More Claims of October Launch for Updated iMac Models

[Randomoneh]

Apple have slightly worked themselves into a corner with the whole 4x pixels dogma by having ALL the current retina devices follow that 'rule'.

For iMac though, why bother? Why not just give them enough of an increase that the retina concept of simply not being able to discern pixels from standard viewing distance holds true?

I'm sat in front of a 27" iMac right now and although it's not a problem, I can just (JUST!) make out the pixels, mainly on text. To become 'retina', this screen doesn't need 4x the pixel count. Even 3x would push the res up into 'effective retina'.

Why not just do that instead of following some none-existant 'rule' that gives you a needless engineering headache?!

Obviously you don't understand what you're talking about.

For the 100th time:
not seeing pixels ≠ there is no benefit from higher pixel density

Get it? Up to ~200 pixels per degree? Get it?

We'd appreciate if you'd stop spewing nonsense. It's irresponsible.

 

[Swordylove]

I hope the keyboard and mouse will be updated to match the iMac's colour. iMac is no longer white, so why the white buttons and mouse? Either make the buttons and mouse black or make the iMac white again.

 

[50548]

How about no? Can you do the math? Nevermind, I'll do it for you.

Average human is able to discern [angular resolution] up to ~200 pixels per degree as showed by a study done by Japanese NHK.

At 28'' distance, what is the angular resolution of current iMac 27''?


Below 60! (look at the blue dot)

And one with resolution of 5120x2880? Just above the 100, which would be pretty, pretaay, pretaaay good, I'd say.

You should be the one to stop babbling nonsense. If we were to believe your flawed graph, we would have to conclude that EVEN at 5120x2880 the new iMac would NOT be retina, since it would still be far from the 200 index shown above.

Besides, I am sticking to Apple's MARKETING definition of retina: NOT BEING able to discern a single pixel at normal viewing distance. This ALREADY happens today with the current iMac, unless you have Chuck Yeager's eyesight, of course.

And as explained, no GPU is able to deal with it without changing the iMac's form factor considerably...and this is where the non-innovative Cook comes to play: by launching the fabled xMac and an external retina display, NOT through the iMac.

Unfortunately, Apple IS DEAD. Just short it while you can.

 

[BenniG]

I went to the Apple store yesterday to buy a new 27" iMac. They told me not to do it and winked when they said I should wait 5 weeks.

I know here are many people who think resellers know nothing. But I have a similar statement from a reseller. So why ? This is the explanation i got.
The Resellers can see the nationwide stocks of Apple products and the stocks for Macmini and iMac are rather low. If someone works a couple of years with apple, she or he will have the experience that before an update/upgrade etc. the stocks are low. It is just an indicator based on the behavior of apple.
Go to amazon and look the stocks for imacs i.e. in US.
"Apple iMac MC814LL/A 27-Inch Desktop (NEWEST VERSION)
$1,894.95
Only 16 left in stock--order soon..." (just checked)

On the other hand, low stocks are often at the end of the quarter and with the beginning of the new quarter the stocks are filled for some unknown reasons.

 

[BayAreaCub]

Hoping for a good refresh

With all this scuttle but on the latest retina display stuff, I really could care less about the retina display. My current I-mac 27 inch is super fast with SSD and has a brilliant screen resolution. Even my older 24 inch I-mac has a great screen resolution. It's not worth me upgrading to that until they have better carrots to dangle. I checked out the retina display the other day at the mac store and really did not see much of a difference. Happy 4th Guys xx

 

[BVK Mac]

The reason for the delay

Everybody is confused because they haven't launched the new imac yet, which made us think the retina display is the reason for the delay... but than we got the info there will be no retina display... so why the delay??
What if the reason is a whole new concept of the imac... with a different supplier for the displays ....??? i just say touchscreen...

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patent...-from-apple-point-to-a-future-imac-touch.html

watch the video and read between the lines... when they talk about the price and what would happen when this would hit the mass production...
and his statement that they actually.. !!! but he cant say too much yet

mmhhh... speculations, speculations

I think it would be awesome!!!

 

[Randomoneh]

You should be the one to stop babbling nonsense. If we were to believe your flawed graph, we would have to conclude that EVEN at 5120x2880 the new iMac would NOT be retina, since it would still be far from the 200 index shown above.

Besides, I am sticking to Apple's MARKETING definition of retina: NOT BEING able to discern a single pixel at normal viewing distance. This ALREADY happens today with the current iMac, unless you have Chuck Yeager's eyesight, of course.

And as explained, no GPU is able to deal with it without changing the iMac's form factor considerably...and this is where the non-innovative Cook comes to play: by launching the fabled xMac and an external retina display, NOT through the iMac.

Unfortunately, Apple IS DEAD. Just short it while you can.

Stick to whatever you want. I couldn't care less if GPU can push it or not. This is not that kind of discussion.

Don't try to push ignorant above-x-makes-no-sense on me or anyone else because you're embarrassing yourself with ignorance and lack of knowledge. It's obvious you have trouble comprehending simple concept but it doesn't mean you should go around and tell it to everyone. Just because image is not pixelated doesn't mean you couldn't perceive higher level of detail when you are looking at the same image with higher angular resolution.

