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I just think since they're announcing the new 21, with updated internals, it's a given the 27 will have updated internals. I've been following the refurbs too and Apple has been clearing a lot of that inventory. Finally, the 27 is out of stock on several websites. So a spec bump to the 27 seems imminent.
 
Is this normal longevity for the iMac?

I'm researching for a possible purchase of a Mac. I'm mostly new to Mac, only owned one briefly last year. I've learned a bit from reading this thread and MacRumors in general. Big thanks for that.

I have a late 2009 iMac 27 with no issues. I also own a 2009 MacBook Pro 13 again with no issues, although I've replaced it with a retina MacBook Pro 15 because I needed more power. I have friends with iMacs older than 2009 and they work just fine.

I think that macs in general last a long time.
 
Is this normal longevity for the iMac?

I'm researching for a possible purchase of a Mac. I'm mostly new to Mac, only owned one briefly last year. I've learned a bit from reading this thread and MacRumors in general. Big thanks for that.
I run two companies off macs, one does video production, the other photography. I've had perfect trouble free macs. I've had bad macs. The worst one I had was in for service so many times that Apple finally gave me a new one. The same is 100% true of pc's. Just spend the extra $160 for apple care. It's worth it.
 
Just spend the extra $160 for apple care. It's worth it.

That's very wise advice regarding the AppleCare. Personally, I've been also lucky thus far with iMacs (touch
wood) but indeed, anybody can have runs of bad luck with even the best of products.

I've got a 2009 iMac which I've well and truly got my money's worth from. I use it for music production and photography and it's been a workhorse for me. Now I'm turning to doing more video, work I really need much more power.

Surprisingly, I can still run fairly heavy sessions in Logic with 20 to 30 tracks, and with tons of plugins and virtual instruments, as well as fairly heavy sound design going on too. It's only with some more recent virtual instruments that it struggles to cope.

So I'd say it's possible to keep an iMac easily for five+ years.

Also, my dad gave his old one to my brother, and it ended up in use for maybe 8 to 9 years. It was still going fine until my brother upgraded to a new machine earlier in the year.
 
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I have a late 2009 iMac 27 with no issues. I also own a 2009 MacBook Pro 13 again with no issues, although I've replaced it with a retina MacBook Pro 15 because I needed more power. I have friends with iMacs older than 2009 and they work just fine.

I think that macs in general last a long time.

I run two companies off macs, one does video production, the other photography. I've had perfect trouble free macs. I've had bad macs. The worst one I had was in for service so many times that Apple finally gave me a new one. The same is 100% true of pc's. Just spend the extra $160 for apple care. It's worth it.

That's very wise advice regarding the AppleCare. Personally, I've been also lucky thus far with iMacs (touch
wood) but indeed, anybody can have runs of bad luck with even the best of products.

I've got a 2009 iMac which I've well and truly got my money's worth from. I use it for music production and photography and it's been a workhorse for me. Now I'm turning to doing more video, work I really need much more power.

Surprisingly, I can still run fairly heavy sessions in Logic with 20 to 30 tracks, and with tons of plugins and virtual instruments, as well as fairly heavy sound design going on too. It's only with some more recent virtual instruments that it struggles to cope.

So I'd say it's possible to keep an iMac easily for five+ years.

Also, my dad gave his old one to my brother, and it ended up in use for maybe 8 to 9 years. It was still going fine until my brother upgraded to a new machine earlier in the year.

Thank you, to each of you.
 
I have a late 2009 iMac 27 with no issues. I also own a 2009 MacBook Pro 13 again with no issues, although I've replaced it with a retina MacBook Pro 15 because I needed more power. I have friends with iMacs older than 2009 and they work just fine.

I think that macs in general last a long time.

I have a late-2009 27" iMac and the only problem it has is that it won't recognize SD Card and CDs. Those slots are dead. Other than that it's never had a problem.
 
Good summary!

Totally agree about Skylake, I'd be very surprised and disappointed if Apple doesn't pull through on that one. To all the people saying there's not enough inventory/production on skylake chips yet, it's like you're forgetting who Apple is. They're probably the reason there's a shortage ;)

Good point about no code being found about 3D/force touch trackpads. I can see that going either way, it's pretty much a given - just a matter of when. If force touch doesn't come on Tuesday, surely it couldn't be further away than with an early 2016 refresh. Which begs the question - what are the differences going to be between this October model and next years if we get skylake and TB3 now? There's also the option they just release the new Magic Mouse/trackpads as standalone accessories in the next few months, maybe to coincide with the release of Apple Pencil? Though that wouldn't make them look too good if they just shipped a refresh with older mouse tech. My bet is we'll see it this update.

