When iOS 11 launches, a lot of people will want new iMacs

[EugW]

I was just thinking about the impact iOS 11 will have going forward. Right now with iOS 10 and earlier, all the image and video output of the various iPhones is handled quite well by pretty much all recent iMacs. In fact, the 4K 2160p30 video that is output by my iPhone 7 Plus plays and scrubs just fine even on my ancient 2010 Core i7 870, without significant fan noise.

However, the switch will be flicked when iOS 11 launches. All of a sudden, there will be a bazillion people out there recording h.265 HEVC 4K video with their iPhones. This will wreak havoc with people with older iMacs, which is a lot of people, since it seems to me people replace their iPhones a lot sooner than they replace their desktops (or laptops). Yes, you can turn off the HEVC encoding feature, but once it's there, it will change the way people look at their computers. It's also a very nice feature to have active on an iPhone, since it saves about 30% to 50% of storage space.

 

[btrach144]

Aren't the new machines supposed to be able to take advantage of h.256 in a special way with 10.13 as well? I thought I saw that in the keynote.

 

[Luxtrau]

Aren't the new machines supposed to be able to take advantage of h.256 in a special way with 10.13 as well? I thought I saw that in the keynote.

I think, too. I think on the keynote Apple said that Mac OS High Sierra brings native support for H.265, no matter which mac.

 

[EugW]

I think, too. I think on the keynote Apple said that Mac OS High Sierra brings native support for H.265, no matter which mac.

Yes, but it's software only on anything older than Skylake.

I recorded a simple HEVC 4K 2160p on my iPhone with iOS 11 beta and played it back in Sierra 10.12 on my iMacs, software decoding.

iMac Core i7-7700K (2017) with IINA: No sweat. Playback was smooth and iMac stayed quiet (although the video was only 20 seconds long). Temps increased moderately and then stopped there. This is in contrast with Sony's 2160p60 4k demo video I tried that brings maxes out that CPU and occasionally stutters.

iMac Core i7-870 (2010) with IINA: Played with heavy stutters. CPU usage around 300-350%.
iMac Core i7-870 (2010) with VLC: Horrible distorted slideshow. (1080p HEVC works fine on this machine with vlc.)

I have not tried High Sierra's video player yet, but the iMac Core i7 870 will always be using software playback. The iMac Core i7 7700K will have hardware playback, but the public beta is not available yet for testing.

iPhone 7 Plus with iOS 11 and default video player: Perfect smooth playback of course, as it has hardware HEVC 4K decoder and encoder, and was the device I recorded the 4K on in the first place.

iPad Air 2 with iOS 11 and Infuse 4 video player: Plays but only just a bit better than a slideshow. Stuttery mess, and not real time.
iPad Air 2 with iOS 11 and default video player: Shows first frame and then stays there with the spinning ring of death.

Obviously, the video player built-into iOS 11 needs serious work for software playback when it does worse than Infuse on HEVC video generated by an iPhone. Note that Infuse 4 is an older version of Infuse. The current version is Infuse 5, so it's possible that Infuse would be more efficient. I'm not surprised though, since the iPad Air 2 sometimes has trouble with some 1080p HEVC too.
[doublepost=1498522618][/doublepost]Also the Live Photo I just took is a mix of a 1080p HEVC video and HEIC image. I can’t read the image yet though since nothing I have on Sierra supports it. Very decent file size though.

 

[alien3dx]

I was just thinking about the impact iOS 11 will have going forward. Right now with iOS 10 and earlier, all the image and video output of the various iPhones is handled quite well by pretty much all recent iMacs. In fact, the 4K 2160p30 video that is output by my iPhone 7 Plus plays and scrubs just fine even on my ancient 2010 Core i7 870, without significant fan noise.

However, the switch will be flicked when iOS 11 launches. All of a sudden, there will be a bazillion people out there recording h.265 HEVC 4K video with their iPhones. This will wreak havoc with people with older iMacs, which is a lot of people, since it seems to me people replace their iPhones a lot sooner than they replace their desktops (or laptops). Yes, you can turn off the HEVC encoding feature, but once it's there, it will change the way people look at their computers. It's also a very nice feature to have active on an iPhone, since it saves about 30% to 50% of storage space.

don't think so.. in my country imac overprice not even worth for normal user

 

[Huginnmuninn]

All of a sudden, there will be a bazillion people out there recording h.265 HEVC 4K video with their iPhones. This will wreak havoc with people with older iMacs

Or, more home users will buy Macbooks, or buy iPad Pros and use cloud storage while keeping their iMacs until they die.

For many years now Macbooks have dominated Apple's sales, so there's no guarantee people will upgrade iMac-to-iMac.

 

[EugW]

Or, more home users will buy Macbooks, or buy iPad Pros and use cloud storage while keeping their iMacs until they die.

