Wow disappointing!

[hans1972]

Can't remember the last Mac I've disliked more.

1. White bezels are trash. Especially on a desktop.

2. Chin looks especially big with no logo.

3. A power brick!?!?

4. Power brick has no ethernet port on the base model nor on the machine.

5. 8 GB is standard and not future-proof.

6. Headphone jack on the side of the machine. Will look terrible with speakers plug into it.

7. No USB-A ports on the base model.

4. You can upgrade to the power brick with Ethernet for $30

5. You can buy with 16Gb RAM

6. It has built-in speakers.

7. USB-C is the future

It is an all-in-one which means everything is included. You aren't supposed to attach all kinds of stuff to it. Get a normal PC desktop.

 

[nquinn]

The M1 is a great chip, but it's a great chip for mobile/laptop type devices that have power constraints.

iMacs should be getting more powerful variants of everything otherwise they are mostly just wasting space and cooling potential.

 

[Slartibart]

The M1 is a great chip, but it's a great chip for mobile/laptop type devices that have power constraints.

iMacs should be getting more powerful variants of everything otherwise they are mostly just wasting space and cooling potential.

If only Apple would consider to differentiate between the regular and the pro user somehow... 😂🤣🤪🥸

 

[hans1972]

To introduce an iMac in 2021 with almost half of the amount of storage of an entry level iMac TWELVE years older is scandalous.

They've been perniciously slimming down storage on Macs for last 5 or 6 years - particularly on laptops, but there's no excuse for doing that on a desktop.

The Mac OS itself takes about 35GB and you'll lose 10GB or so just for formatting the SSD, so basically from starting you'll have just 200GB of storage on the baseline iMac for additional apps and files.

Apple should be absolutely shamed for this - 8GB RAM and 256GB storage...on a desktop computer in 2021.

For regular users the need for storage has in fact gone down the last decade:

• No/very little local music, they stream from Apple Music or Spotify
• No local movies, they stream from Youtube, Netflix, Apple TV and others
• A subset of photos and videos stored locally, they use iCloud Photo Library
• A subset of documents and files stored locally, they use iCloud Drive

For those who need more, you can get the 2Tb option.

 

[hans1972]

8Gb ram these days is a joke. My 6 yer old Lenovo Yoga3 has that. Fine in 2015. NOT in 2021!

You know you can get 16Gb of RAM?

 

[hans1972]

Minimum requirement for Big Sur is 4GB RAM - that's just for the OS.

That leaves 4GB RAM free for running Apps.

It doesn't matter whether you're just a consumer or not, it's not enough.

I'm sitting here typing this response with nothing but Safari, iTunes and Activity Monitor open and am using 11GB of RAM (see attached). So all that will happen is the new iMacs will use the SSD as a swap file much more often, which will reduce the life of the SSD too. Not great in a machine where the SSD isn't replaceable.

No, Big Sur doesn't need 4Gb alone. That is the minimum requirement for having a useful Mac with Big Sur.

Also, the reason your Mac is using 11Gb of RAM is because you have 24Gb. macOS will go to extraordinary lengths to use as much RAM as possible within physical RAM. Unused RAM is a waste. If you had only 8Gb of RAM it would have used less.

You have to look at the memory pressure to see if you to little memory.

Yes, the 8Gb versions will use SSD aggressively for swap. So will the 16Gb version. By design. The lifetime of modern SSDs are so long that it doesn't matter.

 

[hans1972]

Also, what the hell were they thinking when they say you max out at 564 Gigs of storage and 8 Gigs of RAM. You can get an iPad Pro with 2TBs of storage. This makes no sense. My 2011 27 inch iMac just died and it had a 2TB SSD and a 3 TB SATA drive soI was so hoping they would come out with the larger display M1 iMac with 8 TBs and who knows how much RAM because it's been 10 years since I purchased my iMac.

You can get 16Gb of RAM and 2 Tb of storage.

 

[hans1972]

The M1 is a great chip, but it's a great chip for mobile/laptop type devices that have power constraints.

iMacs should be getting more powerful variants of everything otherwise they are mostly just wasting space and cooling potential.

Whatever happened to a computer having the performance you need?

Why would you care if your desktop computer had worse performance than and old iPhone if the performance is good enough?

 

[nquinn]

For regular users the need for storage has in fact gone down the last decade:

• No/very little local music, they stream from Apple Music or Spotify
• No local movies, they stream from Youtube, Netflix, Apple TV and others
• A subset of photos and videos stored locally, they use iCloud Photo Library
• A subset of documents and files stored locally, they use iCloud Drive

For those who need more, you can get the 2Tb option.

