Apple Releases Updated iMac Models With 21.5- and 27-Inch LED Screens

[TuffLuffJimmy]

What's "BR", do you mean "BD"?

That is two questions. No comma necessary, but you'll need another question mark.

 

[Loudest]

I ask myself (and others) this question all the time. I don't understand the compulsion at all. I certainly don't troll Windows forums and talk about how crappy Windows is and how much better the forum members would be served by using Macs. It's an odd phenomenon, and one that has increasingly become a problem on MacRumors in recent months (though the mods appear to have no desire to do anything about it).

I am convinced that there are members of online forums (for all types of products) who sew the seeds of discontent and FUD for compensation (monetary or otherwise) from competing companies, and it would be naive to believe this doesn't really happen.

The whispered rumors said that Blu-ray was pulled at the last minute before production, so I fully expect them to show up in the next revision. Unless Apple made a strategic decision not to support Blu-ray now or anytime in the future (which would be a real shame).

I think you are being paranoid

If the recent influx of Windows users are anything like me, they came here because they are doing iPhone development and looking for hardware since the only way to make native apps (short of a hackintosh) is on a Mac. I am a professional developer and don't mind paying the 'apple tax', but it is really frustrating that they offer so little in the way of hardware choices and charge such a premium for last year's technology. In March and now again in October, I've been hitting the refresh button here as much as any of you hardcore Mac fans, only to be disappointed with the tiny spec bumps, weak video cards, and steady prices.

For now I'll make due with a Mac mini on a KVM, but I would like something nicer. The 27" is interesting, but too bulky and too underpowered. I already have an i7 windows box which I'd be fine swapping out w/ a mac and dual booting, but the video cards are much too weak.

I also think its embarrassing you can't record or even playback Blu-ray on a Mac. Glad I have the Adobe suite on my PC...

 

[OldCorpse]

What's "BR", do you mean "BD"?
Do you mean "cash" or "cachet"?

(probably both...)

Right, BD and cachet... didn't bother spellchecking. Hope that doesn't alter the meaning

 

[WATCHDOG]

I'll be purchasing a 27" iMac
for the simple reason(s)
that I want one and I can afford one.

Period.

 

[diamond.g]

Apple is going to have to provide a Windows Media Center like solution for that. I doubt Elgato can dig that deep into the system for protected content.

Otherwise I'm loving over the air under 7 Ultimate.

We are using 7 at work as our TV. It is pretty cool. I kinda had my wife sold on the whole iMac as a TV idea. I am glad I waited instead of getting the 24". The engadget walkthrough didn't help my cause, he points out the lack of a BD drive, my wife gave me a funny look since I am basically buying all my movies in BD yet still have no player (digital download for the win).

 

[WATCHDOG]

For those who asked or wondered:

Intel's New Core i7 and Core i5 Processors Explained

http://www.pcworld.com/article/171556/intels_new_core_i7_and_core_i5_processors_explained.html

 

[Bossone]

Why the cheap 4670 card? For what you are paying you think they would put something with more power in it......

 

[Eidorian]

We are using 7 at work as our TV. It is pretty cool. I kinda had my wife sold on the whole iMac as a TV idea. I am glad I waited instead of getting the 24". The engadget walkthrough didn't help my cause, he points out the lack of a BD drive, my wife gave me a funny look since I am basically buying all my movies in BD yet still have no player (digital download for the win).

Windows Media Center for your TV watching and recording hub is great. It was great in Vista and even more addicting in Windows 7. The 27" iMac with Windows 7 and some USB TV tuners entices even me. I already have my Core i5 tower though.

Why the cheap 4670 card? For what you are paying you think they would put something with more power in it......

OEM's have been well known to bank everything on the processor clock speed to sell a computer. The 9400GT and HD 4350 show up in plenty of Core i5/7 machines. It's lopsided but it gets people to spend tons on BTO options.

 

[SirHaakon]

I think that deep down, Apple believes BR is a kind of dead end technology that laserdisc was.

The irony is that by including Blu-ray in it's products, Apple would accelerate the adoption rate.

 

[zweigand]

All we're asking for is the choice. The option to have Blu-ray available as a BTO selection from Apple. If you aren't picky about the content you watch, great. You can feel free not to take advantage of this option. This does not affect you at all.

