Will there ever be a new large iMac (Pro)?

[CWallace]

In a few days, Sony will introduce the PS5 based on an RDNA2 GPU.

If they are already producing the console, it means AMD is already supplying the first GPUs...

The PS5 is not expected to actually ship to customers until the "Holiday Season" which for past PS consoles has been November.

So while it will certainly have RDNA2 chips in the dev boxes now, that does not necessarily mean AMD is cranking them out by the millions now and Apple can get them at will. I also expect the PS5 GPU will be different than the ones Apple would use.

 

[askunk]

Sure, but when you launch a product sold in millions by the first week, you need to start production months before, manage a stockpile and distribute it.

 

[high heaven]

'Hmmm...'

If you're saying you'd like a rationally priced mainstream tower Mac Pro in the £1500-£3k+ ish range.

I'd agree. I'm hoping I don't have to join the dark side for that...

That said, yesterday's workstation is today's AiO, laptop or iPad, all of which can out perform my G4 Tower (yes, I have one and it still works...) And Apple 'cheaply' uses the term 'Pro' on phones and ipads.. 'Workstation' is a temporal definition of 'now.' It's relative to the sun. If you make a living from it or being creative or productive? It's a 'work' 'station.'

Azrael.

I don't see any advantages of AIO over normal desktop, especially for workstations. Mac Pro used to start from $3000. You cant even clean iMac Pro cause it's AIO.

 

[Azrael9]

Thank you. I need GPU that can help in Maya in Viewport 2.0 to move stuff around so I would assume that is more RDNA than CDNA based on what I understood. Not quite sure about the details and how Maya specifically calculates it but seeing that I don't do rendering and its just manipulation I would guess it could be fine with the 'gaming' card.
Maybe someone who knows better Maya could answer that.
Anyway, that RDNA2 does seem like I want nothing else. And if Sony is really about to announce it and it would be slap in the face from Apple if they give us RDNA instead of RDNA2.
In all fairness, why not wait a little longer so we get RDNA2 which has great thermals so thats something that will help with iMac also especially if Intel's 10th gen is an oven 🙂

as for iMac or iMac Pro - I just want good value so I will see what they announce and then will evaluate.
The way I look at it is that if iMac Pro will be little more expensive (£1500) but it will give better performance and will last way longer than over the time it might be worth it.
Ideally though, I would love for Apple to drop the price on the base Mac Pro and I would rather get that. Make the entry level more affordable for broader 'prosumers' and call it a day.
Wouldn't that be something 🙂

Maya user. A mighty fine program. If it's a GPU for use in a viewpoint (by and large) and manipulating reasonably high polygon models the RDNA1 should be enough. (I did my MA in Computer Animation using the Beta of Softimage's Xsi. Very capable program but I thought I'd be learning Maya. As it transpired, they changed the program from Maya to Xsi for the 3D course and left the programmers on the MSC with Maya. I thought it was quite ironic that the programmers got Maya. That was the one I wanted to learn. Still...)

I've found in Z-Brush, even my old 680MX (Nividia portable version...) my iMac handled intensive polygon counts reasonable well and the hyper threaded i7 quad core not as bad as I thought it would be at rendering. And that's an 8 year old machine. Lightwave 3D (my other program I have) seems ok. But it's an old school sports car in terms of it's approach.

With Blender 3D (and it's compelling Eve realtime preview engine...) support for cpu, gpu and hybrid cpu/gpu rendering is improving all the time.

And the Unreal 4 game engine has potent real time preview.

My point. These all require significant grunt work and the iMac is standing in the way of a consumer Mac Tower. So it had better step up to this kind of work. 8 core and 5700 GPU brings us to 'catch up.'

But it's the RDNA 2 that will push us over the top and 'future' proof you whilst the former is a year out of date already. :/

I would suggest an 8 core, 5700 XT with SSD and 32 gigs of ram should deliver should handle viewpoint / open GL draw very well.

But if you can push on and get the RDNA2 then whether that's a BTO on this year's iMac or on the iMac Pro...then take it. It will be an order of magnitude vs the current Rx580 which will appear archaic by comparison. It's a very old gpu right now. Not only that, the RDNA2 efficiency will probably preserve your investment not only in performance...but in terms of preserving the life of the card and with the iMac Pro's cooling, prevent itself from cooking alive in that enclosure.

