iMac With M2 and M2 Pro Chips Could Arrive Soon, Says Latest Conflicting Rumor

[Abazigal]

I believe I did.

Before you try and be unnecessarily pedantic, I was clearly referring to the iMac and other AIO desktops.

While a laptop is certainly an AIO, there is a very clear need and use case for portable computing.

I still stand by my assertion that there is little need or use case for an AIO desktop versus a mini and monitor combo which have very similar computing power and use cases. As far as I can see all the iMac offers versus a mini and monitor is 2 less cables and a bit less desk space.

Please, if you have a well thought out use case where an iMac setup outweighs my perceived downsides to a mini and monitor I’m willing to hear it.

You are not wrong.

iMacs used to make sense when they had better specs than Mac minis (dedicated graphics and more room for cooling). Today, they all use the same chips, and therefore sport the same performance (more or less), so that’s one less benefit.

The main reason I can think of for getting an iMac today is that you really value that “everything is ready to run out of the box” experience. It does make sense for a first time, less tech-savvy user who doesn’t want to mess around with cables and peripherals. Unpack it, plug in the power cable and you are good to go. It also comes with a fairly gorgeous display, decent (inbuilt) webcam, speakers, wireless keyboard and mouse / trackpad.

Of course, the problem then comes a few years later when it’s time to upgrade and you are stuck with an expensive monitor you can’t reuse. But I do agree that the value proposition feels a lot less these days.

 

[Gudi]

The only splendid new display to come out will be the display of the new iMac and its key feature will correspond to some special area of the new M-series chip. Your overpriced Pro Mini doesn't even work well enough with most current third-party displays.

Thinking further about this, there already is a splendid new display technology coming out next year. It is called the Apple Vision Pro, two 3648×3144 resolution displays at 3,400 PPI for in sum 23 million pixels.

And of course you can't hook up your M2 Mac mini. You also need the R1 chip! So you can not mix and match computers and monitors as you want. Every truly new and advanced display technology will require its own new computer.

 

[icanhazmac]

The name Apple is synonymous with the success of the all-in-one.

If all you have is the lame attempt to catch me in a gotcha moment I'll bid you good night.

I corrected my initial post to reflect the obvious, I was referring to the iMac only, not laptops.

 

[Gudi]

I corrected my initial post to reflect the obvious, I was referring to the iMac only, not laptops.

Reality doesn't care that you think about iMacs and MacBooks differently. They are all AIOs with the same benefits and detriments. According to you people have no choice but to throw away perfectly fine laptop displays all the time. Why isn't that more of a concern to you? Laptops are 80% of all Mac sales. Surely their monitors should be unplugable!?

Another example, the first 5K iMac used dual Thunderbolt 2 connections inside. One $38 cable wouldn't even have been enough to push all the pixels to an external monitor. Having components separated and compartmentalised hinders progress and innovation. We live in the golden times of the whole system-on-a-chip (SoC) computing and you guys want to rip out the display and make it external. Crazy!

 

[Adelphos33]

You are not wrong.

iMacs used to make sense when they had better specs than Mac minis (dedicated graphics and more room for cooling). Today, they all use the same chips, and therefore sport the same performance (more or less), so that’s one less benefit.

The main reason I can think of for getting an iMac today is that you really value that “everything is ready to run out of the box” experience. It does make sense for a first time, less tech-savvy user who doesn’t want to mess around with cables and peripherals. Unpack it, plug in the power cable and you are good to go. It also comes with a fairly gorgeous display, decent (inbuilt) webcam, speakers, wireless keyboard and mouse / trackpad.

Of course, the problem then comes a few years later when it’s time to upgrade and you are stuck with an expensive monitor you can’t reuse. But I do agree that the value proposition feels a lot less these days.

1) Also, the 24" footprint is actually beneficial for a lot of desks / workspaces. Some may not need the 27" (or 32 or whatever people are asking for) and prefer an AIO footprint at that size. Doesn't mean Apple can't make multiple monitor sizes - just means that for some use cases, 24" (or smaller sizes in general) may be better

2) I don't get the constant statement that it s a "problem" that it is time to upgrade, and you can't switch out the monitor. People trade in MacBooks, iPads, iPhones with fully intact and working screens - why can't they do the same for an iMac? I get that iMacs last longer, but I am pretty sure that in four or five years, you will be able to get a couple hundred bucks for your iMac 24 towards a new computer (whether an iMac or something else)

 

[_Refurbished_]

Ask Apple?

Exactly.