Ughhh just wanna know already haha! Bring on Tuesday! Regardless I'll be buying this update. Been waiting too long :D

Why is everyone sure that Tuesday is The Day? Has there been some announcement?
 
Buddy of mine works in a local apple store. Says they have almost no 21 inchers left - he's not too sure about 27. Not sure if that means anything.
 
You had a 2011 also? Luckily, I have a 2012 rMBP that can hold me over for a while.
Yes. I had (still on my floor) a totally upgraded 2011 iMac. One day it just stopped working. No chime. Just a feeble almost silent sound from what I guess is the hard drive. Then nothing.

I guessed it was a power supply or logic board failure. Either way was going to cost me too much so I thought it would make a great sculpture instead.
 
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Is this normal longevity for the iMac?

I'm researching for a possible purchase of a Mac. I'm mostly new to Mac, only owned one briefly last year. I've learned a bit from reading this thread and MacRumors in general. Big thanks for that.

I'm not sure any more. In the past I would say definitely no. After all I still have a 2008 MBP still works even after serving duty as a home server for two years.

However. These new iMacs I think must have cooling deficiencies which is why they die in about 3-4 years. I am the first to admit I really pushed that iMac. Always rendering or gaming and in the Australian summer too without air conditioning.

Maybe it's my fault. But surely if a computer doesn't shut down its happy with the temperature? That's what throttling is for!

Before that, the GPU in my 2008 iMac failed after about 3-4 years too. That one I didn't push as hard but meh

These two experiences is why I am very hesitant to get the new 5K iMac and if I do I would definitely get Apple care.
 
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9to5mac cited "reliable sources" on a 21.5 inch 4k "silent refresh" coming this Tuesday.. It's been rumored for awhile. No word on what will happen with the 27" iMacs, but it's looking very likely (at least 80%) that we'll see new 21.5 inch desktops in two days.
 
I received my RiMac 27" i7 295x today. Ordered on the 2nd of Oct. Was disappointed that El Capitan was not pre installed. Other then that it is a fine computer. Played WoW, Diablo, Unigen 3D benchmark. the fan was not loud at all, if fact I could only hear it if I had all sound turned off, it's a far cry from my 2011 MBP, that sounds like a jet about to take off. We will see if there is an upgrade on Tuesday or not.
 
Wonder if we see any possible rumors today with tomorrow supposedly the day for 4K. Or if at this point it's just silence until then
 
Yes. I had (still on my floor) a totally upgraded 2011 iMac. One day it just stopped working. No chime. Just a feeble almost silent sound from what I guess is the hard drive. Then nothing.

I guessed it was a power supply or logic board failure. Either way was going to cost me too much so I thought it would make a great sculpture instead.

Same exact situation as me, lol! I have the 27" 3.4 GHz i7 model with 12GB of RAM just sitting on the floor. I also assumed it has the same issues so mine is also on the floor, lol!
 
Hoping for a refresh of both iMacs tomorrow, will the Apple Store go down early in the morning tonight or sometime during the day tomorrow?
 
This is my first post here, been lurking for a while now...

Recent Apple "convert" here after being astoundingly impressed with my first iPhone (6 Plus) and iPad (Air 2). I've been a Windows/Unix guy for years, and have decided to transition into a Mac desktop. I found this thread while researching iMac refresh cycles.

My current Windows PC (built it myself) is about a year old with the 4790K i7, 16 GB RAM, and a 2 GB Nvidia GPU. I honestly was surprised when I first hit the Apple website to see that the top of the line 27" iMac is almost identical to my current 1 year old machine. Especially when I could right now buy the parts to upgrade my desktop to a Skylake i7. Or for that matter, buy one of several Skylake-based Windows machine that are available right now.

I know that Apple isn't always the first one to put new components out the door, but in my opinion, it's not a wise decision to sell "brand new" computers that have internal components that are over a year old - at the price they sale for. That would be like buying a "new" car in 2015 that's a 2014 model at the same price as the 2015 model. I wouldn't buy that car! Or, I'd expect to pay less for it.

Basically, Apple, I want to give you my money. But not for something that's already a year old. Hoping to a 27" refresh soon!!
 
