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Would you go thicker?

koulmj

koulmj

Suspended
Original poster
Mar 18, 2013
376
471
Would you buy a thicker iMac if it meant easier access to hard drives, ram, and gpu's were upgradable?

I feel like the only way to make mac's gamer friendly is to adopt them to pc friend video cards. Which means a thicker chasis. I remember installing gpu's in old G5 towers...do they even make pci-x mac compatible cards?
 
Apple doesn't care about gamers. They care about the experience of their majority and that is multimedia professionals and businesses, plus the everyday facebooker/youtuber/microsoft word user.

It will always be form over power.
 
patrickdunn said:
Apple doesn't care about gamers. They care about the experience of their majority and that is multimedia professionals and businesses, plus the everyday facebooker/youtuber/microsoft word user.

It will always be form over power.
Click to expand...

I see that u doubt apple will do it, but will u buy it?
 
Yes. Within reason, I would. Not for gaming (that's not of particular interest for me), but simply for the ability to easily replace or upgrade components. That is the one thing I really miss from my prior PC tower.
 
But it looks so nice on my desk, you can't even see the back of it :D

I'm a big fan of upgradeability however, so I probably would if it has up-to-date specs and a retina display. It's always nice to have a machine you can upgrade to keep more current, fix if something fails, or even turn into a project one day. I can't imagine being able to add GPUs like in a tower though, and I'm not a heavy gamer so I don't care anyway.
 
I would. Especially if they would go back to the mid-2010 iMac design. Slightly chunky but still slim and more than enough room to allow for upgrades by today's standards.
 
I've often wondered why Apple doesn't make it like the 20th Anniversary Mac. with a spare or optional "humpback." I'm not a gamer, but I would like more access and the ability to add cards, but Apple wants that to be a top-price option only. They could lose me if Hackintoshes ever become more reliable. To answer your question, though; yes, I would buy. I don't care about the thickness or sleekness of the iMacs, but it did matter to me when I bought my MBA. But then, I don't move the iMac around, or have to have it flat against the wall, and its a tool for me, not a decoration.
 
The thinness of the iMac is not a concern big concern for me. It is a desktop computer that gets moved once when I hook it up and that is about it. If I had to make a list of priorities or features that were important to me in a desktop then thickness would be at the very bottom of the list.

I do think it looks nice being slim and sleek, but I would give that up if it meant I could upgrade hardware. I'm not a power user and last year's tech is usually good enough for me so my PCs were upgraded every couple years with the previous year's top of the line for very little cost. I would love the ability to do this with an iMac.
 
I think the vast majority wouldn't care if it was a few inches thicker if it meant that things like graphics cards and hard drives were a lot easier to replace.

That said its the opposite way to the direction Apple are heading... you only have to look at the mac pro as an example or even the percentage of new mac's where RAM is soldered rather than replaceable.
 
neil1980 said:
I think the vast majority wouldn't care if it was a few inches thicker if it meant that things like graphics cards and hard drives were a lot easier to replace.

That said its the opposite way to the direction Apple are heading... you only have to look at the mac pro as an example or even the percentage of new mac's where RAM is soldered rather than replaceable.
Click to expand...

I would not get any desktop computer with soldered RAM. That is just stupid and unnecessary in a desktop.

Also I wish they'd socket the GPU in the iMacs. That would open up the possibility of GPU upgrades/easy replacements.
 
Without a doubt. A removable rear panel wouldn't even need to make it thicker.

The reason there is no such panel (other than for ram) is that Apple don't want you upgrading. It's nothing to do with aesthetics imho. (a) no-one is looking around the back anyway and (b) you could have a removeable stand and removeable rear panel quite easily without any detrimental effect (or at worst, very very minor effect).

It's all about Apple wanting you to buy another one and not upgrade what you've got. Same reason there's no micro sd card slot on an iPad. There's a sim card slot on the 4g versions, and a microsd slot would be no more obtrusive. It's not there for a reason.
 
Chippy99 said:
Without a doubt. A removable rear panel wouldn't even need to make it thicker.

The reason there is no such panel (other than for ram) is that Apple don't want you upgrading. It's nothing to do with aesthetics imho. (a) no-one is looking around the back anyway and (b) you could have a removeable stand and removeable rear panel quite easily without any detrimental effect (or at worst, very very minor effect).

It's all about Apple wanting you to buy another one and not upgrade what you've got. Same reason there's no micro sd card slot on an iPad. There's a sim card slot on the 4g versions, and a microsd slot would be no more obtrusive. It's not there for a reason.
Click to expand...

I feel like just making a PCi-x card slot and allowing access to RAM and HD would eliminate my two gripes about this $1600 Mac that I otherwise love.
:)
 
koulmj said:
I feel like just making a PCi-x card slot and allowing access to RAM and HD would eliminate my two gripes about this $1600 Mac that I otherwise love.
:)
Click to expand...

Yes, but then you'd upgrade it and not buy another one ;-)

I wish my iMac was upgradeable too. I won't be buying another one myself. Once my 2012 is no longer up to it, I'll be buying a Mac Pro and a decent monitor. Or god forbid, an HP Z1, if I can get my head around going back to Microsoft. <shudders>
 
redheeler said:
I would not get any desktop computer with soldered RAM. That is just stupid and unnecessary in a desktop.
Click to expand...

Agreed (and would further that by saying unnecessary in a laptop too), though currently that's the situation with Mac Mini and 21.5" iMac
 
neil1980 said:
Agreed (and would further that by saying unnecessary in a laptop too), though currently that's the situation with Mac Mini and 21.5" iMac
Click to expand...

