Apple Not Planning to Launch Larger-Screened iMac

[DMG35]

s

Confuses me that Apple would discontinue the 27” iMac and yet they still sell iPods…

The iPod must still sell or they wouldn't offer it.

 

[SpotOnT]

Yes, that is precisely the point I was making in my earlier post.

It seems to me that Apple decided that most users do not need a full computer and that the iPad may fulfill all their computing needs. So most Macs are now focused on creative professionals and there are plenty of more affordable iPads so the consumers can choose from.

I don’t think Apple decided this, I think the consumer did. Computer sales (both desktop and laptop) are down across the entire industry. The average consumer is choosing tablets, chromebooks, and ever larger phones instead.

Personally, I don’t have a tablet, I have never paid more than $200 for a phone and I buy expensive computers. And I very much feel in the rare minority with my choices.

 

[HazardousT]

s


The iPod must still sell or they wouldn't offer it.

And the 27" iMac still sold.

 

[DMG35]

And the 27" iMac still sold.

Not anymore.

 

[Ankaa]

Didn’t the iMac Pro start at $4,999?
That is probably the more reasonable comparison for the Mac Studio.

The 24” M1 iMac is a 4.5k display - exactly half way between the 4k and 5k intel iMacs. That is the replacement for both the 21” and 27” iMac.

It is a lovely machine. If I had my heart set on an iMac, I wouldn’t let that half k of resolution stop me from getting one.

No, the 24" is not a valid replacement for the 27" iMac with its 16GB RAM limitation. I'm currently running 24 in my 2015 27" and won't go below 32 when I upgrade ... As the studio is a replacement for the iMac Pro, folks like me (who are widespread in the prosumer/scientific sector btw) have been left hanging. I don't have the money to shell out a surcharge of a minimum of $1,000 over my current system because I'm now forced to go the studio route.

And you may have never used a 27", but going DOWN from that in screen size is huge, no matter how minute the difference may seem on paper (which, contrary to what some in this thread claim, is really not small... 3.5" DOES make a big difference)

 

[fcracer]

I don’t think Apple decided this, I think the consumer did. Computer sales (both desktop and laptop) are down across the entire industry. The average consumer is choosing tablets, chromebooks, and ever larger phones instead.

Personally, I don’t have a tablet, I have never paid more than $200 for a phone and I buy expensive computers. And I very much feel in the rare minority with my choices.

This, and I’d expect the majority of sales for the 27” came from prosumers, small retail shops and businesses where the new lineup of 24” (retail shops, education and businesses) and Studio (businesses and prosumer) makes more sense. As much as I wanted a 30”+ iMac, it actually doesn’t make a lot of sense to tie an expensive display to an AIO form factor.

 

[elvisdoc]

Guess apple thinks Studio covers all those bases.

I agree with them.

Studio is not meant for the average 27 inch Mac buyer.

 

[rog]

Should have been 30" for years by now without those massive bevils. 30" could easily fit in the same footprint if Apple wasn't obsessed with making it thin, which serves no purpose whatsoever. We've had our thousands of dollars sitting for awhile now waiting for a new iMac that wouldn't be smaller than what we've used for the past decade. Oh well, that money won't be going to Apple I guess.

 

[elvisdoc]

This is curious for two reasons. First, Apple's store still lists "iMac 24"". If that was the only size iMac they are putting in their lineup, what is the point of identifying it by its size? Second, the Mac Studio doesn't serve the same market as the 27" iMac did, given the significant price difference between purchasing the Studio with Display versus just the iMac, plus the fact that many iMac users are looking for an all-in-one solution. Personally, I prefer to have my computer behind the screen and not another component with more wires on my desk. I have been waiting on a 27"-30" iMac since the M1 was introduced.

At this point there are so many stories out confirming this decision that it would seem to be true, but it is a real disappointment and a head scratcher.

