Apple Updates the iMac With M4 Chip (theverge.com) 39
Apple has updated the iMac lineup with an M4 chip. The new iMac, announced this morning, includes an M4 chip with an 8-core CPU and up to a 10-core GPU. The entry-level model costs $1,299 with two Thunderbolt USB-C 4 ports, while the higher-end models start at $1,499 and have four ports. The Verge: It's also bundled with accessories that now use USB-C charging ports instead of Lightning. Like the prior model, the new iMac has a 24-inch, 4.5K display. However, Apple is offering a new "nano-texture glass option" for $200 extra, which is supposed to help reduce reflections and glare.
Additionally, the iMac's base RAM has been doubled to 16GB over the prior model, with the ability to configure the higher-end option with up to 32GB. Apple's new iMac also comes with a 12MP webcam, along with new Apple Intelligence features that are starting to roll out today, such as AI-powered writing and editing features and a redesigned Siri.
Additionally, the iMac's base RAM has been doubled to 16GB over the prior model, with the ability to configure the higher-end option with up to 32GB. Apple's new iMac also comes with a 12MP webcam, along with new Apple Intelligence features that are starting to roll out today, such as AI-powered writing and editing features and a redesigned Siri.
Distopian video (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems erringly
The features all - as usual - look like stuff we've all had for years, if you wanted to.
But what especially turns me off are those strangely robotic 'happy people' they aways show. Like the video call of people happily watching another person acoomodating stuff on their desk? WTF?
Also note that the first thing they mentioned - twice - is that you can get different colors now. Wow.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Distopian video (Score:2)
Don't say that too loudly, nomoreacs is its department chairman. It's only an honorary title, but he's very proud of it, he earned it after he fell out of his chair over the excitement of this feature.
Login (Score:2, Insightful)
Will it let you login locally, or do you need permission from the mother ship?
Re:Login (Score:4, Informative)
Will it let you login locally, or do you need permission from the mother ship?
Macs have always Logged-in Locally, to a Locally-Held Account. No verification against a Mothership.
macOS will nag once or twice per Login if you haven't setup iCloud Access; but that's it, and for the vast majority of Users, that is actually a useful nag. But even if you don't enable iCloud, there is absolutely No restriction of everyday capabilities.
Re: (Score:1)
Apple ID (Score:3)
During setup it does ask to use, or create, an Apple ID for login, but you just hit skip and create a local account.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Per login? That's aggressive and unnecessary... Why doesn't it remember your answer?
It remembers, it just doesn't care.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
macOS by default creates a local account. You can have it connect to an AppleID or connect the AppleID after the local user is created. Other than a notification or two after setup, it won't bother you about connecting, and there isn't any loss in functionality.
For home Macs, I always consider it a good practice to create a break-glass admin account that is never used for anything, has a long, gnarly password, and is given admin rights. Especially with Apple Silicon, this ensures a way in if FileVault is
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
With 16 GB of RAM. I saw several reviews complaining about the eight gigs of RAM causing performance problems if you were doing anything more complicated than watching YouTube videos. It left me wondering what the heck anyone was using and iMac for. I mean who really wants to spend $1,300 on a device to do basic computing? You can do that on a Chromebook for 150 bucks...
Let's see some of those "several reviews".
And we're about 50 years past some self-ordained Computer Priest deciding what "Computers are for".
Re: At least the base model finally comes (Score:2, Funny)
You hear that rsilvergun? If you so much as say one thing -- ONE LITTLE THING! -- bad about an apple computer, any apple computer...Bitch, nomoreacs will CUT you!
You're a straw manning (Score:2)
My point was pretty clear. Buying the MacBook with 8 gigs of RAM if you just enough power to browse YouTube which you could do on $150 Chromebook.
At that point it's a veblen good. You don't have enough RAM to do affected video editing or use the fancy features of that chip to run Photoshop well or to do large compiles or much of anything
I guess if you're a web monkey you could probably get by with 8 gigs around. And I understand there is a small market for people
Re:At least the base model finally comes (Score:5, Interesting)
Like...why?! Since it runs the same (admittedly powerful) CPU, the only thing really holding it back would be the RAM and storage. So Apple is purposefuly castrating these so not to steal marketshare from their other products.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Do people really not get it? If you ask what it costs you're not in the target demographic. You want the storage, get the product that has the storage. Mixing and matching is for poor people. Apple didn't get to be the second most expensive company by giving in to the whining of people who cling to their money.
Re: (Score:2)
The sad thing is that I just read in an Apple forum that "well, if you're using the iMac for memory intensive tasks like video editing, you're doing it wrong and should use one of their pro offerings!". Like...why?! Since it runs the same (admittedly powerful) CPU, the only thing really holding it back would be the RAM and storage. So Apple is purposefuly castrating these so not to steal marketshare from their other products.
