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You could be right, I haven’t looked up which cpus intel released during that years, but if memory serves me well all of them were 14nm.

It’s possible apple was pondering wether to discontinue the mini or not, it could also be that they were expecting a bigger jump in performance, both of those reasons or none of them.
I’m not too familiar with all the Intel SKUs over the years, but I believe the better performing SKUs all fall outside the thermal window of what the Mini is designed for. Those within the window likely shows little improvements.
 
I agree but I don't see that happening -Apple hasn't ever done color options for any of its "Pro" products, iMacs, iPads, MacBooks, besides "Space Grey" and "Silver". Only exception is iPhones Pro but I'll chalk that up to the astronomical sales numbers.

Seeing that MacBooks Pro 2021 continue the Space Grey and Silver options, I don't ever see Apple doing anything else for the next iMacs unless that don't carry the "Pro" moniker.

Although very popular, doing a variety of color options for $2000+ personal computers that aren't being sold at every phone carrier across the globe on various 24-36 month downpayment plans with various discounts and deals just isn't feasible.

Not that Apple computers are niche products by any stretch. But in comparison to iPhone sales, they are very much niche products.

Also -Apple are masters of product segmentation and giving every product all the colors options and configuration variety goes against that.
I agree that it is unlikely they would do it. I also agree that the market is largely happy with silver and grey. Try walking onto a new car lot today and finding something OTHER than black, silver, or grey. I'm in the minority in liking bold, unique colors. We're only here on earth for such a short time...I can't imagine playing it safe with color. Color is fun!

I do disagree that it is a logistical configuration problem, tho. The iMac is still Apple's consumer desktop (as differentiated from the Mac Pro). I suppose there is a question whether the new large iMac will be closer to the existing 27" iMac or the discontinued 27" iMac Pro. That will probably be the biggest indicator of whether they go multi-color or pro black/grey monochrome. Apple found a way to sell the original iMac in a multitude of bold colors and even prints. If the new 27" stays "consumer" and not "pro" it could happen.
imacs.jpg
 
Apple I hope to god you do something about toe iMac chin please.
Let’s hope it doesn’t start at $6K US, $3-4K us is a good start.

I also worry this close to the last stretch of 2yrs for the entire lineup to go Apple Silicon that the Mac Pro update may be delayed? We’re already starting to see product sales affected by chip supply :(
 
You could be right, I haven’t looked up which cpus intel released during that years, but if memory serves me well all of them were 14nm.

It’s possible apple was pondering wether to discontinue the mini or not, it could also be that they were expecting a bigger jump in performance, both of those reasons or none of them.
My guess is that it was the former—that every year they couldn't decide whether to keep it or not, so they just kept kicking the decision down the road without updating it.

The 2014 Mini used 2-core U-series chips. Here's the GB single-core and multi-core scores for the upper-end model, which used a Core i7:
Mac mini (Late 2014)
Intel Core i7-4578U @ 3.0 GHz (2 cores)
767

Mac mini (Late 2014)
Intel Core i7-4578U @ 3.0 GHz (2 cores)
1628

If they had updated it in, say, mid-2017, with the then-available 2-core i7 U-series chips, here's about the performance we woud have seen (see data at bottom). So a bit under 20% improvement in single core, and a bit under 30% in multi-core. Nothing earth-shattering, but certainly an improvement. And it's not just about the CPU speeds. Without turning this into a research project, I imagine the 2017 chip would also have offered better graphics performance, monitor support, and I/O. Plus if they'd updated it in 2017, it would have had sigificantly faster storage, and perhaps also faster RAM.

Finally, being a later model, it would have had more years ahead of it before obsolesence as a result of not being able to run the current supported OS.

So there really is no technical justification for not updating it by mid-2017 at the latest (and probably earlier, like all the other Macs), rather than waiting until late 2018. I think that's why Schiller gave such a strained response when he was asked about it at that time (see my quote of Schiller in a post one page back).

MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2017)
Intel Core i7-7567U @ 3.5 GHz (2 cores)
902
MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2017)
Intel Core i7-7567U @ 3.5 GHz (2 cores)
2079
 
The most demanding software I run locally is Mathematica. Some tasks take several minutes to several hours (and that's when they don't exceed my available memory, at which point they crash the program). Even running Mathematica natively, the M1 is much slower than a core i9 iMac (most Mathematica tasks are single-threaded, so the M1/Pro/Max should typically all have the same speed).

Indeed, the WolframMark benchmark scores for the M1 are close to 3, which is the same as what I get on my 2014 MBP. A core i9 iMac gets about 4.5. Using the fastest AMD processors (along with a workaround that allows them to trick the Intel libraries into thinking it's an Intel processor and thus making themselves accessible) get a score of about 6.

Since the single-core speeds of the M1 are comparable, that's about what is should be getting. Probably no one outside of Wolfram knows for certain why this is, but it may have something to do with a lack of certain fast Intel-only math libraries. Hopefully this gets resolved.
 
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Sure, but if a relatively cheap iMac gets the same size and MiniLED what is left to justify that price.
Etched screen to significantly reduce glare = XDR,
highest pixels per inch of any display on the market (I believe) = XDR

I highly doubt Apple in just 2 yrs will kill off their XDR with an iMac Pro. XDR display's mini LED tech is in the new '21 MBPs as well as the iPad Pro but those displays don't come close to the colour accuracy or reliability of sustained colour accuracy of the XDR.

I could be wrong and Apple may do this, rest assured unless the iMac Pro Mx chip has everything the XDR Display has with ability to plugin any other computer or console, Apple will make another in a 12mth time frame.
 
Etched screen to significantly reduce glare = XDR,
highest pixels per inch of any display on the market (I believe) = XDR

I highly doubt Apple in just 2 yrs will kill off their XDR with an iMac Pro. XDR display's mini LED tech is in the new '21 MBPs as well as the iPad Pro but those displays don't come close to the colour accuracy or reliability of sustained colour accuracy of the XDR.

I could be wrong and Apple may do this, rest assured unless the iMac Pro Mx chip has everything the XDR Display has with ability to plugin any other computer or console, Apple will make another in a 12mth time frame.
If Apple were to etch the screen on the new 'pro' iMac 27" (or whatever size it will be), that would make for a gorgeous screen. And definitely no way will the starting price be only $2K. I think they'll price similarly to the MBP's where the 'starting' price features a chip with reduced cores. The true 'main' Pro iMac will be at least $2400, that's my best guess. If the screen is mini-LED (and etched!) I'd say it would be worth it.
 
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Etched screen to significantly reduce glare = XDR,
highest pixels per inch of any display on the market (I believe) = XDR

I highly doubt Apple in just 2 yrs will kill off their XDR with an iMac Pro. XDR display's mini LED tech is in the new '21 MBPs as well as the iPad Pro but those displays don't come close to the colour accuracy or reliability of sustained colour accuracy of the XDR.

I could be wrong and Apple may do this, rest assured unless the iMac Pro Mx chip has everything the XDR Display has with ability to plugin any other computer or console, Apple will make another in a 12mth time frame.
The XDR has the same pixel density as most of Apple's retina monitors, including those on the iMacs and older MBP's: ~220 ppi.

The few that have more include the 32" 8k Dell (about same size as XDR, but 8k, so should be ~290 ppi) and the new Pro/Max MBP's (254 ppi).

Wikipedia has a nice table giving the ppi's of all Apple displays, including the Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch:

 
So if Dylan Kit is correct and a 27 5K Pro-motion iMac comes out do you all think we could possibly see the same 5K pro-motion panel in an external display later in 2022. Would the MacBook Pro (M1Pro/M1Max) even be able to push a 5K panel at 120Hz with Thunderbolt 4?
 
Remember that chart when Apple introduced Apple Silicon, showing AS fitting in between laptop and desktop chips? They aren’t going to make desktop chips anymore.
Maybe Apple no longer consider form factor as a determinant of performance. They will just have the same performance class of SoCs that can be used in mobile or desktop form factors.
 