And that's the argument for the extra £1500, I guess.

But we don't know yet if RDNA2 is restricted just to iMac Pro...yet. And what the value equation is of a £1700 iMac vs the £5k iMac Pro 'to be.'

Oh, and I'm right there with you 😉 on dropping the base price of the Mac Pro.

We have an iMac £1700
We have an iMac Pro £5000.

We have a 'Mac Pro' £6000.
Why not a Mac? £1700-£3k. (I'd sacrifice the 'value' of the screen to have that...ie I'll take that bet.)

Hopefully Sony giving such a great deal on RDNA2 to their customers...will inspire Apple to offer that cutting edge gpu tech' to iMac owners. 😛

Azrael.

 

[Freida]

Thank you!
Yeah, lets wait and see what Apple does with the alleged 'substantial' update. Better be good 🙂

Maya user. A mighty fine program. If it's a GPU for use in a viewpoint (by and large) and manipulating reasonably high polygon models the RDNA1 should be enough. (I did my MA in Computer Animation using the Beta of Softimage's Xsi. Very capable program but I thought I'd be learning Maya. As it transpired, they changed the program from Maya to Xsi for the 3D course and left the programmers on the MSC with Maya. I thought it was quite ironic that the programmers got Maya. That was the one I wanted to learn. Still...)

I've found in Z-Brush, even my old 680MX (Nividia portable version...) my iMac handled intensive polygon counts reasonable well and the hyper threaded i7 quad core not as bad as I thought it would be at rendering. And that's an 8 year old machine. Lightwave 3D (my other program I have) seems ok. But it's an old school sports car in terms of it's approach.

With Blender 3D (and it's compelling Eve realtime preview engine...) support for cpu, gpu and hybrid cpu/gpu rendering is improving all the time.

And the Unreal 4 game engine has potent real time preview.

My point. These all require significant grunt work and the iMac is standing in the way of a consumer Mac Tower. So it had better step up to this kind of work. 8 core and 5700 GPU brings us to 'catch up.'

But it's the RDNA 2 that will push us over the top and 'future' proof you whilst the former is a year out of date already. :/

I would suggest an 8 core, 5700 XT with SSD and 32 gigs of ram should deliver should handle viewpoint / open GL draw very well.

But if you can push on and get the RDNA2 then whether that's a BTO on this year's iMac or on the iMac Pro...then take it. It will be an order of magnitude vs the current Rx580 which will appear archaic by comparison. It's a very old gpu right now. Not only that, the RDNA2 efficiency will probably preserve your investment not only in performance...but in terms of preserving the life of the card and with the iMac Pro's cooling, prevent itself from cooking alive in that enclosure.

And that's the argument for the extra £1500, I guess.

But we don't know yet if RDNA2 is restricted just to iMac Pro...yet. And what the value equation is of a £1700 iMac vs the £5k iMac Pro 'to be.'

Oh, and I'm right there with you 😉 on dropping the base price of the Mac Pro.

We have an iMac £1700
We have an iMac Pro £5000.

We have a 'Mac Pro' £6000.
Why not a Mac? £1700-£3k. (I'd sacrifice the 'value' of the screen to have that...ie I'll take that bet.)

Hopefully Sony giving such a great deal on RDNA2 to their customers...will inspire Apple to offer that cutting edge gpu tech' to iMac owners. 😛

Azrael.

 

[Azrael9]

The PS5 is not expected to actually ship to customers until the "Holiday Season" which for past PS consoles has been November.

So while it will certainly have RDNA2 chips in the dev boxes now, that does not necessarily mean AMD is cranking them out by the millions now and Apple can get them at will. I also expect the PS5 GPU will be different than the ones Apple would use.

Well, RDNA2 rumour is September launch. Is that for PCs?

The PS5, yeah, I would have had that down for a Christmas release early fall which would tie in with the RDNA2 Sept' launch for PC.

Either way, the preview of the PS5 is exciting stuff.

The PS5 gpu is behind on Tflops and Compute units? 36(?) with the X'Thing' having more? (56?)

