Apple Says New iMacs Geared Towards Pros Coming Later This Year

[Rantipole]

WTF happened to early 2017, which is what they said last fall?

And, OK, they're going to release a redesigned iMac "later this year". Fine. JUST FREAKIN' BUMP UP THE SPECS ON THE CURRENT IMAC ALREADY! Or drop the price. Whatever. It is beyond the pale to be selling 2 year old hardware for the same price as, well, 2 years ago.

 

[Dave245]

And, OK, they're going to release a redesigned iMac "later this year"

They haven't mentioned a redesign, they said "Pro" iMac but that could just mean higher specs I'm hoping a redesign tho.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

iMac need to be thicker.

 

[MacLawyer]

I've been waiting for a Mac that will run X-Plane 11 smoothly. This sounds good.

 

[Atlantico]

I didnt know iMacs ran on batteries.

Name checks out as ironic.

 

[macduke]

gruber is right because he gets his info from apple.

Not always, but that's also why I said he's the guy. So many people dismiss him.

I think the reason Apple likes him is because he's really insightful and often makes smart predictions on his own. He'll clearly say when he has no little birdies telling him things, and he is sometimes wrong. But he is often right, even without any inside communication. It also doesn't hurt that he's a big fan, especially of good design, and he doesn't back down from an honest critique of things he doesn't like—such as the white bezel on the red iPhone 7. He's really good at seeing patterns and coming up with logical reasons as to why Apple does what it does. He talks a lot on his podcasts about how Apple is a company of patterns.

If you listen to the podcasts, it comes through that he's a genuine guy, a long-time Apple fan and big time Mac supporter who is absolutely in love with design and the history behind it all. Just the other day they were talking about how the recently released iPad didn't have a bonded glass screen, and he delivered an anecdote about the first time he met Steve Jobs after the iPhone 4 event. He started talking to Steve about the new bonded glass display in the iPhone 4, and how Steve was really knowledgable about it. He then pulled out his 3gs and showed it to Steve, and pointed at the center of the screen to show him the dust wedged in there, and said "So this isn't going to be a problem any more?" Steve laughed, and assured him it would not. That's what I love about the guy. He speaks his mind, even calling out a flaw in a product the first time he meets one of the most visionary people of our lifetime who led the team behind it.

 

[JMacHack]

unprecedented announcement from Apple. Looks like the pro-consumers were loud enough and Apple listened - plus competition is heating up from Microsoft. Have to love competition - Apple works best when its under pressure - this is excellent news.

My prediction for the iMac is they add pencil support.

If it has pencil support, or hell, even a Magic Touchpad 3 that has pencil support, that's a day-1 buy for me. I wouldn't think twice.

 

[scott911]

I'm glad there talking about things, instead of being secretive for the purpose of a surprise announcement, or whatever.

I wish they would would reconsider making the memory and storage so hard to get to and change. Especailly in the content of considering this a pro machine. I have a less than year old 27" imac in with I opted to get the 5400 RPM drive - I wanted to save money, and also bought into the claim that it's somehow much better that the last slow 5400 drive I bought - like ten year ago.

Well, it's not - It's a rediciously slow one year old machine. I often don't know if system as crashed, or if I it's the drive taking it's time. So now facing the uneasy realization that I'm going to have to pry this damn thing open to do the upgrade much sooner than i would have hoped.

 

[macduke]

Gruber is the shill. You'll learn that lesson. You'll also learn to doubt him very, very much.

Are you freaking kidding me? He honestly critiques Apple. I listen to his podcast all the time. He's genuine and loves design and the Mac. He's been critical and posting links to articles about the lack of Mac Pro updates over the past year. In his podcast he sometimes talks about how he can't believe Apple is waiting so long to update and that he's worried for the future of the Mac. I've been reading him as long as I've been reading MacRumors, which is around 2005. He's always been an independent guy making his own path. I don't need to "learn any lesson." It's only in recent years that he has been getting special treatment, but even that is limited, and many times he has no idea what's going on and guesses incorrectly or a little off. He's a smart guy, and he's right when he always says Apple is a company of patterns. I see the patterns too, and I've made some solid predictions (along with a few misses) over the years here in the forums.

 

[Xavier]

I could look at upgrading my 2014 iMac within the next 2 years depending on how this develops.

 

[1Zach1]

Exactly what @TMRJIJ said, fresh install. If that doesn't fix it, grab a new SSD and throw it in, trust me you won't need a new iMac once you do(from what I'm hearing you're doing)

My MBP mid-2010 was extremely slow with the old HDD, replaced that and the optical drive. I now run a 256gb Sandisk + 750gb HDD for backing up everything. Everything is snappy and quick.

EDIT: also want to mention, I have no idea whether your iMac has an SSD or not so correct me if I'm wrong! I do remember people complaining iMacs came with Fusion/HDDs tho...