Yes, even at 5120x2880 you couldn't call say there is not point in higher resolution.

You have a problem with that? Too bad. Learn how to deal with it.

 

[MacAddict1978]

Starting to feel a bit sceptical about this 'retina' stuff.

Having seen a rMBP, yes, the text is sharper but as I generally don't have my face pressed to my laptop screen it's nowhere near as dramatic as with the iPhone 3-4 or even the iPad 2-3.

Web images are effectively 'uprezzed' and are arguably worse on retina. Photographs in iPhoto didn't seem dramatically improved.

So working the GPU really hard for little apparent gain.

That is because it's beneficial to smaller screens you keep closer to your face.

Most people don't get that larger screens further from your face don't need this, and it becomes less beneficial.

Once you hit displays of 19" and up, you won't really see any benefits. You do sit closer to a computer display than say a television, but a retina display in an iMac still wouldn't not need much of a bump from it's current display. At this point, Retina Displays are going to be nothing more than Apple branding of HD, and the HD monitors that are available today already go beyond what the human eye can absorb. I really think people are getting caught up in the "Retina" hype. Looking at what Apple did with the MBP display, it's very different than how they did the iPad3 or iPhone4/4S (more to the point of Retina becoming an Apple Branded term). On a larger display, it's going to be different still. With Apple's unique approach to how they do this, I can see a Retina display on an iMac making reading text better and reducing eye strain, and video and images pop more, but again... the human eye can only take in so much information and process so much. There's just little more room to grow on a larger display.

Display technology is making grounds in smaller displays... and larger display technology that's not in the market yet. There's new tech well above 1080P in development, but this is going to be for wall sized displays that we won't see for another 5-10 years.

 

[NeXT MacRumors]

NeXT 27inch iMac Specs

•Starting Price:1699$

•BTO SSD- Up to 768GB

•Ivy Bridge, 2-4 USB 3 ports, 2-3 Thunderbolt ports, SDXC card slot-Yes (Possibly keep the Gigabit Ethernet port and FireWire 800 port)

•Standard SSD- Yes, at least 128GB Why? Because the competition is doing it Ex: Dell XPS All-in-One

•Standard RAM-At least 6-8GB

•NVIDIA Graphics- GeForce GT 650m or GTX 650-680m ranging from 1GB-2GB

•HDMI- Most likely

•ODD- Most likely kept, but not likely if a redesign takes place

•Redesign- Sure, Getting rid of the chin in order to have a nice alignment with the TBD (it just looks better)

•Thinner-Possibly, but same size is the most probable

•4x the resolution- Sure why not

•Bigger Screen- Probably not going to happen

•Touch Screen- Never, because Steve Jobs said “It gives great demo but after a short period of time, you start to fatigue and after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off. It doesn't work, it's ergonomically terrible.”

•Blu Ray- Never, because Steve Jobs said “Blu ray is looking more and more like one of the high end audio formats that appeared as the successor to the CD - like it will be beaten by Internet downloadable formats”

 

[Kafka]

retina display
solid state storage
no optical drive
soldered ram
thunderbolt, usb 3, hdmi,
very, very thin.

It's funny your post was voted down so much since you're probably 99% right...

 

[MeinKraft]

If only they would tell...

I would like for them to release the new iMac before the back to school sale ends in September. I was hoping to get the savings that went along with the sale but it appears that they will be holding it off just long enough so that students cannot get discounts on the newer model, which kinda upsets me because I was hoping that they would release the new ones soon so I could get the newest iMac available along with some great savings. I really hope that they will release before October, but from what I seen, that's seems highly unlikely...

 

[derbladerunner]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vybihal/7378706242/in/photostream/

Again, what about pricing?

Look at the pricing of the Macbook Pro with a smaller Retina display.

There is no way Apple can sell a 27'' let alone a 30'' iMac with Retina display (let's assume these have around 4k resolution) at a reasonable price point in 2012 imho.

Maybe in 2013 or 2014.

 

[Randomoneh]

Again, what about pricing?

Look at the pricing of the Macbook Pro with a smaller Retina display.

There is no way Apple can sell a 27'' let alone a 30'' iMac with Retina display (let's assume these have around 4k resolution) at a reasonable price point in 2012 imho.

Maybe in 2013 or 2014.

What makes you think so? Estimated price of Apple's 15.4'' 2880x1800 display is $160.

 

[derbladerunner]

What makes you think so? Estimated price of Apple's 15.4'' 2880x1800 display is $160.

For a 15", yes. Big difference compared to a 27''/30'' screen concerning manufacturing costs.

Even so, the Macbook Pro is over 2k at retail. The stocked-up 27'' iMac is already around 2k USD without Retina display.

With Retina display and more powerful graphics card, I asume the 27'' iMac price around 2.5k USD or more. Will there be enough buyers? I doubt it.

PS: I can see them introduce the smaller 21.5'' iMac with Retina display in 2012, however. Or a stand-alone 27'' Thunderbolt Retina display in small quantities to test/gauge market demand...

 

[NIKKG]

Believe it or not, there are people that use computers for work that requires more power than a laptop can provide.