Agreed. So the choice is do you downgrade to a 24 inch iMac or do you get a M1 Mac mini or Studio with an external monitor like a Dell ultrasharp. The Studio Monitor is a dud, IMO.

 

[Ankaa]

The problem is that all of those other monitors top out at 4K resolution. It’s not terrible at smaller screen sizes but the larger you go the worse it gets. But at least they are cheap, right?

This right there! All the "shop your display somewhere else, you don't *have* to buy from Apple" commenters don't realize this.

I have to use 27" cheap monitors (with windows PCs) at work and THEY. ARE. HORRIBLE!

If I want even remotely the same quality as my 27" iMac, I'd be paying at least another grant for a monitor in addition to the mac.

These comments are probably coming from people who will buy the studio display, so lack the comparision and just make the assumption that people could buy a different monitor from another brand if they didn't want or can't afford the studio display.

 

[SpotOnT]

Agreed. So the choice is do you downgrade to a 24 inch iMac or do you get a M1 Mac mini or Studio with an external monitor like a Dell ultrasharp. The Studio Monitor is a dud, IMO.

I think the choice is to get a 24” iMac or wait for the upcoming M1 Pro Mac Mini and get that with the studio display.

 

[Ankaa]

Yes, but that $1799 iMac was some weak sauce. You needed to upgrade the RAM and storage at least and then the price started to go up quickly. the Studio starts at 32GB/512GB. I understand that this is overall more expensive but the gap is not as large as it seems if the systems are spec’s similarly.

I paid $2,400 for my 27" iMac. Those spec upgrades were sufficient for my prosumer use case. I bought RAM externally.

If I stay with all-Apple, my starting pricepoint now is $3,600... this is quite a large gap.

I agree too I’m kinda surprised people are confused the iMac Pro isn’t coming back. When Apple released it I was under the impression it was like a “hey the Mac Pro is gonna be late so to help you out until then. Here’s this” I believe they even said something along those lines. Kinda surprised they’re not doing a bigger iMac with the colors. I think there’s non pro users out there that want bigger screens but maybe I’m wrong.

No one is confused. It's not about the iMac Pro not coming back. It's about the 27" iMac model that wasn't a Pro.

 

[fakestrawberryflavor]

a 27" iMac would caniablize their sales of the Mac Studio and Studio Display. I think they can get more net profit by selling these as separate devices - and I'm sure there was some math done on that to determine if this is true or not.

 

[HazardousT]

a 27" iMac would caniablize their sales of the Mac Studio and Studio Display. I think they can get more net profit by selling these as separate devices - and I'm sure there was some math done on that to determine if this is true or not.

This may be true but yet again they've left out a part of the market. It's either an M1 mini or an M1 Max /Ultra Studio. Where is the M1 Pro? Even the MacBook has an M1 Pro but they couldn't seem to fit it in to their plans?

There is gap that needs to be filled by something

 

[SpotOnT]

No, the 24" is not a valid replacement for the 27" iMac with its 16GB RAM limitation. I'm currently running 24 in my 2015 27" and won't go below 32 when I upgrade ... As the studio is a replacement for the iMac Pro, folks like me (who are widespread in the prosumer/scientific sector btw) have been left hanging. I don't have the money to shell out a surcharge of a minimum of $1,000 over my current system because I'm now forced to go the studio route.

And you may have never used a 27", but going DOWN from that in screen size is huge, no matter how minute the difference may seem on paper (which, contrary to what some in this thread claim, is really not small... 3.5" DOES make a big difference)

I respect your opinion, but personally I just disagree.

For scientific computing, the iMac is just horrible. It has poor thermals, lower end processors, is a pain in the neck to repair, etc.

Moreover, as the desired display keeps getting more and more expensive (they keep getting bigger, and now we are talking OLED or mini LED) it just doesn’t make sense to make that kind of investment in such an expensive monitor, when the computing hardware can’t be upgraded at all. Much better to buy the screen separately and then grab a Mac Mini or Mac Studio depending on your needs.

