Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Sandy Bridge iMacs Due Next Week
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I was in the Apple store today and my daughter had to use the restroom. While we were in the back I noticed a "poster" tube addressed to Store Signage Manager or something similar (I forget the exact title). It was pretty much the height which would equal the width of the big product banners in the store and about 8" or more across. Hopefully banners for the new iMacs 
I wouldn't be surprised to see the Mac Mini updated the same time as the Macbook Air, but I think the Mac Mini will be refreshed June/July.
And I'm guessing you'd see the following:
- i3/5
- Horrid Intel Graphics
- Modest bump on RAM/HDD
Besides that nothing special
Great. More brand new machines without USB3 on them which will lead to buyer's regret in a bout a year when they do come with USB3. No thanks, Apple. I want a well supported high speed format to use with external drives.
Horrid Intel Graphics? How can that be?
Steve Jobs just bragged about how much faster the graphics were in the last Mac-Mini update and that's why they didn't put in the faster CPUs (because graphics are important). You're telling me Apple (leader of leaders and now doing better than Microsoft) would contradict themselves and offer a complete and utter garbage GPU just to make a few bucks?
Oh wait. They already did that with the last MBP update (and I use the "P" in MBP very loosely since I see nothing professional on the 13" models. Giving it a black bezel around a horrid glossy monitor doesn't make it professional in my book. I'll stick with my 2008 MBP which actually had pro features (expansion port, replaceable battery, matte screen, dual FW outputs, truly great performance for its time, doing Vista better than most "PC" hardware, etc.)
I wouldn't be surprised to see the Mac Mini updated the same time as the Macbook Air, but I think the Mac Mini will be refreshed June/July.
And I'm guessing you'd see the following:
- i3/5
- Horrid Intel Graphics
- Modest bump on RAM/HDD
Besides that nothing special
Horrid Intel Graphics? How can that be?
Steve Jobs just bragged about how much faster the graphics were in the last Mac-Mini update and that's why they didn't put in the faster CPUs (because graphics are important). You're telling me Apple (leader of leaders and now doing better than Microsoft) would contradict themselves and offer a complete and utter garbage GPU just to make a few bucks?
Oh wait. They already did that with the last MBP update (and I use the "P" in MBP very loosely since I see nothing professional on the 13" models. Giving it a black bezel around a horrid glossy monitor doesn't make it professional in my book. I'll stick with my 2008 MBP which actually had pro features (expansion port, replaceable battery, matte screen, dual FW outputs, truly great performance for its time, doing Vista better than most "PC" hardware, etc.)
tldr version:Great. More brand new machines without USB3 on them which will lead to buyer's regret in a bout a year when they do come with USB3. No thanks, Apple. I want a well supported high speed format to use with external drives.
Horrid Intel Graphics? How can that be?
Steve Jobs just bragged about how much faster the graphics were in the last Mac-Mini update and that's why they didn't put in the faster CPUs (because graphics are important). You're telling me Apple (leader of leaders and now doing better than Microsoft) would contradict themselves and offer a complete and utter garbage GPU just to make a few bucks?
Oh wait. They already did that with the last MBP update (and I use the "P" in MBP very loosely since I see nothing professional on the 13" models. Giving it a black bezel around a horrid glossy monitor doesn't make it professional in my book. I'll stick with my 2008 MBP which actually had pro features (expansion port, replaceable battery, matte screen, dual FW outputs, truly great performance for its time, doing Vista better than most "PC" hardware, etc.)
I'm pissed that Apple doesn't do everything the way I want it. If I were CEO I would really turn this company around.
... Lol.
Apple has my money!
I have been waiting for this announcement since a few months. Great. I have the money ready and as soon as the Apple Store has these available I'm going for the 27" i7 and then max out the RAM myself.
Yadada about BluRay etc. I produce music, mix and master and do some 1080p video editing, customers either come in with USB drives or thumb-drives, I haven't touched a CD/DVD once in 2011. Mechanical media is dead, good riddance.
I just had 2-300 CD/DVD backups shredded in fall 2010 after having transferred them to HDs (yes backups of backups) for a week straight. Reading them is dead slow and costs money (time is money).
I was amazed at how many of the DVD-R's did not work at all despite trying to read them with different machines, both OSX, Windows and Linux using different drives. This took even more precious time (money wasted not working on actual work work). Optical media sucks, I am glad Apple knows this and is trying to kill it off.
If you want to waste your money on buying/collecting BluRay movies and such, then buy a BluRay player, hook it up to your TV and off you go. I know how you will feel in the future, that is just like my friends with collections of 5000 movie VHS tapes or 2000 movie DVDs they spent tens of thousands collecting... They feel stupid. Just rent the movie and if you want to see it again in 10 years, then rent again, you'll have better quality available, guaranteed. ALL movie rentals will be online in the future. Kids movies are the only thing that needs to play on repeat, that I understand, but no sane adult wants to watch a movie on repeat, despite how cult or classic it's claimed being.
