As far as color goes, a black iMac with a black bezel would look real sharp. Although, I suspect changing the bezel color is very unlikely
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.
What to Expect From an Apple Event in October: iPad Mini 7, Redesigned Mac Mini, and More
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
sounds odd as i dont have issues with bluetooth on ATVs...They are both 5.0.
Apple TV 4K - Technical Specifications
View the tech specs for Apple TV 4K and the Siri Remote — including size, weight, capacity, ports, and more.www.apple.com
Apple TV HD - Technical Specifications
View the tech specs for Apple TV HD and the Apple TV Remote — including size, weight, ports, interfaces, and more.www.apple.com
The issue is nonsensical to me, has been a HUGE complaint since I got it after having the 4K prior. I wish I returned it after 14 days, but didn't know at the time as I replaced my kitchen audio with HomePod Minis about 6 months later.
what speakers are you using?
a USB C mouse you could USE while charging would be even better
The Ultra will never launch before the Max. The best you can hope for is Max and Ultra launching at the same time. It could happen for M4, because M3 didn’t have an Ultra. I wouldn’t bet on it, though. March 2025, exactly three years after the M1 Ultra launch, is more likely.
I was arguing that M3 is the exception, not the rule. The M4 generation will put things back on track. But that doesn’t solve your dilemma. Apple silicon will keep pressing forward every year, every generation. Sometimes there will be big jumps, especially when there are new features like those introduced in the M3 GPU.
Rumor has it, based on something Apple said about A18 Pro, that ray tracing performance in M4 is double that in M3. Let’s say there had been an M3 Ultra, and you invested in a top-end Mac Studio or Pro. Would you be shouting and angry that this year’s M4 Max has the same ray tracing performance as last year’s M3 Ultra?
From what I understand, when performance = $, these are easy decisions to make. The new hardware quickly pays for itself. You mentioned the 2013 cylindrical Mac Pro, but the problem there was Apple couldn’t update it to the latest and greatest GPUs. It rapidly fell behind. The Mac Studio doesn’t have that problem. It didn’t get M3, but that wasn’t for the same reasons as before. History is not repeating itself.
Last edited:
Actually the same thing happened with M1 -> M2. My M2 Max was better in many ways compared to the M1 Ultra. So M3 is not the outlier here.
Apple certainly does need to switch their product launches. Back when things were kept up to date in the desktops, NO Intel mobile process X+1 gen beat the best that Apple used for the desktops X generation. Apple silicon reversed this issue so Apple needs to reverse their product strategy.
Mac Studio and Mac Pro are where you NEED the performance. But Apple is not treating these products well.
If they have this year's Ultra available or this year's Max doesn't outperform last year's Ultra then it is fine. Having the performance match wouldn't be an issue, it is when it performs better is when I am no longer happy. When you are at the point where every bit of performance matters, it is frustrating when a nearly $8,000 or $10,000 system can be beaten by a $3,600+ laptop. I cannot use a laptop for extended periods of time, I need all the ports and throughput of every Thunderbolt port on my Mac Studio almost to the point where I NEED the Mac Pro for the extra ports and expansion, but trying to hold off for the $3,000 upcharge for the same performance, which we just discussed will be outclassed in some workflows by the next laptops.
Well, I hope (and believe) M3 is an outlier with regard to the Ultra, but I see what you mean. I don’t think Apple’s silicon team sees it that way, though. I think their attitude is to improve the SoC as much as possible every generation, they aren’t going to hold back just because the improvements will smoke the previous generation.
For what it’s worth (there are pros and cons), I think this is a fundamental difference in Apple’s approach that isn’t likely to change. Maybe around M8 or so, with a sea change in the technology used for the Ultra’s architecture. Something like that could mitigate it. But the priority even then will always be to keep the MacBook Pro ahead of the competition for that lucrative high-end laptop market.
HomePod mini Stereo pair. There is no way to have them be a default speaker, only a temporary audio output. The 4K model provides this option, but not the HD. A nonsensical / deliberate limitation (IMO).
So, what you’re saying is it’s an impulse buy because it’s not an impulse buy?
In my office, I already do this, though with an older i5 Mac mini.
There are many advantages as you are using a full Mac with all the flexibility on what apps you want to load as well as not being locked into a specific App Store + full ability to multi-task. In my use case it is perfect to do this, though I need an upgraded piece of kit due to limitations on the old i5 Mac mini and new operating systems.
The downside is native use of remotes and such is not supported but there are various 3rd party solutions for this. One of the best is an app that that turns my iPhone or iPad into a remote trackpad or keyboard.