The XDR has the same pixel density as most of Apple's retina monitors, including those on the iMacs and older MBP's: ~220 ppi.

The few that have more include the 32" 8k Dell (about same size as XDR, but 8k, so should be ~290 ppi) and the new Pro/Max MBP's (254 ppi).

Wikipedia has a nice table giving the ppi's of all Apple displays, including the Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch:


Unfortunately that wiki guide misses a few things:

true 10-bit colour
p3 colour gamut (93%) rating of all the comparisons
1000nits sustained full-screen brightness, 1600nits peak at 6K.
218ppi at 6K - in that wiki link its THE ONLY display of that caliber.

I tried making the argument there are better displays out there (non-studio professional reference monitors) and got schooled.

Again there is a LOT in this XDR display to last for some time as it has thus far already.
 
The most demanding software I run locally is Mathematica. Some tasks take several minutes to several hours (and that's when they don't exceed my available memory, at which point they crash the program). Even running Mathematica natively, the M1 is much slower than a core i9 iMac (most Mathematica tasks are single-threaded, so the M1/Pro/Max should typically all have the same speed).

Indeed, the WolframMark benchmark scores for the M1 are close to 3, which is the same as what I get on my 2014 MBP. A core i9 iMac gets about 4.5. Using the fastest AMD processors (along with a workaround that allows them to trick the Intel libraries into thinking it's an Intel processor and thus making themselves accessible) get a score of about 6.

Since the single-core speeds of the M1 are comparable, that's about what is should be getting. Probably no one outside of Wolfram knows for certain why this is, but it may have something to do with a lack of certain fast Intel-only math libraries. Hopefully this gets resolved.
This is what is disappointing. After a year, the pro/Max doesn’t have a faster core.

M1 series is a mobile chip. People salivating over a pro imac with a mobile chip are missing the point. It is inferior to an i9 when the i9 has a large power supply to feed it.

Apple needs to up their chip game to make a compelling work station case. Mediocre core speeds and mediocre graphics cores fo not impress me just because the fan never turns on…
 
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Obvious rumor…anyone would guess this..

But…to add an HDMI port on an iMac I would doubt, but you never know with Apple now-a-days.
 
Appreciate your humour but a notch isn't warranted for a desktop machine. One legit idea for notch on MBP models is to get the display as large as possible relative to the size of the machine. This factor is more important on a mobile device. Frankly I find the rumour ethernet on the power brick to be disconcerting because it means they are trying to prioritise thinness on the Pro iMac over Pro-ness which is quite disappointing. Speakers suffer when iMac design becomes thin, there's no good reason to do this on a Pro iMac. Pro this son-of-a-bitch!!

Make it twice as thick as regular iMac, put all of the ports on the back, put the power brick internal and put speakers inside that shake the house. Give it legendary levels of airflow.
Which pro uses internal speakers for professional work? ?
internal SSD are crap for a desktop
What? Internal SSDs are pure luxury to have. It's the easiest way of accessing storage. It's always there, you don't have to worry about strange sounds external harddrives make, you don't have to worry about cables sizzling around.
What do you guys think this will look like based on what they said? I'm expecting the same as the 24" but with black bezels, in silver & space grey.
Jepp, exactly like that.
Of course it will. The previous iMac Pro started at $4,999.
But this iMac Pro will not be the same category as the previous iMac Pro. It has to continue after the iMac with its price.
The big question remains as to how the could possibly sell such a massive panel with the same properties like the MacBook Pro, basically rendering the XDR Display vaaaaaastly overpriced.
The XDR Display will also get an update later.
Depending on when in 2022 it comes out, why M1? Let's get to M2!
But the M2 is not better than the M1 Max. The M2 will be an entry level chip like the M1, just one generation advanced. And M2 Pro/Max are at least one year off, probably more.
As long as the chin is smaller or preferably gone this could be a dynamic machine
As for the notch, If it had Face ID maybe but preferably no notch
Will this be M1 or M2 max Pro and Max ??
The iMac will most definitely get the M1 Pro and M1 Max.
unfortunately we don't know what we don't know. the cpu question might have more to do with Apple GPU plans than anything. Do they intend to do all CPU and GPU in-house, or will they still be using 3rd-party GPUs in their desktops?