Edit: I used a 27” iMac in the lab for years to run calculations. The thing was a hot, thermally limited, mess. I don’t think I have any positive feelings towards the 27” iMac. But I understand that those are just my feelings, and others have had a much better experience with their use case.

 

[Ankaa]

For scientific computing, the iMac is just horrible.

Very much depends on the scientific computing, don't you think? If you have to run endless simulation after simulation, I agree. If you have to run a simulation every once in a blue moon amongst many other things science, you can certainly deal with a little bit of heating up.*

Science is a varied field...

*(we also have dedicated computing PCs that had quite a bit of money spent on - within the very limited budget of certain scientific areas, mind you - to get them good specs, and they're running much hotter and much louder than my 3 years older iMac, including random overheat shutdowns I've never once experienced with my iMac)

 

[maxoakland]

The current offering makes much more sense. They earn more money with the Mac Studio and Studio Display.

And consumers don’t have to throw out a perfectly fine screen once their Mac is EOL.

My 2015 27 inch iMac is unbearably slow since last years macOS update. But the screen is perfectly fine. No easy way to update though, unless I open the thing and tamper with it myself.

There was a time when iMacs could be used as a display but Apple disabled that feature

 

[maxoakland]

I think if you look at the overall Mac product line, that argument does not hold. Apple has put massive resources into reorganizing, redesigning, and updating their Mac over the last 2 years. Most of the new products are similarly priced to the previous model. They have even responded to longtime desires by a lot of Mac customers for a standalone monitor and a mid-range desktop Mac.

In the reshuffle, it seems that the 27” iMac no longer fits within the product line. I hope that is not a permanent situation, but we’ll need to wait for at least a year to see if there is room in the line as the new designs are revealed.

Good points. But remember, I’m saying that they might be pricing their computers out of the consumer market, not that they aren’t making amazing computers

 

[CWallace]

Apple could have released a 14-inch MacBook Pro with a regular M1, 8 GB RAM, and 256 GB SSD for a lower price than $1999. But it chose not to.

They didn't do it because it defeats the purpose of the model. Almost everyone buying a 14" MacBook Pro bought it for the M1 Pro SoC. And if you needed an M1 Pro SoC over an M1, you almost certainly also needed 16GB of RAM. And since it is a portable, you probably wanted more than 256GB of onboard storage and 512GB is a decent minimum for macOS and common apps.

For what I use a laptop for (watching movies and Twitch streams when I am on vacation), an M1 MacBook Air would have been fine. But I wanted MiniLED and I wanted something that would last me a decade so I paid twice as much for the base 14" MacBook Pro because I did not want to wait at least another year for the MiniLED MacBook Air.

And yet even with my minimum needs, if Apple had offered a model with 8/256GB, I still would have paid $400 more for 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD because I can never upgrade the RAM and I want to be able to hold more than a handful of movies when I travel.

That is my point: the 14-inch MacBook Pro may be a good value, but not everybody needs that kind of power.

And that is why Apple has the Air and the MacBook Pro 13.3". Not everybody has to have a 14.2" display as a minimum.

And while they did not go forward with it now, I do believe in a couple of years Apple will launch a new MacBook Air with a 15.4" screen to take the place of the 13.3" MacBook Pro and probably a $1399 price at 8/256GB.

 

[CWallace]

There was a time when iMacs could be used as a display but Apple disabled that feature.

It was disabled because otherwise the 5K display would have had a 30Hz refresh rate like the Dell and HPE 5K displays.

 

[Ankaa]

4K works well for video/TV usage because the color resolution and movement are more important. For statistic displays of text 4K 32” is a problematic resolution.

People also tend to sit a tad further away from TVs (as well as for watching video, even on a computer) than for working on a computer.

 

[Ankaa]

This, and I’d expect the majority of sales for the 27” came from prosumers, small retail shops and businesses where the new lineup of 24” (retail shops, education and businesses) and Studio (businesses and prosumer) makes more sense. As much as I wanted a 30”+ iMac, it actually doesn’t make a lot of sense to tie an expensive display to an AIO form factor.

