Just another reason why they're most likely going to rebrand the 27 inch iMac as an iMac Pro. Screen resolution isn't gonna drive units on the big iMac anymore, power and value for that power will.
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I am confused...
- Thread starter JW Pepper
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Just another reason why they're most likely going to rebrand the 27 inch iMac as an iMac Pro. Screen resolution isn't gonna drive units on the big iMac anymore, power and value for that power will.
27 inch had a 1.5k base price, so that's pretty much surpassing inflation. Sugar coat it if you want, but it's a loss for consumers. Also, the 27 inch was user upgradable, so if I wanted 16 or 32 gigs RAM, I came our even further ahead.
Plus cost of keyboard and mouse.
But overall I agree. Mini/ASD is a fairly decent way to approximate the 27" iMac. It's likely what I will get for the wife when her 2015 no longer is getting security updates. Until then she won't let me touch it!
There is zero chance any future iMac is user upgradable. That ship sailed long ago.
But it was nice while it lasted. I put 32 GB in our 2015 and it has hummed for years.
Honestly cameras on monitors are usually sus. Besides we got Continuity Camera now, so you can use your iPhone as a webcam and it'll have better image and sound quality than a monitor camera would
As for speakers, tbh I don't know many monitors that have good speakers. Even my 27 inch 1440p Acer has poo speakers so I had to plug in externals.
The size is so much better than an iMac screen(I think Apple should adopt this ratio) but the lack of camera is a pain because we have so many online meetings. The screen is not as clear. We are not experiencing any issues with this setup.
If this is as good as it gets we will have to roll with it, but I would prefer a 27" iMac, I just can't see how Apple is better off driving me and users like me down this route.
Maybe this will help:
What year 27” iMac had a 1.5k base price? If that was the normal price for most iMacs, than I agree 2.3k is a massive step up in cost.
As for upgradable RAM, Apple isn’t really doing user upgradable components right now (maybe the Mac Pro will be?). That is not something you can really blame on the discontinuation of the 27” iMac…..it is a feature across all AS Macs.
I bought a 2019 for my Dad, it was 1397 (admittedly open box and Best Buy). I bought a 2020 for my mom, 1500 with education discount. And yes I know user upgradable RAM is the past, but if we’re comparing pricing, the mini plus studio display is far more expensive than an equivalent 27 inch iMac. Feels to me that apple realized they could make more money for the same value proposition, and went for it. Unfortunate, because the 27 inch was such a great value proposition.
Pandemic, shipping issues, supply chain issues, production issues; al of these issues may have made it harder to produce a larger AIO...
Apple introduced the Studio Display alongside the Mac Studio, that is the preferred pairing...
I am sure Apple would be happy to sell a Mac mini alongside a Studio Display, but they definitely don't market the two towards each other...!
Apple really needs a lower cost option to pair with a Mac mini, and maybe have it set up to allow mounting the Mac mini to the back of this new cheaper display...?
Nearly free? I built a box in 2015 to match the components in my work RiMac 27". The RiMac cost the company $4200, my home box cost $1500. Even with the baked in R&D costs for the chassis and OSX, that's still well over $1000 for a screen.
There's a gaping hole between the top tier 24" iMac ($2628) and the base Studio ($4350 with screen and peripherals) that could be filled with a new 6K 28" iMac very easily with M2 or M3 processors while leaving the Pro and Max versions for the Studio. In fact, I could see the 24" getting the M2 and the 28" getting the M3 at this point. That'd be the smart money imo.
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Well, I have a 32" screen attached to a Mac Studio. It's not a great combination and looks better connected to my Windows desktop.
It's really weird, I first got into mac's years ago because it handled LCD monitors so well, but now it's the opposite, Windows does it better unless you buy an Apple monitor. Why the heck did they program out antialiasing???
Did it run MacOS? I'd looked into the possibility of a hackintosh but the iMac is for my wife to use day in day out so it needs to be as close to no maintenance as possible. Downtime = loss of money. I bit the bullet and bought a 2020 iMac 27" with the 8-core i7 and slapped 128GB of RAM from OWC in there right away. With an 8-bay RAID enclosure hooked up, it's a powerhouse for photo editing.
For me personally, a desktop PC and a laptop Mac meets my needs while keeping cost down. For myself, the cost of computing over the last 5 years has been about $400-500 per year. Gonna have to upgrade the MBP eventually, but so far I've been one of the lucky ones with my 2016 15" MBP. Minor keyboard issues (my fault) were fixed when I had Apple replace the battery (+top case) last year, and besides the battery going out it's been perfect.
Yes, but the last 27 inch iMac could take 128gb ram (not 16gb).
It is very bizarre, seeing as they still sell the i5/i7 mini.
Why not keep the 27" iMac available until it's changed to AS.
The M1 mini is now quite outdated, I dont know why Apple didn't at least spec bump it with an M2 this year.
I don't know why Apple just loves to ignore the mini.
I wouldn't mind upgrading from my 2018 mini, but I'm not putting down money on a 2+ year old machine at this point that has more IO limitations.
Wow, that’s truly impressive. My wife had a 2016 MBP from work. 3 keyboards later, and with dead USB ports, frayed monitor cable, it was a real lemon. I knew lots of folks with 2016-2018s, you are the only one I know who never had problems. Play the lottery much?
they do.
the iMac is cheap compared to all other Apple devices. Look at the Mac Studio, is just 900USD cheaper than the 16" Macbook Pro, has no screen, no battery, no backlit keyboard and no trackpad.