I know that Apple isn't always the first one to put new components out the door, but in my opinion, it's not a wise decision to sell "brand new" computers that have internal components that are over a year old - at the price they sale for. That would be like buying a "new" car in 2015 that's a 2014 model at the same price as the 2015 model. I wouldn't buy that car! Or, I'd expect to pay less for it.
You should see all the misery in the MacPro forum. Selling late 2013 components at their 2013 prices is a tough pill to swallow.
 
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You should see all the misery in the MacPro forum. Selling late 2013 components at their 2013 prices is a tough pill to swallow.

Yeah I can imagine! Of course, there's a part of me that realizes that we've reached a point where specs don't change that drastically from year to year. The 4790k i7 is a GREAT processor, and even though it's over a year old, it should handle anything you can throw at it, and there will be marginal gains with the Skylake chips in regard to performance. But it's the principle of it. If I'm going to spend over $2,000 on a computer that's new, it should be new. And if I'm paying for the name brand and buying into the idea that Apple=Quality, I expect the latest and greatest components.

I think that's the one major hurdle I'm still trying to overcome. A friend of mine that's a true Apple Fanboy has helped me overcome most of the misconceptions I've had about Apple products over the years. I've even accepted that from a price perspective, Macs really aren't *that* over priced. But the refresh cycles are hard to swallow, especially when they're kept so secretive.
 
Yeah I can imagine! Of course, there's a part of me that realizes that we've reached a point where specs don't change that drastically from year to year. The 4790k i7 is a GREAT processor, and even though it's over a year old, it should handle anything you can throw at it, and there will be marginal gains with the Skylake chips in regard to performance. But it's the principle of it. If I'm going to spend over $2,000 on a computer that's new, it should be new. And if I'm paying for the name brand and buying into the idea that Apple=Quality, I expect the latest and greatest components.

I think that's the one major hurdle I'm still trying to overcome. A friend of mine that's a true Apple Fanboy has helped me overcome most of the misconceptions I've had about Apple products over the years. I've even accepted that from a price perspective, Macs really aren't *that* over priced. But the refresh cycles are hard to swallow, especially when they're kept so secretive.

I think the compelling thing about Skylake isn't so much the performance increase, but the I/O improvements that can help future-proof the machine. Someone else mentioned earlier in this thread that being on the wrong side of an I/O update is usually a deal breaker long before a machine's performance is inadequate.

The current machine would more than fulfill my needs. I use my computer for professional work, but very little of it is CPU intensive. For me, it's mostly RAM I need to run 5+ giant virtual machines while doing development. I can do that on any old machine. But, the whole point of having an all-in-one for me is convergence. If I can get a single advice to do professional work, edit photos, edit video and replace my XBox One / gaming PC, hell yeah, sign me up.

Damn I hate waiting. :D
 
I have an 27-inch iMac, mid 2010. It has an Core i3 CPU, 12 GB DDR (1333 Mhz), ATI Radeon HD 5670 512 MB and Intel 120 GB SSD which I had built in myself. This was my first Mac ever and I loved it for the past 5 years. I bought the low spec iMac since I really wanted that beautiful 2560 x 1440 screen and didn't really care for the specs. I was just reading websites, watching Youtube, downloading stuff etc.
This iMac actually unleashed my creativity, I love doing some video (1080p) editing with FCPX (and before with iMovie) and photo editing with Lightroom. It is still in pristine condition and run things well but lately it has started to show his age. I cannot play 1080p60 Youtube videos and obviously 4k as well. 1080p and 720p60 plays just fine. And don't get me started on FCPX and Lightroom. It gets the job done...if you do have patience.

So, I am really looking forward to this new Skylake CPU's. I would be disappointed if the 27-inch iMac went with Broadwell.
The biggest reason I want to upgrade is actually the Retina 5k display but this time around I want to max out my iMac purchase.

This is what I want;
27-inch iMac retina 5k display
GPU with 4GB RAM
Skylake Core i7 CPU
32 GB RAM
PCIe Flash (4 lanes, please) 1 TB SSD

If above cannot met, I won't buy a new machine yet. I just want Skylake to be in there and support for 4 lanes PCIe SSD. Too bad that I won't make the jump to 5k.
I also do hope with the next iMac refresh they bring some nice extra's such as new Magic Mouse (with Force Touch?) and Keyboard as well.

Make it happen, Apple! :)
 
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The standard configuration iMacs are now saying ships in 1 business day, I'm pretty sure they normally say 'in stock' could be a sign about tomorrow?
 
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