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Likely features in next iMac models?

Tumbleweed666

Tumbleweed666

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 20, 2009
1,761
141
Near London, UK.
I'm not in a rush, but am intending to get a new iMac to replace my 4 year old one. I guess the next model is perhaps 6 months off, is it too early for rumours what features it will have? More USB ports would be a good start. If there is nothing much of interest likely, might buy now.
 
Don't forget the improved wi fi protocol to ac and bigger storage capacities. Neverthless I doubt we will see updates in the video and display department.
 
possible some new apple gpu they invented. hope not. prolly some face detection screen unlock with isight. gimmicky. maybe a 30 inch imac. hope so
 
No external design changes — you can expect the new slim enclosure to be around for quite a while (although they often iterate on the internals a bit).

The next ones likely won't be released until the Haswell chips are out, so there will be a bit of a performance boost there, but the main advantage to Haswell is power efficiency, which of course matters less in the iMac (particularly given that the current generation is already pretty cool and quiet) than MacBooks.

There will likely be a bump to whatever the newest GPUs are at the time. Again, unlikely to be a major boost.

802.11ac Wi-Fi is a possibility, given that some indications of support have appeared in the 10.8.4 developer builds.

I doubt that we'll see a retina iMac yet. I would guess fall at the earliest, but more likely not until next year.
 
HunterMaximus said:
The next ones likely won't be released until the Haswell chips are out, so there will be a bit of a performance boost there, but the main advantage to Haswell is power efficiency, which of course matters less in the iMac (particularly given that the current generation is already pretty cool and quiet) than MacBooks.
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Please correct me if I am wrong, as I know just enough about this stuff to get in trouble. Wouldn't greater efficiency allow them to have higher clock speed with the same thermal output? It seems like the design of the iMac has a large influence on how much heat the CPU can put out. If that is the case, then the design is limiting the current clock speed, and a more efficient cou wouldn't get as hot, allowing room for growth in that area?

Or is the assumption just that apple has no desire to put faster chips in, making this a moot point?
 
Tumbleweed666 said:
More USB ports would be a good start.
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Not a chance. The trend has been to reduce the number (and variety) of ports, not increase them. I'd say their goal is power plug, a couple of thunderbolt (for high performance peripherals and external displays), and everything else connected wirelessly.
 
Here is one for Apple: how about seriously adding in some accessable physical ports on front or sides- at least for the SD card. My guess is some Apple studio higher up has set a hard rule prohibting buttons or ports on front or sides. if so then Engineering needs to stand up to Studio with a solid arguement of putting functionality above Asthetics. Apple has taken this 'looks' thing too far with the Imac. It is a computer for heavens sake not a swim suit model. i say function first.
 
SSD standard in the 21.5 inchers. The 5400 RPM drives is BS, even with Fusion.
 
Red Fuji said:
Here is one for Apple: how about seriously adding in some accessable physical ports on front or sides- at least for the SD card. My guess is some Apple studio higher up has set a hard rule prohibting buttons or ports on front or sides. if so then Engineering needs to stand up to Studio with a solid arguement of putting functionality above Asthetics. Apple has taken this 'looks' thing too far with the Imac. It is a computer for heavens sake not a swim suit model. i say function first.
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Keep dreaming. Though, I am with you. SD card slot where I can reach it, a few extra ports, OOD built in. These are tech dinosaurs according to Phil, so we will never see them again. Sad but true.
 
I'd love to see the capabilities of the 2010 imacs with a video "input" for plugging in an XBox or PS3 put back into the imacs... I'd really like an "all-in-one" media solution for gaming, tv, etc etc in my home office. (yes I know, use an external TV... I already do, it'd be nice to consolidate everything tho)

--rob
 
After what I just spent, Im not gonna upgrade unless the new iMac is capable of washing my car and doing my dishes !
 
no design changes, no retina display - that's for sure.
definite upgrades are CPU (haswell), GPU (nvidia 700m series), most likely wifi 802.11ac.
less possible upgrades are more powerful GPU BTO option for 21.5 iMac and overall more BTO options for storage (different volume SSDs, Fusion Drives etc.).
NO coffeemachine. not this time :D
 
Tumbleweed666 said:
I'm not in a rush, but am intending to get a new iMac to replace my 4 year old one. I guess the next model is perhaps 6 months off, is it too early for rumours what features it will have? More USB ports would be a good start. If there is nothing much of interest likely, might buy now.
Click to expand...

