[ng7j5d9]

> Replacing an iMac also means getting rid of a perfectly good monitor.

This is the thing that absolutely friggin kills me with the Mac lineup.

As a developer I see monitors and computers as the perfect example of loose coupling. And I've absolutely had different lifecycles for monitors and computers in the past. My Mac mini that was once my primary desktop machine is now a media center hooked up to a TV.

But if the Mac mini doesn't meet your needs (fast CPUS, storage bays, whatever), and the Mac Pro doesn't fit your budget, Apple gives you a big ol' middle finger.

I mean, I COULD buy an iMac, but then 8 years down the road when I want a new desktop, I've got this unwieldy all-in-one where that big screen feels like more of a hindrance than an asset.

I haven't built a Hackintosh myself, but every time I look at the desktop Mac lineup I think about it.

[FireBeyond]

I just completed my first Hackintosh in many years. I have perfectly serviceable iMac in the family room (2015, 32GB, 1TB Fusion), but wanted more.

I have a beautiful case (Corsair 570x mirror black tempered glass on 'all' sides). 8700K, 64GB memory, 4TB of SSDs, Vega 64. Runs just as silently as you could hope (H150 closed loop water cooling).

Like you said, Apple gives you the finger for a lot of things. I've lost track of the number of iPhones, iPads, MBPs between my girlfriend and I (but probably at least five each of the letters, and most of the iPhones). But I cannot stomach, in good faith, the world's richest company charging me $1,000 for 56GB of RAM (8->64) when I could buy high end or even faster memory for $250 for 64GB.

And, following some guides? It "just works". Continuity, Handoff, Apple Watch unlocking, iMessage, Sidecar. Clover Configurator is awesome, and if you want to be/feel even more native, OpenCore is even better (though requires manual work, whereas Clover can have your system booting into macOS in 40 minutes from building your USB).

So could I spec out a new Mac Pro that outpaces this? Sure. As could I grow this machine (it's just been my Windows workhorse for about 18 months).

I still love Apple products, but I don't feel any particular remorse for doing this, versus plonking down what most likely would have been $9,000 for a similar Mac setup.

[turtlebits]

Until you try to update it and doesn’t boot, then spend hours researching guides (that don’t have your exact hardware specs) on the hope you can update.

Then inevitably something doesn’t quite work properly anymore.

[maremp]

Exactly. And the major version upgrades are a pain. Unless you're willing to give your weekend away to figure out how to fix the broken configs, it's better to wait a month or so to see how other, more enthusiastic people have worked around it.

IIRC my first build was with El Capitan, and I tried to follow with all updates, but it was painful every time.

When I was building my Hackintosh, the common advice was to use nvidia GPU, so I got myself a then fresh out GTX 1070. But then soon, Apple decided not to sign the nvidia web driver, so we all are SOL with the support on newer macOS versions.

I was even considering trying to sell my current GPU to replace it with an AMD one, but instead decided to make it work with iGPU and do the GPU-heavy work on Windows.

I would never use or recommend a Hackintosh for any work where you'd expect a reliable machine, let alone using it for work.

But I would also not drop the cash on the insanely priced mac dekstop lineup. I've got a macbook and I will probably buy another one (not convinced because the keyboard fiasco which also affected my machine).

I was not expecting it, but windows 10 is much improved over the windows I knew. I now use it for gaming and some personal projects where GPU matters (game dev, computer vision, machine learning). I still need to get used to it and I sometimes miss some tools (Alfred, Preview.app, iTerm, modifier keys -> cmd > windows). But while macOS seems to have been dropping the ball recently, windows is scoring goals.

I will seriously consider switching back for my next machine, especially if apple keeps doing this stupid stuff. I was also thinking about linux, but I'm not sure if I want to spend time configuring all the little things.

[n42]

I chuckled because that was the last experience I had with Hackintosh before I caved and bought a real Mac (2011). But to be perfectly honest, it is the same experience that I have been having on my 2017 MacBook Pro.

[tekknik]

same here. however with a legit mac you can always netboot to restore so long as you haven’t borked the uefi firmware somehow. this obviously isn’t the case with a hack

[exadeci]

The trick is to update but a few weeks after the update release.

It gives people the time to fix the potential issues.

Also a fun fact, I have a 2012 macbook pro and when High Sierra got released the update would fail on it because I had changed the hdd. They were trying to counter Clover but it took less than a week for the Clover team to find a workaround and I coulnd't update my real macbook pro for months before Apple corrected the issue for me.

