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What to expect from next imac?
- Thread starter Serban
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Most of those are what I would consider minor, I expect USB-C at some point, faster ram, will possibly occur when they change chipsets, nothing really mind blowing though.
The iMac's form factor weakness is heat dissipation which limits it's upgradability. Also, the all-in-one design limit's it's practical screen size. Only storage and memory have real upgradability. A Major change in CPU/GPU and screen technology for the iMac may be a possibility but not in the short to near long term. Apple's desktop marketing scheme is also important as well as the electronics industry trends.
Which is one reason why I'm baffled by Apple desire to make the iMac razor thin. Why not increase the depth, to allow not only cooling, but also options to improve the computer.
If they thin it a little bit more we'll have to glue it to the desk if we ever use a fan to move the air around the office....
I think Thunderbolt 3 + USB-C will be likely since it would also be able to connect and directly power a 5K Thunderbolt display (which is sorely overdue).
Not sure we'll see a CPU update since the iMac is already on Skylake and the next batch of that family due in June is designed for MacBooks.
Not sure we'll see a CPU update since the iMac is already on Skylake and the next batch of that family due in June is designed for MacBooks.
An open vs closed box was a debate in 1984 with the original Mac and this has more or less continued until today. Steve Jobs liked a closed box because of aesthetics, packaging efficiency, and better quality control. He felt expansion could be handled via a high speed external bus. That dominant mindset pervades most of Apple's products today. E.g, the iPhone does not have a user-replaceable battery.
You could likewise argue why shave off ever fractional mm from an iPhone or iPad, why not provide an access panel for user-replaceable battery, etc. This is a design tradeoff.
Even though the iOS devices and iMacs are very thin, they are competitive from a performance standpoint with similar devices. E.g, the Dell XPS 27 is much thicker than the iMac but this did not produce better performance, cooler operation or a quieter fan.
There will probably be a major advance this year in GPUs from both AMD and nVidia, as they finally move off 28nm fabrication to 14nm.
This will improve GPU performance per watt by about 2x. This has already been demonstrated on sample parts:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/can-amd-outperform-nvidia-with-14nm-polaris-gpu-tech/
http://wccftech.com/amd-unveils-polaris-11-10-gpu/
This will allow Apple to retain a similar physical design (should they so choose), maintain low power consumption yet greatly increase GPU performance. Whether such an iMac ships this calendar year will depend on production availability of AMD Polaris parts, currently expected to launch in June: http://www.mobipicker.com/amd-polaris-10-11-gpus-launch-june-rumour/
How about a SSD as a standard drive?
I guess I'm asking for apple to standardize SSD's into new systems.
Am I asking too much?
I guess I'm asking for apple to standardize SSD's into new systems.
Am I asking too much?
I hope we can see the elimination of the pure spinner setups from the lineup.
I want Apple to be ahead of the curve on this, every other company still has a 5400 or 7200 rpm drive as standard, if Apple can be the first to get rid of their's, they will be ahead of the curve.
I'd also like to see a 4K iMac that is a decent value.
The current one is not. The whole integrated graphics thing is embarrassing, I wish they had some shame so they would scrap that.
Embarrassing for what they're charging for it.
I want Apple to be ahead of the curve on this, every other company still has a 5400 or 7200 rpm drive as standard, if Apple can be the first to get rid of their's, they will be ahead of the curve.
I'd also like to see a 4K iMac that is a decent value.
The current one is not. The whole integrated graphics thing is embarrassing, I wish they had some shame so they would scrap that.
Embarrassing for what they're charging for it.
Pure-SSD across the line might be asking too much, but they should have the 1TB Fusion drive (even with the measly 24GB SSD) as the entry-level option (with larger Fusion and pure SSDs as options). That way end-users get some benefit for things like faster boot and faster loading of their most-commonly-used productivity apps.
No bezels, a 34" 5k screen, 5TB SSD storage and a DVD drive are the things I'm looking for in a new iMac.
yeah. exactly
I thought the 1tb fusion with a 24gb SSD seemed like a terrible idea.
But we have to remember that most of Apple's customer's are the people you see at the Apple Store who don't have a clue about computers. Nothing against them, I just think they don't know much about computers.
Since Apple is smart, and not dumb, they must know that somehow that disgraceful set up works just fine for some people. ok.
So since it does work for some people they'll keep it, but put that as the lowest option on the iMac 21.5 and scrap the pure spinner option.
For the 27 inch, I'd like to see the 2tb fusion as standard but maybe that won't happen.
There are people out there who prefer the fusion to a small SSD, there are also people who want a computer with a lot of storage space.
For that reason, the fusion drive is likely not going anywhere and shouldn't.
Personally, I would like BTO options to separately pick a SSD size and a hard disk size as desired. The decision to create a Fusion drive ... or not ... would be up to the user, and they could pick the partition scheme that works for them, allowing a Windows partition on the SSD portion of a Fusion drive if desired.
I have no idea what Apple is going to do about bezels (I'm fine with what's there and I like the 'chin' for Post-It notes) but I'd expect - or at least hope - for new iMacs to finally come in silver, gray and gold options.
Since the just-finalized DisplayPort 1.4 standard can drive up to 8K monitors over a USB Type-C cable we may see the internals of the iMacs retrofitted and no longer need the custom controller setup to drive 5K pixels. (It also means we're bound to soon see new Thunderbolt/Cinema displays!)
The AMD Radeon R9 M290X in the 27" iMacs really needs an upgrade.
With Siri On Mac apparently coming soon I suppose we could see an upgraded mic
Without a doubt I think the new iMacs will have Thunderbolt 3 and USB Type-C, but since they now use the same cable type I imagine Apple has been diligently considering the best, least confusing way to place and differentiate the ports.
