New iMac Tidbits: Headphone Jack on Side, Ethernet Port on Power Adapter, Spatial Audio and WiFi 6 Support, No SD Card Slot

[PrecisionGem]

Yep, Canon crippled the R6 with dual SD cards too. That doesn't change that the industry has moved on to CF Express. No doubt the most common card in use for pro's is CF given how popular the Canon 5D II, III, and IV are. But all of those are specialised tools and we don't scream out for a CF, CFast, and CF Express reader on the iMac.

The average consumer takes a photo and it magically materialises in their Photos app now. Before when Macs had SD slots it was far more common for people to buy a entry level DSLR with a kit lens and use that, but then smartphone cameras got good enough that the images to most are imperceptible to what they got out of those cameras that the entry level ILC market died.

I don't think this is true at all. Very few people have cameras that use CF Express. Even professional photographers don't run out and replace a $3000 camera body because of a new memory card.

I go up to Algonquin park in Canada every year for the fall colors, and I see thousands of people coming on buses from Toronto. They almost all are caring cameras ranging from full frame to micro4/3, add s me are just using phones, but most have an assortment of lenses for real cameras. Am I to expect these are all professional photographers? Even an inexpensive point and shoot camera like the Canon Powershot 180 blows away a smart phone camera since it has an 8x optical zoom giving it an equivalent 28-224 mm. Something an iPhone can not come close to.

Don't assume your experience duplicates what many others are doing.

 

[MacBH928]

Components behind the display would have heat from the display as well as themselves. The chin puts all the computer and cooling for that in one place. This also means an upcoming mini LED version that emits more heat wont suddenly warm up the computer components.

As for the dedicated GPU, we've replaced the entry level model and not the high end dGPU model. And the M1 GPU is faster than what it is replacing, so why care if it is dedicated? It is faster.

iPads and iPhones don't seem to have a problem with their components behind the screen in a much tighter enclosure

It's even worse, the iMac is just an unportable MacBook Air

You just made an argument that made me despise the iMac

 

[PrecisionGem]

All this talk about "Pro", and well a Pro made need this port or that but not the average person. So what is a "Pro"? Ins't a pro anyone who works in a profession? I cut gemstones, so I'm a professional lapidary. I use my current iMac Retina 5k late 2014 27" to build my website, run my accounting software Quickbooks, a FileMaker Database for record of my stones, a 3d cad system to design my stones, and Capture One to edit the images of my stones. I'm not a professional photographer, but I images of the stones almost every day. Currently every USB port on my iMac and there are 4 of them are being used, and I wish I have 6 of them. I have a digital shipping scale, a back up drive, a DVD drive that is currently not plugged in since I don't have 6 ports, a cable to tether a digital camera to Capture One, and a cable to attache an iPhone to transfer video. And I use the SD card reader every day to transfer images from either my Nikon D750 or Olympus OMD camera.

So one of these new iMacs simply won't work for me unless I buy some dongles and extra ports. So this clean look of a mac with no ports ends up in a desktop full of dongles and multi hub splitters. But boy it's a pretty thin machine! Give me a thin phone that fits in my pocket, the desktop machine hasn't moved in years. How about some ports on the front of the machine!

 

[Brien]

The design decisions confuse me. Why make it so thin that you have to plug in speakers/headphones on the side, so it sticks out, and then boast about how they've reduced the number of cables/clutter by plugging the ethernet in the power supply?

I don’t get thinness as a design objective for stationary computers.

 

[PrecisionGem]

I don’t get thinness as a design objective for stationary computers.

Me either. So loose features and functionality for the sake of thinness on a stationary desktop device. If you buy that, then I have a new thinner sleek kitchen stove that has one burner instead of 4. Since most young woke people only use one burner to boil water for heating prepackaged food, eventually all stoves will catch up and only feature one burner that is turned on from your iPhone. No physical knobs needed on the front of the stove!