I have to disagree just because of photos and videos alone. Even my mom who is nearly 70 now is constantly running low on space because she takes tons of photos (which btw are bigger now because of higher MP cameras) and videos of her grandkids and travel.

Yes, music and movie files have reduced, but local storage for photos & videos if you want to trust more than just iCloud or Google Photos (cloud) is going up.

Just think about everytime someone you know hits the max on their iPhone of 64gb or 128gb. If that happens once a year you're already at 640gb for 5 years of photos, not even including ALL past photos.

It's annoying to have to keep older photos on separate storage (external USB HD or NAS)

 

[JMacHack]

I have to disagree just because of photos and videos alone. Even my mom who is nearly 70 now is constantly running low on space because she takes tons of photos (which btw are bigger now because of higher MP cameras) and videos of her grandkids and travel.

Yes, music and movie files have reduced, but local storage for photos & videos if you want to trust more than just iCloud or Google Photos (cloud) is going up.

Just think about everytime someone you know hits the max on their iPhone of 64gb or 128gb. If that happens once a year you're already at 640gb for 5 years of photos, not even including ALL past photos.

It's annoying to have to keep older photos on separate storage (external USB HD or NAS)

The least Apple could do is upgrade the amount of iCloud storage

 

[hans1972]

Yes, music and movie files have reduced, but local storage for photos & videos if you want to trust more than just iCloud or Google Photos (cloud) is going up.

Just think about everytime someone you know hits the max on their iPhone of 64gb or 128gb. If that happens once a year you're already at 640gb for 5 years of photos, not even including ALL past photos.

Most regular people are trusting cloud services. That's why the need for storage has gone down. If you don't trust or use cloud services, you will become more and more dissatisfied with Apple products and services in the future.

My Photo Library is 123 Gb in size and I have a 64Gb iPhone. And yet I can access to every photo and video.

My entire iCloud Drive is about 402 Gb. My MacBook Air has a 256 Gb SSD and I have 63 Gb of free space. And yet, I can access every file.

 

[fivenotrump]

The least Apple could do is upgrade the amount of iCloud storage

2TB not enough?

 

[MrTSolar]

And the iMacs have a heating problem. My 2019 i9 iMac fans get SO LOUD even doing small tasks. The i9 is very hot, and it shows the cooling system on the iMac is not up to the task on these ultra high end processors. And part of that is the heat from the screen itself being RIGHT UP against the components.

I actually HATE my iMac JUST because of the fan noise.

So do the fans in my 2020 MacBook Air and 2012 Mac mini, where an LCD is nowhere near the mainboard. My mini when I first got it actually burned my wrist while doing the migration from my 2015 MacBook because the entire enclosure was hot from the fan not ramping up. Apple waits far too long before starting the fan and ramping it up, resulting in a sudden “I’m overheating and need full cooling” situation that could easily be avoided with a tweaked fan RPM profile. The other part of the problem is that the fan and heat sink are undersized, or in the MacBook Airs, has a lousy thermal connection to the CPU.

The M1 chip should help as ARM architecture is more energy efficient than x86, plus the chip has a lower TDP with similar performance of the higher-end i-series Intel chips. But still, Apple needs to have that fan running if the processor is above base frequency, and start revving it up at 120 F instead of 170 F. Don’t wait until the heat sink is saturated before blowing cool air across it. The goal of the fan is to keep the heatsink from getting saturated in the first place. Once it does, all you have is passive cooling. My Mom’s 2017 i5 iMac actually does the best job at staying cool and quiet since it moves the most air of any Mac we have.

Bottom line, IMO, if your workload requires an i9, you better be ready to have a jet engine sitting on your desk until Apple gets cooling right.

 

[MrTSolar]

For regular users the need for storage has in fact gone down the last decade:

• No/very little local music, they stream from Apple Music or Spotify
• No local movies, they stream from Youtube, Netflix, Apple TV and others
• A subset of photos and videos stored locally, they use iCloud Photo Library
• A subset of documents and files stored locally, they use iCloud Drive

For those who need more, you can get the 2Tb option.

My Mac serves as my local copy of iCloud. All of my music, photos, and documents are stored on the Mac and synced with iCloud, but the iPad and iPhone have selective sync with full music libraries offline. Even still, my iPad is using more storage than my first laptop had in 2006.

Not to mention, the average song went from 2.5-3.5 MB to 5-7 MB, video has increased 3-4x in size, photos in JPG or PNG format have gone from 1-2 MB to 5 MB, and software has just gone stupid big. People have chosen to stream because paying for data is cheaper than upping the storage in their Apple products since we can’t, you know, toss in a 2 TB drive for $150.

 

[JMacHack]

2TB not enough?