The new laptops out these days are plenty fast. What more do you need. I used to have a quadcore HP a few years ago, it was fast back then but now my laptops are just as quick. The CPU isn't even the problem anymore, the bottleneck is the hdd and once you install a SSD, than you should be all good.

 

[renderingpixels]

Unlike to have Retina for 27" iMac

After reading many reviews of the Retina Display Macbook Pro, I realized the retina display on the Macbook Pro was a truly amazing engineering feat. Even with the Kepler GPU, it seems the RD Macbook Pro is already hit the ceiling of displaying those pixels on a 15" display. Imagine having the Kepler in the 27" iMac! Also, the high cost of the RD Macbook Pro was due to the retina display. This makes me think that the next iMac update will not feature the retina display because it's really not ready for a display of that size and would prove too expensive. I think the next iMac update will feature better graphics and perhaps more memory that's about it.

 

[xgman]

I think the next iMac update will feature better graphics and perhaps more memory that's about it.

So why then should Apple be so lazy about this to wait till October for such an update?

 

[brdeveloper]

There will be only one retina model costing twice a high-end MacPro. With an expensive design, you can put 10000px x whatever in a 27" display in a thinner form-factor.

Early adopters handle the cost of R&D then the technology is included in the affordable models next years.

 

[thekev]

If there isn't a retina diplay and/or redesign for this hypothetical october refresh, then you have to wonder why they weren't updated last month...

Apple has always spaced things out to some degree. It may simply be easier for them not having to deal with multiple product launches. I am still guessing Mountain Lion as the time of release. I'd be truly amazed if they did a major display redesign here on the imacs.

Practically every card can drive that amount of pixels at sub 30 fps. Surely you meant over and not sub?

----------


I don't understand why a non-upgradeable notebook computer is dumbed down. I would love to hear your logical reasoning.

Dumbed down is an odd way of putting it. We were already to a point where you can't really change things at will. The lack of a serviceable battery and other serviceable components is annoying, but I guess it matters how long you intend to keep the machine. Some of the arguments for or against the rMBP are just plain silly.

If you really loved Apple, then you would upgrade every year.

*joking

They already used Samuel Jackson and Zoey Deschanel in commercials. This time it could be Sally Struthers .

There will be only one retina model costing twice a high-end MacPro. With an expensive design, you can put 10000px x whatever in a 27" display in a thinner form-factor.

Early adopters handle the cost of R&D then the technology is included in the affordable models next years.

While I know you're only kidding here, I just wanted to mention that heat output is a huge issue with lcds. It affects color stability and possibly long term stability/panel life.

 

[eucsstamticc]

Apple Store app is down my iPhone.. are they refreshing for new iMac?

 

[kdogsup]

I think the next iMac update will feature better graphics and perhaps more memory that's about it.

I think you are right on the money... Retina displays are probably going to stay on more mobile type devices (iphone,ipad,macbook pro) as those devices generally sit closer to your face when being used.

The real challenge is developing graphics capabilities that can drive such displays. We have the graphic GPU's capable of driving such resolutions (as would theoretically be in a 20+ inch iMac) with higher end nVidia and ATI/AMD GPU chipsets, but those products wouldn't currently fit the thermal requirements that Apple requires of its products.

 

[kotonizna]

macbookpro trapped in a desktop

For the love of God ditch the mobile gpu! I want desktop computer with a real desktop gpu. I always wanted to buy an imac but because of the fact that it is actually a macbookpro trapped in a desktop body it holds me back from getting one..

 

[Sgt. ButtKiss]

I don't claim to understand Apple's strategy and know that desktops are well below iPhones, iPads and MacBooks in the grand priority scheme.

But waiting 500+ days to update a computer seems like they're leaving revenue on the table. Most of those in the know are waiting, waiting waiting. Seems to me they could do a simple refresh with USB 3 and a few other pieces and satisfy the eager masses. I know for my part I've waited already since January and given that I've waited this long, I'll keep waiting. Really annoyed about it, but those are first world problems.

I've been waiting for about a year, and I totally agree with you. The current gen of iMacs are good, but I want longevity so I won't buy until I get ivy bridge, USB 3.0, and better GPU. They could do all of that now and I'm sure the desktop market would love it and make their purchases.

They must be holding out for something, whether it is retina, full redesign, or even a strategic release plan that properly gaps other device releases.

But yes, I am getting frustrated as well.

 

[zai-huei]

I'm the only one, who want 5.1 dolby surround sound support??

 

[G51989]

The new laptops out these days are plenty fast. What more do you need. I used to have a quadcore HP a few years ago, it was fast back then but now my laptops are just as quick. The CPU isn't even the problem anymore, the bottleneck is the hdd and once you install a SSD, than you should be all good.

I work with some pretty crazy simulation software every day.

My current workstation has;

Dual 8 core xeons overclocked to 4.1gzh ( I think its 4.1 ), 4 quadro video cards, 128gb of ram, 12 hard drives, 2 SSDs, and 3 optical drives.

So where is the laptop that has what I need?

Clearly the desktop has no use because laptops are just as good right?