It does (for the user, it very much doesn't for Apple) when the new solution is easily $1,000-$1,500 more expensive when you de-couple that 'expensive display'.

Prosumers going for the 27" paid somewhere between $1800 and $3000. (also: edu discounts are a thing! the edu sector makes up a huge part of the prosumers)
You group the prosumers into the demographic that now should go with the studio, which starts at $3,600 at its cheapest configuration (with comparable display quality).

For me, the studio is cost prohibitive as a prosumer. So I'm stuck with 24" and max 16GB RAM. Thank you very much.

 

[skaertus]

I don’t think Apple decided this, I think the consumer did. Computer sales (both desktop and laptop) are down across the entire industry. The average consumer is choosing tablets, chromebooks, and ever larger phones instead.

Personally, I don’t have a tablet, I have never paid more than $200 for a phone and I buy expensive computers. And I very much feel in the rare minority with my choices.

Well, not in fact.

In 2021, 168.8 million tablets were shipped worldwide, a 3.2% yearly growth, according to IDC. The figures are here: https://www.gsmarena.com/idc_tablet...21_but_things_are_slowing_down-news-52948.php.

Apple shipped 57.8 million iPads, which is a lot. Most of the rest run Android (except for some 9.7 million tablets that run HarmonyOS). So Android should be in about 100 million of these tablets.

There were also 37 million Chromebooks sold, according to IDC, a growth of 13.5% since 2020.

In contrast, 348.8 million computers (both desktops and laptops) were sold in 2021, a yearly growth of 14.8%, also according to IDC. The figures are here: https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?cont...ring 2021,Mobile and Consumer Device Trackers.

Of those, 27.7 million were Macs. That still leaves Windows PCs with over 300 million units shipped. And that would not count desktops that were built using spare parts, something which is common among gamers (but which may not raise too much the total).

So, the breakdown would be like this for the year 2021 (I am not considering Linux PCs or Windows tablets, which should not be significant):

Windows PC: 321.1 million
Android tablet: 101.3 million
Apple iPad: 57.8 million
Chromebook: 37 million
Apple Mac: 27.7 million
HarmonyOS: 9.7 million

The total amount of computers and tablets combined is 554.6 million. Windows PCs represent 57.8% of the total. It means that the sales of Windows PCs in 2021 exceeded those of the Macs, iPads, Chromebooks, and Android tablets combined.

If you conclude that most Android tablets, Huawei tablets, and Chromebooks, are cheap disposable devices, which will not last for a long time, or which are not consistently used as a computer replacement, then the alternatives fall even shorter of Windows PCs.

As for the iPad, Windows PCs outsold them more than five times in 2021. Yes, the iPad is a huge business, but, as a platform, it cannot replace the Windows PC industry. In fact, it seems that iPad sales reached a plateau circa 2013-2014 and then declined. According to Lifewire, Apple sold 73.9 million iPads in 2013, and these numbers consistently declined year after year until reaching 40 million in 2019 (before rebounding to 45.5 million in 2020). The website is here: https://www.lifewire.com/how-many-ipads-sold-1994296.

PC sales declined over the 2010s, but went from about 350 million in 2012 to some 260 million in 2018, its worst year (https://www.gizchina.com/2022/01/13...ls-but-will-begin-to-fall-after-the-pandemic/). While this is a steep decline, it never reached the levels of the iPad, which, in 2019, sold a little more than half it had sold in 2013. Plus, PC sales rebounded and in 2021 were on par with its best, while the iPad still falls short.

It seems to me that Apple thinks and wishes that the iPad can replace the PC, but the reality shows the opposite.

 

[HazardousT]

Well, not in fact.

In 2021, 168.8 million tablets were shipped worldwide, a 3.2% yearly growth, according to IDC. The figures are here: https://www.gsmarena.com/idc_tablet...21_but_things_are_slowing_down-news-52948.php.