Whereas, isn't the full fat RDNA2 reported to be a 'big' die with 80 CUs?

(Without looking to check.)

Azrael.

 

[sublunar]

The problem is that TB4 can be a simple rebranding to solve problems with the TB3 license and not have a rapid increase. Generally. And this is a real problem, because TB3 already now, if I'm not mistaken, rested on its limit in the issues of eGPU.

As you mention, the Thunderbolt 4 spec includes 40Gb/s ports thus pausing the spec doubling version on version in order to encompass all of the confusing USB3 faster standards that have emerged.

Next year's Rocket Lake S CPUs will include 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes with direct access to the CPU. Although you can say that 4x PCIe 4.0 lanes can be dedicated to SSD that's twice as fast as current SSDs and PCIe 4.0 GPUs currently exist - there's RDNA cards out there that are electrically PCIe 4.0 x8. I think in theory that Apple would only need to use 4 PCIe 4.0 lanes to drive an RDNA2 dGPU, leaving optionally another 4 lanes for 10 Gig Ethernet, Bluetooth, Wifi, and USB-A ports.

What I am unsure about is the idea that you could get 40Gb/s through 2 PCIe 4.0 lanes rather than 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes and whether this therefore translates into more independent ports for a Mac next year. We could then see 8 PCIe 4.0 lanes dedicated to 4 Thunderbolt 4 Ports each capable of 40Gb/s with a suitable number of TB controllers.

If Rocket Lake based systems can be managed this way, it goes a long way towards obsoleting the iMac Pro if Apple decide that 128Gb of RAM is fine for iMac users who would have to upgrade to the full Mac Pro for more onboard RAM.

I personally think the iMac would be well served with this kind of spec with a headless workstation using W22xx CPUs giving people a choice under the Mac Pro. The iMac range may still need a halo device though.

Recently, such things are hard to imagine, because Apple ordering with custom GPU cards now. No one could have imagined Vega 48 aboard the iMac 2019 until they showed it.

Apple will often ask for specific SKUs to meet their heat/performance based requirements. I will not be surprised to see a 'Pro' version of any AMD RDNA GPU, and the same applies for the RDNA2 ones next year, because that's been their entire MO throughout for the iMac.

 

[sublunar]

The PS5 is not expected to actually ship to customers until the "Holiday Season" which for past PS consoles has been November.

So while it will certainly have RDNA2 chips in the dev boxes now, that does not necessarily mean AMD is cranking them out by the millions now and Apple can get them at will. I also expect the PS5 GPU will be different than the ones Apple would use.

Sure, but when you launch a product sold in millions by the first week, you need to start production months before, manage a stockpile and distribute it.

With both Sony and Microsoft putting in huge orders for RDNA2 it would be no surprise at all to see no RDNA2 for Apple Macs till next year. AMD simply don't want to mess with orders that have been placed for so song, especially if the supply chain and manufacturing capacity is under pressure thanks to the impact of Corona Virus.

I'd also assume that Apple are concentrating all the manufacturing into this year's iPhone 12 which is largely agreed to be delayed for a month or two.

iPad Pro won't be refreshed till next year when mini LED hits, MacBook Pro 16" may get a perfunctory refresh with Comet Lake S - it's already for RDNA mobile GPUs - and the smaller MacBooks have already been done.

iPad, iPad mini, and iPad Air are becoming due updates too but I doubt they'll be landing mini LED screens, I'd suggest the screen size increase mooted for all models is offsetting a likely switch to A12 for the base iPad. The A12 CPU would possibly stay the CPU of choice for the iPad mini and Air which would get bigger screens instead as rumoured.

If bigger screen means more GPU grunt required could Apple even introduce the old A12X into the Air if it steps into the Pro's 11" screen form factor?

The reasoning is that Apple wouldn't want the iPad mini and Air to have a more up to date CPU than the iPad Pro while the A12X powered AppleTV is likely to be a decent platform for gaming so having a reasonably priced iPad with a similar CPU would be interesting.

The Mac mini got a simplistic storage bump and this leaves us debating the mysterious reasoning behind delaying the iMac and the ongoing lack of update for the iMac Pro - which seems to have a mini LED panel coming next year so it'd be wise to expect the Pro model not to get updated at all.

