Kuo: 24-Inch iMac With New Design to Launch in Fourth Quarter of 2020

[Bob Br]

Agree wholeheartedly, rounded corners are truly a stupid feature. On a phone it is somewhat excusable and I'm somewhat ok with it as it is a small device and they want to screen to seem like it is hugging the edge of the device.

But it would seriously irritate me having parts of the corners of my screen cut off on a large desktop or laptop, to fulfill some obsessed designers' 'vision' of how things should look (when really it'd just be form over actual function)

It's worse on a phone than what I get on my iPad. The PiP window on my iPad is significantly smaller than watching videos on an iPhone, and it drives me insane to see my videos in PiP on my iPad. So much so that I rarely use that feature anymore.

I doubt Jobs would have approved. Rounded corner displays are stupid, period, just like that ugly notch on iPhones. I can’t imagine him having sign off ooh either. You can still have reasonably thin bezels with square corner displays. Apple does the same rounded corner cropping with videos and photos in iMessage and album artwork in Music app. Maddening.

 

[tillsbury]

Just a silly thought, but wouldn't it be technically very easy just to have an external box over tb3 with a graphics card slot that could run Windows for you? Basically an eGPU box but with an x86 chip in too? You could buy that and run your windows "virtually" without compromise, and a few drivers to pass the screen display / input / sound / ssd storage over?

 

[JacobHarvey]

Eh, the rounded corners thing doesn't bother me too much, as long as the corners don't have a huge radius. It's not like our eyes are rectangular
That being said, as long as there's an option to shrink content down to prevent cutting off the corners, everyone can be happy.

Looking at the Big Sur UI that's been shown, I think we'll be seeing Macs with rounded display corners soon - rounded window corners and other UI elements, as well as increased padding in the menu bar seem to hint at this.

I would think it an acceptable design choice ONLY if they effectively add extra pixels on each axis to 'compensate' for the corners 'eating into' the screen and its content when playing video content and video games etc. at their native resolutions and aspect ratios (without having to downscale or mess around with the resolution).

On something large like an iMac (even with thinner bezels than the current gen), I doubt that the curved corners will give you a truly 'edge hugging' screen look.

There will likely be plenty of space still left at the bezel corners, so why on earth would people prefer an antiquated design (that was previously only done due to the limits of CRT technology) that gives you less viewable area by rounding off corners in the same amount of space?

 

[tillsbury]

Didn’t Tim say there were more intel products coming at the end? At the very least, it seems like there’s a chance

And so does the rumour. Updated top end imacs in Q3, then arm devices in Q4, for mbp13 and low end imac. They replace the bottom end devices first so as not to freak out the power users and developers. Then next year look for bigger more powerful machines, with an arm Mac Pro as the last thing.

 

[PS123]

Apple plans to launch a 24-inch iMac with a new design in the fourth quarter of 2020, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said today in a research note obtained by MacRumors.

Earlier this week, Kuo claimed that this redesigned iMac will be one of Apple's first two Mac models with a custom Arm-based processor, with the other being a future 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Following years of rumors, Apple today confirmed its plans to switch to its own processors for its Macs, promising "incredible" performance and features. Apple said that it plans to release its first Mac with custom silicon by the end of 2020, and it expects to transition its entire Mac lineup away from Intel processors within around two years.

In the meantime, Kuo expects Apple to refresh its existing Intel-based iMac in the third quarter of 2020, which encompasses July through September. It is unclear if this model will feature a new design. Apple last redesigned the iMac in 2012.

A last-minute rumor suggested that Apple was going to unveil its redesigned iMac at WWDC, but the keynote did not include any hardware announcements.

Article Link: Kuo: 24-Inch iMac With New Design to Launch in Fourth Quarter of 2020

Cannot blame Apple to switching to own SoC after Intel let them down on many occasions such as with delayed processors and their 5G modem screw up, that led to Apple going to Qualcomm with its tail between its legs for 5G modem chips.

 

[Bob Br]

Eh, the rounded corners thing doesn't bother me too much, as long as the corners don't have a huge radius. It's not like our eyes are rectangular
That being said, as long as there's an option to shrink content down to prevent cutting off the corners, everyone can be happy.