 

[Darth Tulhu]

I am honestly glad I chose to forgo a new imac and built my own PC. I have been using mac computers for over a decade and while there has some great ideas implemented over the years and still very impressive software, the hardware has been lacking to provide users with a thin aesthetic. The fact that the SD slot was sacrificed and the 3.5mm moved to the side to save space is asinine for a desktop computer. Also why is the base model outfitted with 256GB of storage and 8GB of ram? Thats essentially a high end smart phone these days. And I understand Apple loves to help push "future" port technologies but most of my peripherals still use USB A. The thing that made Apple products worth the cost was the fact that they "just worked" right out of the box, but now with the need to buy expensive adapters and dongles, you get much better value elsewhere. Like others have said, you are better off buying a mac mini with a separate display for much cheaper. Im sure they will still sell like hotcakes though. End of rant

You made the right move. If you are able to let go of macOS for Windows, then you're not really the typical Mac customer for Tim's (not Steve's) Apple.

As much as I like iMacs, I always found them a bad deal due to the all-in-one nature once Apple decided to seal them up. Carrying those behemoths in for service sucks (I've had to do this far too many times, and my iMac is one of the older ones I can an have repaired myself).

However, this thing is 11lbs, so the issue of repairability is mitigated (although it's still an unwieldy box to bring into the Apple Store).

 

[Schizoid]

I’ve stared at it for a while now... all I can see is that f&@£&£g white bezel!
The spiel about “focusing on your work “ or whatever they say is bull

 

[ikramerica]

I am honestly glad I chose to forgo a new imac and built my own PC. I have been using mac computers for over a decade and while there has some great ideas implemented over the years and still very impressive software, the hardware has been lacking to provide users with a thin aesthetic. The fact that the SD slot was sacrificed and the 3.5mm moved to the side to save space is asinine for a desktop computer. Also why is the base model outfitted with 256GB of storage and 8GB of ram? Thats essentially a high end smart phone these days. And I understand Apple loves to help push "future" port technologies but most of my peripherals still use USB A. The thing that made Apple products worth the cost was the fact that they "just worked" right out of the box, but now with the need to buy expensive adapters and dongles, you get much better value elsewhere. Like others have said, you are better off buying a mac mini with a separate display for much cheaper. Im sure they will still sell like hotcakes though. End of rant

Great points. I mean, that just doesn't happen in the PC World.

A quick check of Best Buy shows only 593 different PC laptop models that ship with 8GB or less and only 344 with 256GB SDD or smaller.

There are only 358 Desktops with 8GB or less, 160 with 256GB SSD or smaller.

How dare Apple ship a base model that meets the needs of so many people! Especially when MacOS is so good at managing memory.

Granted, the fact you can't upgrade it afterward sucks donkey nuts, but very few people upgrade those windows machines either. I am one of those people who DOES add memory and upgrade HDs over time, but most people keep the machine they have until it dies, as is. And the 8/256 iMac and mini and MacBooks all run very well for those people. Not for me (I have a 2TB SSD and 16GB of RAM in my 2012 MBP), but for people like my Mom, who hasn't accumulated more than 50GB of data total in 25 years of using a computer!

Also in my experience, the machine often breaks before you NEED to upgrade. My wife's Dell Vostro laptop just broke (physically) because their hinge design is so poor that they bolted heavy duty metal hinges into light duty plastic mounts inside the machine, and it eventually crumbled internally. So we can no longer close the lid safely. So now it's an open only Zoom computer for my kids school work. The 16GB SODIMM (24GB total) I did add to her machine to let her tolerably run Visual Studio on an i5 had to be pulled out and put into a new Inspiron that prefers faster memory, so now it's running sub-optimally but at least we didn't throw that 16GB away.

Yet my old 9 year old MBP with 16GB can compile her apps in the background in Xcode while I work and I don't even notice she has remoted in. The point is, 8/256 on a Mac is greater than 8/256 on a Windows machine, and yet most people are perfectly happy with 8/256 on a windows machine...

 

[Benjamin Nabulsi]

Perhaps this is a way of Apple teasing Jony Ive about how bad things are without him.

 

[Abazigal]

I don’t get thinness as a design objective for stationary computers.

I see it more as Apple embracing the flat edge design of the iPad and (now) iPhone and their desire to have as many products share the same design language as possible.

