new beeeeeg iMac • seeking computational Nostradamus

[Joe P]

I was here a year ago, wondering if I should retire my now 11-year-old 27-inch iMac for a new super-duper Intel-based iMac. The prevailing wisdom was that I should wait if I can, as Apple silicon finding its way into a redesigned iMac was imminent.

That kinda happened. Apple released a new 24-inch M1 iMac a while ago, but so far it's nothing but speculation when a new 27-inch or larger M-based iMac will be available. Maybe this year, but more likely some time in 2022.

Here's my concern — I have no doubt that the new beeeeeeg iMac, whenever it is released, will be a better machine than the current Intel-based 27-inch 5K iMac, but looking at the direction Apple is going I have doubts whether this new iMac will have any regular USB ports, let alone something like FireWire ports. The new 24-inch iMac has two UBS 4 ports or two USB 3 and two USB 4 ports. No USB-A ports at all and no SD card slot either. Apple must assume that most users either have few widgets to plug into the computer or that the world has gone wireless.

I have a nice inkjet printer, a flatbed scanner and a Nikon CoolScan 9000ED as well as some other USB widgets I'd like to continue using, and the current 27-inch iMac would allow that. It also is far more expandable — up to 128 GB RAM, up to 8 TB SSD storage, fancy video cards, etc.

What do you think? Get an Intel-based Mac and use it as long as I can, knowing that Apple is heading in a different direction and will stop supporting the Intel-based machines in five years or wait for an Apple silicon version, which likely won't have the ports I need?

Joe

 

[dan m]

Joe

I have an OWC thunderbolt 3 dock, with more ports than I will ever need, that I plug into my MacBook Pro. Works great. Has a card reader and optical out even. Only one cable connects it to the laptop. My external monitor and wired kb & mouse, time machine disk and additional usb SSD drive all connected to the dock.

I’d not let ports sway the chip decision - a new M chip machine will stay out of the landfill longer.

Dan

link: https://www.owcdigital.com/products/thunderbolt-3-dock-14-port

 

[Joe P]

Dan,

Ah, so docks are available to convert USB 4 ports to the older ones I need? I'd also need FireWire for the CoolScan film scanner.

My goal is to get a great machine I can use for a decade or more.

Joe

P.S. Holy crap, where have you been?

 

[dan m]

Snowed under and zoomed out, as I am sure a lot of folks were / still are. My free time evaporated as productivity took a hit. Emerging, but slowly. It’s nice to pop in and say hello.

Not sure about FireWire, but the rest should be covered. Looks like apple makes a thunderbolt to FireWire adapter. $29.

Just noticed OWC makes something called the ClingOn!

 

[garyi]

Sorry did you say firewire ports?

lol.

 

[Joe P]

Dan,

Snowed under and zoomed out, as I am sure a lot of folks were / still are. My free time evaporated as productivity took a hit. Emerging, but slowly. It’s nice to pop in and say hello.

I hear ya, man. I've never been so busy, but it is nice to see ya pop in.

Joe

 

[Bob Edwards]

Joe -

I think the ONLY valid reason to get a current 2020 (or 2019, if you want to be able to change/add storage) iMac would be if you need more RAM than the M1 currently supports (IIRC, 16 GB). So if you need 64 or 128 GB, then get one. If you don't think you will, then I'd suggest waiting for the new M(X) larger iMac, which will certainly happen sometime, and *seems* certain to offer a higher RAM capacity than 16 GB. Note also that Apple seems unlikely to allow for user-upgradable RAM on new machines - of new machines, only the Mac Pro and 27" iMac offer that, and it would surprise no one if Apple took away user-upgradable RAM on the new larger iMac.

 

[Joe P]

Gary,

Sorry did you say firewire ports?

Aye. I need it for this contraption.

(which I bought secondhand for $400 Cdn)

+

(which I bought secondhand for $250 Cdn)

I wouldn't need FireWire if I had a 50C digital back, but that's $8,200.

Joe

 

[Joe P]

Bob,

I wouldn't need 64GB or 128 GB of RAM, but 32GB is a good spot to be with the size of the files the scanner outputs. All the M1-based Macs top out at 16GB and, as you said, they can't be upgraded. That's the downside of a system-on-a-chip.

Joe

 

[Joe P]

Dan,

Just noticed OWC makes something called the ClingOn!

So close. Had it been called the Klingon I would buy two … and have a spare in case one was lost in battle!

Joe

 

[onlyconnect]

Have a Mac and hardly use it. I'd get a gaming PC

Tim

 

[Nic Robinson]

Feck Macs. So 21st century. You need to hold on for one of these:

 

[Joe P]

M5: Nic Robinson, acknowledged. Nic Robinson, pfm moderator, organ player. Programming includes protection against attack. Enemy posters must be neutralized...