Apple shipped 57.8 million iPads, which is a lot. Most of the rest run Android (except for some 9.7 million tablets that run HarmonyOS). So Android should be in about 100 million of these tablets.

There were also 37 million Chromebooks sold, according to IDC, a growth of 13.5% since 2020.

In contrast, 348.8 million computers (both desktops and laptops) were sold in 2021, a yearly growth of 14.8%, also according to IDC. The figures are here: https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS48770422#:~:text=Total PC shipments during 2021,Mobile and Consumer Device Trackers.

Of those, 27.7 million were Macs. That still leaves Windows PCs with over 300 million units shipped. And that would not count desktops that were built using spare parts, something which is common among gamers (but which may not raise too much the total).

So, the breakdown would be like this for the year 2021 (I am not considering Linux PCs or Windows tablets, which should not be significant):

Windows PC: 321.1 million
Android tablet: 101.3 million
Apple iPad: 57.8 million
Chromebook: 37 million
Apple Mac: 27.7 million
HarmonyOS: 9.7 million

The total amount of computers and tablets combined is 554.6 million. Windows PCs represent 57.8% of the total. It means that the sales of Windows PCs in 2021 exceeded those of the Macs, iPads, Chromebooks, and Android tablets combined.

If you conclude that most Android tablets, Huawei tablets, and Chromebooks, are cheap disposable devices, which will not last for a long time, or which are not consistently used as a computer replacement, then the alternatives fall even shorter of Windows PCs.

As for the iPad, Windows PCs outsold them more than five times in 2021. Yes, the iPad is a huge business, but, as a platform, it cannot replace the Windows PC industry. In fact, it seems that iPad sales reached a plateau circa 2013-2014 and then declined. According to Lifewire, Apple sold 73.9 million iPads in 2013, and these numbers consistently declined year after year until reaching 40 million in 2019 (before rebounding to 45.5 million in 2020). The website is here: https://www.lifewire.com/how-many-ipads-sold-1994296.

PC sales declined over the 2010s, but went from about 350 million in 2012 to some 260 million in 2018, its worst year (https://www.gizchina.com/2022/01/13...ls-but-will-begin-to-fall-after-the-pandemic/). While this is a steep decline, it never reached the levels of the iPad, which, in 2019, sold a little more than half it had sold in 2013. Plus, PC sales rebounded and in 2021 were on par with its best, while the iPad still falls short.

It seems to me that Apple thinks and wishes that the iPad can replace the PC, but the reality shows the opposite.

You certainly do your research.

 

[ikramerica]

No, the 24" is not a valid replacement for the 27" iMac with its 16GB RAM limitation. I'm currently running 24 in my 2015 27" and won't go below 32 when I upgrade ... As the studio is a replacement for the iMac Pro, folks like me (who are widespread in the prosumer/scientific sector btw) have been left hanging. I don't have the money to shell out a surcharge of a minimum of $1,000 over my current system because I'm now forced to go the studio route.

And you may have never used a 27", but going DOWN from that in screen size is huge, no matter how minute the difference may seem on paper (which, contrary to what some in this thread claim, is really not small... 3.5" DOES make a big difference)

Which is why I think a mini M1 Pro is coming, as it would thermally work in the mini enclosure, offers 32GB of memory, and the price can be kept down with a third party 4k monitor at 25-30”.

And I was like you. I had 16GB in my maxed out 2011 MBP and was pushing up against it with 3D CAD and browser and multiple large PDFs running all at once (my workflow for construction documents) and said I would definitely need more to “future proof”.

Then I watched detailed reviews of the M1 Pro and how memory is managed and how fast swapping/paging is and I decided to risk it and not pay for the 32GB and got 16. I don’t regret it. I have less memory pressure now than before and since I don’t expect my file sizes get bigger over time, I am not worried.

It might be different for your scientific data, but I am shocked at how efficient the M1 is with memory.