My retina 15" 2012 had all the problems I can figure, ghosting screen (warranty covered), 2 dead batteries (warranty covered, 3rd died out of warranty), GPU died (warranty covered the whole motherboard), WIFI and Bluetooth incompatibility (software issue fixed in 2014 but a real shame using WIFI until then...) A very beautiful machine and very powerfull though, it has no scratches, and treated like a king.
On the other hand, my wife's 2009 white matchbook, treated as ****, travelling without cover in the handbag or even the luggage among clothes, hair dryer and whatever, works as charm, just upgraded RAM to 8GB, a SSD and a new battery 2 years ago. And it is her everyday computer.
2 different computers and price, but intriguing.
Yeah, those older machines were generally built a bit more sturdily. I dropped my old 15 inch, maybe 2008, 6 feet onto a marble floor in the Cairo airport: I was in a hurry to leave, and I forgot to zip my bag. After I got through that hell of customs, I pulled it out of the bag: the screen and base were bashed in, but no crack on the screen, and if you wiggled the cable just right the dvi port still worked. Don’t expect that of any modern machine period. Check out the threads where folks broke their screens when there was a tiny piece of grit caught inside when they closed them.
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Apple's version of the same question: Do we make enough profit continuing to sell a whole Mac and a whole 27" screen at a "starting at" price below $2K? Apparently the answer to that was NO. Thus, the death- probably temporary- of a very popular iMac 27"
Then Apple was able to test to see if the faithful would pay just as much as that "starting at" price for the monitor alone. "We" did, even evangelizing it to all others like it is the one & only monitor for anyone with a Mini, Studio, (Clamshell) MBpro, etc.
Now that Apple has established the 27" monitor at the old "starting at" price for the same monitor PLUS an entire Mac + Keyboard + Mouse, when they then re-launch what will probably be called iMac Pro at 27"-30", it will probably be re-priced like the former iMac Pro. My guess: "starting at... $3499"... probably requiring another approx. $1000 to get "nicely configured."
How could we possibly rationalize paying that much for an iMac when they used to cost (starting at) BELOW $2K? Well Apples ideal/perfect/one & only monitor is pretty well established at about $2K when you choose a stand option. So add the tech guts of the 14" MBpro to put a Mac back in there, add a keyboard + mouse to the box and boom: $3499 (or so).
Don't like that price? Buy yourself a Mac mini + third party monitor. Or maybe Mac mini + Studio for about $500 LESS? Or base studio + third party? Or used base studio + used studio monitor.
I'm confident Mac Mini has the margin in it that Apple wants for that sale. Who knows if that is less than or more than the margin that was in the former "bargain" of a whole Mac + 27" monitor + keyboard + mouse in iMac 27"? Depending on that answer, they MAY make just as much (PROFIT) selling you a Mac Mini instead of an iMac 27", even if you buy a third party monitor.
However, after they roll out iMac (Bigger) PRO for (my guess) starting at $3499 this year or next, they will get their new profit per unit sold target for that Mac and likely make much more than selling you only a Mac Mini. If you can't justify paying that much for the new iMac "bigger," they still get their profit target out of Mini or Studio, even if you go third party monitor, keyboard and mouse.
iMac 27" was perhaps the best overall Mac value offering. Modern Apple Inc. wants maximum possible profit out of every little thing they sell. New iMac "bigger" will reflect that when it re-launches, probably towards about TWO THOUSAND more than the price we fondly remember. In my best guess opinion, that's WHY iMac 27" was "retired"- not for all of the other reasoning slung around, including the "separates" argument by Apple themselves. I suspect for the word "separate" to apply, it's more about separating much more, high-margin revenue from buyers when they purchase iMac "bigger" PRO coming soon.
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If given equal specs (24-core GPU / 32GB RAM / 512GB SSD), it is the 14" MBP that is US$900 more than the base M1 Max Mac Studio, the 16" MBP is US$1100 more than the base M1 Max Mac Studio...
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I think Apple intends both the Mini and the Studio to be used with the Studio Display. The 27” iMac always came in a large range of internal hardware specs. The screen was always the same though.
Plus my local Apple Store has all their Studio Displays hooked up to Minis. As does my local Best Buy. It seems how they are marketed. At least in my stores.
I don’t see Apple releasing a budget display. They might drop the price on the Studio Display, but I don’t see them coming out with a cheaper, more bare bones 27” monitor.
The MateView is 3840x2560, hardly comparable.
Purchasing the cheapest possible config Mac mini, Studio Display, Magic Mouse and Magic Keyboard comes to $2476.
Compared to the last Intel iMac, you get the same 256 GB of storage, the same amount of RAM (arguably less since it is now shared with graphics, the base iMac had an additional 4 GB on the Radeon Pro 5300) and the lowest-end M1 chip available in a desktop Mac, for $700 more. Although this is a 42% price increase, in what some would consider a less elegant package, I still think it should be possible for anyone seriously considering a new 27” iMac to stomach.
The 27 inch iMac was discontinued because they want that segment of people to go with the Mac Studio and studio display. The iMac became more than what it was intended for and Apple cleaned up the line.
I was referring to someone saying that a Mac Studio + Studio display is a replacement for an iMac 27".
That's why i said at double the price of a base model iMac 27".