Apple may feel that decent-sized built-in SSDs may still be too expensive relative to HDDs to retain their profit margins (especially smaller ones squeezed into 22" iMacs), so I sadly think they will remain expensive options. Right now Apple charges a $200 upgrade for 256Gb SSD in the 22" iMac and $500 for 512Gb SSD upgrade in the 27" iMac and I don't see them abandoning the ability to market iMacs at lower prices while making $$$ on build to order. Apple's recently made the SSD part of Fusion drives smaller than in past offerings so I have no idea what they'll do with new iMacs, but I'd really like a 1-2Tb internal SSD because of the type of audio work I do.
I wish the 22" iMac came with a 32Gb RAM option.
Since the just-finalized DisplayPort 1.4 standard can drive up to 8K monitors over a USB Type-C cable we may see the internals of the iMacs retrofitted and no longer need the custom controller setup to drive 5K pixels. (It also means we're bound to soon see new Thunderbolt/Cinema displays!)
The AMD Radeon R9 M290X in the 27" iMacs really needs an upgrade.
With Siri On Mac apparently coming soon I suppose we could see an upgraded mic
Without a doubt I think the new iMacs will have Thunderbolt 3 and USB Type-C, but since they now use the same cable type I imagine Apple has been diligently considering the best, least confusing way to place and differentiate the ports.
Apple may feel that decent-sized built-in SSDs may still be too expensive relative to HDDs to retain their profit margins (especially smaller ones squeezed into 22" iMacs), so I sadly think they will remain expensive options. Right now Apple charges a $200 upgrade for 256Gb SSD in the 22" iMac and $500 for 512Gb SSD upgrade in the 27" iMac and I don't see them abandoning the ability to market iMacs at lower prices while making $$$ on build to order. Apple's recently made the SSD part of Fusion drives smaller than in past offerings so I have no idea what they'll do with new iMacs, but I'd really like a 1-2Tb internal SSD because of the type of audio work I do.
I wish the 22" iMac came with a 32Gb RAM option.
Only in the 1tb fusion. which now has a 24gb ssd.
The 2 and 3tb options still have the same 128gb of ssd.
Yes, the 512GB SSD is just too expensive to justify my expense, plus for my case, it would be too small to hold my data, so why spend all that money and still need an external drive.
At least for the 2015 models, the flash portion of the Fusion drive is 128GB for 2 and 3 TB drives, only the 1TB drive has the meager flash allotment.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple reduce the 128GB flash, on newer models however.
A fair point for many. I have a 512GB SSD in my current (2014) 5K iMac and it's enough because I use a 16TB Drobo 5D to store the bulk of my media. With a 100GB Boot Camp drive and the data I have on it, I have 135GB free at the moment.
I just ordered a refurb 2015 iMac 5K and decided I wanted a 1TB SSD for more overhead - and they also did not have a 512TB model with the specs I wanted.
Apple now does have that model and it's $760 less (as it has 16GB of RAM vs. the 32GB in the unit I ordered). I am tempted to pick it up and send back the one I ordered, but I imagine even if we do get Intel Kaby Lake CPUs and AMD Polaris GPUs in a 5K iMac refresh this October / November, we may see long shipping delays due to parts constraints as we have seen with past iMacs launched right at the service entry of new CPU/GPU families so I expect I will wait for the late 2017 update (with Canonnlake or an improved Kaby Lake and improved Polaris GPUs). So the higher-specs will have better longevity, I imagine.
With the existence of $270 1Tb Samsung SSDs at Newegg (and the recent introduction of 2Tb SSDs) I'm pretty disappointed in the lack of larger SSDs in iMacs at any price. If you're making music you really want your audio files to be accessed at the highest possible speeds, so a 1Tb+ internal SSD would be ideal. Yes, one could get nearly as fast speeds with Thunderbolt 2/3 but I'd really prefer for it to be internal.
That's a large part of the reason I'm using a fully-loaded 2012 Mac mini right now with internal HD + SSD, and why I still have (an increasingly despairing) hope for a Mac Mini Pro.
That's a large part of the reason I'm using a fully-loaded 2012 Mac mini right now with internal HD + SSD, and why I still have (an increasingly despairing) hope for a Mac Mini Pro.
Indeed. Apple clearly knows users don't consider iMacs portable, so extra thickness ( such as found in a 2011 iMac ) to help dissipate heat wouldn't dissuade iMac desktop user purchases. The current iMac, while cooler than its immediate predecessor, still runs hotter than I'd prefer. The Skylake change was key to running the current iMacs in a tolerable temperature range.
My wishlist for a new iMac includes:
- More and larger SSD size choices( 2 TB SSD )
- Larger screen ( 32 in or 34 in would be great ) - with Displayport 1.4 now approved, might happen
- Wider case for better heat dissipation
- Second CPU or a nice rev to the slightly outdated 2013 Mac Pro
It's news to me the iMac update won't receive any updates until October. I was hoping there might even be some ultra-slim chance the iMac might get TB3 tomorrow. Certainly, I'd at least hope it will get it some time in the summer.
Who says the iMac won't get any updates until October?
Who says the iMac won't get any updates until October?
General consensus, nothing official.
Not likely, I'm in the crowd that says we'll not see a refresh until the fall. Apple just rolled out their Skylake 5k iMAcs and provided the 4k iMac last fall. I think doing anything on the iMac line tomorrow, is too premature. Plus does the current Skylake chipset have the fast iGPUs that are available on Broadwell? That's why the 21" iMacs didn't go to Skylake - no fast iGPUs. If that hasn't been rolled out yet, then that's another reason why its unlikely.