New iMac and Magic Accessories Tidbits: 'Then and Now', Automatic Pairing, Fast Charging and More

[Praesto]

The two minute charge to get nine hours of battery life for the Magic Mouse is pretty cool.

I hate to point this out, but 2 minutes for 9 hours means it takes MORE than 2 hours to do a full charge....

Average to 30 days a month * 24 hours per day gives you 720 hours per month divided by 9 hours (number of 9 hour increments) gives you 80.

80*2= 160 minutes or 2 hours and 40 minutes for a full month charge.

So technically it's behind the stated 2 hours for a full charge spec sheet.

 

[ProjectManager101]

Does the keyboard have backlighting?

Why is Apple still using a 5400 rpm drive?

Corporate greed.

 

[ron7624]

I have no idea how people use the magic mouse. It is the least ergonomic thing I have held.

Try one. Unlike a regular mouse, you don't have to fondle it to use it. I have one - love it - and just ordered the new magic mouse 2. That should allow it to connect to my mac instantly instead of waiting 1/4 of a second. The waiting wasn't bad though.

 

[Celebion]

With a desktop, there shouldn't be a compromise. At the price they're charging this should be a full-sized keyboard with mechanical MX or buckling spring key switches. I realize that it's not a big deal effectively since you can buy any keyboard you want to use with an iMac, but the idea of a compromised laptop keyboard design for a desktop where there's plenty of room has always come off as ridiculous to me.

Tell that to the mobile GPU.

 

[Wild-Bill]

Why would Magic accessories only be compatible with Macs running OS X 10.11 or later?

This is a deal-breaker for me.

 

[Carouser]

In my social circles, I am the guy that convinced many people to move away from Windows by preaching the Apple gospel. . . . Once a company that is built it's success on the fanatical reception of it's products looses this excitement and energy, and begins to agitate the early adopters and customers, all of the money in the world will not save them from doom. Instead, they have to return to being the artful, soulful, creators of irresistible products...

Apple still makes irresistible products - the only thing that's changed with Apple's increased popularity is that you don't get to take any credit for turning people on to Apple.

 

[xgman]

Same reason they still have 16GB iPhones and iPads.

(above in response to the why 5400 still question) This should be the last word on this subject. Wraps it up quite nicely. It's nothing more than marketing 101 to get you in to the door. In fact it is the same reason they have "base model" cars and everything else. Come to think of it, a guy I work with bought a "base model" car. I never thought I'd ever meet anyone who would.

 

[xgman]

Exactly that is just crazy, 128 SSD was already low but cut it down to 24GB SSD I keep scratching my head.

I know.... Even today's 7200 drives typically have even way more basic cache than that. But I guess they figure grandma won't notice or even understand.

 

[Glassed Silver]

(above in response to the why 5400 still question) This should be the last word on this subject. Wraps it up quite nicely. It's nothing more than marketing 101 to get you in to the door. In fact it is the same reason they have "base model" cars and everything else. Come to think of it, a guy I work with bought a "base model" car. I never thought I'd ever meet anyone who would.

This comes to mind again:

(section 1:21:00h - 1:22:10h)​

Link to video - start and end time stamped
(Also see my thread on this: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/two-years-ago-tim-cook-said-this.1804744/)

Glassed Silver:mac

 

[flybius]

Apple still makes irresistible products - the only thing that's changed with Apple's increased popularity is that you don't get to take any credit for turning people on to Apple.

Really? Is that the only thing that has changed with Apple's increased popularity?

 

[uwdude]

Well the deal with the 5400rpm drive is that they are using laptop parts in the iMac, with the same limited space as in a laptop. iMacs are basically laptops built into the back of monitors. So instead of still offering old laptop hard drives, they really just shouldn't offer hard drives at all, just make it ssd, even if you raise the price.

 

[Analog Kid]

I think the above (bold) is a matter of opinion. I absolutely prefer short travel keys such as the chicklet keyboard of the MBP. I use the Apple Keyboard at work (for my windows machine) too, because I can develop a much higher typing speed when I don't need to press each key 5 mm into a spongy bottom. Since I work with hot desks I also prefer to take my own keyboard as each of the shared keyboards between the keys contain multiple lunches and probably enough skin flakes to make a jacket for a serial killer.