I need a Mac Medium, something in-between the MacMini and the 21.in iMac's...
 
koulmj said:
I need a Mac Medium, something in-between the MacMini and the 21.in iMac's...
Click to expand...

I think there would be a huge market for a consumer version of the Mac Pro. With Intel Core processors instead of Xeons, non-ECC ram and consumer graphics cards rather than pro workstation cards.

The chassis is surely not that expensive and with some consumer parts in it, you'd have a small, quiet, upgradeable machine. It would be brilliant.
 
Chippy99 said:
It's all about Apple wanting you to buy another one and not upgrade what you've got. Same reason there's no micro sd card slot on an iPad. There's a sim card slot on the 4g versions, and a microsd slot would be no more obtrusive. It's not there for a reason.
Click to expand...

Yep. They make a ridiculous amount of money on those upgrades.
That's an area where I really can't support Apple. Having to buy a new device just because you need more memory is just insane. And they call themselves environmentally friendly?

I'm surprised but thankful that they at least kept the RAM user upgradable on the iMac 27. I wonder how long that will last though?

The previous iMacs were really easy to service and upgrade. I would be ok if it was kept at that level.
 
Chippy99 said:
Without a doubt. A removable rear panel wouldn't even need to make it thicker.

The reason there is no such panel (other than for ram) is that Apple don't want you upgrading. It's nothing to do with aesthetics imho. (a) no-one is looking around the back anyway and (b) you could have a removeable stand and removeable rear panel quite easily without any detrimental effect (or at worst, very very minor effect).

It's all about Apple wanting you to buy another one and not upgrade what you've got. Same reason there's no micro sd card slot on an iPad. There's a sim card slot on the 4g versions, and a microsd slot would be no more obtrusive. It's not there for a reason.
Click to expand...

It's not even that - Apple knows that the vast majority of their customers never upgrade their machines, so they are simply making products that the majority of their customers want. Like it or not, people who upgrade their computers are a niche audience that Apple are not concerned about (I'm one of them). It is the same market research that led to non-removable batteries in the iPhone - Apple knows that the number of people who replaced the battery in their phone was a vanishingly tiny percentage and removing the ability to do it created a product with more benefits than downsides.

The same is true for the iMac. Assuming that you are in the majority of Apple's base, the benefits of the iMac outweigh the negatives that are created by removing the upgrade path, because it's simply not even on the radar of many people.

I would love for the iMac to be easier to upgrade - especially with a couple of extra internal SATA ports, a PCI-e GPU and a panel on the back that gave access to more than just the RAM, but I know that I am not the target audience and I've weighed up the other benefits of the iMac that still make it the best choice for me.

I'm not sure we'll ever see a "headless iMac" - the product that the niche Apple users who want to be able to upgrade have been asking for for nearly a decade or more now. If it hasn't appeared in that time, I think we can be sure Apple is not going to make one.
 
joe-h2o said:
I'm not sure we'll ever see a "headless iMac" - the product that the niche Apple users who want to be able to upgrade have been asking for for nearly a decade or more now. If it hasn't appeared in that time, I think we can be sure Apple is not going to make one.
Click to expand...

I quite agree about that. But not sure about the rest of your post. Sure in part I am sure what you say is a factor, but I think it's also about encouraging a regular replacement cycle. The fact is when your device is looking old, they want you to replace it with another one, so there's no incentive at all to make it upgradeable, whether or not there's a market for such.
 
RoastingPig said:
if the imac was user upgradeable how would apple ever sell you a new computer every year?
Click to expand...

This now applies to every model they make that costs less than $2k, the ones above that only get user-serviceable RAM slots - not much else.

I sometimes feel like Apple is laughing at us.
 
Chippy99 said:
Without a doubt. A removable rear panel wouldn't even need to make it thicker.

The reason there is no such panel (other than for ram) is that Apple don't want you upgrading. It's nothing to do with aesthetics imho. (a) no-one is looking around the back anyway and (b) you could have a removeable stand and removeable rear panel quite easily without any detrimental effect (or at worst, very very minor effect).

It's all about Apple wanting you to buy another one and not upgrade what you've got. Same reason there's no micro sd card slot on an iPad. There's a sim card slot on the 4g versions, and a microsd slot would be no more obtrusive. It's not there for a reason.
Click to expand...

But this would go against the Unibody design. The RAM access door is about the biggest Apple would allow it to get, the rest of the body is one solid piece of aluminum.
Yes, preventing users from accessing the inside the machine is another reason they don't do it, as well as the challenge of designing such a panel to operate without screws (because they wouldn't use those things of yesteryear).
Edit: I forgot to mention that the rMBPs do have a similar panel by necessity, held in by screws. So it is doabe for sure.
 
Last edited:
redheeler said:
But this would go against the Unibody design. The RAM access door is about the biggest Apple would allow it to get, the rest of the body is one solid piece of aluminum.
Yes, preventing users from accessing the inside the machine is another reason they don't do it, as well as the challenge of designing such a panel to operate without screws (because they wouldn't use those things of yesteryear).
Edit: I forgot to mention that the rMBPs do have a similar panel by necessity, held in by screws. So it is doabe for sure.
Click to expand...

Yup, it's easily doable. Apple simply don't want to. Spoiling the aesthetics is a lame excuse (not that I have ever heard Apple use this excuse).
 
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