myself and countless others have made the same speculations all over the internet for 8 or 9 months now
we await our payment from bloomberg “news”
we await our payment from bloomberg “news”
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Gurman: Larger Apple Silicon iMac 'En Route,' May Feature More Powerful 'M2X' Chip
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I wouldn't be so sure about that. M1 is wickedly fast, and I bet that in many many many many many tasks, it's already faster than the fastest iMac 27" right now. The tasks where the iMac is faster would be far less important.
My 2020 iPad with A12Z is faster than my 2017 iMac 5K in photo editing, and not slightly faster, much faster. But on paper, the cpu+gpu power of my iMac would look more than twice as fast as the iPad. Not in reality though.
There are "Pro" Macs and Macs that say "Pro" on the front. Not many people are going to spend $6k on a 27" iMac with 10 core i9, 128GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 5700 XT w/16GB etc. to update their Facebook and sort their holiday snaps, any more than people are going to buy an 8GB/256GB 13" MacBook Pro for editing Hollywood movies. The current "pro" labelling is a mess, and - as I said - a new world where the "consumer" Macs all have "M1" and the higher-end Macs all have "M1X" (or however the naming turns out) is an opportunity to sort that out.
...and there's no evidence that they'll use the same design as the 24" either. It's all speculation - the problem is that some people write their speculation as if it's the undeniable truth.
We've already seen Apple use Space Grey to distinguish higher-end hardware - the iMac Pro and the 2018 Mini (vs. the 2014 and earlier silver versions with mobile processors) and the steampunk style to distinguish the Mac Pro and XDR - so it is perfectly plausible. That doesn't mean it's going to happen.
2 Soc Options x 3 RAM options (or, possibly, 3 SoCs each with 2 RAM options, if the RAM is still mounted on the SoC) x 4 storage options = 24 different types of assembled logic board. Multiply by 7 colours - 168 versions. Wait - double that for the VESA option (likely to be more popular on higher-end machines) oh, then there's probably a nano-etched display option, double that again... 10GB Ethernet option... x2 again... and many of these are manufactured-in things so it's not really "build-to-order" and more "guess how many of each logic board and case you need to manufacture". So, yeah, there's a potential problem with a combinatorial explosion of options - with significantly lower volumes than the 24" and probably a higher proportion choosing the "BTO" options because "pro" customers have more specialised needs.
Yes there is - the aforementioned $5000 5k iMac i9/5700 XT configurations (which outperform the base iMac Pro) at one end and the Mac Pro at the other. The latter didn't exist when the iMP was released, and the 2017 iMac topped out at a 4 core i7...
Anyhow, the iMac Pro was only discontinued this year, so the anticipation of a M1 replacement may well have played into that.
The 5k iMac range covers a wide range of specs from the fairly modest base model to the $6k+ options - if the replacement doesn't cover the same range Apple will have a yawning gap between the iMac and the Mac Pro. (Of course, there's also the 'Mini Pro' rumour...)
Oh, I attach zero significance to the "mockup" which looks like generic clipart that has been around since 2010.
Because it's not a problem - for Apple. Only people who want an NVIDIA GPU (and drivers!) in a Mac have a problem, and while there may be good reasons for wanting that, Apple threw those people under a bus long ago.
Apple already has what it needs from ARM: a license for the instruction set: AFAIK they're using their own core and GPU designs, and are big enough and ugly enough to do their own advancements. I suspect that, longer-term, even the importance of the instruction-set will fade and Apple won't lose sleep about diverging from the ARM ISA: they're only really worried about MacOS/iOS/iPadOS, they've shown what code translation can do with Rosetta and they also have a mechanism for developers to upload apps as bytecode and have the App Store optimise them for particular ARM processor models. The idea that you could make a proprietary processor and rely on software-based code translation and virtual machines to run legacy software is not new (Transmeta, Intel Itanium et. al.) but I think the M1 has proven that it is now viable.
Plus, last I looked the NVIDIA/ARM deal was being scrutinised by the regulators for mainly ideological reasons (I'm sure NVIDIA will get it through by making a few unenforceable promises) - if Apple (a major manufacturer of ARM-based smartphones, already being accused of anticompetitive behaviour) tried to buy ARM, the regulators would have a field day.
