Tuesday, October 29, 2024

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.

Christina Warren:

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.

Benjamin Mayo:

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.

Juli Clover:

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.

Hartley Charlton:

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.

Scott:

No Target Display Mode… when do we start holding @Apple to account on their PR narratives, in this case e-waste and environmental sustainability?

Hartley Charlton:

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[…]

Dan Moren:

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.

John Gruber:

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:

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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.

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