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Radical iMac Mod Shows How Apple Could Have Removed the Chin for an All-Screen Design
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Why? If it bothers you that much, put a sticker on it. Personally, I love the logo-less look. It has a big apple logo on the back, if you are using it in an open environment, then other people can see your status symbol. I don't get this obsession people have with branding; why on earth would you pay so much to advertise a product you've just spent money on?? The very worst is stuff like t-shirts with a huge branding across the front, or very expensive luggage festooned with logos (that scream 'I'm rich, please steal my luggage...'). What I like aobut a lot of Apple products is the LACK of a prominent logo. It's the Apple design ethos that shines through instead. Airpods look good because they're simple and refined; you know they're Apple cos of the design, not a logo. Look at the better clothing brands, and logos become less prominent. It's all about the design.
The MacBook Air and iMac are the same In performance. One have a fan the other have no fan.
They are about the same. Even the iPad Pro.
It’s about it being beautiful. Who cares about the back. You don’t look at it. The chin is literally in front of your face.
The iMac has not been about colour for the vast majority of its existence.
Exactly! Apple took space on the iMac that was needed and made brilliant use of it rather than trying to hide it. That's what makes Apple *APPLE* I mean, clearly, a wide-thin-almost-no-frame iMac can be created. And that may be the dream iMac for many...but there's no "liberal arts" to it, no aesthetic. By keeping that "chin" not only did Apple maintain the iconic iMac look, but they also, to their delight I'm sure, had a chance to give the new iMacs TWO shades of color. Without the chin, you'd barely see the secondary light coloring on the front and there's be no point to it.
Some may not care about that (this China model doesn't), but I suspect it mattered a lot to all the new iMac buyers who made this model a best seller.
MacBook Air’s display is open during use, so no issues there of the display being too warm. On the iPads it throttles pretty hard if you use it at high brightness for any extended amount of time. It’s probably worse if you run macOS with that throttling. At that point you’re just giving up performance needlessly since the iMac doesn’t need to be as portable as an iPad. Also, what are you going to do with the rest of the space if you make it thicker? The logic board is tiny compared to the display size.
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It’s a display, what purpose is to make it paper thin? If it’s thicker it also have more volume for the speakers. Or the ability to contain the PSU inside instead of externally etc
The iPad is passively cooled. But the iMac have a fan. It feels form over function
It’s about halft the size in thickness to the Pro Display and at the same size as the studio display
I would imagine a lot of people who don’t have the iMac sitting against the wall would say thinner looks better than a thicker chinless version.
That’s a good point about speakers, although if you look at PSUs of past iMacs you can see that it’s pretty tall and requires it’s own heatsink which would make it quite a bit thicker or need a back bulge like the last design.
The iMac needs a fan because it needs to run the M1 at a higher wattage for longer, which also proves the point about needing to manage thermals. You would need more/louder fans just to dissipate the additional heat from the PSU and display.
I don’t doubt some of the design decision was driven by aesthetics, but I feel like putting the logic board on the back introduces too many trade-offs to justify the chinless look. If they went with chinless I would much rather they implement a sunflower G4 iMac design with the internals on the base (although that would introduce complications for VESA stands).
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Imagine the ad campaign though. "Baby Got Back" playing while all the different color iMacs are spun around.
So... on the iMac the chin is "iconic" and it would look "generic" without it..
The $1600 Studio Display has no chin.
Have I missed the comments about it looking "generic"?
T
Uhhhh, it's a monitor not a computer. ROFL.
I don't care about the chin. I just want the 27 inch model relaunched at a reasonable price, and the 24 inch model not to display light-bleeding around the edge - it is awful on my colleague's model. Off-angle viewing is terrible.
Your colleague probably has a bad one. Mine is fine. Better than any other 24" display I've seen.
I really liked the G4 'lamp' iMacs, although there were apparently a number or problems with them. The design was great though, truly groundbreaking. I was very envious at a friend's 17" G4 iMac, at a time when I'd only had my G3 a couple of years. A modern version could see a razor thin iPad-like display hovering above a small base/stand, with a more adjustable stand. Not sure how durable it would be though (the lamps weren't great for that), and the current design is much closer to Apple's 'less is more' type of design ethos. Personally, I'd love to see a properly thin display that could be wall mounted, and the gubbins elsewhere. That would be very cool. But then, that's an iPad Pro really, apart form the screen size...
So... on the iMac the chin is "iconic" and it would look "generic" without it..
The $1600 Studio Display has no chin.
Have I missed the comments about it looking "generic"?
T
All Apple monitors have had a chinless design, but almost all the Apple all-in-one desktops have had chins including all the iMacs (except the G4), the original Macintosh and its variants, 20th anniversary Macintosh, and the PowerMac G3.
I agree with you about logo-less being more elegant, but it just feels like there's something missing there after decades of iMac designs having something there. It felt the same as when Apple first removed the "MacBook Pro" lettering on the bottom of the display on the 2012 retina MBP, but eventually I grew to liking the designs without the text a lot more.
I think the main issue is weight/size. The iMac G4 was 15/17 (later also 20); the sunflower design worked well with that. A 24-inch display would be far more unwieldy to move around like that. (The Studio Display's and Pro Display XDR's adjustable stands are somewhat similar, but much, much pricier, and I think part of the price increase is due to more difficult mechanics.)
Think of people walking up to your desk. They see it. More people see the back of your computer screen than the front. Eventually they will micronize enough components that the chin will go away and you will still have the even and balanced design.
No fairs, actually. Apple could have included a subtle logo on the fronts of the new iMacs, in the metallic finish you get on the backs. So a kind of reverse of what they've done on the back. That would look pretty good, I have to say.
You and I always seem to think alike lolBring back the iMac G4 lamp design, with some updates of course, and we are talking.
The way you could finger tip move the monitor around was wonderful for collaboration and ergonomics .. and just so cool!
Obviously, we have good taste
In all seriousness, I literally still have my dads iMac g4 lamp in storage and, even looking at it today, I'd take one just as it is with an M1 in the base and would love it.
Of course an updated one with a bit larger and higher resolution screen would be better yet still.
I love the size of the base. If Apple made that today, with that size of base, think of what amazing sound they could get out of it also!