Does it make sense to buy an iMac or wait for refresh

[alaman64]

I'm on the fence, and I can't figure out what to do, and apple doesn't make it any easier.

I walked into an apple store last week ready to buy an Imac, I've had one before but sold it when they dropped Nvidia and built a hackintosh, but always secretly missing that 5k Retina screen. So at the store with money to spend, I ask for version of iMac with SSD, I find out to my surprise that those are custom built and have to wait a week to pick one up. I can wait a day or 2 for something, but a whole week, that is torture. I'm the kind of guy who wakes a few times in the middle of the night to check the status of my Fedex delivery. So waiting a week, no don't work for me.

Back to my question, this got me doing a little research, because hey I had nothing else to do, thought I'd be playing with my new iMac. I'm guessing that this is probably the last year of this current version of the Imac. I think it's the only model without the T2 chip. No HDMI port? and only 2 TB ports, the Mac mini has the connections I'm looking for, but no GPU and no apple monitor.

I don't keep my computers too long, I wouldn't want to spend $3,000 Canadian dollars only to see a new iMac being released in September with a better screen, T2, a slimmer bezel.

On the fence...

 

[BluefinTuna]

I’ve been waiting for a long time to upgrade my iMac as well. I also have a feeling that this current iMac is going to be the last of its kind. Clearly rushed because there were no design changes.

The same thing happened with the original iPad 3 and iPad 4. There was a huge wait between the iPad 2 and 3 so I had assumed that there would be another long wait. Then six months later the iPad 4 comes out with much better specs.

You can be certain that I’m not going to accept this spec bump for the next few years. Either they update the iMac in the next year with real design upgrades or I’ll be holding onto my newly bought (from eBay) 21.5” Late 2015 iMac for a while.

I see no incentive to buy the 2019 iMac just for specs. This iMac has specs that were ready in late 2018. So wait for that nearly 32” wide screen iMac or monitor in 6K. If you buy this old design then you’ll be kicking yourself when Apple actually innovates.

 

[mikehalloran]

You can be certain that I’m not going to accept this spec bump for the next few years

Then don't buy. No one is holding a gun to your head.
[doublepost=1555785515][/doublepost]

I'm guessing that this is probably the last year of this current version of the Imac.

So, they do an update and you're guessing it's the last year ...

Better guessing than betting, I suppose.

 

[BluefinTuna]

Then don't buy. No one is holding a gun to your head.
[doublepost=1555785515][/doublepost]So, they do an update and you're guessing it's the last year ...

Better guessing than betting, I suppose.

I said in that same post that I didn’t buy even though I had been waiting a long time. Guess you didn’t read the whole thing and just made a comment based on your assumption of what I wrote.

 

[SkiHound2]

Anyone who actually knows anything is not talking. The rest of us can only speculate. I think you might want to apply the adage if you need a new machine, buy a new machine. If you don't need a new machine then there's not much incentive to buy. My thought (PURE GUESS) is that something happened that prevented Apple from doing a full on refresh (something like some promised technology not being made available). This is really just a spec bump that's missing several of the things Apple seems to be including in all new releases. Won't speculate as to when we might see a total refresh. I needed a computer and bought a 2019. Heck of a nice computer.

 

[mikehalloran]

I said in that same post that I didn’t buy even though I had been waiting a long time. Guess you didn’t read the whole thing and just made a comment based on your assumption of what I wrote.

I read exactly what you wrote, start to finish. I didn't say that I found it silly but, since you pushed the issue, I'll state it now.

The same thing happened with the original iPad 3 and iPad 4. There was a huge wait between the iPad 2 and 3 so I had assumed that there would be another long wait. Then six months later the iPad 4 comes out with much better specs

Your "huge wait" was exactly one year+five days. True, the 3 to 4 was eight months minus four days but a refresh cycle that short is most unusual for Apple.