I'm not saying Apple shouldn't put Blu-ray in their machines. My position is that it's nothing to get riled up about at this point.

@jmpage2
Downloading movies from iTunes is NOT where this momentum will come from.
1. The files are too dang big. Who wants to back up all that data?
2. It's tedious to get files from one device to another and in the correct format. Downloading two different versions of the same movie is a joke.

I'm guessing one of the main functions of Apple's new data center is going to be serving up streaming video content. They are going to have get away from the downloads if they want to remain relevant. You may be able to get a lot of data on a 1TB HD, but having to limit your movie selection on an iPod Touch, etc. because you don't have room blows. If the data comes as a stream you can carry an infinite number of movies with you at any given time. That goes for AppleTV as well.

 

[fpnc]

iMac's new video input

Many have asked, "Can I use a simple and cheap cable to attach my Blu-ray, DVD, Playstation, Wii to the 27" iMac's video input?"

The answer is probably no, at least without a $150-200 adaptor and even then the results may not be too pretty...

That's what one dude keeps saying, but I'm not sure that's accurate.

It's not.

Until someone actually tries it we won't know for certain. The signs so far point to no. In order for it to work, Apple would have had to include some legacy hardware or a substantially modified display card. I wouldn't count on the "drop it and don't look back" Apple we love to have done this.

It appears that phairphan is correct, dwd3885 is most likely wrong.

For the latest details on the iMac's video input capability see this post:

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/8680329/

and this followup and a few others on this same page:

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/8683519/

 

[Surklyn]

Your logic is flawed. No one has the amount of storage space required to sustain a library of HD digital downloads. Unless storage space takes over those numbers by a wide margin, you'll still have a healthy chunk that hold on to physical media (ignoring the fact that many are wary of digital ownership only). Apple is simply leveraging their HUGE online marketplace presence due to the fact that not having Blu Ray likely will not hurt them that much.

I'm sorry.. I'm trying to figure this one out. The NEW iMac offers 2TB of hd space as an option. Offering 4 USB 2.0 spaces and a Firewire 800 port. HD space is dirt cheap. DIRT cheap. You can totally have a library of HD 1080p movies on a drive. Digitally downloading them, at least in the U.S may be slow, but not too much of a problem. The digital ownership problem is the only one I see.

 

[AidenShaw]

I'm sorry.. I'm trying to figure this one out. The NEW iMac offers 2TB of hd space as an option. Offering 4 USB 2.0 spaces and a Firewire 800 port. HD space is dirt cheap. DIRT cheap. You can totally have a library of HD 1080p movies on a drive. Digitally downloading them, at least in the U.S may be slow, but not too much of a problem. The digital ownership problem is the only one I see.

... as long as you download them to a disk with a redundant RAID setup, and then back them up.

Oh, the Imac only has one disk drive - that option's shot!

 

[Eidorian]

I'm sorry.. I'm trying to figure this one out. The NEW iMac offers 2TB of hd space as an option. Offering 4 USB 2.0 spaces and a Firewire 800 port. HD space is dirt cheap. DIRT cheap. You can totally have a library of HD 1080p movies on a drive. Digitally downloading them, at least in the U.S may be slow, but not too much of a problem. The digital ownership problem is the only one I see.

Who wants a hard drive(s) dangling off of the minimalist iMac?

It's sleek and pretty until you want to do anything but use Safari and iTunes.

 

[zweigand]

Who wants a hard drive(s) dangling off of the minimalist iMac?

It's sleek and pretty until you want to do anything but use Safari and iTunes.

I'd rather have an extra HD dangling off my iMac than a gigantic tower dangling off my Cinema display.

 

[Eidorian]

I'd rather have an extra HD dangling off my iMac than a gigantic tower dangling off my Cinema display.

What about 5 of them?

 

[MorphingDragon]

Please don't confuse FUD with truth.

You mean like the "truth" that Microsoft MVPs spread about things like Samba server.

As long as you have a little bit of common sense you can go anti-virus and anti-spyware free.

And to that it is a good idea to do that, you would of have to swap your brains for a pair of shiny baseball cards.

Let's also not forget that OS X is always the first one to fail at those "security/hacking" conventions.

You mean those hacking conventions where nothing is hacked on the first day and on the second day you can install local software.