 

[Voyageur]

Next year's Rocket Lake S CPUs will include 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes with direct access to the CPU. Although you can say that 4x PCIe 4.0 lanes can be dedicated to SSD that's twice as fast as current SSDs and PCIe 4.0 GPUs currently exist - there's RDNA cards out there that are electrically PCIe 4.0 x8. I think in theory that Apple would only need to use 4 PCIe 4.0 lanes to drive an RDNA2 dGPU, leaving optionally another 4 lanes for 10 Gig Ethernet, Bluetooth, Wifi, and USB-A ports.

What I am unsure about is the idea that you could get 40Gb/s through 2 PCIe 4.0 lanes rather than 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes and whether this therefore translates into more independent ports for a Mac next year. We could then see 8 PCIe 4.0 lanes dedicated to 4 Thunderbolt 4 Ports each capable of 40Gb/s with a suitable number of TB controllers.

PCIe 4 will not help in eGPU situation, because it will not remove the limitations of TB3.

If you want to accelerate the iMac/Pro with eGPU, then roughly the scheme is like this: the signal goes from the CPU through the thunderbolt to the eGPU and then returns back to the internal display using the same thunderbolt. In practice, this leads to the fact that the potential of the external GPU is greatly lost.

If you run benchmarks or games on iMac Pro and compare the results of the built-in Vega 64 Pro and the external RX Vega 64, then the first one will show a much better result. The reason is simple, TB3 with its 40Gb/s is not enough to realize the full potential of powerful graphics cards. It is predicted that a more powerful GPU such as "Big Navi" in this scheme will not give the proper growth and it will show a small increase against the backdrop of improved integrated graphics cards.

In this case, in order to minimize the loss of TB3, it is necessary that the signal from the eGPU goes directly to the external monitor as in a Mac mini, but who needs to use an external monitor with iMac?

 

[Phil77354]

. . . who needs to use an external monitor with iMac?

Actually, there are a few of us out here who would like to improve our home office set-up to have two monitors. I would really like to have the ability to purchase an external monitor that would go with my iMac.

 

[Voyageur]

Actually, there are a few of us out here who would like to improve our home office set-up to have two monitors. I would really like to have the ability to purchase an external monitor that would go with my iMac.

Of course, people like you are here, no doubt. However,
1) you are quite few of such people
2) for those who do not have a separate monitor to buy it in addition for the sake of eGPU to iMac - this is some kind of nonsense.

 

[sublunar]

PCIe 4 will not help in eGPU situation, because it will not remove the limitations of TB3.

If you want to accelerate the iMac/Pro with eGPU, then roughly the scheme is like this: the signal goes from the CPU through the thunderbolt to the eGPU and then returns back to the internal display using the same thunderbolt. In practice, this leads to the fact that the potential of the external GPU is greatly lost.

If you run benchmarks or games on iMac Pro and compare the results of the built-in Vega 64 Pro and the external RX Vega 64, then the first one will show a much better result. The reason is simple, TB3 with its 40Gb/s is not enough to realize the full potential of powerful graphics cards. It is predicted that a more powerful GPU such as "Big Navi" in this scheme will not give the proper growth and it will show a small increase against the backdrop of improved integrated graphics cards.

In this case, in order to minimize the loss of TB3, it is necessary that the signal from the eGPU goes directly to the external monitor as in a Mac mini, but who needs to use an external monitor with iMac?

Yes there is latency and potential data constriction through using an eGPU (4x PCIe 3.0 still runs at roughly 90% of the speed of 16x PCIe 3.0 in a PC so it's not that bad a loss), and while I am aware of latency when using eGPU I'm not sure of the overall impact of latency on a Thunderbolt 3 connection.

But I was discussing the iMac where it might be readily assumed that a Rocket Lake S 2021 model may have PCIe 4.0 lanes on the motherboard and, as on a PC, the dGPU is wired directly to the CPU using as many lanes as needed just as in a PC.

Why would there be issues plugging a Thunderbolt connection from an iMac to external monitor as an external display? At that point you're probably using the Displayport video capability of the USB-C connection and the onboard GPU drives the monitor accordingly.

