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These are so beautiful and I wish I had a reason to buy one, but even if I needed a new mac, it's hard to justify a desktop these days when laptops are so capab
by brundolf 3y ago
These are so beautiful and I wish I had a reason to buy one, but even if I needed a new mac, it's hard to justify a desktop these days when laptops are so capable
Who's the target market, other than sleek reception desks?
- wsc981 3y agoAs a developer I prefer desktops over laptops. Only using laptops when e.g. travelling.
- yreg 3y agoMe too. If they made Mac Studio in a form of a 27" iMac I would buy it.
- scarface_74 3y agoThen why not just buy the Mac Studio + Apple monitor?
- yreg 3y agoThe iMac was a much much better deal price-wise. (And I found it more elegant as well, but that's less important.)
- pornel 3y agoMe too, but what am I supposed to do for travel? Buy a second computer? If I just use a laptop + dock I can have one machine for desktop and travel use.
- esafak 3y agoHow often do you travel? Optimize for the typical case.
- TerrifiedMouse 3y agoI worry about the battery longevity of a MacBook though - about damage from keeping at high charge for long periods from it being plugged in/docked. With an iMac that isn’t concern since it has no battery. It will last 5 years + no problem.
- thejazzman 3y agoYou can set it not to charge past 80%, which spares you of that idle degradation
- sofixa 3y agoSupposedly macOS learns about your use and applies charging rules appropriately. I haven't seen it actually work in practice though, unlike Windows 11 of all things that asked me "You seem to be using this laptop mostly while connected to power, do you want to limit charging to 60% or 80% to preserve battery life?" And reminds me every month that's the case and that it can be disabled.
- wsc981 3y agoI actually got multiple computers. Some are a bit old, but still usable. Got a MacBook Air for the rare times that I travel. Using an 27” iMac when I am working from home in village. Using a Intel NUC when I am working in the city.
- scarface_74 3y agoWhy?
- JCharante 3y agoI imagine most people who have laptops for work are using them with docks, which basically is the desktop experience. Or at least they should be per the ergonomics courses that I’ve had to take at every job.
- tantalor 3y ago> so beautiful It's a rectangle. They've made rectangles before.
- themagician 3y agoSchools. Small studios. Shared workspaces. 55+ in particular tend to eschew notebooks.
- brundolf 3y agoMost schools issue every student a laptop these days (to my understanding)
- dagmx 3y agoI would wager that’s very few schools, because most schools in the US alone are underfunded. Also likely depends what education level too, but I find the claim unlikely.
- sofixa 3y agoThis is Chromebook's main market, so although I doubt it's "most", it's definitely more popular and useful than iMacs. So much so that there were rumours of Apppe doing a Chromebook-imitation cheap Macbook for that market because if they're not on ramping kids into their ecosystem, years down the line those grownups will have few reasons to try to enter it.
- JCharante 3y agoI grew up in the second most rural state and every middle schooler and high schooler had macbooks through https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_Learning_Technology_Initiative https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_Learning_Technology_In... I don’t know if my high school participated in the program, as we had Lenovo Thinkpads instead, which I installed linux on and was very easy to modify by replacing the ram and changing the CD drive to an SSD slot
- mcny 3y ago> Who's the target market, other than sleek reception desks? The "business center" at my apartment complex has a 2015(?) iMac. It is connected to a small printer/copier/scanner. You can log in as guest, open your email or whatever you need to do, and log out from the guest account and the iMac will dutifully forget about you and be ready for the next person. I know practically everyone has an app phone these days but it is useful if you need something quick. I bet a new iMac today will similarly last the next ten years for basic kiosk tasks.
- brundolf 3y agoSure, I guess I lumped this sort of kiosk under "reception desk". But there's no way that market is big enough on its own to justify the product
- SllX 3y agoThere’s a lot of reception desks in the world. I mean that’s not the only market for iMacs but Apple could probably build a pretty good multi-billion dollar business going after just the reception desk market if they were dedicated to the cause.
