Mike Wuerthele
New supply chain reports suggest that Apple is gearing up for new iMac production, with a "server grade" model with Xeon E3 processor reportedly in the works.
According to a new data gleaned during a study by supply chain monitor DigiTimes, Apple has two new iMac models in the pipeline, for official launch in the second half of 2017. The units, said to be built by Quanta Computer are said to be 21.5- and 27-inches in size.
The "server-grade" iMac reportedly sports the Xeon E3-1285 processor, between 16GB and 64GB of ECC RAM, up to 2TB of NVMe SSE storage, and the "latest" discrete GPU. DigiTimes doesn't expect availability of the high-end iMac until the very end of 2017.
DigiTimes does generally provide accurate information from within Apple's supply chain. However, the publication has an unreliable track record in predicting Apple's future product plans. often predicting both timing and features incorrectly for upcoming products.
In the beginning of April, Apple declared that it was renewing its focus on "pro" users. And told a gathering of reporters that not only was a new iMac with a pro consumer focus coming, but so were new modular Mac Pros.
"And now you look at today's 5K iMac," Apple senior vice president of Software Engineering Craig Federighi said, "top configs, it's incredibly powerful, and a huge fraction of what would've traditionally - whether it's audio editing, video editing, graphics, arts, and so forth - that would've previously absolutely required the Mac Pros of old, are being well addressed by iMac."
According to Apple's research, approximately 30 percent of the entire Mac user base use pro apps at least once per week, for media creation and software development tasks. Within this group, there is an 80/20 split between notebooks and desktops in terms of sales, and of these desktop sales, the iMac outpaces the Mac Pro.
A new iMac isn't expected to include a touch screen.
Malcolm Owen
Christine McKee
Amber Neely
75 Comments
Neil Cybart from Above Avalon put up a post saying the Mac is Apple's achilles' heel. Basically arguing that the Mac is a barrier which prevents Apple for giving enough attention to what comes next. John Gruber disagrees. Ben Thompson says Apple just needs to ship a damm tower and not be precious about it. I don't agree with Cybart about the Mac being a "major vulnerability" for Apple. But I also don't agree that Apple isn't shipping a new Mac Pro this year because they're being too precious about it's hardware design. I think the fact Apple didn't exist the Pro market means they're working on something bigger here. Otherwise they could've just brought back the cheese grater and been done with it. Apple doesn't put resources on something for nothing.
The retarded marketing department at Intel decided to make this chip useless by capping memory options at 32 GB. Please Apple fix that by going big on your own processor designs, even if it takes time to get things right like SMT.
I already have a GPU in my 2009 iMac.
Some, I would say a good % of pros choosing iMac 5K may be a of reflection not how well it suits them, but how much Apple botched things on Mac Pro. For me iMac 5K suits me as a desktop machine perfectly, but I'm not a real pro. Actual honest to goodness pros with real professional needs aren't being met by Apple currently. Apple refocused and this is why they called their favourable press in line to "announce" what they did.
I hope my vision for the future of Apple's desktop prossional workstation where you have something akin perhaps to a series of interlocking cubes with varied features which can be bought, customised and put together in virtually any order to build the perfect Mac Pro for each customer is the direction Apple is thinking. Not just a modular box, but a truly modular design. Killing away Mac mini in the process and shipping one functional 'beginner' cube as its replacement. Allowing those users the option to build upon this professional starter setup, later, at any time as their needs become more and more professional. What upon reading my idea Spam Sandwich coined.... I think 'smart desktop computing'... correct me if I'm wrong Spam?
A future where each Mac Pro setup tells a story totally specific to that pro Mac desktop user. And iMac covers everything else desktop concerning Apple. I also think, whatever iMac ends of shipping later this year and next and so on, that Apple's 2018 professional display should be beyond 27" and 8K and that Apple should reserve the term iMac Pro for a model that has a similar screen larger than 27", 8K and with real Pro guts through and through—whenever this becomes possible.
No one needs a "server grade iMac" What does that even mean besides the XEON? A 4 core Xeon would be a waste of everybodys money. No one needs ECC Ram. Not even in a Workstation. If they want to build an iMac for Pro Users they need to put in an i7-6950X with 10 cores, the option for 128GB of Ram and a discrete Nvidia Desktop grade GPU. If Razer can acomplish to put a full gtx 1080 in a Laptop I am sure Apple can put one into an iMac who is attached to power non stop and doesn't need to be as thin as a Macbook.