Apple Launches New 4K & 5K iMacs, Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Trackpad 2

[tivoboy]

Usually apple offers products at similar or SLIGHTLY higher pricing. Just looking at the imacs, one can get MORE today than 18 months ago when the 5K imac was introduced. It's faster, nicer, thinner, lighter, etc..

And yet, how can they justify the pricing on the peripherals? Having rechargeable batteries has plusses and minus, so I'll give some value to the fact that one doesn't have to pay say 3$ every few months to replace them. so on an annual basis and say five year life expectancy that's about 60$ in value.. but one could simply buy replaceable rechargeables and pay 10$ and be done with it. But a near 90% increase in price for the keyboard or trackpad, there is really nothing of that much value to justify the price. It's just trying to find whatever the market will bear..

 

[Benjamin Frost]

Thanks for that, I actually use the Apple battery charger and sometimes still disconnect, I don't know probably its because its dying lol, cause its almost 6 years now. So today is the right time to buy new one.

I'd say you've done pretty well if you've got by on one charge for 6 years.

That's comparable to a watch battery—a normal watch, that is, not the Apple Watch, which needs recharging every day.

 

[Benjamin Frost]

No it's not. it's a range of force.

A Forstall of force.

 

[dampfnudel]

Well that's pretty crap. Keyboard and mouse are no improvement at all, trackpad is the only thing worth upgrading.

As for the new retina 21.5" iMac. 5400RPM HDD?! Is that honestly a joke?

Yeah, a 5400RPM HDD is even a joke for a laptop in 2015. We should be all SSD by now, at least that was the "dream" years ago.

 

[trifid]

2015, the year of Back to the Future.

Now featuring a 5400 RPM hard drive.
Your friend and innovator, Apple.

 

[Nanotyrns]

I haven't looked through the 22 pages of threads, but I'll throw this out there --
Still no user-configurable RAM. Are we raging about that yet? Have we predicted the demise of Apple over this unbearable indignity? What an insult to Steve Jobs on the anniversary of his passing?

Just wondering if we were mobbing our way to Cupertino with torches and dogs this afternoon...

 

[Zarniwoop]

Intel GPUs are so bad, and they do not support OpenCL, impacting performance of some software severely. The "good enough" argument justifies almost anything, right down to paper and pencil, but this product has premium pricing and a high res screen. It's seems it's been gimped for no reason other than to upsell people.

Desktops ought to have better performance than laptops, because of greater flexibility, but Apple doesn't see it that way.

???

Intel GPU's used to be bad, but times have changed. Whenever Skylake Iris Pro comes out, Nvidia and AMD both are going to be shaking in their boots. Broadwell GPU is today 20-30% faster than the fastest AMD APU integrated GPU. It's reaching MBP M370X, so Apple could put Iris Pro 6200 to MBP without dGPU and it still would have similar performance. But with half the battery. Skylake will increase this figure 30%-50%. And that will be bye bye to middle class Nvidia/AMD (GTX960/R7 370) desktop series. Intel iGPU's do support openCL... they have done it for years.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

Not sure why the spoiled brat comment. Fact of the matter is that the vast majority of people don't want to play their old games on a new console. Heck, once they finish a game, they probably wouldn't even replay it. Not sure why it's that hard for you to see this.

I get a different feedback around here. A lot of people still have their old games, and want to play them, but their console broke down.
But you are right, I should't have made the spoiled brat comment...

 

[btrach144]

Apple really missed out by not including USB-C on the iMac and this most likely means we won't see USB-C for at least another year. And the rumored backlighting on the keyboard. Also, why use lighting for the keyboards? USB-C is an actual standard. I'm really starting to not like Apple.

 

[vertsix]

These criminal price tags are truly magical, too.

 

[maflynn]

Now featuring a 5400 RPM hard drive.
Your friend and innovator, Apple.

That has to be the more frustrating things of this configuration. I mean seriously, a 5400 rpm drive. I know, its easy enough to configure it with a SSD or Fusion drive but the fact that they thought it was a good idea to use in the base system is incredulous.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

Dollar is going very strong, above most other currencies, unemployment has fallen quite significantly, real estate is increasing, not in a bubble again, but steadily.
Whoever is telling you we are not doing fine in the US is lying to you to get on their side.

I wasn't talking about a Real Estate bubble, just a figurative bubble that Apple is creating to itself.

The increasing number of homeless people asking money in almost every major intersection of Palm Beach county, plus the increase in crime almost everywhere tell a different story.

And unemployment rate is has fallen significantly while at the same time HP is about to lay off 55,000 employees, and other large companies are about to do the same.

Do you want to believe what's more convenient or would you rather look closely and find out the truth?

Unless you prefer to buy a car based on it's looks...

 

[mrfoof82]

What you do would benefit hugely from the changes you're looking for, but as I said it's a niche use case. I think you'd have to agree that the average user probably doesn't even know DDR3 from DDR4 and isn't buying 4k or 5k displays.

The "average user" spends less than an iPhone on a personal computer (ASP for a "PC" is $400-450). Anyone buying an iMac isn't average. Moreover, there's a considerable "prosumer" market cohort for the iMac, that doesn't want to fork out for a Mac Pro (which, sadly, has somewhat dated hardware). 27" iMacs range from $1799 and can cross $4000 in top-trim hardware spec. Again, the average person doesn't buy computers this expensive.