 

[StupidOpinion]

well M2 chips sold horribly so they probably had a surplus that needed to be sold.

i also want to point out that macbook air and imac 24 users typically don't care or don't know very much about CPU/GPU performance, so whether it was an m2 or an m3 would not matter to them.

 

[Chuckeee]

Doesn't it seem a little bit odd to you that the Apple II, the Lisa, the Macintosh, the iMac, the MacBook, the iPhone, the iPad ... heck even the Apple Vision Pro are all AIO computers? And you say: I really wish the AIO form factor would just die.

The Apple II was not an AOI. It had a separate monitor and the I/o (cassette or floppy drives) were also separate units. The only keyboard was physically integrated into the computer itself. Did you mean the [short lived] Apple III?

 

[Gudi]

The Apple II was not an AOI. ... Did you mean the [short lived] Apple III?

Probably? 🤔 What I had in mind was that the Apple 1 was basically only a circuit board with which you could build your own computer, if you had proper nerd skills. From this experience Steve Jobs developed the idea to build a ready to use out-of-the-box computer, which the Apple II indeed was. Later with the GUI of the Macintosh the computer should become useable to average people with a little learning curve. And finally with iOS we got computers even the elderly can understand. It's a path to ever more accessibility (quite literally computers for the blind) and fewer prior knowledge required. Even if its just one cable to connect you're going into the other direction.

There's no step 3.™

 

[chucker23n1]

Did you mean the [short lived] Apple III?

The IIc, perhaps.

 

[JimmyG]

...well, yeah, but there have been times in the past when Apple was putting everything into AIOs and neglecting mid-range headless options (or offering turkeys like the 2014 Mini) which is why those of us who prefer "separates" may feel a bit threatened.

I wouldn't say I was "forced" to buy my 2017 Mac Pro - and I was fairly satisified with it for 5 years - but there really wasn't much choice from Apple when I bought it and I came very close to switching to PC or Hackintosh at that point.

I get the impression that there's a bit of a schism inside Apple over this - and would be worried if they flipped-back to "AIO is the one true Mac" and started neglecting the Studio/Mini Pro.

I'm not unfamiliar with the clamor for Mac stand-alone's over the years and was truly pleased for fellow users when Apple finally relented and provided them the Studio. That, at this moment, it seems they did so at the expense of disenfranchising their 27" iMac user base is why myself (and, clearly others) have taken to the boards to express our desire for a coexistence of 27"-and-larger AIO's.

Apple's, seeming, decision to make their customer's desktop choices binary, AIO-or-SA, has long-created an insurmountable purchasing obstacle for would-be users over the years. Why any company would willingly create purchase-decision friction for new and existing customers seems, well, counter-profitable for all parties. If the goal is to get as many folks into one of your driver's seats, provide as many of them the very model they wish to drive!

Seems simple enough, eh, Tim?! So, c'mon get your MBP XDR display supplier to crank out some 6K/32" and 8K/42" AIO iMac aaand SA display "babies" and let's get this happening! I've got quite a backlog of HDR footage that needs much more than the measly 16.2" workspace on my M1 Max MBP!

And while you're at, modularize your M(x) boards to slot into your displays, let's "green" things up a bit and rattle some competitors while we're at it! Yeah, you can say "it", Tim, "Cha-ching!". LOL

And, speaking of greening things up...bring back target display mode for all those orphaned 27" 5K iMac displays!

 

[jcmbowman]

Oh I guarantee this isn’t the case. Maybe consumers aren’t buying them a lot, but iMacs are very popular in elementary schools and middle schools. Well, at least when I was in school like 15-20 years ago.

I'm in higher ed and eagerly awaiting the release of an updated iMac (hopefully a 27" M3) so I can put in a requisition for several hundred of them. We use them exclusively in the Art and Media & Communications department student computer labs.

We have one Mac Mini lab over in the department that teaches coding (so they can do Xcode stuff), but the only reason we went with minis instead of iMacs for that lab is because they wanted hide-away desks where the monitor and keyboard and mouse can be pushed down into the desk and a lid closed giving them a clean desk for other projects.

iMacs (of any size) have displays that are simply in another class compared to anything we could get from our preferred supplier (HP), and the ASD is just too expensive to justify. They're the only way to go for the labs that support our design and illustration classes.

I'm certain that other educational customers are doing similar math.

