{"id":45554,"date":"2024-10-29T13:28:41","date_gmt":"2024-10-29T17:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=45554"},"modified":"2024-11-25T14:53:56","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T19:53:56","slug":"imac-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/10\/29\/imac-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"iMac 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.apple.com\/newsroom\/2024\/10\/apple-introduces-new-imac-supercharged-by-m4-and-apple-intelligence\/\">Apple<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=41971726\">Hacker News<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/apple.slashdot.org\/story\/24\/10\/28\/169206\/apple-updates-the-imac-with-m4-chip\">Slashdot<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.apple.com\/newsroom\/2024\/10\/apple-introduces-new-imac-supercharged-by-m4-and-apple-intelligence\/\">\n<p>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&rsquo;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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/film_girl\/status\/1850924018918203804\">Christina<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/film_girl\/status\/1850925240479834125\">Warren<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/x.com\/film_girl\/status\/1850924018918203804\">\n<p>Apple might finally be forced to ship computers with 16GB of RAM as default (2016 called and it&rsquo;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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/x.com\/film_girl\/status\/1850925240479834125\">\n<p>My bad &mdash; it&rsquo;s actually worse! The upcharge from 256GB on the base model iMac to 2TB is $800. That&rsquo;s 2\/3 the price of the computer.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Samsung, a top brand, is currently selling external 2 TB SSDs for $150.<\/p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/bzamayo\/status\/1850917468455227718\">Benjamin Mayo<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/x.com\/bzamayo\/status\/1850917468455227718\">\n<p>now they need to do a studio display update featuring the new iMac&rsquo;s upgraded camera<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I don&rsquo;t know&mdash;the Studio Display&rsquo;s camera is also described as 12MP. So I wonder whether they actually made the iMac&rsquo;s camera worse by using better hardware but coupling it with Center Stage.<\/p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2024\/10\/28\/imac-thunderbolt-4-ports\/\">Juli Clover<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2024\/10\/28\/imac-thunderbolt-4-ports\/\">\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The 8-core CPU and 8-core GPU models only have two ports, but both of those are Thunderbolt 4.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2024\/10\/28\/nano-texture-display-returns-to-imac\/\">Hartley Charlton<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2024\/10\/28\/nano-texture-display-returns-to-imac\/\"><p>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.<\/p><p>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 &lsquo;s nano-texture glass is a build-to-order option that costs $200, configurable at the point of purchase.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ScooterComputer\/status\/1851031467112927701\">Scott<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ScooterComputer\/status\/1851031467112927701\">\n<p>No Target Display Mode&#8230; when do we start holding \n@Apple\n to account on their PR narratives, in this case e-waste and environmental sustainability?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/guide\/m3-vs-m4\/\">Hartley Charlton<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/guide\/m3-vs-m4\/\">\n<p>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[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sixcolors.com\/post\/2024\/10\/apple-introduces-m4-imac-with-revamped-colors-nano-texture-display-option\/\">Dan Moren<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/sixcolors.com\/post\/2024\/10\/apple-introduces-m4-imac-with-revamped-colors-nano-texture-display-option\/\">\n<p>While the colors remain the same&mdash;blue, purple, pink, orange, yellow, green, and silver&mdash;Apple has tweaked the backs of the computer with more vibrant versions of most of the colors.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2024\/10\/28\/m4-imacs-introduced\">John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2024\/10\/28\/m4-imacs-introduced\">\n<p>The new colors don&rsquo;t seem all that different from the old ones, except for green, which seems much more <em>just-plain-green<\/em> 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?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/10\/29\/mac-mini-2024\/\">Mac mini 2024<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/10\/29\/usb-c-magic-mouse-magic-keyboard-and-magic-trackpad\/\">USB-C Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Trackpad<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/10\/15\/apples-stale-mac-displays\/\">Apple&rsquo;s Stale Mac Displays<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/07\/ipad-pro-7th-generation\/\">iPad Pro (M4, 7th Generation)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/07\/apple-m4\/\">Apple M4<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/11\/10\/8-gb-of-unified-memory\/\">8 GB of Unified Memory<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/31\/imac-2023\/\">iMac 2023<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/09\/apple-lowers-ssd-prices\/\">Apple Lowers SSD Prices<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"imac-2024-10-30\">Update (2024-10-30): <a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@robmathers\/113392678812070059\">Rob Mathers<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@robmathers\/113392678812070059\">\n<p>It used to be that the egregious SSD prices at least got you better performance. Nowadays they&rsquo;re well behind the best NVMe speeds and even more out of whack with pricing.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/guide\/m1-vs-m3-vs-m4-imac\/\">Hartley Charlton<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/guide\/m1-vs-m3-vs-m4-imac\/\"><p>Apple&rsquo;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?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2024\/10\/29\/m1-m3-m4-imac-comparison-buyers-guide\">John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2024\/10\/29\/m1-m3-m4-imac-comparison-buyers-guide\">\n<p>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&rsquo;t have a Touch ID button; all of the 4-port\/10-core configurations ship with a Touch-ID&#x2013;equipped keyboard.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"imac-2024-update-2024-11-08\">Update (2024-11-08): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/review\/m4-imac\/\">Joe Rossignol<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/review\/m4-imac\/\"><p>Ahead of time, the first reviews of Apple&rsquo;s latest all-in-one desktop computer have been shared by select media outlets and YouTube channels.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sixcolors.com\/post\/2024\/11\/m4-imac-review-gloriously-niche\/\">Jason Snell<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/sixcolors.com\/post\/2024\/11\/m4-imac-review-gloriously-niche\/\">\n<p>With the M4 iMac, the FaceTime camera has finally been upgraded to Center Stage. And maybe it was worth the wait, because this <em>isn&rsquo;t<\/em> the same 12MP sensor as in some previous Center Stage cameras. It&rsquo;s new and improved&mdash;so improved that I could tell the difference the first second that I turned it on.<\/p>\n<p>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&rsquo;s what Center Stage should&rsquo;ve looked like all along, and it&rsquo;s a nice upgrade.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Using a nano-texture-covered display is a little weird&mdash;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&rsquo;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.)<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>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&rsquo;t ever be repurposed into something else doesn&rsquo;t seem to fit with that attitude. It&rsquo;s unfortunate.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"imac-2024-update-2024-11-25\">Update (2024-11-25): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/24303351\/apple-imac-m4-review-expensive-beautiful-niche\">Nathan Edwards<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=42234237\">Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/24303351\/apple-imac-m4-review-expensive-beautiful-niche\">\n<p>But otherwise, it&rsquo;s the same machine as it was in 2023, and it&rsquo;s substantially the same as it was back in 2021. Don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>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&rsquo;s built in, you might as well get something else.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>But even when I&rsquo;m using a different keyboard, I have to keep the Magic Keyboard within arm&rsquo;s reach so I can use TouchID. TouchID is great, and it&rsquo;s frustrating that Apple put it on the keyboard instead of the power button, and it&rsquo;s doubly frustrating that you have to upgrade from the base model to get it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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&rsquo;s best all-in-one for AI and is built for Apple Intelligence, the personal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-10-29T17:28:43Z","apple_news_api_id":"b9b954d6-600e-4ca8-a595-9cb01d88feec","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-11-25T19:53:59Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AublU1mAOTKillZywHYj-7A","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2307,2583,1297,30,2598,1056,183],"class_list":["post-45554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-apple-hardware-announcement","tag-apple-m4","tag-imac","tag-mac","tag-macos-15-sequoia","tag-ram","tag-ssd"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45554"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45908,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45554\/revisions\/45908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}