Sorry, doesn't work that way. VLC can play decrypted blu-ray video, but can't decrypt the various DRMs on a blu-ray disc. VLC doesn't offer bitstream decoding either (neither does OS X), so it would be entirely software based. Good luck getting a Core 2 Duo to decode up to 45Mbps H.264 and VC-1 video entirely in software, as well as the lossless audio, while doing all of the work to draw the picture too.

Wait, so you're wailing on Mac OSX on something that Windows/Linux cant even do out of the box as well? Good argument.

Yet when a game comes to the Mac, Apple fans love it and praise it as the next big thing. I love how double standards work in the Apple world. Games don't come to Mac? They suck. They're on the Mac? Oh they're the best games ever!

Plenty of triple A titles on Windows I mean, obviously, especially since gaming is pretty much what drives hardware vendors to make faster and faster products.

Just like when an Xbox port comes onto Windows its the next big thing! Eva!!!...

Like I said, any app that would benefit from multi-threading already does. Do we really need Adium being multi-threaded?

I never argued that in the first place.

Ah, but see, OpenCL as a standard was finished almost a year ago. On top of that, those developer builds of Snow Leopard with OpenCL have been around for how long now? Exactly.

Why would the last part matter? OpenCL was only officially released with Snow Leopard.

Like I said, if someone has years and years of code that is refined and optimized, why should they toss it out for new code and start fresh?

You're limiting your scope. I never argued that people should drop their code. I was arguing that SMP is being dated by easier and better solutions.

And, again, anything that would benefit from being multi-threaded already is.

I'm sure there are many more programs that would benefit form being multi threaded. You just cant see past your own ego. Flash would benefit from being multithreaded for an example.

Are those the same people who built "super computers" out of networked Playstation2s?

Oh wow, talk about side stepping a question.

No, most universities in New Zealand have a PS3 cluster for their Engineering/CompSci students. Folding@Home's on site processors are PS3s.
A University (I cant be stuffed looking up the name of) uses it to crack things like SSL.

You might want to do some research/googling. Theres some very interesting benchmarks of the Cell running PPC apps being benchmarked against PPC Macs. Spoiler: the single core G5 iMacs outperform the Cell. Bigger spoiler: the original Core Duo runs circles around multi-core PPC chips and the Cell in the same benchmarks.

I would be more inclined to believe that but I have a policy of not taking Synthetic Benchmarks. For example, take the i7 and the Phenom 2.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i5-750-core-i7-860-870-processor-review-test/17

From those results we could draw that the i7s absolutely skull rape the Phenom 2.

But if we looks at real world results like games the synthetic results very quickly becomes a moot point.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i5-750-core-i7-860-870-processor-review-test/18

So in essence what I'm saying is "Bla Bla Bla it all comes down to variables and interpretation."

Well, if you do the math and take out Apple's siding with HDD manufacturers for measuring HDD space and ripping people off, you'll see that Snow Leopard's minimum install requires more space than Leopard did.

Oh you're saying "minimum" theres a key word there. Leopard's Extras take up more space.

At least going from Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (or Vista) up to Ultimate 64-bit won't require the purchase of an entirely new computer to get a fully 64-bit OS. Funny how I can run Windows 64-bit on a 3 year old Core 2 Duo MacBook yet I can't run 64-bit kernel in Snow Leopard. The best part about that is Apple actually provides the 64-bit Windows drivers for every piece of hardware in that MacBook. So…. why can't OS X do it? Oh thats right, because Apple likes to force upgrades. Wheres MMS for the original iPhone again? Whats that? The "cellular antenna" isn't capable? Then why are there third party enablers that unlock the built-in functionality in the OS and allows completely native MMS?

Talk about verbal Diarrhea. If you look carefully I never said anything directly about Apple. So you're assuming stuff I never omitted. Yes Apple creates artificial need. But then XP was capable of DX10 by way of a Hack.

I'm not a troll at all. It's only the people who can't stand hearing that Apple isn't perfect that call me as such, because they don't like hearing the truth.

If you actually bothered to read the posts, a lot more people here whine than praise Apple.

BTW you do meet the meaning of a troll. "In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion." A lot of people here do. Probably including me by participating in the argument.