[QuotedForTruth]

Does imessage work to send and receive? I had previously seen a build where they said that not working was the only flaw.

[FireBeyond]

It does, with text message forwarding too. I know it had been an issue a while back. The only thing I've heard of currently (which I haven't tested either way) is possibly with the Apple TV app.

[pier25]

Yeah Apple is missing a huge market opportunity there.

I've always wanted a tower mac but the new Mac Pro is not the machine for me. I just want the specs of an iMac on a tower.

A couple of years ago I ended up buying an iMac 5K since I needed to upgrade my old MBP and the Apple laptop landscape was so desolate. I'm very happy with it for dev and design work but I tried to use it for music production and it's not the machine for that. Cooling is bad for anything other than short bursts. Even at 30% of sustained CPU work for audio the fans turn on and are quite annoying. I ended up building a Ryzen Windows PC which cost me as much as an i7 Mini but is even more powerful than the base Mac Pro.

[ng7j5d9]

I feel like the problem is that it isn't a huge market opportunity (at least by Apple scale).

Checking out these graphs about Apple's revenues, apparently Mac revenues are pretty flat, while iPhone revenues continue to skyrocket (currently 5X Mac revenues!): https://sixcolors.com/post/2020/01/fun-with-charts-a-decade-...

So sure, a hobbyist-approved Mac desktop would please you and me and plenty of other geeks, but they'd also cannibalize their Mac Pro sales somewhat, and when it's all said and done, their Mac revenues would still probably be in the same ballpark. So, why do that when they can pour effort into new phones or TV services or AirPods or whatever?

The thing that worries me is that the hobbyist/geek is often the one who turns lots of others onto a technology. I'm probably where I am right now because my geek uncle passed down his used Mac to me and showed me Hypercard. And I'm pretty sure there are people who own Macs today that wouldn't if it not for me. I think appeasing the geeks is worth more than the direct profit or revenue that such a model would bring in, but in ways that aren't as immediately evident on the quarterly report.

[sixothree]

I feel like I exist in the "enthusiast" segment which Apple completely ignores.

[cstross]

What is the cost (for Apple) in straight up R&D dollars of building a new model of Mac? And how much does it cost them to tool up for manufacturing and create the logistic chain to put it in customers' hands?

Remember that Apple aims to sell a vertically integrated stack, all the way from their own cases, motherboards, and PSUs up through the OS and core apps. The point of this is to deliver a specific user experience that they control, and also to keep competitors out of their pool (they allowed licensed Mac clones circa 1994-96 and it didn't end well). While they still buy in CPUs from Intel and other components (RAM, video chipsets, SSDs, hard drives) from other suppliers, these are generally low-level components -- as low level as Apple can get -- and even then they're trying to build self-owned stacks so they're not dependent on anyone else (e.g. the A-series processors in the iPhone and iPad) -- a lesson they learned the hard way thanks to Motorola with the 68K and subsequently PowerPC architecture. (I'm guessing Tim Cook personally has bad memories of the failure to deliver a mobile G5 back in the day.)

Anyway ...

Developing a new machine from the ground up has got to cost in the tens of millions, at least. (Look at the sunk costs that went into the new Mac Pro, for example.)

Are there enough "enthusiast" customers with system-building interests out there to make such a beast net-profitable, after taking into account the brand dilution implication of stacking up too many SKUs (as they did in the Bad Old Days of the first half of the 1990s, before the Return of Jobs)?

I'm guessing they've done the calculation and concluded the answer is "no", at least for the time being.

[mantap]

I think this is backwards. Who is buying underpowered $6000 computers? An iMac in tower form factor would be popular because it's something people actually want.

The only people excited about the new Mac Pro are people already locked into the Apple ecosystem. It is a fundamentally backwards looking product that attempts to squeeze more money out of already captured customers. It is not likely to attract new customers to the Apple ecosystem.

[pier25]

> I'm guessing they've done the calculation and concluded the answer is "no", at least for the time being.

It's possible but I doubt it. Does Apple know how many of its iMac customers would prefer a tower? Or how many sales they've lost to hackintoshes?

[Terretta]

Yes, they do, in part because they opened up previously in the heyday of people building their own systems, and continue to engage deeply on the enthusiast asks right now contra-posed against their broader market understanding. Roughly, they figure out which enthusiast things will appeal to the larger market, and make it all work, fully integrated.

Per the curve shown in Geoffrey Moore’s “Crossing the Chasm”, HN exists largely on the left of the chasm, Apple is a trillion dollar company because it understood how to shift to the right of the chasm.