Back to a PC though - for a discrete GPU - and let's use an AMD RDNA GPU as an example - AMD RX 5500XT.

The RX 5500XT uses an 16x PCIe 4.0 interface but is electrically only 8x for retail cards that PC users would use on their motherboard. The 8x PCIe 4.0 bandwidth is still roughly the same as 16x PCIe 3.0 so in effect no great loss there and I'm going to assume that you would only lose 10% of overall peak performance if you plugged that card into a PCIe 3.0 x4 slot on a PC anyway.

This would be an argument for adding dGPU directly to a Mac mini and Rocket Lake has enough PCIe 4.0 lanes to in theory allow for fast SSD, dGPU, and 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports into such a product.

TB3 eGPUs are great for mobile products like laptops which have no other alternative to get better graphics. The relative expense of getting the eGPU box plus expecting a slightly performance overhead after buying a graphics card in from Apple's list of (AMD) GPUs makes it a costly way of getting graphics. I guess at least a large number of these eGPU boxes offer dock and charging functionality too. - useful for laptops.

It's also a bit galling for Mac mini users who have been arguing for that machine to be more like a mini tower with access to a PCIe slot to directly add the graphics card.

Bear in mind that my main question was the assumption that 2x PCIe 4.0 lanes produce the 32Gb/s required by Thunderbolt 3 connections. And would 8 such lanes be enough to drive 4 Thunderbolt 4 ports with the right number of controllers?

Thunderbolt 5 will be the standard that doubles the bandwidth to the equivalent of PCIe 3.0 x8 which brings us to 95% of the possible performance of today's graphics cards (plus a bit of latency).

 

[DrRadon]

Actually, there are a few of us out here who would like to improve our home office set-up to have two monitors. I would really like to have the ability to purchase an external monitor that would go with my iMac.

I actually much prefer 21 inch with a second monitor. But we need space for the powerfulll parts. 🙁

 

[Migranya]

I actually much prefer 21 inch with a second monitor. But we need space for the powerfulll parts. 🙁

If 23 inches is a reality it will be for a reduction of the bezels, not an increase in chassis. So don’t worry about the size of the two screens because they will occupy the same space on your desktop.

 

[krell100]

Flexibility of use scenario is a great thing about the iMac; to a degree you can fit one in to you're own need case, well as long as you're not an avid gamer or high end graphics person anyway.. Actually maybe the new(er?) ones will cover a wider assortment of uses, and maybe, finally, gaming?

 

[DrRadon]

If 23 inches is a reality it will be for a reduction of the bezels, not an increase in chassis. So don’t worry about the size of the two screens because they will occupy the same space on your desktop.

It's more like me needing the 27 inch for it's GPU and Processor. I used to dish out a second monitor for video work, like, imagine all of the after effects tools on the external monitor and most of the actually video and timeline on the 21 inch iMac. We will see how well the 27 inch Version will fit my desk i guess, theres probably a way to get it don as the iMac is the heart of the work and the rest is just supplementary. Maybe it's even better.



Dos anyone know at what time they actually updated the store forMacBook Pro 13 Inch? I could have sworn it was not a overnight update for the US.Still expecting it to drop at Wednesday and prepared to be offered a a job as tech analyst right after. 👩‍🚀

 

[Migranya]

It's more like me needing the 27 inch for it's GPU and Processor. I used to dish out a second monitor for video work, like, imagine all of the after effects tools on the external monitor and most of the actually video and timeline on the 21 inch iMac. We will see how well the 27 inch Version will fit my desk i guess, theres probably a way to get it don as the iMac is the heart of the work and the rest is just supplementary. Maybe it's even better.



Dos anyone know at what time they actually updated the store forMacBook Pro 13 Inch? I could have sworn it was not a overnight update for the US.Still expecting it to drop at Wednesday and prepared to be offered a a job as tech analyst right after. 👩‍🚀

In CEST times:

• MacBook Air, iPad Pro and iMac Mini: 13:00
• iPhone SE: 17:00
• MacBook Pro: 15:00

You can easily check the Apple Newsroom website in your contry to see the hours in your timezone.

 

[DrRadon]

In CEST times:

• MacBook Air, iPad Pro and iMac Mini: 13:00
• iPhone SE: 17:00
• MacBook Pro: 15:00

You can easily check the Apple Newsroom website in your contry to see the hours in your timezone.