I much prefer full throw keys, but that last sentence got me laughing so hard I had to give props...

 

[shaunp]

£109 for a trackpad that has a built in battery that I can't replace when it goes wrong (1 day after the warranty expires). Apple, the business-end of your crack pipe must be glowing white hot.

Over 2 years since an update to the Mac Pro. No desktop (that's not an all in one) that sits between the mini and the Pro. No built-in ethernet or matte screen options on your high-end laptop (and you can shove thunderbolt adaptors up your ass). No update to your stand-alone monitor despite the big 4K push for the Mac Pro. You dropped your professional photography app, and even the non-professional one in favour of Photos.

So let me get this right. You remove useful stuff then charge me double for the privilege. You did see the Microsoft event the other day, yeah? You've seen that Dell now too make very nice laptops. You know that Windows 10 is actually pretty good?

Bye, bye Apple.

(Just in case anyone is wondering, yes I do know nobody from Apple will ever read this or care about my opinion - that's kind of the point really)

 

[agentsmithone]

I have no idea how people use the magic mouse. It is the least ergonomic thing I have held.

The iMac G3 "hockey puck" mouse was pretty awful—you'd use it and somehow it always ended upside down in your hand.

 

[Twimfy]

Really disappointed with the limited changes to the Magic Mouse. I love mine but was hoping for additional touch inputs, the quick charge just doesn't do it for me as I get around 2 months out of a decent set of AA anyway.

The fact that Bluetooth 4.0 is being banded about puts me off all of these products anyway, still rocking my 2008 MP and have no plans to update anytime soon.

 

[flybius]

(above in response to the why 5400 still question) This should be the last word on this subject. Wraps it up quite nicely. It's nothing more than marketing 101 to get you in to the door. In fact it is the same reason they have "base model" cars and everything else. Come to think of it, a guy I work with bought a "base model" car. I never thought I'd ever meet anyone who would.

Yeah, except it's not so easy to walk into an Apple store and buy anything but the baseline config computers...

 

[PrimeMatrix]

I wonder if they'll ever use a finger print sensor for security on a mac?

 

[peterdevries]

I hate to point this out, but 2 minutes for 9 hours means it takes MORE than 2 hours to do a full charge....

Average to 30 days a month * 24 hours per day gives you 720 hours per month divided by 9 hours (number of 9 hour increments) gives you 80.

80*2= 160 minutes or 2 hours and 40 minutes for a full month charge.

So technically it's behind the stated 2 hours for a full charge spec sheet.

Sorry, but I think your calculation is way off. When not in use a wireless mouse goes in idle mode, transmitting less or even nothing, and in addition turning the sensors for movement off. That means they use a lot less energy. A normal user would use the mouse approx 8 hours a day. If the average usability is 30 days, then that adds up to 30 * 9 hours (at most because no-one uses their computer every day that much) which means a full charge would be 30 * 2 minutes, which is exactly one hour. Maybe a bit more because in idle mode it should still use a bit of energy, but it should not be anywhere near 2 hours and 40 minutes.

 

[Praesto]

£109 for a trackpad that has a built in battery that I can't replace when it goes wrong (1 day after the warranty expires). Apple, the business-end of your crack pipe must be glowing white hot.

Over 2 years since an update to the Mac Pro. No desktop (that's not an all in one) that sits between the mini and the Pro. No built-in ethernet or matte screen options on your high-end laptop (and you can shove thunderbolt adaptors up your ass). No update to your stand-alone monitor despite the big 4K push for the Mac Pro. You dropped your professional photography app, and even the non-professional one in favour of Photos.

So let me get this right. You remove useful stuff then charge me double for the privilege. You did see the Microsoft event the other day, yeah? You've seen that Dell now too make very nice laptops. You know that Windows 10 is actually pretty good?

Bye, bye Apple.

(Just in case anyone is wondering, yes I do know nobody from Apple will ever read this or care about my opinion - that's kind of the point really)

Great don't let the door hit you on the way out! A bit of advice, companies aim for the masses, which clearly by Apple's share price they have been doing a great job.

Companies don't cater to specific individuals. It is WAY to expensive to make say 10,000 unique product variations. Second, yes so maybe 10,000 people want a specific thing, (i.e Matte screen) that still barely scratches the surface of the size of people Apple sells to. Apple has sold over 75 million Iphone 6's, to scratch 1 percent of that you need 750,000 users. Maybe, just maybe at 750,000 users you can get them to make something specific. If you want something that specific then you have to make it yourself.