To refresh your memory, here is the list of all 20 iPad models and upgrades released over the nine year history of the iPad:

Operating System Support
iPad Released with Release date Final supported OS Support ended Support lifespan Launch price
iPad iPhone OS 3.2 April 3, 2010 iOS 5.1.1 September 18, 2012 2 years, 5 months
iPad 2 iOS 4.3 March 11, 2011 iOS 9.3.5 September 12, 2016 5 years, 6 months
iPad (3rd generation) iOS 5.1 March 16, 2012 iOS 9.3.5 September 12, 2016 4 years, 5 months
iPad mini iOS 6.0.1 November 2, 2012 iOS 9.3.5 September 12, 2016 3 years, 10 months
iPad (4th generation) iOS 6.0 November 12, 2012 iOS 10.3.3 September 18, 2017 4 years, 10 months
iPad Air iOS 7.0.3 November 1, 2013 latest iOS (current) > 5 years, 5 months
iPad mini 2 (Retina display) iOS 7.0.3 November 12, 2013 latest iOS (current) > 5 years, 5 months
iPad Air 2 iOS 8.1 October 22, 2014 latest iOS (current) > 4 years, 5 months
iPad mini 3 iOS 8.1 October 22, 2014 latest iOS (current) > 4 years, 5 months
iPad mini 4 iOS 9.0 September 9, 2015 latest iOS (current) > 3 years, 7 months
iPad Pro (1st, 12.9'') iOS 9.1 November 11, 2015 latest iOS (current) > 3 years, 5 months
iPad Pro (1st, 9.7'') iOS 9.3 March 31, 2016 latest iOS (current) > 3 years
iPad (2017) iOS 10.2.1 March 24, 2017 latest iOS (current) > 2 years
iPad Pro (2nd, 12.9'') iOS 10.3.2 June 13, 2017 latest iOS (current) > 1 year, 10 months
iPad Pro (2nd, 10.5'') iOS 10.3.2 June 13, 2017 latest iOS (current) > 1 year, 10 months
iPad (2018) iOS 11.2.6 March 27, 2018 latest iOS (current) > 1 year
iPad Pro (3rd, 11") iOS 12 October 30, 2018 latest iOS (current) > 5 months
iPad Pro (3rd, 12.9") iOS 12 October 30, 2018 latest iOS (current) > 5 months
iPad Air (2019) iOS 12 March 18, 2019 latest iOS (current) > 1 month
iPad mini (2019) iOS 12 March 18, 2019 latest iOS (current)

I think you might want to apply the adage if you need a new machine, buy a new machine. If you don't need a new machine then there's not much incentive to buy.

That, on the other hand, makes sense.

 

[Bohemien]

I was looking at the 27” iMac for quite a while now. Didn’t go with the 2017 model because I heard of the heat/noise issues. The 2019 has everything I was hoping for, minus the T2 chip, which apparently is quite useful for some tasks, but problematic with others. I’m glad to get an iMac without the chip so I can still restore it myself after a serious crash (which apparently you can’t do with e.g. the iMac Pro? But I’m not sure about that).

So if Apple comes out with something completely new this fall, so be it. I’ll have a great machine to get me through it’s infancy problems, which will run Windows in a VM, something that will most probably not be possible when Apple switches to ARM-based machines. I’ll look again in 8-10 years at what Mac Apple has to offer (at least that’s the plan).

I concur with the others who say if you need a new Mac now, get one. You say you don’t keep your Macs too long anyway, so what’s the worry? And if you don’t need it, waiting ‘til the end of the year shouldn’t be too hard either...

 

[BluefinTuna]

I read exactly what you wrote, start to finish. I didn't say that I found it silly but, since you pushed the issue, I'll state it now.
Your "huge wait" was exactly one year+five days. True, the 3 to 4 was eight months minus four days but a refresh cycle that short is most unusual for Apple.