 

[jcmbowman]

It just seems like it takes an act of God for Apple to release stuff on a halfway normal schedule. Perhaps this is the reason the PC-Windows market is viewed as more stable from a business market perspective. There are regular annual updates, not these weird three year wait product cycles. I get it that there is some awesome stuff going on but at this point it just seems ridiculous to me. I'm on a MB 12" and it's been six years with no upgrade. Don't tell me there's no market for it. Six years!? The MBA is a great machine but it certainly isn't an "Air". I love the MacOS and I ain't going back to Windows ever again; however, I think Apple needs to get off its high horse and realize that when you don't update things at least every two years, people just wonder if they want to continue on this roller coaster.

I'm the one Apple Tech at an otherwise 100% windows / HP community college and the hoops I sometimes have to jump through because of Apple's lack of transparency can be maddening at times. The latest example: This fall we finished renovations on our advanced trades building, which is where most of the Apple labs for Illustration/Design/Video Editing/etc. are located. The renovation budget included funding to replace all the computer hardware, but I opted out of that because I knew if I replaced all the 2017 27" iMacs with 24" M1 iMacs that I would be locked into those M1s for at least 5 years. So I'm impatiently checking macRumors every few days in the hopes of catching a hint of what type of AIO computer Apple will allow me to buy, and when I'll be able to do that.

 

[jcmbowman]

And, speaking of greening things up...bring back target display mode for all those orphaned 27" 5K iMac displays!

My Graphics department would be in hog heaven if I could repurpose our old 27" iMacs as displays. I just lifecycled 2 labs of 2015 27" iMacs with perfectly good displays. They're going off to sale but if I could just set them up as a second/third monitor that would be amazing. Right now they're all using aging LED Cinema Displays as their second screens. They've put in a request for several ASDs but that's having a really hard time getting through the approval process because of the $2k price point compared to even the most expensive HP 27" 4K monitor.

 

[JimmyG]

My Graphics department would be in hog heaven if I could repurpose our old 27" iMacs as displays. I just lifecycled 2 labs of 2015 27" iMacs with perfectly good displays. They're going off to sale but if I could just set them up as a second/third monitor that would be amazing. Right now they're all using aging LED Cinema Displays as their second screens. They've put in a request for several ASDs but that's having a really hard time getting through the approval process because of the $2k price point compared to even the most expensive HP 27" 4K monitor.

Would seem like a no-brainer for Cupertino to improve their green score aaand be a better global citizen by doing so...are you reading along, Tim?!

FWIW, I went to a SUNY Art Campus back in '20 (just before the pandemic hit) to learn FCP and they had several labs filled with 27" iMacs (the very reason I finally updated my 27" 2011 i7 to a 2019 i9), I can't imagine the $$$$ headache that school is having to figure out when it comes time to update all those seats! I would gladly retake that class to learn the intricasies of HDR workflow if the lab were filled with 32" XDR iMacs!

 

[jcmbowman]

That’s a long time ago. I think they buy iPads nowadays.

They're still very popular in K-12 for media labs and other situations where desktop software is called for. You can't run Premiere Pro on an iPad.

 

[jcmbowman]

Would seem like a no-brainer for Cupertino to improve their green score aaand be a better global citizen by doing so...are you reading along, Tim?!

Tim doesn't care. Tim wants to sell more ASDs.

 

[jcmbowman]

I am the Mac tech at a local university and we are looking to upgrade our 2017 27in iMac labs. 24in m1 are not powerfull enough so we are waiting for a at least a imac with M2 Pro preferably with 27+ inch screen. If we dont get a new powerful imac by Janurary we are going with Mac studio's and some lg or samsung monitors.

Fellow Higher ed mac tech. We're in the same boat. I'm trying to squeeze a little more life out of our 2017 27" iMacs, but we opted for the hybrid drives instead of full SSD back then and it's starting to get embarrassing.

 

[Chuckeee]

The IIc, perhaps.

While the Apple //c was closer to an AIO since a floppy drive was integral to the computer and keyboard. The monitor (with its stand) was a separate piece that was purchased separately. It had a similar style but you could have also used another monitor or even a tv (with an RF adapter). And even an optional flat panel lcd display, that was a separate optional accessory

I do get your point but I was just really interested in the history of Apple hardware when I was younger

 

[jcmbowman]

iMacs used to make sense when they had better specs than Mac minis (dedicated graphics and more room for cooling). Today, they all use the same chips, and therefore sport the same performance (more or less), so that’s one less benefit.

