iMac Shipping Estimates Slip to 3-5 Business Days for Most Models

[thekeyring]

The issue with the Macbook Pro update and specifically the 15" one is that they really don't have all the CPUs for the 15" one to upgrade with. The top end of the CPU line the "HQ" quad-core processor.... I have seen no information on when there will be a Broadwell processor (if there ever will be) and Skylake is still a bit away. For a "full" refresh (and not an incremental) they really need the new CPUs for the entire line of laptops.

I believe Broadwell was rumoured for summer 2015. But when it will actually launch is anyone's guess.

Maybe Apple know something we don't, though. After all, they could have given the 15" MacBook Pro the new trackpad if processor updates were a long way off (more than a year), but they held out.

 

[bkkcanuck]

It is probably best to not read the comments on your own stories

I for one am thankful... I was planning to get the 5k iMac today, with plans to flip it, if a new model comes out in June/October. But if a new 8k model gets announced this week due to the bomb LG dropped.... *drool*

I was never into the iMac design..... although if I had a business with computers in the front office I would probably go with the iMac because of it's sleek design.... but I still prefer my computer being separate.... (as in the Mac Pro 2013). You have a relatively small form factor (about 60% the size of the original macintosh) which if you wanted to transport you could bag it and bring it as carry-on in a plane. It gives you more flexibility in the sizing of the GPU because of the heatsink and fan, and you can attach a properly sized monitor (27" is rather small - especially for 8K) - a 40" or 50" (8K) one would be nice. Also the monitor tends to be the first component to go in my experience..... Still wish they would fill out the Mac gap between the mac mini and the mac pro....

 

[keatth]

Where the hell is the retina 21.5 inch iMac? They can make a big 27" one but not a 21" one?

 

[576316]

The USB-C IS the new standard.... when the chips that support USB 3.1 Rev 2 (10Gbps) come out the only port that will support it is the new USB-C port.

Plus then they'll switch Lightning out for USB C in all iOS devices, shortly followed by devices from other manufacturers thus providing the standard that the governments have been after to reduce cable/charger wastage. Just means that Lightning will have been a very short lived technology!

Edit: Just had an idea. What if, in the future, manufacturers sold 'chargerless' retail boxes at a reduced price. To encourage people to hold on to their existing (USB C) charging cables. Including a charger with every iPhone isn't gonna reduce wastage, encouraging people to keep using their old charger will. Just a quick thought I had.

 

[TallManNY]

Meh.

My 27" 2011 supped up iMac is serving me just fine and will for the foreseeable future. Hopefully longer since I'll finally be adding an SSD in the next couple months.

I don't see myself needing to get a new desktop for at least another 18 months, which will be fall 2016. At which point, the 2016 iMac will have just been refreshed or I'll just go for a Mac Pro. In either case, I hope 4k displays (or 5k in the case of the iMac) will be much less expensive than they are now.

I've got a 2011 as well. SSD update would be nice. But it seems a bit hard to actually do. Would you actually do an SSD update and then quickly replace the computer? I've also got bootcamp on my HD, so I'd have to deal with McSft to get that switched over to the new drive, wouldn't I?

 

[bkkcanuck]

Edit: Just had an idea. What if, in the future, manufacturers sold 'chargerless' retail boxes at a reduced price. To encourage people to hold on to their existing (USB C) charging cables. Including a charger with every iPhone isn't gonna reduce wastage, encouraging people to keep using their old charger will. Just a quick thought I had.

Actually with the EU regulations (Pending) that is exactly what is expected - that all devices will be sold without a charger and you would buy one charger separately.

 

[Thunderhawks]

Seems Apple can't ship anything these days. Keyboards with delays, watches with time frames, back orders right of the gate for the new MacBooks, and now iMacs... What the hell are they manufacturing? Isn't Tim Cook supposed to be some supply chain master? Is it just me or has apple never been this crappy on delivery?

It's just you!

 

[bkkcanuck]

It's just you!

Conference call in a week so we should get some insight into the difficulties Apple is facing....