 

[deevey]

I am honestly glad I chose to forgo a new imac and built my own PC. I have been using mac computers for over a decade and while there has some great ideas implemented over the years and still very impressive software, the hardware has been lacking to provide users with a thin aesthetic. The fact that the SD slot was sacrificed and the 3.5mm moved to the side to save space is asinine for a desktop computer. Also why is the base model outfitted with 256GB of storage and 8GB of ram? Thats essentially a high end smart phone these days. And I understand Apple loves to help push "future" port technologies but most of my peripherals still use USB A. The thing that made Apple products worth the cost was the fact that they "just worked" right out of the box, but now with the need to buy expensive adapters and dongles, you get much better value elsewhere. Like others have said, you are better off buying a mac mini with a separate display for much cheaper. Im sure they will still sell like hotcakes though. End of rant

$20 for a dock with a multitude of ports, IF you need them is expensive ?

 

[ikramerica]

$20 for a dock with a multitude of ports, IF you need them is expensive ?

Try $8.50. $8.50! And that lets you use SD as well as various subtypes of SD.

Sacrificing the design of the machine for a small group who were still using it when the alternative is that those people may need to spend $10 (with tax, etc.) isn’t keeping Apple awake at night. They happily suggest you spend $30 or $40 on their own adapters to replace other ports, after all.

 

[ikramerica]

I don’t get thinness as a design objective for stationary computers.

Same thing about making flat TVs super thin. Sitting 10’ or more away, does it matter if the tv is 1/2” thick or 1” thick?

 

[zoozx]

As usual, Apple takes a few minor changes and makes them seem like such a big deal. The M1? It is more about saving Apple money then offering any real improvement to the customer. When a computer company's invovations come down to basically offering their product in more colors, you know the true innovation wheel has just about stopped turning.

THAT ^^^^^ & limiting colors for cheaper versions?
Come on Apple, your charging an arm and a leg for these, where's the beef?

 

[deevey]

Try $8.50. $8.50! And that lets you use SD as well as various subtypes of SD.

Sacrificing the design of the machine for a small group who were still using it when the alternative is that those people may need to spend $10 (with tax, etc.) isn’t keeping Apple awake at night. They happily suggest you spend $30 or $40 on their own adapters to replace other ports, after all.

I was being generous and assuming it was branded one

 

[zoozx]

My first Mac was a 2006 iMac so I have always been interested in the desktop, but I just can't get over the design choices here. Every time I look at it, I think it looks terrible. The colors, the white border, the chin, the lack of Apple logo, it looks very half assed to me. Makes no sense.

It's because it is 1/2 A$$ !

 

[zoozx]

with 24 hours to think about it, I have dropped all my objections to the new imacs:

1.) they will sell as fast as they can make them
2.) the mac is whatever apple says it is
3.) the girly/beta male colors leave room for improvement

things like no SD card slot are pro features that will come in the imac pro

the real benefit here is more M1 machines out there to get developers on the ARM train

When did a SD card slot become a "Pro Feature"?
Thats pretty basic .
I'm hearing in the next version , the power cord will be an extra option.😣

 

[Woochifer]

Antidotal I am sure: I have never once seen a iMac with external speakers. I have seen vast computer labs of them, I have seen them on a desk with nothing else but a wireless keyboard and mouse, I have seen a pair of headphones next to one. But I haven't ever seen a iMac (at least not since 2010, and excluding iMac Pro's in a sound studio) have a pair of speakers connected to it.

Looking right now at an iMac plugged into set of Klipsch Promedia speakers. Also use the SD card slot regularly to offload photos from a Nikon D3500. But, I'm sure this will also be condescendingly dismissed as "an edge case."

 

[Woochifer]

When did a SD card slot become a "Pro Feature"?
Thats pretty basic .
I'm hearing in the next version , the power cord will be an extra option.😣

Apple didn't add the built-in card slot until the unibody iMacs came out in 2009. Until we replaced our 2007 iMac with the 2020 27" iMac last year, I had to use an external memory card reader to transfer photos from my cameras. It was nice to retire that external card reader. But, if/when we switch to one of the Apple Silicon iMacs, I guess I'll have to unretire that external reader.