The main reason I can think of for getting an iMac today is that you really value that “everything is ready to run out of the box” experience. It does make sense for a first time, less tech-savvy user who doesn’t want to mess around with cables and peripherals. Unpack it, plug in the power cable and you are good to go. It also comes with a fairly gorgeous display, decent (inbuilt) webcam, speakers, wireless keyboard and mouse / trackpad.

Of course, the problem then comes a few years later when it’s time to upgrade and you are stuck with an expensive monitor you can’t reuse. But I do agree that the value proposition feels a lot less these days.

I used to work for an Apple MSP and I can confirm that iMacs are the preferred form factor for lots of small businesses specifically because of the lack of cables. In a lot of cases it's not a question of technical savvy - they hire someone else to come in and do all the setup regardless - it's a question of simplicity and keeping an aesthetically clean looking desk. The current iMacs did this a step better than the Intel iMacs - they moved the ethernet port to the power brick, so the only cable coming up from under the desk is the single power cable that goes to the back of the iMac.

And when it comes time to upgrade they're not stuck with anything they can't resell or donate/write off.

 

[JimmyG]

Tim doesn't care. Tim wants to sell more ASDs.

My take on what will happen is this...as the sales numbers evolve Apple knows exactly which 27" iMac users moved on to Studios, Minis, MBPs, are "still hanging on" or left the ecosystem. I can't imagine that they want to lose their educational base let alone the broader AIO base.

Methinks Apple is trying to determine how their Mac product line will shape up with the advent of Studio/ASD, it's 3-years now in that marketing, er, experiment/adventure and I feel confident that the ≥27" iMac will reemerge in their lineup. Those that clamored for stand-alone processors and displays have taken their seats and established themselves and their marketshare, then there's the rest of us who've turned up our noses.

"Gurman" says, "next year" for the return of the larger iMac, we'll see. As an institution I'd be suggesting "tcookatapple"-ing your school's predicament...just as I'll be doing for mine! LOL

 

[icanhazmac]

According to you people have no choice but to throw away perfectly fine laptop displays all the time. Why isn't that more of a concern to you?

I have explained this multiple times.

Laptops: the use case is clear, mobile computing necessitates the laptop, which yes, is an AIO. No one is looking for, or wants, a laptop monitor as a primary or 2nd monitor, it wouldn't make any sense. All we can hope for is that these are recycled.

Desktops: I don't see any clear cases where an iMac, as an AIO, is better than a mini with a monitor, what benefits are there that offset the lack of repairability or easy replacement of a failed component? Almost everyone, Apple wise, would love a secondary market for 5k Apple screens, allowing old iMacs to serve in this way is a huge win environmentally. Or as mentioned earlier a modular approach would change my mind, pull out the M1 SoC and insert an M4 when you are ready, that would be a game changer. If the screen dies, pull out your SoC and replace the monitor. #chefskiss

AIO for desktops sucks, imho.
SoC with soldered memory and ssd sucks, imho.

YMMV and obviously does, enjoy.

A 2021 iMac will easily last two decades and more.

LOL, can't wait to see how this ages, see you in 2041!

 

[theluggage]

Apple's, seeming, decision to make their customer's desktop choices binary, AIO-or-SA, has long-created an insurmountable purchasing obstacle for would-be users over the years. Why any company would willingly create purchase-decision friction for new and existing customers seems, well, counter-profitable for all parties. If the goal is to get as many folks into one of your driver's seats, provide as many of them the very model they wish to drive!

Apple seems to have a pretty high bar for how many sales they need to make a model "profitable". Desktops are probably their smallest-selling line and - in earlier posts - I've suggested a list of reasons why desktop sales are likely to be declining (its a general trend anyway and Apple Silicon has removed any performance advantage between mid-range desktops and laptops) so I guess they think that selling a midrange/pro all-in-one and a separates range would spread sales too thinly.

I'm sure that the Mac Pro is that they see a tactical need to maintain a "pro" media creation routine, although I wouldn't be too shocked if the current Mac Pro is the last of its ilk.

I blame the iPhone - it is such big business that it makes the Mac look like a paying hobby, even though Apple are consistently the 4th largest personal computer manufacturer (probably higher if you ignore the "generic black boxes for corporates" market).

 

[chucker23n1]

Apple seems to have a pretty high bar for how many sales they need to make a model "profitable". [..] I blame the iPhone

Even with the iPhone, they kill off lines that, by their measure, are relatively unsuccessful, such as the iPhone mini, but would be very successful by most competitors' measure.

 

[theluggage]

Did you mean the [short lived] Apple III?

Even the Apple III wasn't an all-in-one - it just had a matching display that followed the lines of the main unit.