 

[joe-h2o]

All iMacs will eventually have Retina displays. They're simply best. But what I find most ridiculous is the fact that Apple has yet to update its external Thunderbolt Display. Pathetic.

I hope not. I want them to keep the non-retina 27" model.

They can update all the internals to match, but I want the option to keep the 1440p panel.

27" with current 1440p screen with a 980M and whatever i-series CPU they want to drop in there - the current crop of Haswell ones are not really the limiting factor in performance right now.

It would be nice if they would also add a removable door to make adding an SSD possible.

 

[ozziegn]

Just about any new tech from Apple is showing late delivery time(s). what the heck is up with Apple? why can't they get their stuff out in a timely manner?

 

[BCWorld]

More glue and less horsepower, I'm glad I got my Core i7 in 2012, I'll be keeping that for a very long time

This. +1

After the "new macbook" it's pretty clear where apple is going with their lineup.

Apple will have to pry my 2012 Mac mini i7 from my dead handz

✌️#

 

[mlody]

It is time for Apple to start be more competitive and offer iMac with at least fusion drive across the line, or better flash only (like they do on all MacBooks).

Since iMac 21.5 only offers 1TB of max storage, I do not see a reasons for them to not offer only 3 models with flash only options: 256GB, 512GB and 1TB. As far as the 27" goes, they could offer the same flash options and perhaps 1.5TB and 2TB flash option for those who would need even more storage or still offer 3TB fusion setup.
This should minimize the number of SKUs and would drastically improve the overall responsiveness of the OS and the computer making it more efficient.

They could also work in introducing some new Mac OS X tricks on the storage side if they knew that the whole computer lineup is flash based only.

 

[rdlink]

I, for one, certainly appreciated the post, as someone who is eagerly awaiting new iMacs. It's probably nothing... But then again, how common are chip shortages this far into a chip's lifecycle except/unless the replacements are arriving soon?

If it's nothing then it's nothing, but if some lady in Milan that nobody's ever heard of looking at brightly colored sport bands is worth a post, so is this.

True, though she did have nice legs. Or maybe it's time for me to get a new girlfriend...

 

[spaceballl]

If they just do a spec update, it wouldn't surprise me if they got this done in advance of WWDC to make room for more "real" announcements at WWDC, a la new OS X, new iOS, AppleTV, updated Mac Pro, new MacBook Pro, etc

 

[koulmj]

If they just do a spec update, it wouldn't surprise me if they got this done in advance of WWDC to make room for more "real" announcements at WWDC, a la new OS X, new iOS, AppleTV, updated Mac Pro, new MacBook Pro, etc

Bring back the Cube!

 

[Macula]

Is there a new graphics card they can put in the retina? I heard the existing version isn't the best at pushing all those pixels.

On the contrary, the pixels are doing a great job pushing the graphics card.

 

[ricci]

Please please PLEASE, skip Braodwell and go skylake! Sing along with me!,, SKYLAKE,SKYLAKE,SKYLAKE,SKYLAKE, ok,ok,that's enough!! Someone was out of tune!?

 

[crsh1976]

Watch them go and equip iMacs with the Broadwell-U processors used in 13-inch rMBP and MBA models...

Only kidding, this could mean either:
1) Skylake desktop is coming out earlier than announced (unlikely)
2) Broadwell desktop is actually making an outing (Intel had previously announced only 2 desktop SKUs, leaving the real update for Skylake)
3) This delay means nothing at all, they're just having some stock/shipping issue.

 

[smiddlehurst]

This is because the 13'' uses different CPUs from Intel than the 15''. The 13'' Intel chips were updated, but Apple had nothing new for the 15'' (until now hopefully).

Hypothetical question but... do they need to wait on Broadwell? In terms of performance there's very little in it, the only real advantage to Apple is battery life. I think (going off memory here) there's slightly faster clocked Haswell parts out there that would give a nominal speed bump. If you combined that with the same SSD upgrades and force touch trackpad the 13" got as well as a bump to the latest Nvidia GPU for the high end model is that enough to get through to Skylake?