To refresh your memory, here is the list of all 20 iPad models and upgrades released over the nine year history of the iPad:

Operating System Support
iPad Released with Release date Final supported OS Support ended Support lifespan Launch price
iPad iPhone OS 3.2 April 3, 2010 iOS 5.1.1 September 18, 2012 2 years, 5 months
iPad 2 iOS 4.3 March 11, 2011 iOS 9.3.5 September 12, 2016 5 years, 6 months
iPad (3rd generation) iOS 5.1 March 16, 2012 iOS 9.3.5 September 12, 2016 4 years, 5 months
iPad mini iOS 6.0.1 November 2, 2012 iOS 9.3.5 September 12, 2016 3 years, 10 months
iPad (4th generation) iOS 6.0 November 12, 2012 iOS 10.3.3 September 18, 2017 4 years, 10 months
iPad Air iOS 7.0.3 November 1, 2013 latest iOS (current) > 5 years, 5 months
iPad mini 2 (Retina display) iOS 7.0.3 November 12, 2013 latest iOS (current) > 5 years, 5 months
iPad Air 2 iOS 8.1 October 22, 2014 latest iOS (current) > 4 years, 5 months
iPad mini 3 iOS 8.1 October 22, 2014 latest iOS (current) > 4 years, 5 months
iPad mini 4 iOS 9.0 September 9, 2015 latest iOS (current) > 3 years, 7 months
iPad Pro (1st, 12.9'') iOS 9.1 November 11, 2015 latest iOS (current) > 3 years, 5 months
iPad Pro (1st, 9.7'') iOS 9.3 March 31, 2016 latest iOS (current) > 3 years
iPad (2017) iOS 10.2.1 March 24, 2017 latest iOS (current) > 2 years
iPad Pro (2nd, 12.9'') iOS 10.3.2 June 13, 2017 latest iOS (current) > 1 year, 10 months
iPad Pro (2nd, 10.5'') iOS 10.3.2 June 13, 2017 latest iOS (current) > 1 year, 10 months
iPad (2018) iOS 11.2.6 March 27, 2018 latest iOS (current) > 1 year
iPad Pro (3rd, 11") iOS 12 October 30, 2018 latest iOS (current) > 5 months
iPad Pro (3rd, 12.9") iOS 12 October 30, 2018 latest iOS (current) > 5 months
iPad Air (2019) iOS 12 March 18, 2019 latest iOS (current) > 1 month
iPad mini (2019) iOS 12 March 18, 2019 latest iOS (current)


That, on the other hand, makes sense.

I read in between the lines and knew that you thought my advice was silly. That’s your right but I also have a right to voice my opinion without being mocked. It seems to me that few people, especially on the internet, have the ability to disagree without restoring to kindergarten tactics.

In terms of the iPad 3 to 4, I had been holding out on buying an iPad and finally settled on the iPad 3. Then a few months later the iPad 4 came out and I sold my iPad 3 vowing never to make the same mistake. It seems to me that the 2019 iMac will be outclassed by a redesign this fall. You don’t have to take my word for it.

 

[tomscott1988]

Playing the waiting game with apple is a mugs game. You always at their mercy and often the speculations are BS.

Look at the current iMac, 2 generations with over 2 years wait. iMac pro is 18 months old...

Mac pro 6 years...

If you need a computer buy it, by the time the new one is out you will be ready for a new one anyway.

A week is an over estimation too, they usually ship pretty quick. In all honesty saying you can't wait... is it really going to make any difference you will be waiting 600 days for the next one lol

All these speculations of a differing display will be a stand a lone for the mac pro, given apples history the stand alone displays dont fit with any other product, the 24/27" ACD are a different height to the 27" iMac the 20/23/30" older ACDs didn't even try to fit well with the iMac.

 

[mikehalloran]

I was hoping for, minus the T2 chip, which apparently is quite useful for some tasks, but problematic with others. I’m glad to get an iMac without the chip so I can still restore it myself after a serious crash (which apparently you can’t do with e.g. the iMac Pro? But I’m not sure about that).

There were some issues with USB 2 audio and video hardware and T2 chips. The Mojave 10.14.4 update appears to have taken care of this.