I have a standard 1TB hard drive, not SSD or Fusion. My understanding was that it's a brutal process to change out hard drives on iMacs, is that not the case?

 

[albebaubles]

Not always, but that's also why I said he's the guy. So many people dismiss him.....

I monitor his site daily, he is very insightful. Incredibly talented writer. But my honest assessment is that he's become more of a shill in the last few years. He's not hard enough on Apple. Same with LoopInsight. Marco -- he's the man wish he posted more.

 

[wigby]

unprecedented announcement from Apple. Looks like the pro-consumers were loud enough and Apple listened - plus competition is heating up from Microsoft. Have to love competition - Apple works best when its under pressure - this is excellent news.

My prediction for the iMac is they add pencil support.

Read Gruber's full blog interview with Apple. They didn't mention Pencil support but said that their customers have NO interest in touch screens at all. To me, that says no pencil support but I could be reading it wrong.

 

[albebaubles]

As an aside, Timmy has really doubled down on secrecy lately.

 

[macfacts]

Name checks out as ironic.

The excuse you gave for not using Nvidia (power efficiency) does not line up with reality (imacs don't run on batteries)

 

[Ds6778]

Tim Cook is starting to remind me of Adam West from Family Guy...

 

[44267547]

:/ Could later this year mean WWDC?!?

I don't want to wait

Doubtful for WWDC. Apple has primarily abandoned hardware during that time frame and focused mostly on the developer side of things. I would think perhaps a second Keynote in the Fall, somewhere around October/November.

 

[MrGimper]

I love it when they talk about making machines and devices "Pro" .... instantly brands most of us Amateurs.

 

[Applebot1]

It would be great for Apple to take a step back and realise what made them great in the first place. I know they make so much money etc and on that basis are very successful but they have become complacent and in many ways lazy. They need to look back to go forward imo.

 

[Fozziebear71]

I have money waiting to be spent. Hurry up Apple.

 

[iReality85]

Those ugly-ass bezels. Please, get rid of them.

 

[macduke]

I'm going to be really conflicted later this year on what to do. From what I understand, six-core CPUs from Intel suitable for the iMac will be coming in Spring 2018. But if they upgrade the iMac in the summer or autumn, they probably won't be updated for another year.

On the other hand, I'm hoping that when the 5K Thunderbolt displays launch—since this will be 2018—they'll be able to price them at $999, or close to that. I could get the base model Mac Pro with at least six cores for $2999 plus the display for $999, and end up with a decently spec'd machine that I can upgrade for years to come for $4000 (or more like $3600 since I work in higher ed). That would be fairly reasonable, but I'd have to see what the additional components cost.

If Apple released an iMac Pro that has user replaceable RAM like it does now, but also has easily user replaceable SSD, then I would be tempted to get that. I mean, I guess I could always get a Thunderbolt 3 SSD. A user-replaceable GPU would make it really tempting, but hell is probably more likely to freeze over. But I'm not sure how they could really make it a "Pro" machine. Are they switching to a 32" display, or otherwise making more room inside for higher end CPUs and GPUs? Will it have Mac Pro Xeon CPUs?

I think the ultimate thing that would push me to get an iMac Pro is if it has that tech from that patent several years ago: When you grab the sides, it senses your hands and disengages the display lock, allowing you to slide it down at a shallow angle for drawing directly on the display. They could incorporate Apple Pencil support. The patent also mentioned the OS transforming from mouse-oriented to touch-oriented with larger tap targets. Something like that would be extremely interesting. Another thing is they could develop and iMac-like MacBook accessory. If Thunderbolt 4 is around 80Gbit/s, that's 10GB/s. Should be enough to enhance graphics from a MacBook display, and maybe they could even find some way to incorporate an external CPU that the MacBook could offload information for processing. That could potentially explain that rumor of Apple working on a display with integrated GPU. And since Apple said that the vast majority of their Pro users are on MacBook Pro (eh, maybe because that's the only thing getting updates?), they would want to target them with a better desktop accessory. I mean, pretty much the only reason I want to upgrade my Macbook Pro is to drive a bigger 5K display, although faster SSDs and more RAM wouldn't hurt.

 

[btrach144]

Just more talk and no action from Apple once again

 

[Tjosansa]

Pleeeease dont make my iMac 2014 look old. Make the new one look the same as previous years models. Pretty please.

 

[dsc888]

This makes total sense with so many 3rd party sellers on eBay selling from 150 to 200 "Apple Refurbished" 2015 iMacs that many buyer claim look indistinguishable from new units. It's Apple dumping remaining stock in preparation for this release in the 3rd or 4th quarter.

I was pretty close on snagging up on the the NEW refurbs given the great savings but knew I would be kicking myself if Apple announced a new model soon. Patience paid off. The expected transition to TB3, USB 3.1 and faster graphics and CPU should make the update good for my uses for the next 5 years or so.