I would love Retina, but that is not likely.
 
TyPod said:
You guys think the design is going to stay the same for quite some time?
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of course, it will. it's still fresh and unmatched to any other AIOs, plus Apple tends to use the same design for its Mac lines for a couple of years.
 
talmy said:
Not a chance. The trend has been to reduce the number (and variety) of ports, not increase them. I'd say their goal is power plug, a couple of thunderbolt (for high performance peripherals and external displays), and everything else connected wirelessly.
Click to expand...

Bummer. I have 3 external USB disks, they wont be going any place soon. The rats nest behind my iMac will remain then :(
 
The only revolutionary feature of an iMac would be retina display, it would be 4k on 21.5" and 5k on 27".

But then again I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon, not when high end desktop GPU out there barely able to play intensive games on 2560x1600, let alone 4K.

TBH though, there's no more revolutionary about desktop products, everything's about mobile devices these days and I'm afraid our desktop computing days are numbered. Yep, the infamous post PC era.

Computer OEMs start to acknowledge desktop computer as all-in-one. Yes iMac is still the king in this form factor, but my point is desktop is getting more and more dwarfed to the point it might be obsolete.
How many people own a quad GPU these days? Yep they're insanely fast but also drain your wallet and power bill just as fast.
 
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iSayuSay said:
The only revolutionary feature of an iMac would be retina display, it would be 4k on 21.5" and 5k on 27".

But then again I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon, not when high end desktop GPU out there barely able to play intensive games on 2560x1600, let alone 4K.
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It wouldn't be for games. But it would be fantastic for photo editing (16 megapixel display) and video production (1080p viewer in a window taking less than 25% of the display).

I'd expect that at least the 27" would be unaffordable though. :(
 
Tumbleweed666 said:
Bummer. I have 3 external USB disks, they wont be going any place soon. The rats nest behind my iMac will remain then :(
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As a suggestion to ease the rats nest, you could buy shorter USB cables.

AppleDApp said:
look at getting an enclosure for those drives.

I'd like to see high capacity SSD's become standard.
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Sometimes you don't want the drives in the same enclosure for various reasons. For one thing I would want my Time Machine drive in its own enclosure with its own power supply so anything that happened to the multidrive enclsure wouldn't affect my backup.

Although those enclosures do look decent if you wanted to put all your external data drives in one.
 
mushroomtip said:
After what I just spent, Im not gonna upgrade unless the new iMac is capable of washing my car and doing my dishes !
Click to expand...

I just bought a 27" 2012 iMac with 3.4 i7, 1tb fusion and 2gb graphics card. This machine will last me at least 3 years, which is why I went for the Gusto.


No reason to upgrade unless we start seeing 4k screens , I would say maybe 1.5-2 more years before a retina iMac as we need a more powerful Graphics card then what we currently have.

I will be using my new iMac with the same software I am using now so my renders and compressing will be faster (video editing, motion graphics).
 
tears2040 said:
I just bought a 27" 2012 iMac with 3.4 i7, 1tb fusion and 2gb graphics card. This machine will last me at least 3 years, which is why I went for the Gusto.
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If I had to get a new iMac today, I would be getting either this or the 3.2 i5. And yes it should last me 3 or 4 years as well. Of course I haven't had my current machine 3 years and I'm not having any issues with it - it'll be another year or 2 before my current one gets upgraded.

tears2040 said:
No reason to upgrade unless we start seeing 4k screens , I would say maybe 1.5-2 more years before a retina iMac as we need a more powerful Graphics card then what we currently have.
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I would need to see a graphics card that was at least twice as powerful before a Retina screen would be useable for me. But that's based on what I use my iMac for. Other people may not have that requirement.

And I'm not sure a 4K screen would be something that would trigger an upgrade for me. It all depends on what one uses their system for.
 
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