Looking at the Big Sur UI that's been shown, I think we'll be seeing Macs with rounded display corners soon - rounded window corners and other UI elements, as well as increased padding in the menu bar seem to hint at this.

"...not like our eyes are rectangular"? What relevance does such an odd response have?

You don’t seem to understand what is happening when they do that. Putting aside the aesthetics, when they do that they are cropping away actual video content. It takes an amazing level of arrogance and disregard for their customers and for the integrity of the content being displayed when they do that.

Having to shrink down to be able to see the entire video shows how stupid these rounded displays are in the first place.

 

[cheese01]

I would think it an acceptable design choice ONLY if they effectively add extra pixels on each axis to 'compensate' for the corners 'eating into' the screen when playing video content and video games etc. at their native resolutions and aspect ratios (without having to downscale or mess around with the resolution).

On something large like an iMac (even with thinner bezels than the current gen), I doubt that the curved corners will give you a truly 'edge hugging' screen look.

There will likely be plenty of space still left at the bezel corners, so why on earth would people prefer an antiquated design (that was previously only done due to the limits of CRT technology) that gives you less pixels by rounding off corners in the same amount of space?

On all the devices Apple has released with rounded corners (iPhone X, 2018 iPad Pro) they have ended up with rounded corners as a result of expanding the screen towards the edges of the device (which has rounded corners). This is perfectly acceptable to me.

If any manufacturer released a device where they could have fit a larger rectangular screen, but just chopped off the corners to make it look cool and rounded, then yeah, I'd agree with you, that'd be stupid.

Arguably, the 16" MBP could have had a slightly larger screen, or a smaller chassis, with rounded display corners. They couldn't do this because the OS wasn't designed for it. Let's see how the new iMac turns out.

 

[J InTech82]

“A14Z” doesn’t exist (yet?)

The dev kit and the demos today were the A12Z, which is basically a chip from 2018 with an extra gpu core

Personally I think Apple will be developing custom silicon for the Mac. Why would they use the same ones they use in the phones and tablets? Maybe instead of the A series of chips it will be the B series of chips? Based on a very similar instruction set, but with desktop and laptop class specs.

 

[JacobHarvey]

On all the devices Apple has released with rounded corners (iPhone X, 2018 iPad Pro) they have ended up with rounded corners as a result of expanding the screen towards the edges of the device (which has rounded corners). This is perfectly acceptable to me.

If any manufacturer released a device where they could have fit a larger rectangular screen, but just chopped off the corners to make it look cool and rounded, then yeah, I'd agree with you, that'd be stupid.

Arguably, the 16" MBP could have had a slightly larger screen, or a smaller chassis, with rounded display corners. They couldn't do this because the OS wasn't designed for it. Let's see how the new iMac turns out.

Yes I agree with that, expanding the screen area + increasing pixel count to effectively make the areas affected by edge curvature extra 'screen real-estate' would be acceptable as I alluded to at the start of that post.

However I would hope that the pixels in the central, purely rectangular part of the screen (i.e. effectively the area left if you chopped off the left and right of the screen), would still retain a standard 16:9 or even 16:10 aspect ratio and resolution (e.g. keeping the 5K resolution of the current iMac in that central rectangle of the screen would be fine)

 

[lilcosco08]

Personally I think Apple will be developing custom silicon for the Mac. Why would they use the same ones they use in the phones and tablets? Maybe instead of the A series of chips it will be the B series of chips? Based on a very similar instruction set, but with desktop and laptop class specs.

That's a given. I think they'll go with a highly parallel architecture, maybe a chiplet design a la AMD.

Imagine a 15w MBP with 16 cores

 

[Funky_Alphonzo]

hmmm....

Yes, that’s a thunderbolt display... they are not bringing that back.

 

[zuongpham]

Not sure how they'll reach their "incredible performance" goals by the end of the year, though. Right now, the A14Z is dramatically slower than Intel desktop CPUs and graphics performance is nothing compared to (some) dedicated GPUs.