As with so many of Apple's other product lines, thin is in, and all the design compromises on the new iMac reflect that. The sidemount headphone jack, the elimination of the SD slot, the elimination of the USB-A ports, reducing the number of ports to as few as two, the Ethernet jack placement on the power adapter, and the need for an external power adapter in the first place are the kinds of compromises you'd expect on a notebook rather than a desktop computer. It all basically forces the consumer to adapt the iMac to meet their needs via dongles and other aftermarket parts.

I doubt this has anything to do with pro vs consumer, but rather what needed to be eliminated or consolidated to fit within that reduced form factor (the previous unibody iMacs were also thin around the edges, but had that curved bulb-out in the middle that created more internal space). I'm used to using a docking station for my work PC laptop. But, I didn't think that if we migrated over to an Apple Silicon iMac, we'd have to do the same thing for a desktop computer.

 

[Woochifer]

Kind of surprised there's no space gray/black color.

I'd guess that they're reserving that for the "pro" model.

 

[Woochifer]

I see it more as Apple embracing the flat edge design of the iPad and (now) iPhone and their desire to have as many products share the same design language as possible.

True. Going to a totally flat back forces all of these other design compromises. With the previous unibody designs, that curved back cleverly created enough additional space to allow for the audio output, card reader, and USB-A ports. I totally understand these kinds of tradeoffs for a laptop. Not so for a desktop, where the need for space and power consumption savings aren't as much in the forefront.

 

[deevey]

Same thing about making flat TVs super thin. Sitting 10’ or more away, does it matter if the tv is 1/2” thick or 1” thick?

If thin TV's weren't aesthetically pleasing they would sell less.

Personally I love the Aesthetics, chin and all, and would be more than happy to have one in my living room vs an ugly black dell monitor or even my old iMac.

 

[ikramerica]

If thin TV's weren't aesthetically pleasing they would sell less.

Personally I love the Aesthetics, chin and all, and would be more than happy to have one in my living room vs an ugly black dell monitor or even my old iMac.

And maybe Apple knows that the thin iMac will sell well.

What bothers me is this design means it would never be possible to have a model with expandable RAM, even if an M2 chipset would accommodate it.

 

[ChrisMoBro]

When you plug in headphones or speakers, no matter where, there will be a cable running to the speakers or headphones. So the design principle should be: Put the plug where it's not visible when not in use, and where it's easy to find when I want to plug in my headphones. Front means it's visible all the time. Back means I have to search for it when plugging in headphones. Side is best. Wireless might be better, but then you have to change or recharge batteries all the time, and Grado doesn't make wireless headphones

I wouldn't say it's dead. I have a 256GB SSD card in my MacBook for Time Machine backup, so I don't have to carry a hard drive around and I'm protected all the time. Just that particular use isn't needed on an iMac, because a large hard drive is much better.

Nobody seems to know. _Gigabit_ Ethernet is an option, which means it has either no Ethernet or 100Mbit Ethernet. My current iMac has a huge USB-3 hub, so I wouldn't care about the two extra USB-C ports, and I paid £2.50 for a USB to Ethernet adapter. (USB to Gigabit Ethernet would be more).

They are not more expensive. They cost exactly the same as the 21.5" iMacs did, and they are better in every way. Yes, the 21.5 iMacs came with 8 GB as base.

You can get 4k monitors reasonably cheap, say $400. I haven't seen 5k for less than $1,000 anywhere (I don't count $999 as "less than thousand"). The 4.5k monitor that the iMac uses isn't available for any money, anywhere. Same with the old 21.5" monitor which was a tiny bit larger than 4k. I think Apple should sell identically looking monitors. First, nice if you have a MacBook or MacMini. Two, nice if you have an iMac and want two monitors. Three, nice if you have a PC and want a bit of the iMac experience Add an Apple keyboard and mouse, and nobody will know that you don't have an iMac Plus if burglars come to your home and steal your "computer", the real computer is still there

I completely agree about it being easy to get to but if that’s the reason why then why are the other ports on the back? It’s a design flaw due to how thin the design is.

 

[mikeyy00]

And maybe Apple knows that the thin iMac will sell well.

What bothers me is this design means it would never be possible to have a model with expandable RAM, even if an M2 chipset would accommodate it.

Wait until we see what the 27inch replacement has. My money is on a ram slot..