iMac 2024
Apple (Hacker News, Slashdot):
With M4, iMac is up to 1.7x faster for daily productivity, and up to 2.1x faster for demanding workflows like photo editing and gaming, compared to iMac with M1. With the Neural Engine in M4, iMac is the world’s best all-in-one for AI and is built for Apple Intelligence, the personal intelligence system that transforms how users work, communicate, and express themselves, while protecting their privacy. The new iMac is available in an array of beautiful new colors, and the 24-inch 4.5K Retina display offers a new nano-texture glass option. iMac features a new 12MP Center Stage camera with Desk View, up to four Thunderbolt 4 ports, and color-matched accessories that include USB-C. Starting at just $1,299, now with 16GB of unified memory, the new iMac is available to pre-order today, with availability beginning Friday, November 8.
This seems good as far as it goes, but there are no models with Pro processors or larger displays. It still has a lower RAM ceiling and fewer ports than the Intel-based iMacs. The SD Card slot is back on the MacBook Pros, but not here.
Apple might finally be forced to ship computers with 16GB of RAM as default (2016 called and it’s laughing) but glad to see the dedication to charging truly obscene amounts of money for storage is still alive and well. $600 upcharge for 2TB is a war crime.
My bad — it’s actually worse! The upcharge from 256GB on the base model iMac to 2TB is $800. That’s 2/3 the price of the computer.
Samsung, a top brand, is currently selling external 2 TB SSDs for $150.
now they need to do a studio display update featuring the new iMac’s upgraded camera
I don’t know—the Studio Display’s camera is also described as 12MP. So I wonder whether they actually made the iMac’s camera worse by using better hardware but coupling it with Center Stage.
For the M4 iMac models with 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU, all four of the USB-C ports support Thunderbolt 4 transfer speeds of up to 40Gb/s. The prior-generation M3 iMac with four ports had two Thunderbolt 3 ports and two USB-3 ports.
The 8-core CPU and 8-core GPU models only have two ports, but both of those are Thunderbolt 4.
First introduced with the Pro Display XDR in 2019, nano-texture glass is etched at a nanometer scale, which is meant to preserve image quality while scattering ambient light to cut down on glare. It is the most matte display type that Apple makes, and Apple claims that it is useful for high-end, color-managed workflows or demanding ambient lighting environments.
The 2020 27-inch Intel-based iMac was available with a nano-texture display option prior to its discontinuation, so the new iMac marks the first time that the feature has been available with the Apple silicon version of the device. The new iMac ‘s nano-texture glass is a build-to-order option that costs $200, configurable at the point of purchase.
No Target Display Mode… when do we start holding @Apple to account on their PR narratives, in this case e-waste and environmental sustainability?
The M4 chip debuted in the iPad Pro earlier this year, promising around 20% faster performance than the M3 chip in both single and multi-core tasks. All of the key differences between the two chip generations are listed below[…]
While the colors remain the same—blue, purple, pink, orange, yellow, green, and silver—Apple has tweaked the backs of the computer with more vibrant versions of most of the colors.
The new colors don’t seem all that different from the old ones, except for green, which seems much more just-plain-green green. The old iMac green was more like teal? It also seems like maybe the new colors are a bit less saturated on the back?
Previously:
- Mac mini 2024
- USB-C Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Trackpad
- Apple’s Stale Mac Displays
- iPad Pro (M4, 7th Generation)
- Apple M4
- 8 GB of Unified Memory
- iMac 2023
- Apple Lowers SSD Prices
Update (2024-10-30): Rob Mathers:
It used to be that the egregious SSD prices at least got you better performance. Nowadays they’re well behind the best NVMe speeds and even more out of whack with pricing.
Apple’s third Apple silicon iMac gains the M4 chip alongside a range of other small but notable improvements, so how does the new machine compare to its two predecessors?
One difference: the entry-priced $1,300 2-port model, which has an 8-core CPU (rather than 10-core), ships with a Magic Keyboard that doesn’t have a Touch ID button; all of the 4-port/10-core configurations ship with a Touch-ID–equipped keyboard.
Update (2024-11-08): Joe Rossignol:
Ahead of time, the first reviews of Apple’s latest all-in-one desktop computer have been shared by select media outlets and YouTube channels.
With the M4 iMac, the FaceTime camera has finally been upgraded to Center Stage. And maybe it was worth the wait, because this isn’t the same 12MP sensor as in some previous Center Stage cameras. It’s new and improved—so improved that I could tell the difference the first second that I turned it on.
