bring the contents into the HBM. In short, the DDR memory is just a first level of virtual memory backing store. This way the DDR could be just a single channel of relatively slow memory.

 

[curmudgeonette]

I'm always amused by the x86 clone and PC histories. Bill Gates basically robbed IBM through a bad licensing deal while now you say that IBM screwed Intel into giving up its copyrights. It's almost unimaginable that such smart business people could make such horribly bad decisions. That's why I asked the question about the cloning potential with ARM clones of the M1 chip.

Back in the 1970's, nobody would use your chip if it didn't have a second source. All the popular chips had second sources: the 8080, 8085, 8086/88, Z80, 6502, 68000, and so on. I suspect that the chip masks were given/sold to the alternate sources. So it wasn't that AMD cloned the 8088. Instead, Intel essentially gave AMD a ready to go production line.

 

[Stella]

More stuff being discontinued. These aren’t very smart moves Apple.

Why isn't this a smart move? Apple is getting ready for the imminent release of Apple Silicon based replacements.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

It is very suspicious that Apple included the LPDDR* on the M1 daughterboard. Why didn't they solder the M1 onto the logic board with the RAM soldered right next to it? I take this as a clue that Apple is planning on replacing the LPDDR with HBM on higher end successors of the M1.

Consider this possibility: An M2 with 16GB of HBM. This module is used alone in the MBP13. Base model MBP16s and iMacs also use this M2 module with no extra RAM. Expanding RAM in these models is done by adding DDR memory, soldered in the laptop, socketed in iMacs. This extra RAM isn't available directly to anything on the SoC. Instead, virtual memory paging is used to bring the contents into the HBM. In short, the DDR memory is just a first level of virtual memory backing store. This way the DDR could be just a single channel of relatively slow memory.

HBM memory is considerably more expensive and without interposer patents and additional set of costs to leverage it. The HBM GPUs on the Mac Pro are AMD products for Mac.

AMD is soon to release CDNA 2.0 M200 compute GPGPUs with HBM2e memory and none of it will be for Apple and all for the Supercomputer and strictly Enterprise markets.

A consumer iMac isn’t an HBM target market.

 

[EntropyQ3]

HBM memory is considerably more expensive and without interposer patents and additional set of costs to leverage it. The HBM GPUs on the Mac Pro are AMD products for Mac.

AMD is soon to release CDNA 2.0 M200 compute GPGPUs with HBM2e memory and none of it will be for Apple and all for the Supercomputer and strictly Enterprise markets.

A consumer iMac isn’t an HBM target market.

Depends on whether Apple will do a one-SoC-fits-all-iMacs or if they will make two distinct tiers.

If they do, they could conceivably outfit the higher end iMac with HBM memory. The memory cost is moderate (frankly insignificant compared to Apples mark-ups), there are no IP issues, I really have no idea what you mean by interposer patents, TSMC supplies the whole thing these days if you want. It's more a question whether Apple will a) go dual tier for their iMac line, and b) go high enough in targeted graphics performance for the higher tier that using HBM is a good option. Both remain to be seen. At least there is a decent chance we'll get some kind of information soon, but even if they go dual tier, nothing says that those will get introduced simultaneously, just as we don't know anything about the upcoming more powerful laptops even though the lower end has sold for a good time now.

 

[SuperMatt]

This article.

Thanks for narrowing it down. What do you consider a “proper” iMac, and what in this article tells you that Apple’s new iMac won’t meet that criteria?