When working with uncompressed audio (several tracks, not just one stereo track) or better yet full HD from several cameras uncompressed, that firewire is slow (yes even FW800). I am glad there's a new faster way to work and a sleeker way to connect audio interfaces, external drives, screens etc as of thunderbolt. Apple knows what they are doing, they are freeing up time for actual work rather than spend time looking at progress bars.
Thanks Apple!
(This was my first post here, been lurking a few years. Thanks for a nice site and forum!)
I have been waiting for this announcement since a few months. Great. I have the money ready and as soon as the Apple Store has these available I'm going for the 27" i7 and then max out the RAM myself.
Yadada about BluRay etc. I produce music, mix and master and do some 1080p video editing, customers either come in with USB drives or thumb-drives, I haven't touched a CD/DVD once in 2011. Mechanical media is dead, good riddance.
I just had 2-300 CD/DVD backups shredded in fall 2010 after having transferred them to HDs (yes backups of backups) for a week straight. Reading them is dead slow and costs money (time is money).
I was amazed at how many of the DVD-R's did not work at all despite trying to read them with different machines, both OSX, Windows and Linux using different drives. This took even more precious time (money wasted not working on actual work work). Optical media sucks, I am glad Apple knows this and is trying to kill it off.
If you want to waste your money on buying/collecting BluRay movies and such, then buy a BluRay player, hook it up to your TV and off you go. I know how you will feel in the future, that is just like my friends with collections of 5000 movie VHS tapes or 2000 movie DVDs they spent tens of thousands collecting... They feel stupid. Just rent the movie and if you want to see it again in 10 years, then rent again, you'll have better quality available, guaranteed. ALL movie rentals will be online in the future. Kids movies are the only thing that needs to play on repeat, that I understand, but no sane adult wants to watch a movie on repeat, despite how cult or classic it's claimed being.
When working with uncompressed audio (several tracks, not just one stereo track) or better yet full HD from several cameras uncompressed, that firewire is slow (yes even FW800). I am glad there's a new faster way to work and a sleeker way to connect audio interfaces, external drives, screens etc as of thunderbolt. Apple knows what they are doing, they are freeing up time for actual work rather than spend time looking at progress bars.
Thanks Apple!
(This was my first post here, been lurking a few years. Thanks for a nice site and forum!)
Last edited:
And a decent first post at that. A bit out of place for around here though, you didn't disagree with anyone .
I'm still saying it's a possible buy, just have to see what they really come out with - a decent GPU, USB3 and TB would go some way!
.I'm still saying it's a possible buy, just have to see what they really come out with - a decent GPU, USB3 and TB would go some way!
No, this iMac design was released at the end of 2009, that's less than 2 years.
And a decent first post at that. A bit out of place for around here though, you didn't disagree with anyone
I'm still saying it's a possible buy, just have to see what they really come out with - a decent GPU, USB3 and TB would go some way!
GPU's are very decent in the iMacs, TB is a given. USB 3 I a not so sure about but I a guessing you can use USB 3 via TB which sucks for some but wouldn't bother me personally.
Should have some awesome benchmark scores.
Not sure about the processor, but I'd love to see a bump to 8 GB of RAM and some sort of hybrid SSD/HD option. I doubt we'll see the 256 GB SSD/1 TB HD option come standard, but a smaller SSD and 500 GB-1 TB HD standard would awesome.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)
As a video editing professional, I can't remember the last time I didn't have to produce an interactive DVD for mass duplication for the client, or remember the last time a client DIDN'T hand off a CD of images they wanted in the video.
Just depends on your field. I can say tape is dead. But it has only been dead about z year and a half in corporate America. And finally SD is dead. It's been about a year since we dis an SD edit. Although that wouldve been widescreen at least.
All my HD projects I put a QuickTime master on a drive, but I also create a blu-ray DVD so I can just pop it on a player.
Many people don't realize you can put bluray content on a DVD-R. Just only about 30min. And they are encoded as AVCHD but can essentially be a a high quality h264 bluray.
As a video editing professional, I can't remember the last time I didn't have to produce an interactive DVD for mass duplication for the client, or remember the last time a client DIDN'T hand off a CD of images they wanted in the video.
Just depends on your field. I can say tape is dead. But it has only been dead about z year and a half in corporate America. And finally SD is dead. It's been about a year since we dis an SD edit. Although that wouldve been widescreen at least.
All my HD projects I put a QuickTime master on a drive, but I also create a blu-ray DVD so I can just pop it on a player.
Many people don't realize you can put bluray content on a DVD-R. Just only about 30min. And they are encoded as AVCHD but can essentially be a a high quality h264 bluray.
No, I meant the floppy based retail version.
5 - I don't have a cd-rom drive, only this floppy drive.
NT4 required a CD drive for installation - check the system requirements.
"5" is a user error....
Horrid Intel Graphics? How can that be?
Intel 3000HD Benchmarks
Horrid is putting it lightly...
Steve Jobs just bragged about how much faster the graphics were in the last Mac-Mini update and that's why they didn't put in the faster CPUs (because graphics are important). You're telling me Apple (leader of leaders and now doing better than Microsoft) would contradict themselves and offer a complete and utter garbage GPU just to make a few bucks?