In a challenging low-light environment, the original Center Stage camera on an Apple Studio Display can look fuzzy, blotchy, and low contrast. The new Center Stage camera on the M4 iMac looks sharper, with more contrast and much more natural-looking skin tones. It’s what Center Stage should’ve looked like all along, and it’s a nice upgrade.
[…]
Using a nano-texture-covered display is a little weird—the reflections just stop at the screen edge, as if by magic. It works incredibly well. And most of the time, in more normal lighting conditions, I didn’t really notice the nano-texture being there. (Yes, if you look closely you will notice a light scatter that can reduce contrast a bit.)
[…]
Apple talks a lot about how it wants to reduce waste and be a better environmental force in the world. Making iMacs with perfectly good displays that can’t ever be repurposed into something else doesn’t seem to fit with that attitude. It’s unfortunate.
Update (2024-11-25): Nathan Edwards (Hacker News):
But otherwise, it’s the same machine as it was in 2023, and it’s substantially the same as it was back in 2021. Don’t get me wrong, I love looking at this thing. I feel calmer and more productive walking into my office and seeing that unbroken expanse of blue instead of the rat’s nest of cables that come out of my regular monitor. There are just vanishingly few situations in which the most important thing about a computer is how it looks from the back, and the iMac asks you to give up too much in exchange.
[…]
The thing about an all-in-one computer is that all of those things have to be worth it. If you have to start plugging in a bunch of stuff to compensate for what’s built in, you might as well get something else.
[…]
But even when I’m using a different keyboard, I have to keep the Magic Keyboard within arm’s reach so I can use TouchID. TouchID is great, and it’s frustrating that Apple put it on the keyboard instead of the power button, and it’s doubly frustrating that you have to upgrade from the base model to get it.
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>Samsung, a top brand, is currently selling external 2 TB SSDs for $150.
And that $150 isn't just for the NAND but also for a decent controller chip, enclosure, USB conversion chip, and presumably a cable too.
The SSD controller on Macs is built into the SoC, so Apple's $800 upcharge is just for the NAND.
So what do people do? Spend the extra $800 or Velcro a data drive to the back of their new Mac, taking up the fastest port?
@remmah
Yessss!!!! And let's say a faster internal version is even $250 for a better tier of drive, that's still for the nand, RAM (remember everyone, many of the these faster drives have DRAM), controller, and even a heat sink. I still contend there's a lot of options between $150 and $200 for internal drives of course, and even some in the $300+ range occasionally, but the beauty of upgradability is the consumer has choice. You can get 4TB drives for less than $350 depending on make and model.
Apple doesn't integrate for reliability, it's to lower the cost of manufacturing and gouge on upgrades. it's all about profit margins. So frustrating.
@Sander van Dragt
A stationary system with an external drive doesn't seem so bad, just make sure the base drive size can fit all your software.
Using external storage wouldn’t be an issue… IF it worked reliably. But anyone following along with macOS development over the past few years knows the horror stories of random disconnects of external storage that has plagued macOS, bugs that Apple has simply just not been able to squash. Using external storage for transport seems to be a thing, but even there the reviews of storage enclosures paint a picture of repeated, random disconnects as par for the course. And that’s just when users are mounting a drive, copying a bunch of data, and unmounting/disconnecting. Attempting to use external storage as “online” storage, vs near-line, has to be an aggravating experience.
Personally, I just spent half an hour Tuesday on Amazon and then OWC’s site, chatting with a rep, trying to figure out what m.2 NVMe enclosure I could buy NOW that would maximize performance/value for my current Thunderbolt 3 Macs while being future-proofed for Tb5. It was fruitless. Clearly the message was: buy the storage you want—not merely what you NEED—from Apple upfront. Pay the ‘tax’. And clearly Apple knows that’s the reality, and is capitalizing on it. Like mobsters.
@Scott Yes, external storage is far more troublesome these days. Ports are already limited, and of course it’s not a good options for a portable Mac.
It's worth pointing out for posterity that a high-performing internal SSD — from a company that often supplies Apple with RAM and NAND — is currently available in 2TB form for $135. "Read speeds up to 7,000 MB/s and write speeds of up to 6,500 MB/s". 5-year warranty. I got one myself earlier this year for a gaming PC and can confirm it's very fast.