If what I say is actually wrong, it would be easy to disprove. But no Apple fan does. They just start calling me and others names and "trolls" and walk away with their hands covering their ears.

What you say cant be disproved because your arguments are so schizophrenic. You change the core subject before the other party can conjure up a reply. You omit stuff, you put words into other people's mouths. Or your arguments are opinionated, like everything that would benefit from multithreading already is..

Mini DisplayPort can do everything HDMI can on a Mac? Hmm, well, then tell me how I can get uncompressed PCM (audio) out of my mini DisplayPort and to my receiver. Because the HDMI port on my PC does video and audio over HDMI. So if mDP can do it all, I should be able to do it on my Mac too!

Oh but wait, Apple's implementation of mDP doesn't support audio. The actual spec finalized and approved supports audio, but Apple chooses not to.

I've seen mDP -> HDMI with sound. Granted it had a 3.5 plug to go into the side but yea. Your limit is your own.

Display Port never had sound to begin with. mDP was made to save space. ATi is using mDP for their 6 screen video cards.

I don't mind a well designed PC. In fact, I do like Apple's MacBook "Pro" design. I liked it two years ago when HP first had it.

Would you like to back that up with something? You claim that any of us has no proof yet you provide none either.

But a computers functionality is far more important than how it looks.

That is why I hate Aero. The glossy is distracting. At least with Mac OSX, it has the Gradient borders. But then, if you go too far to one side of the spectrum you get Gnome which looks like utter tard.

Well, when you consider Apple's global market share of less than 4%

Why does that matter when you're earning more than your current competitor?

Much the same way people buy Bose products. In fact, Apple and Bose have a lot in common. They both use the lowest end technology they can and sell it in the prettiest package they can while charging as much as possible.

I dont know a single person that owns a Bose product.

First of all, the only way you would get so much money off the sale of a used Mac is to sell it to another Mac enthusiast. If you try to sell that same computer to a regular person for that much money, you'll hear them laughing as you walk away. Any average person knows that new Macs are only worth about half of what they sell for. Theres no way an average or even computer savvy person would pay so much for a new iMac, let alone a used one.

Thats all dependent on the situation. In the Auckland Area, Macs are very highly sought and I've seen G5 iMacs go for $400NZD... that needs an HDD replacing.

Its been 3 posts of repeating myself. I like discussing things with people like Eidorion. They're cool headed, actually want to hear people's opinions and theyre not here just for the sake of bashing Apple.

 

[zweigand]

What about 5 of them?

That's called a Drobo

 

[Eidorian]

That's called a Drobo

But it's a big massive tower on your desk dangling off of your iMac.

 

[MorphingDragon]

What about 5 of them?

What about 6 Screens?

 

[Eidorian]

What about 6 Screens?

Eyefinity is using Mini-Display Port for that.

Which iMac comes with that again?

You don't need anything dangling off of anywhere. Store all of the media on an HP EX490. 1TB of network storage with TM backup capability for $499. Add extra 1TB hard drives for about $85 a piece. Use the eSATA port on the back to run a backplane and handle another 4TB of storage.

All in a tiny little box you can throw in the basement or even in a closet, out of sight.

But, but that's not an Apple product!

 

[jmpage2]

Who wants a hard drive(s) dangling off of the minimalist iMac?

It's sleek and pretty until you want to do anything but use Safari and iTunes.

You don't need anything dangling off of anywhere. Store all of the media on an HP EX490. 1TB of network storage with TM backup capability for $499. Add extra 1TB hard drives for about $85 a piece. Use the eSATA port on the back to run a backplane and handle another 4TB of storage.

All in a tiny little box you can throw in the basement or even in a closet, out of sight.

 

[zweigand]

But it's a big massive tower on your desk dangling off of your iMac.

I have a Mac Pro at work …if a Drobo is that big, they are doing wonders with their marketing photos

 

[MorphingDragon]

Eyefinity is using Mini-Display Port for that.

Which iMac comes with that again?

A better question would be, WTF is nVidia doing about it?

 

[CQd44]

I finally got 10.5.8 up and running on my PC... and looking at Activity Monitor and the number of threads per process...
...an i7 would probably help performance. Granted it's not like Leopard runs slowly, but it would still help. This thing says iTunes has 27 threads. Surely 8 logical CPUs would help it :]