For many years now Macbooks have dominated Apple's sales, so there's no guarantee people will upgrade iMac-to-iMac.

Yeah. If not iMacs then MacBooks or MacBook Pros. Not so sure about iPad Pros at this point though.

 

[SaSaSushi]

For many years now Macbooks have dominated Apple's sales, so there's no guarantee people will upgrade iMac-to-iMac.

Although Apple won't release specifics, of course, Mac sales increased 7% in the June quarter when the new iMacs were released despite IDC predicting a 4% decrease. Apple sold a lot of iMacs and I predict EugW is correct that the upcoming features in iOS 11 and High Sierra will only help to increase sales of the entire Mac line.

 

[Huginnmuninn]

This does not really address my point about no guarantee to iMac-to-iMac upgrades that you quoted.

 

[SaSaSushi]

My point is that iMac sales are up even before iOS 11 and High Sierra which are likely going to make them even more desirable. Even Apple doesn't know what machines their customers are upgrading from. I quoted your whole sentence but was mainly replying to the part about Macbook sales dominating.

 

[Huginnmuninn]

Ah, so it wasn't really about what you quoted. Got it.

 

[_Kiki_]

probably not, most of iPhone users still uses PC

 

[old-wiz]

Or, more home users will buy Macbooks, or buy iPad Pros and use cloud storage while keeping their iMacs until they die.

For many years now Macbooks have dominated Apple's sales, so there's no guarantee people will upgrade iMac-to-iMac.

I have pretty much switched to a MBPr and only use my 2008 iMac rarely.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

I'd imagine this will drive new Mac sales, though I'm not so sure it'll be a huge uptick. First off, only iOS devices with A10 Fusion support encoding these formats - iPhone 7/7 Plus and later, iPad Pro 10.5" and 2nd gen iPad Pro 12.9". So it'll be a few less than a bazillion iOS devices capable of recording it. Of those, how many will really care enough about enhanced video quality to upgrade their Mac hardware to match?

My experience is that among those who are slow to upgrade their hardware, there are usually several factors required before reaching the "buy" tipping point. People will suffer with horrible system performance, shortages of disk space, inability to access secure web sites or to sync with iTunes, obsolete third party apps... and still soldier on until a catastrophic hardware failure brings them down.

So long as these individuals are able to upgrade to High Sierra, they're likely to be satisfied with the Mac they have... for now.

 

[Huginnmuninn]

I have pretty much switched to a MBPr and only use my 2008 iMac rarely.

Yup. For me, at home I have a quad core i7 mini from 2012 that still works fine (and the monitor is great) but I need something faster at this point. So unless a serious new mini upgrade is forthcoming from Apple (unlikely) it looks like the top-of-the-line i5 iMac for me. I really don't want an all-in-one at home, but it's the best option given the tradeoffs.

 

[alien3dx]

Yup. For me, at home I have a quad core i7 mini from 2012 that still works fine (and the monitor is great) but I need something faster at this point. So unless a serious new mini upgrade is forthcoming from Apple (unlikely) it looks like the top-of-the-line i5 iMac for me. I really don't want an all-in-one at home, but it's the best option given the tradeoffs.

i don't think so much. i upgrade mac mini late 2014 to imac 2017 because of
1. I need more ram ( Before 4 GB RAM) now 8 GB RAM
2. I need more faster way to compiling the react native..
3. Slow loading speed not effect me much on both mac mini and imac 2017 (SSD is not important)

What i'm targeting

1. External memory card usb 3.1 can speed up compiling but seem same benchmark external hardisk 3.0 and internal hardisk . So unless i get hardisk ssd like western digital ssd 3.1 gen 2 it would be fast enough.


2. External Graphic Processing UNIT (EGPU) -> really unsure it will improve my experience but will think later ..

Why IMAC

1. I allready had windows laptop and it's ssd and it's fast enough for me. I no need extra laptop.
** got 2 laptop windows still working but not much fire power..

2. Allready got samsung tab a6.(Not prefer ipad mini since it's to big for my pocket).IPAD and SAMSUNG 10 inchi way to big.

3. I hope this will last last long like i see other people really take care their mac. And with E-GPU and usb 3.2 it will stay long in mean time.

What i'm thinking really bad

1. MAX up all really good but i don't want to waste resources just to upgrade my imac to 40 GB RAM 1 tera ssd.
2. This IMAC i buy i think only will survive max 5 YEAR till the xcode asking new hardware . So max it up all no point,
3. Windows i can maxime ram usage by altering services /deamon but osx is non. Some people asking me to modify this and those via terminal but are should MAC ( Works out the box ?) but ain't really. Without optimization it allready kill 4GB RAM on new osx installation.. Pretty bad ..