Thank you. I found Newsroom before but here in Germany it dos not seem to state anything beyond the date of the article being published unless i got tomatos on my eyes.

 

[mindquest]

Wondering with everything going on in the US today if Apple will push off announcements so as to not sound tone deaf.

 

[Azrael9]

PCIe 4 will not help in eGPU situation, because it will not remove the limitations of TB3.

*snip.*

In this case, in order to minimize the loss of TB3, it is necessary that the signal from the eGPU goes directly to the external monitor as in a Mac mini, but who needs to use an external monitor with iMac?

I hear what you're saying re: the rebranding of TB3 to TB4 and the inherent limitations of that 'marketing.'

Until we get to TB'5' (a doubling of signal speed...?) and and PCIE4...or 5...(which isn't that far away..?)

As to who would want to use an external monitor with the iMac?

Me.

I will be having a BenQ (or any equally potent monitor) that can rotate to 90 degrees so I can view A3 artwork/proofs of final art to go alongside any new iMac purchase. (Presuming the new iMac won't have 'portrait' mode despite the 'promise' offered by the iLamp iMac all those years ago...) And perhaps an iPad in sidecar mode so I can see in flight production and changes to the final page...as I make creative changes.

A 2nd or 3rd monitor for creatives isn't unusual.

Eg. Leaving one to do a render or video work whilst doing 2D (for example) work on the main screen. There's so many ways to use two monitors, I should imagine.

Azrael.

 

[Azrael9]

Flexibility of use scenario is a great thing about the iMac; to a degree you can fit one in to you're own need case, well as long as you're not an avid gamer or high end graphics person anyway.. Actually maybe the new(er?) ones will cover a wider assortment of uses, and maybe, finally, gaming?

Well said.

The history of iMac has evolved in terms of it's capabilities. It used to be a 15 inch screen that could do a bit of Photoshop and run Tomb Raider (1) smooth-ish with low res graphics. It gave decent performance per buck. But now? It's still a consumer machine (just about...looks at pricing...) but has moved on up to prosumer and workstation territory.

Once upon a time you needed a 'Mac Pro' to do 'serious' Photoshop work. (Though, a 603 cpu was 'fine' for learning Photoshop in learning classes, I found...back in 'teh' day...)

Then the iMac broke that frontier and (this day) is an accomplished 2D work machine.

Next, it was video editing....and that frontier is comprehensively breached with the last generation and certainly the 2019 with the Vega 48 making the Final Cut Preview window 'buttery' smooth.

Now? 3D (in my view) is the last frontier where the iMac needs to step up. Whilst there is no shame in a quad core hyper threaded i7 with 680 MX (for handling the modelling window...) the 3d world has clearly moved on these days with 8-64 core cpus and 8, 12 and 16 core going mainstream as we speak...and the likes of the 2080 Ti are an order of magnitude ahead of my old Nvida 680MX.

So, I think with the next iMac update we should be seeing a machine which occupies the pricing ground of the former Mac Mainstream Tower (*whistful sigh...) then the expections should rise accordingly. ie. 8 core as standard, SSD, 16 gigs of ram...and at least a year old gpu 😛 in the 5700. I don't think all that is too much to ask for. 8 cores in pc land are reasonably priced in PC land...and the 12 core AMD looks like a sweet spot bargain.

In short, I expect the next iMac to handle 3d a whole lot better with the next update as it looks to really conquer the next digital workload frontier. With cooling.

ie. Yes. 'Finally. Gaming.'

Azrael.
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I don't see any advantages of AIO over normal desktop, especially for workstations. Mac Pro used to start from $3000. You cant even clean iMac Pro cause it's AIO.

I'd prefer a consumer tower in the £1500-£3000 price bracket, for sure. I'm not alone in that regard.

Azrael.
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With both Sony and Microsoft putting in huge orders for RDNA2 it would be no surprise at all to see no RDNA2 for Apple Macs till next year. AMD simply don't want to mess with orders that have been placed for so song, especially if the supply chain and manufacturing capacity is under pressure thanks to the impact of Corona Virus.