sure the max-core M1 Max is nice and all, but you would never pay that much for a desktop with a nice graphics card. you can do so much better on your own.

i like MacOS and all, but for utility it is only so much better. There's a limit to the premium I will pay on an Apple desktop vs what I can do myself and live with Windows.
There will be no 3rd-party GPUs anymore in any future Macs in the foreseeable future.And you don't pay for the M1 Max. You pay for a whole computer, with a display, maybe a battery, a keyboard, speakers, macOS. Maybe you don't care about ~220 ppi and you are fine with ~160 ppi. But I would argue that it's hard to find a computer with the same specs thats cheaper than the new MacBook Pros. The same will be even more true with the new iMacs.
So.... identical to the 27" 512Mb SSD iMac with 16Mb that I bought in 2015, but with a less powerful GPU then.

And I can't run Windows on it to play GTA or Red Dead Redemption.
What crazy GPU were you able to buy in your six year old iMac?
If they do- for example, if there is M2 and M2 PRO & M2 MAX in 6 months (something I personally doubt)- it would imply a "big advancement" pattern every 6 months. With no expectations of Mac Pro in 6 months but either WWDC or next Fall, it seems it MUST be another leap. if M2 PRO & MAX are already 3-6 months old when it is revealed, is that M3? And if so, it even more strongly implies major leaps every 6 months.
There won't be an M2 Pro or M2 Max in six months. But there might be a M2. And that M2 will be a leap compared to the M1. But not as much of a leap as the M1 was compared to Intel. We won't see that every year now, if ever again. Because they won't release everything at once and M2 is due first M2 Pro and M2 Max will be ready in one year at the earliest. But I doubt we will see new MacBook Pros again in 2022.
What's the track record of this leaker? I'd be happy if they go with the design similar to the picture but it seems unlikely to me Apple will use different design for different size iMacs. have they done this before?
No one thinks Apple goes with the design of the picture. Thats just an illustration to have a picture of something nobody knows anything about.
I'd rather have a 4K monitor at 34" but super expensive.
So you would like to look at 130 ppi? Are you sure? My employer gave me a 27" 4K display for free. When I first plugged it in I thought it was broken. After playing around with it I realised it has 168 ppi and that is much lower than the iMac and MacBook Pro I was used to. I tried to work with it but after one month of daily trying I gave it back. If you are used to ~220 ppi it's hard to look at 4K larger than 24".
No different to M1 vs M1 Pro/Max for single thread performance???
I read that is the case. How true is that?
That's very true. All the performance cores in M1, M1 Pro and M1 Max are exactly the same. That's the beauty of Apple Silicon.
That only applies to multi-core speeds. You'll still notice limitations due to single-core speeds, because most programs are still single-threaded, and you're going to continue to experience wait times on even the fastest of current chips with those programs. Thus there continues to be a need for faster single-core speeds (or for single-core programs to transition to multi-core; but parallelizing complex programs is very difficult, so that's not going to happen anytime soon).
Yepp, but first alls the M1 have a pretty spectacular single core performance and second if you have more cores the single-threaded apps still benefit because the chance is higher to have an idling thread.
The new Mac Pro and Mac Pro Mini for sure will have more than the M1ProMax chip. There’s no way they could call it a Mac Pro if it’s performance was the same as a laptop.