- skydhash 3y agoA 24" 4k monitor is better than any laptop screen (Real estate and bigger UI elements). And I like to work in a single place, taking breaks instead of moving the workplace. I like the iMac, but I went with the mini + monitor for more flexibility.
- brundolf 3y agoI guess the price starts to make sense if you think of it as MacBook + bigger monitor (- portability option) instead of just MacBook - portability
- undersuit 3y ago4.5k monitor, 4480x2250. The extra area around a 4K viewport and the M3 could make these into decent editing machines.
- keyle 3y agoIt's funny because technically even M1 is good enough for most editing jobs,... But according to Apple, you need a sound proof dedicated room with 2 couches, and 4 external 4K monitors with a M3 Max and 128GB of memory! :D Honestly it's getting ridiculous. I'm a dev and I can work on a macbook air no problem. My time wasted reading bad documentation or groking bad code is far more loss than the compile time difference! :) I'm wondering, who will be their target market with the M3 Ultra? A professional who trains LLMs while producing Hollywood movies, that likes to work from the local Starbucks? Maybe with M3 max they could finally claim "this thing can start Microsoft Teams in 3 seconds!"
- jwells89 3y agoAlmost exactly my sentiment, I love the colors which are a fun throwback to the original fruit flavored CRT iMacs (one of which I used to own). That said I’d prefer if they had a 27/32” model (also in fun colors) that brought back Target Display Mode now that it’s feasible to push a 5k60/6k60 signal over a single cable. I’d trade in my 16” M1 MBP for one of those paired with a MacBook Air.
- acdha 3y agoThe 27” iMac on my desk is better than dual displays: simply better display quality when you’re not on a laptop power budget but also losing the borders, alignment, etc. issues is hard to give up since there are a lot of development tools designed for one big display. The drawback is that they lost target display mode years ago and there’s no way to upgrade. I’d love to swap a logic board to go to ARM but it feels wasteful to toss a perfectly usable system.
- jwells89 3y agoThere’s been a number of people who’ve converted their old 27” iMacs into displays using AliExpress driver boards, if a tinkery solution is appealing. Probably wouldn’t be too difficult to fit an M1 Mac Mini board in the chassis alongside the driver board to produce a 27” M1 iMac if one were so inclined.
- acdha 3y agoYeah, we’ll see how it’s doing by the time the 2020 one stops getting security updates. I’ve seen a few of those guides and they don’t seem too terrible.
- scarface_74 3y agoThen why not get a Mac Mini or a Mac Studio and 27 inch Apple monitor.
- acdha 3y agoThat’s probably what I’ll do next time but there’s something nice about having it be a single thing on the desk, and the last two times I bought one it was cheaper than buying separate parts (trading longevity).
- fwmcbumcrumble 3y ago4k displays are peanuts these days. A Mac mini + a 4k display would cost about the same as an iMac. But in a few years when the mac mini is useless you can keep the same display. Or if you buy a nicer mini then you can get a nicer display later on. The iMac is still limited the base M3 CPU, while the current mini is available in either M2 or M2 pro. Hopefully they update the Mini with M3 pro because that's what I've been waiting for.
- srik 3y agoMiss the days when the iMac let you use it as an external monitor.
- weikju 3y agoYou still can! Just, poorly, via wifi and only when it's the same iCloud account -- which means only other idevices/macs allowed. :(
- AlchemistCamp 3y agoDesktops are larger, more powerful and have better speakers, more ports. I’d pick an iMac over a MacBook Pro every time for work. A laptop is more convenient for a travel device for reading or watching videos but at this point iPads are better for that.
- AzzyHN 3y agoSame target audience for all in ones (people who don't know any better)
- hulitu 3y ago> These are so beautiful and I wish I had a reason to buy one, Beautiful ? What's the purpose big band at the bottom of the monitor ? And the colors are all pale.