I'd also assume that Apple are concentrating all the manufacturing into this year's iPhone 12 which is largely agreed to be delayed for a month or two.

iPad Pro won't be refreshed till next year when mini LED hits, MacBook Pro 16" may get a perfunctory refresh with Comet Lake S - it's already for RDNA mobile GPUs - and the smaller MacBooks have already been done.

iPad, iPad mini, and iPad Air are becoming due updates too but I doubt they'll be landing mini LED screens, I'd suggest the screen size increase mooted for all models is offsetting a likely switch to A12 for the base iPad. The A12 CPU would possibly stay the CPU of choice for the iPad mini and Air which would get bigger screens instead as rumoured.

If bigger screen means more GPU grunt required could Apple even introduce the old A12X into the Air if it steps into the Pro's 11" screen form factor?

The reasoning is that Apple wouldn't want the iPad mini and Air to have a more up to date CPU than the iPad Pro while the A12X powered AppleTV is likely to be a decent platform for gaming so having a reasonably priced iPad with a similar CPU would be interesting.

The Mac mini got a simplistic storage bump and this leaves us debating the mysterious reasoning behind delaying the iMac and the ongoing lack of update for the iMac Pro - which seems to have a mini LED panel coming next year so it'd be wise to expect the Pro model not to get updated at all.

The iPad has had alot of 'fussing' in the 9.7, 10 inch to 11 inch screen sizing.

Keep it simple, Apple. 8, 11, 13 and 16 (for the likes of me...) I'd expect the A12X to come to the ATV and 'Air' real soon. The more A12X chips Apple sells the better as you can then get alot of the iPad/ATV dev' work centred around that more powerful capability.

Like you say, making the ATV a decent platform for gaming. At the least in terms of the 'casual' gaming sphere of Apple Arcade. The A12X is no slouch.

Azrael.
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It's also a bit galling for Mac mini users who have been arguing for that machine to be more like a mini tower with access to a PCIe slot to directly add the graphics card.

You got that straight.

We have (ironically) two AiOs which some may argue aren't the best platforms to make into workstations. One starting to £1000+, a 27 incher at £1700+ and a 'Pro' version at £5k plus.

So. iMac. And iMac Pro.

We have the beyond ridiculous £6k Mac Pro.

The mini which is hardly the 'mini' tower version we're really wanting. It's still designed as the 'starter' machine it was intended to be. And that to me is its flaw. They should have doubled it's height and put a gpu in there.

I'm sure many would want a consumer version of the tower. £1500-£3k.

Azrael.

 

[DrRadon]

Wondering with everything going on in the US today if Apple will push off announcements so as to not sound tone deaf.

Depends. If it's not big news, as in just a specs bump, just a different machine in their store and a small trailer, some tech news sites reporting, who will notice? How hard would one have to try to actually make it an issue?
If it's not Apple standing on stage, doing backflips to cheers on how they change the world -> i don't think it's an issue. I don't want to play a political game of "what's worse", but lets just say the year has been pretty bad the last couple of month (including some, at best, incompetent authorities possibly causing more death than necessary) and there have been plenty of specs bumps with the SE 2, essentially also more of a specs bump, being the most newsworthy thing.
I doubt there still will be riots by WWDC. I actually fear more that there might be another massive spike in covid for America after seeing the videos of big protests were people did not follow the 1,5 meter rule to not get infected. It's sort of crazy how the hate for Trump doing bad with covid now turned into people ignoring covid while hating on "Trump and people following him". I wish the world had a little more compassion for e v e r y o n e so * w e * A L L would have less incentive to act stupid in the emotional state of hate and anger, sigh.

Also, if the delayed March release is true, at some point Apple will have to start selling - not just because it is aging hardware sitting in their warehouses but also because next years product releases will be on some sort of a planed timeline as well. (Well, ok, sometimes they upgraded within half a year in the past. Who knows.)
And imagine Apples worst case that this thing already has no Intel gen 10 processor in it because that was not yet presented by Intel at that March Date, but on top of that imagine if Apple actually announced the switch to ARM at WWDC in just 21 days from now. How much more dated could they make their new 1800-3500€ machines feel? There might be a big marketing need to push it out now.
Obviously it also could be better, maybe the delay was due to intel suffering from Covid and thats why we already got the MacMini but the iMac had to wait. We will probably find out in the next couple of weeks, if not days. (still banking on this Wednesday)
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I'm sure many would want a consumer version of the tower. £1500-£3k.