I meant free, my bad

 

[nquinn]

Most regular people are trusting cloud services. That's why the need for storage has gone down. If you don't trust or use cloud services, you will become more and more dissatisfied with Apple products and services in the future.

My Photo Library is 123 Gb in size and I have a 64Gb iPhone. And yet I can access to every photo and video.

My entire iCloud Drive is about 402 Gb. My MacBook Air has a 256 Gb SSD and I have 63 Gb of free space. And yet, I can access every file.

At this point though, you are using 'optimize storage', which means some of the files are located only in one place on the cloud.

If that file is deleted/overwritten/etc, there is no backup. iCloud is a syncing solution, not a true backup solution. (And yes, I do understand that Apple will have redundancy there, but it doesn't change the fact that this is a sync and not backup solution).

 

[Stridr69]

You know you can get 16Gb of RAM?

Yes, it's called the Apple tax.

 

[hans1972]

Even still, my iPad is using more storage than my first laptop had in 2006.

15 years ago, extremely few people used streaming services. Not very many existed either.

My history of storage on MacBooks:

2010: 11" MacBook Air, 128 Gb
2012: 13" MacBook Pro Retina, 256 Gb
2015: 12" Macbook, 256 Gb
2018: 13" MacBook Air retina, 256 Gb
2021/22: New M1 MacBook Air, 256 Gb

I could get by with 128Gb if I didn't need to run virtual machines. 128Gb is just too tight and would require much more administration of storage. With 256 Gb I can run virtual machines, have 30 000 photos and 1000 videos, 200 songs and my documents with 63Gb free space.

People have chosen to stream because paying for data is cheaper than upping the storage in their Apple products since we can’t, you know, toss in a 2 TB drive for $150.

People choose streaming services because they are more convenient and for most usage patterns much less expensive.

No regular consumer are thinking of their storage needs when they decide to subscribe to Netflix or Spotify.

 

[hans1972]

At this point though, you are using 'optimize storage', which means some of the files are located only in one place on the cloud.

If that file is deleted/overwritten/etc, there is no backup. iCloud is a syncing solution, not a true backup solution. (And yes, I do understand that Apple will have redundancy there, but it doesn't change the fact that this is a sync and not backup solution).

Optimised storage is a great feature. It allows you to outsource your storage needs. Managing storage is cumbersome to most people. The beauty of cloud services allows you to have access to everything on a variety of computers.

Syncing is not backup, but you can recover deleted files for 30 days on iCloud. If you use Dropbox you can even recover versions.

Your backup strategy shouldn't be dependent on having lots of local storage in your home computer.

 

[nquinn]

Optimised storage is a great feature. It allows you to outsource your storage needs. Managing storage is cumbersome to most people. The beauty of cloud services allows you to have access to everything on a variety of computers.

Syncing is not backup, but you can recover deleted files for 30 days on iCloud. If you use Dropbox you can even recover versions.

Your backup strategy shouldn't be dependent on having lots of local storage in your home computer.

I understand what you're saying, but I'll still disagree.

1. 30 days recovery is not the same as having a true duplicated backup system.
2. Substituting a $10/month 2tb plan (since the next step down is 200gb) for cheap local storage is WAY more expensive. We're talking $120 a year, over say a 5 year device life = $600 of storage. A terabyte SSD is like $100 now in non-Apple machines which is 6x cheaper and enough for most. Apples to apples would be a 2tb SSD at $200ish. (3x cheaper)
3. Say I want to stop using iCloud. Where do I pull all of those files off to? I wouldn't have enough local storage to do so.

I'd be a lot happier if iCloud pricing went down or if they offered a better mid-sized 1tb tier, and they offered recovery for 3-6 months.

 

[JazzyGB1]

Hans1972 You're missing the point.
This is a desktop computer.
It's not a Macbook or MacBook Air where you could argue its only being used for internet on the go - for many users it's the main household computer.
Shipping it with just 256GB of storage is taking the piss. Requirements for storage haven't changed since 2019 and every entry level model of iMac up until then shipped with a base of 1TB storage, as it did in 2017, 2015 & 2014 too. It wasn't until 2020 when Apple changed from a spinning drive to SSD that all of a sudden 256GB was 'enough'.
Not being able to backup my iPhone to an entry level desktop Mac is ridiculous.
It's a cynical move by Apple to force people to upgrade their storage either in the cloud or at the checkout, both of which completely alter the price point of the 'entry level' iMac.
It's got nothing to do with changing demands and everything to do with money.
It's particularly unethical since there is no way for the end user to add more RAM or internal storage in future, so for a company supposedly proud of its environmental ethos, it's contributing to disposable culture by effectively building in obsolescence into a product that needn't have it by preventing the parts most likely to fail or be in need of upgrading from being replaceable.
It's shameful conduct IMO, as is trying to defend it.