Visual explanation (.png):

https://smithhousedesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/smit...

[pier25]

> in part because they opened up previously in the heyday of people building their own systems

20+ years ago?

> continue to engage deeply on the enthusiast asks right now contra-posed against their broader market understanding

Is this speculation or you have concrete evidence of this claim?

> HN exists largely on the left of the chasm, Apple is a trillion dollar company because it understood how to shift to the right of the chasm.

It think it would be the opposite. Having a tower with macOS and consumer specs (no Xeon or ECC) would be pretty boring and conservative. I think that is one of the reasons Apple won't do it.

[sixothree]

The more I think about it, the more I conclude they just cannot afford to support tower or modular designs for the enthusiast market. Not only would they "lose" money from costly upgrades. But it would also become apparent the lack of driver support Macs have; especially as it pertains to video cards.

Maybe the Mac Pro will change the support issue and they will eventually be able to enter this market. But I believe their biggest fear is being compared to Windows or Linux which both have tremendous hardware support.

[mantap]

It's not just the enthusiast segment. It's the pro segment. Apple can't conceive of a professional who does anything other than edit videos or audio.

[lliamander]

Their marketing collateral for their XDR display shows it with some code on the screen. The notion that either the display or the Mac Pro itself makes any sense for a developer is laughable.

[Terretta]

You can test run an awfully large K8s platform in there ...

[mantap]

If you're running Linux anyway, you might as well buy a 3990X, get 64 cores instead of 28, and use the money you saved to go on vacation.

[novok]

Nerds: Give us the xMac! Example from 2001 / 2005: https://arstechnica.com/staff/2005/10/1676/

Apple: NEVER!

[sneak]

Apple enthusiasts buy Macbook Pros or iMacs. There’s nothing wrong with integrated displays. In fact, it saves on a ton of cable mess, and they are usually worlds better than what you would plug a computer into anyway.

[pier25]

> There’s nothing wrong with integrated displays

What? There is a lot wrong with AIOs.

1) Cooling is atrocious

2) Dust problems

3) Very difficult repairs and almost impossible upgrades (with some exceptions such as RAM)

4) No internal expansion. You save a cable with the monitor but you add cables for everything you want to add.

5) Once some component dies you have a very expensive monitor that can't be used for anything.

6) Much like laptops, tablets, and smartphones it's an environmental disaster.

[Terretta]

Why don’t people complain that toasters aren’t expandable?

Apple builds appliances made from hardware and software.

[mantap]

There's everything wrong with integrated displays. You can't use it for dual displays. You can't upgrade the display withhout upgrading the computer. And if you get a bad case of stuck pixels, you need to carry the thing to a mall and pay out the behind for a replacement panel which requires complex surgery on the device.

[tekknik]

apple will send you a box to ship it back in

[Joeri]

I don’t think the imac is that much of a step up from the mini performance-wise. Only the i9 in the imac significantly beats the top i7 in the mini, and the cooling of the imac can’t handle the i9, so the set of cases where people need more power than the mini but are satisfied by the imac should be quite small. The imac has a dedicated gpu, but it is outdated and has to drive that massive 5k display so that’s a wash as well. And the imac has the same lack of extensibility as the mini so it doesn’t win out there either. I basically see imac as a mini with a screen. I know the specs don’t quite match up, but they’re close enough. Realistically if top performance matters you want one of the pro macs anyway.

I’d like apple to make the xMac (cheap expandable tower) but I wouldn’t buy it myself. I suspect not many people would.

[gumby]

> > Replacing an iMac also means getting rid of a perfectly good monitor.

> This is the thing that absolutely friggin kills me with the Mac lineup.

You can still use your iMac as a monitor -- just plug your computer into the Mini DisplayPort connector.

> But if the Mac mini doesn't meet your needs (fast CPUS, storage bays, whatever)

The new minis have thunderbolt -- basically just a PCIe connection -- for storage bays etc. I understand it's not as esthetic as an integrated bay but who moves a desktop machine around anyway?

I'm not saying "take these options or shut up" -- I'm merely saying Apple is providing some options that will satisfy some chunk of the market that shares needs with you, and out at the long tail there are always people who aren't happy. I also buy Apple hardware and know I'm buying features that don't matter to me and miss a few features I wish they'd included.

This isn't to defend apple (why should I? Plus the list of things that annoy me about their offerings is long...like your point about their disappointing choices in Intel CPUs) I'm simply addressing two points you made.

[Rebelgecko]

>You can still use your iMac as a monitor -- just plug your computer into the Mini DisplayPort connector.

