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I personally think the iMac has been an amazing all-in-one package. It's simplicity gives it an appeal that has made it a near-perfect tool for casual users who

I personally think the iMac has been an amazing all-in-one package. It's simplicity gives it an appeal that has made it a near-perfect tool for casual users who want to avoid the quirkiness of Windows. The iMac also scales up to heavy-hitting design work and I rarely see a lot of complaints until you get to render heavy applications or try to do multi-track and high resolution video editing and motion graphics, which it isn’t really designed to do. But it's an amazing screen and overall it's very capable and well rounded. The current Mac Pro has some serious flaws though. The concept was neat, but it wasn't proven in the pro market. Video Production is becoming increasingly demanding as camera resolutions climb. Since the release of the Mac Pro, a lot of people started jumping ship and going to Windows. Today, if you're buying a Mac Pro, it’s probably not because it's an amazing machine, but because you aren't ready to leave OS X (MacOS) yet. That’s is a hard pill to swallow after years of relying on the dependability of the Mac desktop. Maybe they’ll give it a refresh, but I don’t see the tower with PCI capabilities coming back. As for the Mac Mini, the only thing that was good for was a small server or media center, at least to me. And they abandoned that a long time ago.

tracker1 10y ago
My friend really likes his, though his biggest complaint keeping him off, is he wants a matching 5K display, so he can have dual displays off his iMac, which isn't an option, and apple killed their display line. For me, the highest end mini is almost enough, as I really don't want a built in display at all... The mac pro is too overpriced (more than it was when last refreshed) and there's no new mac pro in sight... and to be honest, I really want a mid-range "Mac" (not pro, not mini), effectively i5-i7 iMac hardware without a built in display, hell build it off an itx platform board in a fancy case, then allow the pricing to rule itself out... I mean, keep the developers happy and making apps for their iOS devices... yeah, we'll build other stuff too, but really they need to figure out that a lot of actual software developers (the people that make the stuff that makes their platforms worthwhile) aren't happy with the options available.
- DerekL 10y ago
  I agree. I don't know if Apple would do it, but it would be great if they offered a Mac Pro with iMac style chips (i5 and integrated graphics at the low end) with prices starting at $1000 or $1500. Using the same case as the Xeon Mac Pros might save some money and keep things simpler. Then they could make the Mac mini smaller and cheaper, like a scaled-up Apple TV. SSD only, no hard drive, 2 or 4 USB 3 ports, Ethernet and HDMI, starting at $399.
  - tracker1 10y ago
    Doesn't even need to be called "pro"... just the new "Mac"... It's definitely an area I'd be interested in buying at, where the mini isn't quite there enough for me, and the pro is way too pricey.
nottorp 10y ago
The iMac is "amazing" only if you don't do CPU intensive stuff with it. Otherwise it whirrrs and throttles down. Personally I care more about the whirrring than the thermal throttling, but it's not amusing to not get the CPU/GPU speed you paid for either. The Mac Pro is a video editing appliance ATM. What they don't have is a developer/hobbyist oriented desktop. And this will bite them in the ass long term, because they will lose mind share. I'm very close to switching back to Linux if they don't offer me a developer oriented Mac Pro in the next 1-2 years.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  For many of us this means Objective-C, Swift and their frameworks and tooling, so we are covered as "developer/hobbyist oriented desktop" target.
  - nottorp 10y ago
    Covered with the thin one that gets noisy when you compile, or with the super expensive one where half the price of the hardware doesn't help you with development? :)

tracker1 10y ago

My friend really likes his, though his biggest complaint keeping him off, is he wants a matching 5K display, so he can have dual displays off his iMac, which isn't an option, and apple killed their display line. For me, the highest end mini is almost enough, as I really don't want a built in display at all... The mac pro is too overpriced (more than it was when last refreshed) and there's no new mac pro in sight... and to be honest, I really want a mid-range "Mac" (not pro, not mini), effectively i5-i7 iMac hardware without a built in display, hell build it off an itx platform board in a fancy case, then allow the pricing to rule itself out... I mean, keep the developers happy and making apps for their iOS devices... yeah, we'll build other stuff too, but really they need to figure out that a lot of actual software developers (the people that make the stuff that makes their platforms worthwhile) aren't happy with the options available.

DerekL 10y ago
I agree. I don't know if Apple would do it, but it would be great if they offered a Mac Pro with iMac style chips (i5 and integrated graphics at the low end) with prices starting at $1000 or $1500. Using the same case as the Xeon Mac Pros might save some money and keep things simpler. Then they could make the Mac mini smaller and cheaper, like a scaled-up Apple TV. SSD only, no hard drive, 2 or 4 USB 3 ports, Ethernet and HDMI, starting at $399.
- tracker1 10y ago
  Doesn't even need to be called "pro"... just the new "Mac"... It's definitely an area I'd be interested in buying at, where the mini isn't quite there enough for me, and the pro is way too pricey.

nottorp 10y ago

The iMac is "amazing" only if you don't do CPU intensive stuff with it. Otherwise it whirrrs and throttles down. Personally I care more about the whirrring than the thermal throttling, but it's not amusing to not get the CPU/GPU speed you paid for either. The Mac Pro is a video editing appliance ATM. What they don't have is a developer/hobbyist oriented desktop. And this will bite them in the ass long term, because they will lose mind share. I'm very close to switching back to Linux if they don't offer me a developer oriented Mac Pro in the next 1-2 years.

pjmlp 10y ago
For many of us this means Objective-C, Swift and their frameworks and tooling, so we are covered as "developer/hobbyist oriented desktop" target.
- nottorp 10y ago
  Covered with the thin one that gets noisy when you compile, or with the super expensive one where half the price of the hardware doesn't help you with development? :)