I want Apple to release a version of this without the guts as a Thunderbolt Display replacement.
My personal belief is the stars will align, and we'll find ourselves 4-4.5k and 5k options to choose from. 🤞✨
3 days after you have given up on its release and bought something else.
That's a bit contradictory if it wasn't designed for usability. If expecting basic connectivity and no huge external power brick is "expecting more", then yes, we expected more. These aren't technical problems to overcome, they're basic capabilities that Apple removed.
No, it's not a surprise. But I think the track record clearly shows that Apple today has no idea what a desktop computer should be.
And yet the past 20+ years has clearly shown the opposite, they know EXACTLY what a desktop for the vast majority of the public needs to be... or what the vast majority of the computer buying public WANT it to be. As is evidenced by they sales.
Actually we cannot know that. Because we have no idea how sales would have developed had they followed a different path. Like, e.g. powerful midi towers instead of iMacs. We just don‘t know.
I‘d like to see Apple announce something like that, in Power Mac/cMP tradition, just with up to date ASi chips inside and see how that competes with the iMac
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This all comes across as Apple doesn’t know what they‘re doing. Evidence would support they do.
Nope. They can conduct market studies, yes. But even Apple does not employ clairvoyants. As proven by the 2013 MP debacle, the Butterfly keyboard issue and other things it is clear:
They are good, yet not flawless.
Plus for more than a decade computers were little more than an afterthought, Apple focused totally on iOS devices.
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Yes, give us a range of sizes and qualities and prices to choose from, and option of a battery too, please! To go with a portable mini, please.
Yes, Apple knows what they are doing. They certainly do not know how many Macs they would sell if they were to offer upgradeable towers. Perhaps they have an estimate. I suppose they would sell a lot. But not enough to change their business model and make up for the losses in sales of all the other lines of computers which may be more profitable.
This is market positioning.
PC towers do not differentiate from each other. You either want the best one in terms of performance, or the best deal (price/performance ratio). There is no room for design, status, beauty, convenience, and other "soft" stuff that sells. Apple would have to practice the same margins as the rest of the market, as there is little differentiating factor apart from those of a strictly technical nature.
And Apple will not do that.
The largest company in the world and it's up 66% in the past year. Anyone know how hard it is to grow a huge company? I'd say that they are competent.
They do for the mini. I'm staring at two Dell monitors, a keyboard and a mouse. The mini isn't visible. It's nice to look at but I only do that if I need to change something. I wish that they sold towers that weren't Mac Pros.
… and I‘d like to add that imo they‘d sell a whole lot of these machines, much more than iMacs. Just look how cMPs and Trashcans sell on ebay, people love them even after all those years.
Those machines are highly sought after, just imagine how an M1 version would do
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They hold their value a lot more than you'd think - especially if you shop Optiplex, XPS and Precision desktops.
The mini is a small and clean computer. It does not take much space and can be connected wirelessly to everything. A tower is a different beast: takes space, makes noise, is full of cables. A PC tower attracts users who want to squeeze as much power as they can for each dollar paid. That is not how Apple makes money.
They can now, though, thanks to the efficiency of Apple Silicon.
Luke Miani is amusing in that he can take the PC boards from one Mac and put it in another and I really like the idea of the 27 inch M1 iMac that he built. I don't see why you couldn't take an M1X mini and stick it inside a PC case and add USB devices inside the case and then hook up devices external to the case.
I guess that they really want you to buy a Mac Pro and some of the traders I know do just that.
I would say they have a far better track record in the i-device space, and peripherals, than in their PC/Computer space.
historicallly, Apple computer user base has (and still is) a minority in the computer desktop space. They have also throghout their history have had significant lineup failures in their computer space.
I think that's why the latest iMac iteration and design had stuck around for so long. it became beloved and classic to many. When they had a lot of either technical or marketing flops.
On the backs of their PC buziness alone, Apple had already once faced potential collapse. Looking at many of the issues, often caused by purposeful design decisions (Butterfly Keyboard, designing chasis that can't handle cooling, failing display laminates, etc), Apple often evidences they don't know what they're doing in the computer space
they know how the market the **** out of the laptops. they're not Bad devices by any means. but not the homerun evidence they know what they're doing
Now their silicon division, while much younger, has knocked it out of the park. They know what they're doing. They I have confidence in.