That being said the more I think about this the odder it seems that the 15" rMBP and the bulk of the iMac range all see slipped shipping dates at the same time. The rMBP actually slipped last Friday so a 1-2 week lead time would line up with the 3-5 days currently showing on the iMac's. The base spec rMBP is still on immediate ship but presumably they'd have more of those in the channel anyway. Seems weird that a parts issue would affect both iMac and high end rMBP at the same time. Who knows, maybe Intel are ahead on Broadwell production (or Apple threw them a ton of money to get first dibs), stranger things have happned.

 

[iBug2]

One expects a CPU to get hot in such a confined place playing a graphics heavy game but when the iMac 5K is compared to the previous model; the heat, the slow downs etc. it appears that the GPU has just enough grunt to run the screen but nothing more. They really do need a GPU with more grunt and hopefully the next refresh will deliver.

Depends on what you expect. You cannot do decent gaming at 5K even with top of the line SLI setup. So gaming should always be done at reduced resolutions, for now.

For video editing and such, faster hardware should bring some benefits indeed.

But the OS X UI slowdowns are more software dependent than GPU right now. You don't need a 5K iMac, even the top of the line Mac Pro at 1400p resolution struggles with Yosemite UI. Apple is aware of this and probably will address it in the next OS X revision.

 

[jayducharme]

I can envision a day when the iMac is closer to an iPad on a stick. It is, after all, a consumer desktop. The Mac Pro will remain as the one desktop "computer" (as we currently think of them) for those who need it.

One of the few things currently separating desktops from mobile devices is how files are managed. Outside of that, the difference between the two categories is rapidly narrowing. The Windows world is already replete with touch-screen desktops (though Apple insists it won't go in that direction). I can remember when "luggable" laptops weren't considered real computers either. Eventually, a mobile device will be all the computer most people will need.

 

[ventuss]

If rumors are real, when would the iMac update? In a few days?

My iMac just arrived. Now I have to keep it closed until this even proves to be real or not..

 

[AsprineTm]

Here come the new Imacs with Broadwell

AMD couldn't get rid of its slow and hot M295. Gues where they ended up, in the 5K Imac.
Now Intel had a pile of Broadwell chips that are a year too late to marked. So they will probably put those in the Imac 27 and 21.

Then in december they release a new Mac Pro with Skylake. Let them sit there in their glory for a bit.
And then the Imacs will follow later in the summer of 2016.

The lifecycle of the Imac is super slow, no way they will be binning their 5K Imac in less then a year. This is not the way Apple works.
Everybody who is waiting for Imacs with skylake might be in for a long wait.

 

[576316]

Actually with the EU regulations (Pending) that is exactly what is expected - that all devices will be sold without a charger and you would buy one charger separately.

Just seems to make the most sense. Introduce USB C as a standard connector for all mobile devices, sell chargers separately. People can keep one charger for 3 or 4 generations of iPhone (or until they break it!)

 

[thekeyring]

Hypothetical question but... do they need to wait on Broadwell? In terms of performance there's very little in it, the only real advantage to Apple is battery life. I think (going off memory here) there's slightly faster clocked Haswell parts out there that would give a nominal speed bump. If you combined that with the same SSD upgrades and force touch trackpad the 13" got as well as a bump to the latest Nvidia GPU for the high end model is that enough to get through to Skylake?

That being said the more I think about this the odder it seems that the 15" rMBP and the bulk of the iMac range all see slipped shipping dates at the same time. The rMBP actually slipped last Friday so a 1-2 week lead time would line up with the 3-5 days currently showing on the iMac's. The base spec rMBP is still on immediate ship but presumably they'd have more of those in the channel anyway. Seems weird that a parts issue would affect both iMac and high end rMBP at the same time. Who knows, maybe Intel are ahead on Broadwell production (or Apple threw them a ton of money to get first dibs), stranger things have happned.

Personally, I hope it's the latter and Apple have first dibs. My current Mac is in dire need of replacing.