I believe that this only works on iMacs made before 2014. New ones don't support Target Display mode (https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/use-an-imac-as-a-di...)

[gumby]

You don't use target display mode on the more recent ones with thunderbolt (usb type c) input -- continue reading that confusingly-written page.

However in either case if your iMac is kaput you don't have access to the display -- the iMac has to be able to at least start their boot roms, though not boot macos, to make this work. Then again, modern external displays also have to be able to boot their firmware so perhaps I should't consider this a limitation.

[Psyonic]

Are you talking about using Target disk mode to boot your imac off the drive in a mac mini or MBP? because that will still use your imac's processor & ram, etc.

[azinman2]

Would you say the same thing about a laptop screen?

That said, I do agree that I wish it could be used as a monitor.. even to power a laptop would be great. There used to be a way to do it but it died once we hit 5k.

[mantap]

Say you want dual screens of the same pixel density, size and shape, what do you do? Hide the iMac under your desk? Buy another iMac?

[samatman]

I'll do you one better: say you want three 5k screens, you:

- Connect one to either left port, and one to either right port, of the iMac Pro.

https://support.apple.com/guide/imac-pro/connect-a-display-a...

Now, personally, I want my computers either portable, or loosely coupled to the monitors. But the iMac Pro is quite a capable machine.

[azinman2]

Unfortunately it’s not really made for this purpose. You also can’t add screens to your iPhone or iPad.

The best Apple solution at the moment is to use MBPs in this way, unless you want the ultra expensive Mac Pro.

[jamespo]

The reason "it's not made for that purpose" is the whole basis of many people's complaint and there's no practical reason for it.

[mjlee]

You buy the LG 5k display. Different bezel though - which is somewhat frustrating.

[rtkwe]

Do any AIO units work as a monitor for external input? It seems like a systematic blindness to extending the usefulness of your product. The MS Surface Studio for example (at least at launch, I haven't checked if they've added that functionality) had the exact same issue, it's an amazing screen and drawing tablet setup but the computer inside is somewhat middling so after a few years it will need to be replaced wholesale instead of just turning it into a drawing tablet.

Is it surprisingly hard to do this for some reason I'm missing? Or just slightly expensive and a minor feature so no one bothers?

[arm]

iMacs actually used to (models from 2009 to 2014) support being used as a monitor for external input:

“Use your iMac as a display

You can view the desktop of your Mac on the display of some iMac models using Target Display Mode. In some cases, you can also use Target Display Mode to play the sound from your Mac (called the primary Mac) on the speakers of the external iMac. For example, if you have a MacBook Pro you could use an iMac as the display and for playing audio.

Note: Target Display Mode isn’t supported on iMac models with Retina display. Only iMac (27-inch, Late 2009), iMac (27-inch, Mid 2010), and iMac (Mid 2011 to Mid 2014) support Target Display Mode.”¹

――――――

¹ — https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mh30822/

[rtkwe]

Neat, wonder why they stopped. Sounds like the Retina models might have too high of a resolution to go over a single Thunderbolt connection but it should still be able to do a scaled up resolution...

[Psyonic]

I don't have the answer to why they stopped supporting this, but I don't think it's because the resolution is too high for a single Thunderbolt connection. I have an LG 5k that works over a single thunderbolt3 connection -- and I believe even thew new Pro Display XDR connects with a single TB3 cable.

[burnte]

Lots of Windows based AIOs do this. I know a number of models of Lenovo do and some Dells too.

[innocentoldguy]

Wouldn't this same argument apply to laptops?

[tengbretson]

Yes, however a laptop justifies this by unlocking a whole new set of working patterns, whereas an AIO desktop is almost entirely aesthetic.

Furthermore, even though it is all-in-one in nature, a laptop's form factor is small enough that "putting it out to pasture" to live its life as a server with the screen always closed in your media center, or in a closet next to your cable modem is totally feasible.

[innocentoldguy]

I’m still not seeing the difference. I like my iMac because it is a lot easier to transport than a desktop, monitor, and cords. I can also use my old iMacs as servers with the screen in sleep mode, as you suggest with laptops.

Regarding monitors, I used to use self-assembled PCs all the time, and while there was a time where I would use the same monitor across different PCs, I just didn’t do that anymore by the time I bought my first iMac. Because monitor sizes and resolutions get better over the years, I’d typically give my entire computer to someone else and just buy a new monitor to go with my new PC. Maybe others don’t mind looking at an old monitor. To each their own, I guess.