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Thoughts on Forbes article re: iMac WTF???

I guess he might made a very unclear point about the cheapest iMac 21” from 2013 and the newest iMac from 2019 are equally slow.
I think this is good. I can’t understand how Apple can get away with still using a spinning drive like this. (Or he just doesn’t understand that the spinning disks doesn’t change or improve so of course it’s the same performance when it comes to loading stuff from it)

I do understand it might be aimed towards schools but come on make it a special order or build an entire new line that’saimes towards such customers it the schoolMac instead I’d the iMac!
I hope this “article” might contribute to Apple updating the iMac just a little bit earlier and stops selling computers with spinning drive (hopefully also fusion drives) and they have to if they want to include the T2-chip in all their computers but I hope they solved the audio related issues and mention that during the redesign talk and I hope they calls it the T3-chip because I don’t want to keep track of what macs will be a nightmare for people to buy with bad luck and an audio interface.
 
Paratriplel said:
I do understand it might be aimed towards schools but come on make it a special order or build an entire new line that’saimes towards such customers it the schoolMac instead I’d the iMac!
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I mean, they've done education models in the past before, looking at the 20" 2009 C2D 2.0GHz, and also the late 21.5" 2011, I don't get why they couldn't do this now? The only iMac I can think of that fits this description nowadays is the 21.5" 2014 non-retina 1.4GHz.
The new iMacs for both 21.5" and 27" should come with SSDs.
 
If Apple still sells a spinning hard drive, then by all means that should be picked up and compared and criticised with the headline stating Apple iMac's performance hasn't changed since 2013. :p

It will be understood as joke by a lot of savvy people, but it will still manage to drive the point across clearly. I'd say that's mission accomplished.
 
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I agree, SSD should be the standard now across the line. Anything else is such a lesser experience and leaves people with a very negative impression of the product. SSD is now so affordable there's no excuse. Even if they started out with a lower performance/cheaper module in the base products, that would still be infinitely better than a lousy spinning disk.
 
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dumastudetto said:
I agree, SSD should be the standard now across the line. Anything else is such a lesser experience and leaves people with a very negative impression of the product. SSD is now so affordable there's no excuse. Even if they started out with a lower performance/cheaper module in the base products, that would still be infinitely better than a lousy spinning disk.
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Yes, I am waiting for SSD to be standard before I upgrade my ageing Late 2013 27". Not paying the prices they want for HDD, at that price it needs SSD. Also the cheapest iMac - dual core with 5400rpm HDD just shouldn´t exist. Anyone (uninformed) buying this and discovering how slow it is, then finding out the next model up, is so much better (apart from the HDD), for not much more, would leave a bad taste.
 
"I’m used to working on my MacBook Pro, which has a solid state drive, and it’s much faster."
A lot of frustration could be alleviated if the consumer would simply research their options prior to purchase.

That article should have ended with the line:
"Spend less time on games, social media and partying, and more time learning about the products you use or plan to purchase."
 
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maflynn said:
So you're blaming the YTer and not apple who is still equipping iMacs with 5400 rpm drives in 2020? Seriously, its ludicrous that apple is charging $$$ and using such substandard components.
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I am pointing out that since the author writes for a well-respected financial magazine, he likely has some investigative skills and could easily find out that a spinning disk is not the way to go in 2020, especially when he uses a MacBook Pro with SSD. I agree that Apple should not be offering a spinning disk in 2020 but the author is not some neophyte and should have known better.
 
EpicEsquire said:
I am pointing out that since the author writes for a well-respected financial magazine, he likely has some investigative skills and could easily find out that a spinning disk is not the way to go in 2020, especially when he uses a MacBook Pro with SSD. I agree that Apple should not be offering a spinning disk in 2020 but the author is not some neophyte and should have known better.
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Yes, may very well sufficient knowledge but the point is, is that if you walk into an apple store, buy a stock model, you're getting a 5,400 rpm drive, its really sad.
 
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Not sure why Forbes is so frequently quoted when its content is a bunch of opinion pieces from contributors whose credentials are often questionable. You could cull postings from here on MRF and pretty much get the same result, with the same variability.

This guy may be have managed software teams, and had some business articles published, but any lowly I.T. drone, or even an Apple Store Shirt (if pressed), will be able to tell you that if you buy the bottom of the line model, it's going to be slow.