The Dev kit is A12Z, performance to be seen, but based on previous A12, A13 releases, I expect their desktop, laptops chip to beat intel 50%-200%

 

[Artsketch]

I hope this big iPad Pro can be used wit the Apple Pencil

 

[J InTech82]

That's a given. I think they'll go with a highly parallel architecture, maybe a chiplet design a la AMD.

Imagine a 15w MBP with 16 cores

Yeah that would be flipping amazing. That would do leaps and bounds around anything Intel or AMD would have to offer. Apple's pro market is going to get a lot more aggressive in the next two years. Especially with in house apps being able to fully take advantage of these new chips.

 

[diddl14]

At the low end this could just be the new iPhone Pro with a larger screen...

 

[domsodidavid]

If I merge all infos about iMac:

- Switch to ARM but first the low-end modells
- 24 inch iMac coming in Q4 to replace the 21.5 inch in the same form factor
- only for the 27 inch we have the 2-3 week shipping delay

=

New 27 inch intel iMac coming in next weeks, 21.5 inch remains the same untill Q4 when they replace it with the 24 inch ARM version

 

[TGM85]

Just a silly thought, but wouldn't it be technically very easy just to have an external box over tb3 with a graphics card slot that could run Windows for you? Basically an eGPU box but with an x86 chip in too? You could buy that and run your windows "virtually" without compromise, and a few drivers to pass the screen display / input / sound / ssd storage over?

I don’t know if this is technically feasible, but it does sound like a good idea for a start up.

 

[Naaaaak]

I bought a 5K iMac in 2015 and so far feel the same way. It has been the best computer I’ve ever owned.

How would you feel about downgrading to a 24" screen?

 

[Putzytart]

My guess is they will do a 27 inch update soon, intel spec bump to get it up to par with the other machines, like 8TB storage options like the 16 MBP. This may or may not use the new design language, but I suspect it will use the existing design.

Then towards the end of the year, maybe an October event, they release the new 24 inch ARM iMac, with a 27 version coming next year.

Not how I want it to go down. I desperately need a new top spec 27 inch iMac and have been holding off, but not sure I could buy a spec bumped one knowing the design language is about to change and so is the architecture. I want to get at least 6 years out of this new iMac and I won't get that if I buy a 27 intel with current design. The iMac is in a bit of trouble until these updates get rolled out, and even then I suspect most people will be waiting for the 27 ARM version which doesn't seem to be coming anytime soon. In fact there's not even any rumours about it.

 

[richinaus]

How would you feel about downgrading to a 24" screen?

I used to be always a 27” guy until I did some consulting work in an office last year and had to use their 24” dell monitors. After a while I realised that I far preferred them, and now work on the 24” LG 4K displays and couldn’t be happier. Not a downgrade at all, in fact an upgrade!

 

[ascender]

Interesting... given they’ve confirmed there’s a new Rosetta coming, does that mean they might go straight to Apple Silicon instead of more new Intel-based products? I wonder how fluid the situation is and if they’ve changed roadmap recently?

 

[newyorksole]

Bought my 27 imac after the redesign in 2010. 10 years later, it still works flawlessly, no slowdown, no issues, just as fast. Incredible for a computer...best money I ever spent.

Mine was a champ too, but I got a really good deal on a 2019 27” back in November and ran with it.

The fact that the 2010 couldn’t go beyond High Sierra was a bummer. Also couldn’t take advantage of several new features.

 

[randian]

I'm OK with ARM, but the reduction in size to 24" is a big problem for me. If they have a 30-32" version I'm all in.

 

[gnasher729]

Not sure how they'll reach their "incredible performance" goals by the end of the year, though. Right now, the A14Z is dramatically slower than Intel desktop CPUs and graphics performance is nothing compared to (some) dedicated GPUs.

Huh? What chips are you comparing? The latest iPad with three fast cores is about the same speed as a quad core Intel CPU.

 

[randian]

Without esoteric assembly to port over, getting an x86 app to run on Apple silicon will be as easy as clicking a button.

Assuming correct and portable code. I've debugged plenty of non-portable code hiding in large codebases that accidentally happens to work on x86 but will rear its ugly head and crash the application on another CPU architecture.