Azrael.

I am down with that. I doubt Apple will do it anytime soon as their business model is working out quite decent for them financially and it sort of always has been the idea of things just being ready to use without having to think about it. Asides the MacPro... did they ever not go All in One? I don't remember, but i think even the old plastic tower was a MacPro, was it not? If not it might be the one exception.

 

[Azrael9]

I am down with that. I doubt Apple will do it anytime soon as their business model is working out quite decent for them financially and it sort of always has been the idea of things just being ready to use without having to think about it. Asides the MacPro... did they ever not go All in One? I don't remember, but i think even the old plastic tower was a MacPro, was it not? If not it might be the one exception.

I hear what you're saying Dr.

To be reasonable. Apple were always, in 'Mac' terms, AiO. The original Mac was. The iMac is just 'Son of Mac.' It's the spiritual inheritor of the AiO mantle. The form isn't a disaster and in many ways it's great. I've had two of them. And they have pushed the iMac on, performance wise with the iMac pro. We're overdue some of those refinements coming to the mainstream iMac and using the supply chain to give the customer a far better deal eg. cooling, more ram, ssd and 8 core with a decent gpu.

I had one 'Mac Tower' (Clone...1997...great machine 604e based. Loved it like no other...that and a copy of Photoshop 4...) They have taken the tower to new heights in G3, G4, G5 Baus haus and the recent uBer Mac Pro which is breath taking in appearance, engineering (and yes, PRICE!)

(We've still got two days for your prediction? I'll be happy if it comes true. Happier if it doesn't as it means 'big design and specs refresh at WWDC2020.)

But no. I won't be holding my breath for consumer eGamer tower. If feels that 'moment in time' was abandoned (along with Job's promises...to make the Mac the best gaming platform out there...) long, long ago with the Blue and White G3 tower.

Azrael.

 

[DrRadon]

(We've still got two days for your prediction? I'll be happy if it comes true. Happier if it doesn't as it means 'big design and specs refresh at WWDC2020.)

Wednesday is my strongest guess. If it just dropped tomorrow or next monday it would still be within my Idea of "two weeks before WWDC". I Think MBP 13inch was also on a Monday, but maybe they only did that to get to the 30 days for this Wednesday, and Apple likes Wednesdays. I probably would stop hopeing for it to drop before WWDC if it dos not drop in the next 48 hours and fall in with people believing in a redesign if it is saved for WWDC. Could you imagine the forum outcry if it actually is saved for WWDC and is not a redesign? Sitting on that machine for three plus month.

But no. I won't be holding my breath for consumer eGamer tower. If feels that 'moment in time' was abandoned (along with Job's promises...to make the Mac the best gaming platform out there...) long, long ago with the Blue and White G3 tower.

Azrael.

🥶

“Underpowered, overpriced, and underutilized--that pretty much describes everything that came out of Apple in the mid-90s.”

PC World

 

[Azrael9]

“Underpowered, overpriced, and underutilized--that pretty much describes everything that came out of Apple in the mid-90s.”

PC World

Some may say that about Apple products now, to a degree, about Mac desktops. Apple seems to have it all on releasing up to date Mac desktops with 'recent' components. We're still waiting on a properly updated Mac Mini, iMac, iMac Pro. (Althought, most Mac owners utilise them...so I wouldn't say under utilised in the Mac's case.) But if Apple aren't offering update to date components then they're underpowered and over priced by virtue of them being out of date.

Ah, the Pippin. I remember thinking it was 'cool' that Apple was getting into the console market. And not hearing much until later when it had been derided as a failure.

Ironic that we now have the ATV in it's place. Almost like the wheels on the bus go round and round...

I remember the Apple II. Though I was a C64 owner and fan of said Legendary machine. That said, the romantic in me would love to see the ATV morph into a casual gaming powerhouse. And with ATV A12X and Apple Arcade...if it grows anything...like...iTunes 'Spotify' then it could be a real dark horse for games.

Azrael.