 

[nquinn]

Hans1972 You're missing the point.
This is a desktop computer.
It's not a Macbook or MacBook Air where you could argue its only being used for internet on the go - for many users it's the main household computer.
Shipping it with just 256GB of storage is taking the piss. Requirements for storage haven't changed since 2019 and every entry level model of iMac up until then shipped with a minimum of 1TB storage, as it did in 2017, 2015 & 2014 too. It wasn't until 2020 when Apple changed from a spinning drive to SSD that all of a sudden 256GB was 'enough'.
Not being able to backup my iPhone to an entry level desktop Mac is ridiculous.
It's a cynical move by Apple to force people to upgrade their storage either in the cloud or at the checkout, both of which completely alter the price point of the 'entry level' iMac.
It's got nothing to do with changing demands and everything to do with money.
It's particularly unethical since there is no way for the end user to add more RAM or internal storage in future, so for a company supposedly proud of its environmental ethos, it's contributing to disposable culture by effectively building in obsolescence into a product that needn't have it and preventing the parts most likely to fail or be in need of upgrading from being replaceable.
It's shameful conduct IMO, as is trying to defend it.

I'm glad there are still some sane people here.

 

[mj_]

1. 30 days recovery is not the same as having a true duplicated backup system.

Most people don't have any backup system at all. And while I agree with you that cloud storage isn't a true backup 30 days of recovery still beat total loss of all data due to hardware failure and lack of a backup strategy. Plus, in most recovery cases I've seen in my life the data was lost less than 7 days ago so 30 days of recovery should be able to cover a huge majority of all cases.

Seriously, I'm flabbergasted at how many people don't spend even an infinitesimally tiny fraction of a single thought on how to backup their important and precious data. I've lost count of how often I had to tell people that unless they were willing to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a professional data recovery service their precious childhood memories / important business documents / tax documents for the past 10 years are lost for good. This week alone I've had to consult and comfort two people, one who'd locked herself out of her iPhone, decided to reset it without a backup in place, and was now wondering how to restore the photos she took of her children since 2009 and one whose SSD had failed shortly before he was about to finish and print a massive several hundred pages long grant proposal. And it's only Wednesday...

 

[nquinn]

Most people don't have any backup system at all.

That still doesn't mean that a sync solution is a backup replacement. Better than nothing? Yes. But not the argument we are having here.

 

[hans1972]

This whole discussion started with this statement from me: "For regular users the need for storage has in fact gone down the last decade".

You seem to point to examples of use which isn't very common for what I would call 'regular users' any more.

This is a desktop computer.
It's not a Macbook or MacBook Air where you could argue its only being used for internet on the go - for many users it's the main household computer.

I don't subscribe to the idea that a main household computer (or any desktop computer) should "contain all the data of a household". I grew up with PCs when they had no local storage at all.

Also you seem to do a form of computing which isn't very common for regular users anymore and which Apple has abandoned: A (desktop) Mac is a mothership which contains all data. Other devices (iPhones, iPad) connects to the mothership for backup and synchronization of data.

Shipping it with just 256GB of storage is taking the piss. Requirements for storage haven't changed since 2019 and every entry level model of iMac up until then shipped with a base of 1TB storage, as it did in 2017, 2015 & 2014 too. It wasn't until 2020 when Apple changed from a spinning drive to SSD that all of a sudden 256GB was 'enough'.
Not being able to backup my iPhone to an entry level desktop Mac is ridiculous.
It's a cynical move by Apple to force people to upgrade their storage either in the cloud or at the checkout, both of which completely alter the price point of the 'entry level' iMac.
It's got nothing to do with changing demands and everything to do with money.

My argument is that most regular users wouldn't have needed 1Tb of storage in 2019 either.

Most regular users don't connect their iPhone to their Mac to create an backup. They either use iCloud or don't backup at all.

Here's why so many regular user's have less need for local storage than before:

* No storage of movies or TV-series (replaced by streaming services)
* No storage of local music library (replaced by streaming services)
* No backup of iOS devices (they never did it or replaced by iCloud backup)
* They don't do Mac backups by themselves so they don't have a need to have everything local to make a Time Machine backup
* They don't care if data is stored locally or on in the cloud, mostly convenience and price determines what they prefer

It's causing a problem for you because you haven't changed the way you are using a desktop computer and you aren't willing to solve the problem by spending more money.

The main reason why Apple isn't providing a 1TB SSD as default, is because it is much more expensive than a 1Tb HDD.