The M1 is available right now. It's only a matter of time before we have the M5, the Ultimate Computer.

Joe

 

[lagavullin10y]

M5: Nic Robinson, acknowledged. Nic Robinson, pfm moderator, organ player. Programming includes protection against attack. Enemy posters must be neutralized...

Never trust organist. When the minister preaches doomsday, they suddenly play 'always look at the bright side of life'.

 

[AndyU]

@Joe P This speculation about a possible new Mac Mini might be relevant:

https://9to5mac.com/2021/08/22/gurm...more-ports-coming-in-the-next-several-months/

 

[Darth Vader]

Joe I meant to ask do you have any essential applications that only run under macOS? Then if the answer is 'yes' have you checked that they will run under macOS 12 (Montery). Some of us do have old applications that won't run on newer macOS and are either no longer supported or cost mega cabbage to upgrade if its pro stuff.

To get around this I can run older apps in a VM under either Windows or Linux for free. However there is a got ya as usual. Apple won't allow OpenGL to execute in a VM and limits the video RAM to 128MB. The beta version of macOS 12 only allows 3MB which means its fairly useless for me to play with much.

Another concern is whether Apple will limit what it will allow to boot in future. At the mo on an Apple Intel machine I can boot natively any hardware supported OS X/macOS, Windows and Linux. I have a horrible suspicion that at some future point Macs will become just like iPADs with iOS - a one way street and once upgraded you can't go back. From Crapolina onwards the code that boots the OS is in a sealed virtual volume and only Apple can touch it. Thats why cloning apps such a CCC and Super Duper have stopped working. If Apple moves startup manager out of VRAM into that sealed volume it can prevent any OS except its own from booting. To add further fun if the volume on the soldered in SSD becomes corrupted the whole machine is bricked requiring a new mobo.

Time will tell but its your cabbage.........

Cheers,

DV

 

[Joe P]

Thanks, Andy — I'd hope that a beeeeg iMac for creative pros (not that I'm creative or a pro) would have ports up the wazoo. Even the M1 Mac Mini has a couple of old USB ports so maybe Apple isn't going to ditch them just yet, though the new 24-inch Mac has precisely zero old USB ports.

Thanks, Darth — All my apps are the Mac version but they exist on both platforms. It's the usual stuff — MS Office Suite, Adobe Creative Suite (well, Adobe Creative Cloud when I get a new machine), QuarkXPress, Zoom, MS Teams, along with some scanning software. Switching to a PC is tempting, but I'm inclined to stay with Mac as it's slightly better for photography.

The new iMac is supposed to be something impressive — 32-inch, 6K Retina display (6016x3384 pixels), 1,000 nits (XDR) or 500 nits (SDR) brightness, wide colour (P3), True Tone technology — so will be great for photo editing. Just rumours at this stage, but it made me do this —

then this —

It should have lots of ports unless Apple is determined to make it skinny like the 24-inch iMac. I get wanting skinny in a phone, tablet or notebook, but a desktop? A few millimetres thicker is irrelevant for aesthetics but it would have huge implications on the kinds and number of ports it would have.

Joe

 

[andrewd]

Gary,



Aye. I need it for this contraption.

(which I bought secondhand for $400 Cdn)

+

(which I bought secondhand for $250 Cdn)

I wouldn't need FireWire if I had a 50C digital back, but that's $8,200.

Joe

Crikey, $400 Canadian for that Hassy must have been at gun point! The going rate for those is about £2500

 

[Joe P]

Andrew,

Crikey, $400 Canadian for that Hassy must have been at gun point! The going rate for those is about £2500

The CoolScan 9000ED isn't going for much less. I got lucky ... twice.

Joe

 

[Darth Vader]

After I wrote the above yesterday about cloning apps that no longer work with Big Sur (although there are stand-on-one-leg and juggle alternatives) I managed to clone Big Sur to a bigger 'disk' As the latest small upgrades needed in excess of 12GB spare in order to install and I only had around 7GB free! Thats another 'feature' of macOS 11&12.

The new disk boots and then I used disk utility to grab back the extra space available by using partition to expand the volume.

To perform the clone I used my favourite command 'dd' in terminal e.g.

dd if = /dev/diskx of = /dev/disky

where x and y are the numbers associated with source (x) and the destination (y) use diskutil list to identify the correct disks! In my case the source was disk0 and destination disk2 but yours may vary.

You do need to boot into recovery mode to execute the cloning.

Have fun,

DV