Maybe Dual or Quad M1Pro chips if such a thing is possible?
There will be chip packages with two and four M1 Max SoCs. They are code named Jade 2C-Die and Jade 4C-Die. Mark Gurman talked about them months ago. Those will go in the next Mac Pro.
The Intel iMac already has a 10-core CPU and up to 128GB RAM, and Intel's Alder Lake chips expected in the next few weeks have up to 16 cores, so I could imagine a further iteration of the M1 SoC with either more cores, or the efficiency cores (that can't be used for hyperthreading) replaced with performance cores, plus more real estate for memory. The alternative would be to leave a top-end Intel offering until the M2/A15 family is ready.
I suppose the top iMac will get the 2 M1 Max chip package. That is probably the "added configuration" dylandtk is talking about.
A guess would be that this iMac starts out at $4000 and if maxed out it would be over $5000. Remember this is intended as a high end graphics, gaming and guru machine. And yes there are many people that have Use for a machine of this type both in the commercial and private sectors
Yeah, no. If true there would be a huge price gab between the 24" iMac and the 27" iMac. It will start at $2000 - $2500.
I am working at home and decided to get a 32" 4K screen, upgrading from a 27. I can't imagine going back to a 27" as my primary display. If this is a Pro machine, real estate is important for any degree of multitasking
That's completely crazy. You look at 138 ppi. Maybe you're lucky and you actually need glasses but nobody told you. But Apple Retina display have around 220 ppi which is a HUGE difference to your 138 ppi. If I had to choose between 13" @ 220 ppi or 32" @ 138 ppi I would happily choose the 13" display.
 
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This is what is disappointing. After a year, the pro/Max doesn’t have a faster core.

M1 series is a mobile chip. People salivating over a pro imac with a mobile chip are missing the point. It is inferior to an i9 when the i9 has a large power supply to feed it.

Apple needs to up their chip game to make a compelling work station case. Mediocre core speeds and mediocre graphics cores fo not impress me just because the fan never turns on…
I think the benchmark results speek for themselves.

With intel we mainly differentiated the chips based on TDP. With more power per watt from the ARM chips we may need to adjust our view of what is laptop or desktop.
 
Apple I hope to god you do something about toe iMac chin please.
People forget that you have to plug things in on the back. To do this you would have to touch or hold the screen when you plug things in. That is mainly why there is a chin. Plus, like the 24” the chin is where most of the guts are. Let’s be real..there needs to be some short of chin. Maybe reduced in size, but there will be something.
 
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The most demanding software I run locally is Mathematica. Some tasks take several minutes to several hours (and that's when they don't exceed my available memory, at which point they crash the program). Even running Mathematica natively, the M1 is much slower than a core i9 iMac (most Mathematica tasks are single-threaded, so the M1/Pro/Max should typically all have the same speed).

Indeed, the WolframMark benchmark scores for the M1 are close to 3, which is the same as what I get on my 2014 MBP. A core i9 iMac gets about 4.5. Using the fastest AMD processors (along with a workaround that allows them to trick the Intel libraries into thinking it's an Intel processor and thus making themselves accessible) get a score of about 6.

Since the single-core speeds of the M1 are comparable, that's about what is should be getting. Probably no one outside of Wolfram knows for certain why this is, but it may have something to do with a lack of certain fast Intel-only math libraries. Hopefully this gets resolved.
This is what is disappointing. After a year, the pro/Max doesn’t have a faster core.

M1 series is a mobile chip. People salivating over a pro imac with a mobile chip are missing the point. It is inferior to an i9 when the i9 has a large power supply to feed it.

Apple needs to up their chip game to make a compelling work station case. Mediocre core speeds and mediocre graphics cores fo not impress me just because the fan never turns on
I think the benchmark results speek for themselves.

With intel we mainly differentiated the chips based on TDP. With more power per watt from the ARM chips we may need to adjust our view of what is laptop or desktop.
yes, they do. They just can’t keep up with desktop processors and discrete graphics.
 
This is what is disappointing. After a year, the pro/Max doesn’t have a faster core.

M1 series is a mobile chip. People salivating over a pro imac with a mobile chip are missing the point. It is inferior to an i9 when the i9 has a large power supply to feed it.

Apple needs to up their chip game to make a compelling work station case. Mediocre core speeds and mediocre graphics cores fo not impress me just because the fan never turns on…
Doesn’t the M1 pro single core come very close to i9 11900k in single core and multi core? I agree that apple silicon desktop processors should ideally be able to take advantage of more power. Is it inferior now tho? I’m just referring to cpu.
 
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