Not being able to restore after a serious crash? Utter nonsense. To test that, i transferred the data from my 2010 to my new (to me) iMac Pro. I let Time Machine update ("Do you want to inherit the old backup?" I said yes all three times) and run hourly for two days. Next I wiped the SSD and did a complete System Restore from one of my Time Machine backups.

Then there's APFS Snapshots which will do an entire system restore on the boot drive only in 2–5 minutes in case of a crash or if you install something that totally screws up your system (been there, done that a few times on my old iMac running High Sierra).

 

[AZhappyjack]

I'm on the fence, and I can't figure out what to do, and apple doesn't make it any easier.

I walked into an apple store last week ready to buy an Imac, I've had one before but sold it when they dropped Nvidia and built a hackintosh, but always secretly missing that 5k Retina screen. So at the store with money to spend, I ask for version of iMac with SSD, I find out to my surprise that those are custom built and have to wait a week to pick one up. I can wait a day or 2 for something, but a whole week, that is torture. I'm the kind of guy who wakes a few times in the middle of the night to check the status of my Fedex delivery. So waiting a week, no don't work for me.

Back to my question, this got me doing a little research, because hey I had nothing else to do, thought I'd be playing with my new iMac. I'm guessing that this is probably the last year of this current version of the Imac. I think it's the only model without the T2 chip. No HDMI port? and only 2 TB ports, the Mac mini has the connections I'm looking for, but no GPU and no apple monitor.

I don't keep my computers too long, I wouldn't want to spend $3,000 Canadian dollars only to see a new iMac being released in September with a better screen, T2, a slimmer bezel.

On the fence...

My advise on upgrading it always the same. I you truly need it, buy now. If you truly can wait, wait. I buy what I need when I need it, and it has not failed me yet...

 

[TVreporter]

I might have to wait too - the Canadian prices, taxes and AppleCare combined are putting even an i5/8GB/580x/512drive imac at nearly $3900.

Just gut wrenching no matter how I calculate options ...

 

[BluefinTuna]

Here’s an interesting analysis of the 2019 iMac situation:

 

[alaman64]

Here’s an interesting analysis of the 2019 iMac situation:

That's the video that made me hold of buying an iMac.

I guess I will wait until mid June and see what happens after the developers conference.

What make me sad is when I walked in to the apple store there where only 2 iMac on display. They had a table that they shared with the Mac Pro the LG display and a Mac mini, all the way in the back of the store, while there where dozens of iPhones up front and centre, tons of lap tops and an entire table of iPads and I watches. That pretty much tells me how import their iMac business is to apple... it looks like it had about 5 percent of the floor space, which might be close to what the iMac contributes to apple bottom line.

 

[Benz63amg]

I upgraded to a 27 inch 2019 iMac from a mid 2011 27 inch iMac and it was because I had an opportunity to sell the old iMac for a good price so that was the factor for me. The redesign has to come sooner or later but your situation might be different to merit and upgrade now or waiting for the redesign.

 

[TVreporter]

I upgraded to a 27 inch 2019 iMac from a mid 2011 27 inch iMac and it was because I had an opportunity to sell the old iMac for a good price so that was the factor for me. The redesign has to come sooner or later but your situation might be different to merit and upgrade now or waiting for the redesign.

That’s what I’ll be upgrading from (graphics card died) - what specs do you have and how is it? Still debating if $3600 Canadian is worth it.

 

[Benz63amg]

That’s what I’ll be upgrading from (graphics card died) - what specs do you have and how is it? Still debating if $3600 Canadian is worth it.

Its excellent, I got the $2299 Top tier model thats available at the Apple Store, i did not feel like custom configuring one and waiting for a week or two to have it delivered because i had to transfer all my data from the old iMac before i sold it and i needed to have the new iMac on hand in order to do a proper data migration over to the new iMac. I wish this was the redesigned iMac but its an incredible machine regardless.

That's the thing that most people don't understand, selling the old 2011 iMac now for a decent price and getting the 2019 iMac while they can still get some decent amount of money for it as opposed to waiting for a completely new redesign iMac which will cause the 2011 iMac to lose EVEN MORE value.