Quite a revelation.

It's a different matter as to why Apple still saddles the iMac with spinning drivers in 2020.

Putting his experience as a journalist, analyst, and manager to examine that question might have resulted in something actually insightful and worth reading.
 
This is more than a performance issue. While both drive types can fail, I find it a little ridiculous that any company would place an HDD in a machine where it cannot be easily accessed and replaced upon failure.
 
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There are situations where a computer is used solely with a web browser or a custom software towards external databases/storange. Spinning disk or SSD will not matter after the machine has started up. However, 128 Gb SSD would anyway be a better option in this case as it is big enough for software and these machines does not store data. .
 
iPadified said:
However, 128 Gb SSD would anyway be a better option in this case as it is big enough for software and these machines does not store data. .
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...and these days, a 240-256GB SSD is in the same price bracket as 1TB of spinning rust, anyhow, so a 128GB would be nickel-and-diming.

Its probably something stupid, like Kwik-y-mart won't stock anything with less than 1TB on the sticker - although its not like 1TB of SSD is "high rollers only" in 2020. I suppose the simplest explanation Apple not wanting to give up that 4x markup on SSD upgrades...

I expect the issue will go away when Apple eventually update the iMac with a T2 chip.
 
theluggage said:
...and these days, a 240-256GB SSD is in the same price bracket as 1TB of spinning rust, anyhow, so a 128GB would be nickel-and-diming.

Its probably something stupid, like Kwik-y-mart won't stock anything with less than 1TB on the sticker - although its not like 1TB of SSD is "high rollers only" in 2020. I suppose the simplest explanation Apple not wanting to give up that 4x markup on SSD upgrades...

I expect the issue will go away when Apple eventually update the iMac with a T2 chip.
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Sadly I think it will go away when Apple struggle to source old fashioned drives ( like the problem they said they had with the drives for the iPod Classic).
 
The next iteration/revision of the iMac will almost certainly have a t2 chip (or perhaps by then a "t3"?).

That means:
Soldered-in drive, certainly an SSD, if even a small one (128gb).
 
Fishrrman said:
The next iteration/revision of the iMac will almost certainly have a t2 chip (or perhaps by then a "t3"?).

That means:
Soldered-in drive, certainly an SSD, if even a small one (128gb).
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I am willing to trade that for a bigger screen and better cooling
 
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This is much like the how the MacBook Air was sold with a TN LCD panel with horrific viewing angles, for years too long.

It's as if Apple are stuck with a giant mountain of component inventory that they need to whittle down.
 
The low end models should have Sata SSDs instead of HDDs. Plenty of people need lots of storage space, but the speed of a Sata SSD is more than fast enough.
 
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Fishrrman said:
The next iteration/revision of the iMac will almost certainly have a t2 chip (or perhaps by then a "t3"?).
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I wouldn't be in any hurry to see that. The T2 in my imac pro has been nothing but a problem from the start.
 
EpicEsquire said:
I am pointing out that since the author writes for a well-respected financial magazine...
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I would say that's the first incorrect impression. I honestly don't know why Forbes has survived this long.

...he likely has some investigative skills...
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If he does, it's apparent that he couldn't be bothered to utilize them.

I think it's just a clickbait piece. My reaction to just reading the title in the link was "well duh".

Unfortunately with flash memory prices likely rising this year, I don't think we'll see the end of the hard drive only iMac any time soon.
 
I know plenty of people who are perfectly fine with a spinning disk drive inside their iMac because all they do all day long is simple word processing, web browsing, emails, etc. Granted, all this could easily be managed on the cheapest Chromebook available but they wanted an iMac for these mundane administrative tasks and they bought one. And they would not benefit at all from an SSD, not even a bit. Quite the contrary, a 128 GB or 256 GB hard disk would be full after a short while because those are the same people that I tend to refer to as "data hoarders". You know, the ones that never clean up their Desktop, or their Downloads folder, or their Documents folder, etc. They need 1 TB of space for all the crap that will accumulate over the lifetime of their computers. That's why Apple is still selling these. Because there is a market out there larger than the SSD bubble on the internet will admit or is even capable to conceive of.

That said I agree with @Fishrrman - the next iMac is most likely going to feature a T2 chip with a 128 GB SSD soldered onto the motherboard.
 
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