It's not hard to get 50%-100% performance increase on a weak graphics, any performance is increase.
For most users a GMA is ok for basic computing, but once you get into commercial graphics GMA is weak at best.
I hardly see how Apple can consider the 13" MBP as professional considering the lack of a more pro based graphics card... I'd rather see an i3 with a better graphics card than a i7 with an Intel GMA. Again this is the sole reason why I bought an Alienware MX14 with Linux over the newer 13" MBP, no GPU grunt
NT4 required a CD drive for installation - check the system requirements.
"5" is a user error....
You can do a minimal install with the 3 floppies provided with the retail version. You can then use a network drive to install the rest of the OS.
Now windows 98 on a floppy system was a pain. 35 of the little buggers. When I was helping my Dad do an upgrade of the local primary school and we would pay $1 for a kid to sit there and insert floppies while we worked on other computers installing the software the school wanted. Its a shame there wasn't something like Edubuntu at the time.
Last edited:
I don't think the issue with blu-ray has anything to do with preserving itunes video; if that were the case Apple would've gotten rid of DVD drives a long time ago on its models and wouldn't offer a superdrive accessory for $80 for the MBAs. Apple still had DVD combo drives on their (entry level) systems (macbook and mac minis) as recently as 2007... it's not unheard of that Apple would not offer the latest and greatest DVD drives on their systems.
Don't dismiss a brand new iMac...
For those of you who think an all-new iMac is out of the question, consider some facts:
1. The original bubble iMac lasted for 3.5 years and had several changes to colour, screen size, depth, cd-loading method and specs.
2. The "luxo" G4 iMac lasted for 2.5 years and had several changes to screen size and specs.
3. The white iMac lasted for 3 years and had several changes to screen size, depth, chin and specs (including Intel chips)
4. The aluminium and glass iMac is now 3.75 years old and has had several changes to screen size, depth, chin and specs
See the trend? Regardless of what you might think constitutes a "major" redesign, the simple fact is that the basic look of the iMac changes on average every 3 years after getting tweaked on multiple occasions but still retaining a basic look that can be easily described.
Add this to the mix:
1. The current aluminium and glass look is now the longest-lasting basic look for the iMac at 3.75 years.
2. The rumoured release date for new iPhones (and I assume iPod touches) has now been moved to September, close to the traditional release date of all-new iMacs (except for the G4).
3. The iPhone is now the biggest driver of consumer electronics-oriented revenue for Apple and a new model in the lead up to what is an internationally-experienced peak sales time makes more sense than a much more expensive item like an iMac which is less likely to be given as a holiday season (I'm trying to keep this pan-cultural) gift.
4. A brand new iMac announced now would not have its supply chain settle down until at least the end of June (based on past, painful experiences at waiting for my new iMacs to arrive) and possibly later given the increased popularity of the Mac and this pitches it perfectly for back to school purchases in the Northern Hemisphere for both schools and students having had the chance to evaluate it and listen to the ravings of we fanbois about how awesome it is.
5. Apple has form in releasing a new iMac shortly before a new OS version so Lion's upcoming release would not be an impediment to this.
Any thoughts on the above?
For those of you who think an all-new iMac is out of the question, consider some facts:
1. The original bubble iMac lasted for 3.5 years and had several changes to colour, screen size, depth, cd-loading method and specs.
2. The "luxo" G4 iMac lasted for 2.5 years and had several changes to screen size and specs.
3. The white iMac lasted for 3 years and had several changes to screen size, depth, chin and specs (including Intel chips)
4. The aluminium and glass iMac is now 3.75 years old and has had several changes to screen size, depth, chin and specs
See the trend? Regardless of what you might think constitutes a "major" redesign, the simple fact is that the basic look of the iMac changes on average every 3 years after getting tweaked on multiple occasions but still retaining a basic look that can be easily described.
Add this to the mix:
1. The current aluminium and glass look is now the longest-lasting basic look for the iMac at 3.75 years.
2. The rumoured release date for new iPhones (and I assume iPod touches) has now been moved to September, close to the traditional release date of all-new iMacs (except for the G4).
3. The iPhone is now the biggest driver of consumer electronics-oriented revenue for Apple and a new model in the lead up to what is an internationally-experienced peak sales time makes more sense than a much more expensive item like an iMac which is less likely to be given as a holiday season (I'm trying to keep this pan-cultural) gift.
4. A brand new iMac announced now would not have its supply chain settle down until at least the end of June (based on past, painful experiences at waiting for my new iMacs to arrive) and possibly later given the increased popularity of the Mac and this pitches it perfectly for back to school purchases in the Northern Hemisphere for both schools and students having had the chance to evaluate it and listen to the ravings of we fanbois about how awesome it is.
5. Apple has form in releasing a new iMac shortly before a new OS version so Lion's upcoming release would not be an impediment to this.
Any thoughts on the above?
Because thunderbolt is faster than USB3 and intel doesn't support it. Apple have leapfrogged it with superior technology.