DDR4 is becoming increasingly prevalent, so it's rather surprising that Apple didn't move to it now. Intel's current desktop chipsets support both DDR3 and DDR4 for the current transition, but their next chipset is likely DDR4 only. It's surprising that Apple decided to go with DDR3 this time around when DDR4 was an option.

Lack of a 5K display is simple: not enough Thunderbolt 3 computers in their current product lineup to drive them. 5K displays would be bought by Mac Pro, iMac, and MacBook Pro owners the most -- and all of those are Thunderbolt 2 and incapable of driving a 5K display over a single cable. We'll likely see the display refresh alongside the Mac Pro refresh (with Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C), with the MacBook Pro and iMac to follow with those ports to support driving those displays. The Mac Pro is probably when we'll also see 2TB SSD options, as both Samsung and Toshiba are ramping up their 3D NAND production quickly, so $/GB is quickly coming down.

 

[deepen03]

Did they always charge an extra $50 for the Magic Trackpad?

no it was always $69 each for a Keyboard, Mouse or Trackpad.. this is absolute BS

 

[Amazing Iceman]

That would definitely put me over the amount I allocated for a comp. I'm torn between the two. 128gb vs 24gb but I gain other improvements. I'm curious if I would notice the reduction of 3x in the SSD portion.

Based on my experience, I would wait until I'm able to afford an SSD. Btw, OWC has 1TB SSD upgrades for under $400.00

Ah, in the future, you can always add an external SSD via Thunderbolt!

I'm inclined towards avoiding a mechanical HD at all cost.

 

[MrXiro]

I was actually thinking about getting a $79 force touch trackpad, but I just can't justify $129 since I mostly use the Magic Mouse. Plus, I don't like that they made it white.

racist! JK. I actually like the white look. Looks classy. 129 will hurt but I think I'll be getting one along with the keyboard and an AppleTV 4

 

[Nunyabinez]

Question is: Can that "Iris Pro Graphics 6200" gfx card run recent games @4k without any issues or not?

A Mac does not exist that will play modern games at 4K at decent frame rates with anything other than the lowest settings. Certainly not integrated graphics. If you want to play 4k games plan on spending $700 to $1000 just for a video card or cards and putting them in a Windows PC. I have a GTX 970 which is faster than anything in any Mac and I can't play games at 4K with it.

 

[deepen03]

That has to be the more frustrating things of this configuration. I mean seriously, a 5400 rpm drive. I know, its easy enough to configure it with a SSD or Fusion drive but the fact that they thought it was a good idea to use in the base system is incredulous.

it's ridiculous.. even a basic non-PCI-e SSD is like $50 for a 240GB, and you can find a 512GB for around $100 if you shop around. At wholesale cost, I'm sure Apple gets them for much cheaper. They are just all about profit margins.. it's sad.

 

[Max(IT)]

Apple is charging 300€ to upgrade vram from 2GB --> 4GB in iMac 27". And when SSD prices have been falling in the industry, Apple rises their prices!

That is pure thievery. Same kind of insult as is 16GB iPhone. These kinds of things makes me want to ditch the whole company... ...but at the end, when dust has settled I am a happy Apple user again. (it has happened before).

add me to the list ....
I'm an huge apple supporter, but their price policy is scaring.
I have financial problems in upgrading my Mini (the iMac is way too expensive) and my iPad. Actually i don't know if I'm going to upgrade my iPhone 6 with the 6S, because a few days ago I spent 2300 € for my new MacBook Pro and my wife's iPhone 5S.
First World Problems, I know, but if Apple is going to scare loyal customers like me......

 

[Coldmode]

Or, you know, swap my three pairs of AAs between the charger, the mouse and the XBox controller whenever needed. With a lot less hassle.

That actually sounds like a lot more hassle. Why would you want to do that when you can just plug stuff in once a month?

 

[yadmonkey]

Disappointed in lack of Nvidia GPU because I like my iMacs quiet-to-silent. And it looks like a few more years with a wired keyboard... sigh.

$500 to upgrade to a 500GB SSD is insulting to customers, as is the stock retro HDD.

 

[Gudi]

Seems like Apple is really doubling down on ****ing over their customers for profit ... and not even updating the "magic" keyboard to have backlit keys, or an option for a full keyboard.

Greedy, how they rip off their customers over the value of a few plastic keys and don't omit them in order to simplify computing for the benefit of the whole mankind.

It's a shame, because I remember a few years back Apple was known to provide user experience above all else, now it seems they're prioritizing profit over user experience, then jacking up prices on things even more.

And nothing says user experience like a dedicated numpad.

I used to be a diehard apple fan, but i'm starting to lose my enthusiasm. Apple products have always had a premium, but for a reason. I don't know how Apple execs could be genuinely "proud" of the products they're shipping at these prices.

So now you go out and buy a Windows computer with a full keyboard? The more keys, the better?

 

[Kar98]

add me to the list ....
First World Problems, I know, but if Apple is going to scare loyal customers like me......

Yeah, I don't think Apple cares about loyal customers. They already have your money. It's new customers they want.

 

[eyeseeyou]

So will the trackpad add force touch / 3d touch to my 2001 macbook?

 

[Kar98]

So now you go out and buy a Windows computer with a full keyboard? The more keys, the better?

I'm typing this from a Surface 3 with type cover. It's not magical, but it runs a full OS, has a keyboard so magical Apple had to copy it, and costs a fraction of the price of comparable Apple products.