 

[peterdevries]

I much prefer full throw keys, but that last sentence got me laughing so hard I had to give props...

IT PUTS THE LOTION IN THE BASKET!

 

[ravenvii]

Why are people so agitated about the new keyboard and/or mouse, like they're forced to use them?

Why not just, you know, buy something else like I did?

Oh, it came with your iMac but you don't want it? Sell 'em.

 

[djbuddha]

The new keyboard uses scissor, not butterfly, like the MacBook. But it does have less travel.

I know lol.

What I was saying is, this new improved scissor version could be the new rMBP keyboard (hoping that Apple doesn't even think of replacing the current rMBP keyboard with the butterfly style keyboard)

I have typed keyboard too many times today.

 

[Praesto]

Sorry, but I think your calculation is way off. When not in use a wireless mouse goes in idle mode, transmitting less or even nothing, and in addition turning the sensors for movement off. That means they use a lot less energy. A normal user would use the mouse approx 8 hours a day. If the average usability is 30 days, then that adds up to 30 * 9 hours (at most because no-one uses their computer every day that much) which means a full charge would be 30 * 2 minutes, which is exactly one hour. Maybe a bit more because in idle mode it should still use a bit of energy, but it should not be anywhere near 2 hours and 40 minutes.

That sounds accurate, thank you for correcting me. At work and was browsing quickly!

 

[navaira]

Great don't let the door hit you on the way out! A bit of advice, companies aim for the masses, which clearly by Apple's share price they have been doing a great job.

Blackberry.
MySpace.
AOL.
Yahoo!
Sony.
In the last year(s), Samsung.

All those companies have something in common.

 

[baryon]

Here's my unqualified review of this update:

The keyboard looks a bit chunky compared to the previous one which was just a thin slice + battery compartment, and I think it just looked better and more "Apple-y". Also the batteries lasted more like 6 months instead of just 1 month (according to Apple's site) while apparently taking up much less space. The less often you have to think about it running out of power the better.

The lack of backlight kind of sucks, it's really nice to work in almost complete darkness when you're working with photos. When you're typing, it doesn't matter much, but when you're using Photoshop shortcuts you depend a lot more on seeing the keys. Though I guess with the 1 month battery life, a backlight would have made things even worse.

The Magic Mouse to me always felt quite horrible to use. I love the touch scrolling and the way it looks, but the fact that you can't do a right click without lifting your index finger always bugged me. Gestures are limited and awkward on it, and on a Mac you kind of rely on gestures after a while. I do prefer Apple's trackpads, and only use a mouse for gaming, but the Magic Mouse sucks for gaming. Even a cheap Logitech works better for that. Apple never got mice right.

About USB-C: if Apple believes USB-C is so awesome that they could make a laptop that has no other ports than a single USB-C, then why aren't they doing everything they can to make people adopt it quickly? It sucks to buy a laptop that you can only ever use with expensive Apple adapters hanging out from the side. Then one day you forget your adapter and you can't even plug anything into it, what kind of laptop is that? Then by the time USB-C will be a common thing, your laptop will be obsolete so you never got a chance to enjoy its cool new "all-in-one port", it was just a pain in the ass all along. As long as there are new "regular USB" computers coming out, manufacturers are just going to ship most of their stuff with regular USB, which in turn will delay the adoption of USB-C. In a world where you can never have a computer that has up-to-date ports without the need for adapters for more than a few months, why not speed this painful process up? So far Apple still only has one computer that supports USB-C.

And it's nice and all to release new iMacs with faster processors, but the most noticeable way to make a computer faster is by putting an SSD in it. No one is going to notice a CPU that's 7% or whatever faster. But a boot time that goes from 40 seconds do 5 seconds is pretty cool, or launching Photoshop in 1 second instead of 5 is really handy when you do it all the time. Don't know about the Fusion Drive, but the 24 GB SSD in it sounds dangerously small. I don't know what AI algorithm can make up for that, when even a 10 minute iMovie project can be around 40 GB. I mean you won't even be able to work on anything in iMovie by benefiting from the SSD.

Weird update!