I would say it is worth a try. One of the benefits of buying from Apple is their (usually) simple return policy. Pick one up, give it a try, if you feel it is better to go straight to a regular Apple TV, simply return it!
On Apple Canada's store, you can still access that page and buy the Mac Mini with the «Back to school rebate» of 200$.
It isn’t true for Intel either. You build the mass product first so you can use economics of scale to make the higher-end products viable. Apple generally starts with the phone (the M4 notwithstanding), then scales that up and down. Intel starts with mid-range laptops, then scales up.
Yeah, that is pretty fundamental to the Ultra concept - performance on some highly-threaded workloads does scale pretty much with the number of cores - but others run in to rapidly diminishing returns and new gen tech (faster single cores, specialised hardware acceleration) plus just a few extra cores (as we‘ve seen with M2 and M3 Max) is always likely to beat last gen tech with doubled-up cores which go unused.
I can’t see Apple having much of a pro market if they keep changing the (secret) roadmap. Pros need to plan and cost projects years ahead, team projects need to be able to kit out new members, replace old kit without having to choose between obsolescent gear or some whacky new paradigm - which has been the history of the Mac Pro since 2012.
Just because something is a technical feat doesn’t necessarily mean it will be successful when the germ of the idea meets the thick bleach of reality… or that it won’t be a solution in search of a problem.
Even if there is a good application for the “Ultra” concept, the Mac Studio (the de facto Mac Pro successor) might not be it. Looks like there would have been plenty of interest in a M3 Max Studio six months ago rather than a maybe-next-spring-maybe-not M4 Ultra.
Agreed. Back in the Intel days this would not have mattered. Sure release a newer Macbook Pro before a newer Mac Pro. BECAUSE, the newest chip on the Macbook Pro would not get even close to beating a top end Mac Pro (assuming Apple kept their desktops up to date).
But their strategy of Macbook Air > Macbook Pro > Mac Studio and Mac Pro doesn't really work with Apple Silicon.
I suspect that Apple has decided something: A Mac Studio with two laptop parts is good enough, and anyone who needs real dGPU muscle should move off the Mac.
They need to fix their attitude with the desktop market. I actively despise Windows and Linux is not a viable alternative for productivity to utilize those dGPU power.
I fail to see how this is a problem, really.
If you need highest single threaded performance and the newest iGPU stuff, buy a new MacBook Pro every ~1.5 years.
If you need all the all the parallel processing and biggest iGPU Apple offers buy a Max Mac Studio every ~3 years.
If you need PCIe slots, buy the wickedly over-priced Mac Pro every ~3 years (?).
If you need something Apple doesn't make, don't buy Apple.
All the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro users are pretty happy, and that is where Apple makes all its Mac money. Desktop Mac users should go elsewhere if they'll only be happy if Apple's invests more on pro desktops, it isn't going to happen. Apple will continue to be inconsistent and treat the high-end as a low priority.
This all could in theory be fixed if Apple had been able to ship the M* Quadra SoC package. Maybe there's a chance they will with M4, or M5.
The bigger deal with be with M5 or M6 when Apple has to move to full-on chiplets, at which point we'll be in a brave new world of scaling that we have no basis of comparison in Apple's history.
Last edited:
Assuming a Quadra is just two Ultras: diminishing returns. The single-core perf would’ve been the same, and 48 cores just isn’t that much of a market segment.
Plus, still no dGPU, and fixed (albeit fast) RAM.
Absolutely true.
Chasing the fastest single core performance hasn't been a high priority for the non-consumer high-end PC market for more than a decade. It just doesn't matter much in terms of getting massive work done.
Whether Apple can even sell enough in that market for it to be worth making it, we can't know. Apple probably knows.
I could see Apple getting PCIe AI accelerators on to their platform, or even dGPU for specific workloads, but primary display-out dGPUs are not coming back any time soon.
I can't use a laptop as I need the thunderbolt lanes on the Studio Ultra and that is even reaching a limit where I might need to look at the Mac Pro. But I also need the more performance so you see my issue.
So right now I am resorting to using my M3 Max Macbook Pro for some tasks that it performs better than my M2 Ultra just because there is no M3 Ultra. And the laptops will get M4 while Mac Studio and Pro are on M2 still which is utterly frustrating.
Yeah, I see the problem, but from Apple's perspective:
1) Your needs are really unusual, so not a market they're going to heavily invest in; and
2) Apple is super happy to sell you a Pro desktop for some of your needs AND a Pro laptop for your other needs.