 

[mikehalloran]

Why don’t you have a Time Machine backup?

I haven’t sold my 2010 or 2011 but I used one of my TM backups to setup my iMac Pro. Easy easy. True, it’s faster to transfer from the old Mac via Ethernet but only if the old and new are both running SSDs. I tested it.

My 2010 has nearly 2TB on its internal SSD. It took 10.5 hours to do a full restore from Time Machine where it is on a 10TB HDD and 7 hours to transfer directly from my 2010. All transfers were done via Ethernet. If I had a TB3 dock, that would have been fastest but not by a whole lot— The SATA III SSD is limited to 1/6 the potential speed of the NVMe bus.

Those who would recommend cloning here want to add hours and unnecessary steps to a process that works best the way that Apple recommends.

 

[imac2017mm]

I might have to wait too - the Canadian prices, taxes and AppleCare combined are putting even an i5/8GB/580x/512drive imac at nearly $3900.

Just gut wrenching no matter how I calculate options ...

You could always buy apple care at a later date. I got my AppleCare a week before the 1-year warranty was up. To add it all together at time of purchase is too much in Canadian dollars

 

[alaman64]

You can also take a few courses or convince your better half to take a few courses so you can qualify for the apple discount. I did that last year, and Funny thing is after going through all that trouble, they never even asked for proof that I was a student, same thing happened with Adobe.

 

[ravinder08]

I was thinking of upgrading, but have thought about getting buyers remorse if I buy now as a new design is probably imminent. I plane on dropping £2.5K + on my new iMac and want to keep it for many years as I have my late 2012 model, I think I'm personally gonna wait for new design rather than going with old in the tooth current design.

 

[alaman64]

Well my wife convinced me to wait and as a bonus told me could get a new iPhone as my agreement had just expired. So I picked up a new iPhone Xs max. that should keep me busy for a while. I want to thank apple because if they had the model I wanted in stock at the store (with 512gb ssd) I would have bought it and not be having this conversation.

 

[mikehalloran]

but have thought about getting buyers remorse if I buy now as a new design is probably imminent.

That's nonsense. The current iMac hasn't been shipping for two months.

If you don't need one, you don't but that's a terrible excuse.

The redesign has to come sooner or later

Says who? It doesn't have to come ever.

Why Apple would do it before the ARM is ready makes no sense. Intel is speculating 2020 or later. That should be listened to as it has an effect on their stock price even though Apple is not the major customer. With securities, perception often outstrips reality. Shareholder like to file—and win—lawsuits if info like this is being hidden.

 

[alaman64]

That's nonsense. The current iMac hasn't been shipping for two months.

If you don't need one, you don't but that's a terrible excuse.
Says who? It doesn't have to come ever.

Why Apple would do it before the ARM is ready makes no sense. Intel is speculating 2020 or later. That should be listened to as it has an effect on their stock price even though Apple is not the major customer. With securities, perception often outstrips reality. Shareholder like to file—and win—lawsuits if info like this is being hidden.

They are going to update sooner than later because it's not as secure as the rest of the Mac line. It's the only one without the T2 chip, besides the Mac Pro which will be replaced soon. I'm guessing after the Mac Pro is released a few months later there should be a new iMac with a T2 chip a slimmer bezel and no more fusion drive, or not.

 

[_Skyfire_]

That's the thing that most people don't understand, selling the old 2011 iMac now for a decent price and getting the 2019 iMac while they can still get some decent amount of money for it as opposed to waiting for a completely new redesign iMac which will cause the 2011 iMac to lose EVEN MORE value.

When to buy is always a personal decision. However it would be wise to remember; the fastest depreciation happens in the first 2-3 years of a computer's life cycle.

That's nonsense. The current iMac hasn't been shipping for two months.

If you don't need one, you don't but that's a terrible excuse.

Let's be real; 90% of buyers don't really "need" a new iMac.