They don't seem to be actually holding back storage options on the iMac unless your desire is for something extremely large. I haven't taken apart one of the newer iMacs, but I can tell you that for Intel based models, although Apple strongly discouraged doing it, it was possible to open them up and replace the manufacturer supplied disk drive. Adding external storage via USB or Lightning is possible. Now memory is another story. I don't think they are purposely "castrating" it as you say so much as
Re: (Score:2)
Correct. You don’t give your entry level product enough power that people wont want to ever upgrade. It’s like, as if they are running a business built on people buying their products over and over.
Re: (Score:2)
What I find ironic is that there are a lot of reviews on iMacs showing them using FCP and doing video editing well enough on even 8 gigs of RAM, mainly because Apple Silicon can quickly evacuate the contents of RAM to disk, although obviously 16-32 is what someone should be starting with.
I wouldn't be surprised to see a M4 Pro/M4 Max/M4 Ultra as well, with the base M4 CPU going to 32 gigs of RAM, and 2 TB of SSD for that tier of machine, with the M4 Pro and Max allowing for more RAM and DASD for a much high
The pro offerings are crazy expensive (Score:2)
That leaves me stepping up to a significantly more expensive piece of hardware if I'm lucky. And that's before we take into account the ridiculously bad multi monitor support.
I really wish they would just get a Wind
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
And how would that be logically possible?
What needs 16GB of RAM? Or 8GB even?
Oh an application that is working on such a huge amount of data. Obviously.
25 Google tabs with 10 youtube videos might use 8GB. But those you do not watch: are swapped out.
So editing a 4k video, with drawing snippets from half a dozen movie files, oki. Could make sense.
Compiling a huge chunk of code? Nope ... files get compiled one by one, perhaps in an amount of threads equal to the cores. They basically (yes I exaggerate) are rea
Re: (Score:2)
Compiling a huge chunk of code? Nope ... files get compiled one by one, perhaps in an amount of threads equal to the cores. They basically (yes I exaggerate) are read in line by line.
Obviously you have never done a yocto embedded build. These things suck RAM. Basically you want to do as many jobs as you have memory - and the speed of the storage subsystem and the amount of available RAM is your limiting function. A full uncached Yocto build can be measured in hours on a fairly hefty system (think dual server chips and enough RAM to be mindboggling. Is this a normal use case probably not.
Another interesting one is using a developer system in a VM environment. You create a develope
Storage rip-off (Score:4, Informative)
The minimum cost for a 2TB storage unit is $2,300. Just not worth it to me. It is a better situation than the laptops, but I think my 2018 iMac is destined to be my last Mac. (Sure, that one was about $4k, but it was a powerhouse.)
I am happy to stick with my Mint NUC and 4TB of internal storage.
Re: (Score:2)
If you have not googled, or looked inside, perhaps try.
Many of the old models can be upgraded to bigger RAM.
I have an 2016 Mac Book Pro which I will upgrade from 8GB to 16GB, when I have time.
Re: (Score:2)
You can't upgrade the SSD on the modern units; I thought RAM was soldered as well.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
You can't really upgrade the SSD at all. Apple did put it on removable modules in the beginning, which was great. But about a year into it, they started getting a lot of complaints from people who upgraded their storage, and promptly lost all their data.
The SSD controller is on the motherboard as part of the chip - the SSD is raw flash chips. The SSD controller has the encryption key used to access data on the flash chips. Whe
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
For desktop Macs, using TB3/TB4 SSDs can get one more performance than a USB drive. It will definitely be less (~25-30%) than the internal SSD, but it will be fast enough for a lot of things. Downside is that one needs to have macOS installed on the internal drive, activation lock set to an account one won't lose control of, and one needs to remember the user passwords so one can access recovery mode. However, booting from an external drive works well enough for day to day use on a desktop.
USB-C SSDs wor
Re: (Score:1)
Oops, wrong topic, sorry, I Monday'd up. (Stupid ads make screens jump right before one clicks.)
Any laptops? (Score:2)
Did Apple push any be M4 laptops out ? Iâ(TM)m holding out for them, or a price dropped M3 if they donâ(TM)t provide enough interest.
Re: (Score:3)
Later this week, they have broken the keynote up into 5 days of mini keynotes.
Just one step away ... (Score:1)
I for one look forward to the M-5! Oh wait, that turns out somewhat badly ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
What's with the propaganda? (Score:1)
Has anybody noticed how the use of Artificial Intelligence seems to be *forbidden*?
It's Apple Intelligence and Personal Intelligence all over the place.
Seriously Apple? The effort is even comical