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Comment by tonyedgecombe | Hacker News Reader

Both the MacBook and iMac lines look confused to me. Why are they still selling iMacs with hard disks rather than SSDs? What is the point of the iMac Pro when they have a Mac Pro? Why is the new MAC Mini so expensive, it used to be the budget option. There doesn’t seem to be much of a strategy around their desktops, it’s as if nobody is in charge.

Also why can’t they offer on site service for a £10,000 desktop? Lenovo can do it.

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It's a real mess, isn't it? The Mac Pro hasn't been updated since 2013, though apparently a dramatic re-think is due this year; obviously the iMac Pro is the better machine, but it's drastically expensive and probably not to the taste of every professional given the all-in-one design. The Mac Mini has been updated quite recently, but even the cheapest model is a lot more expensive than they used to be. And the laptop product lines are just totally confusing - I guess if I'm a professional I should just focus on the MacBook Pro, but for non-professional users, differentiating between the MacBook and the Air seems very, very complicated (I believe the newest MacBooks are thinner than the newest Airs, which seems bizarre given the name).

It really seems like they just don't care all that much.

I see this comment a lot and it always reminds of this:

There is no perfect pasta sauce, just perfect pasta sauces.[1]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Moskowitz

> Why are they still selling iMacs with hard disks rather than SSDs?

The iMac has driven me crazy since the day it was introduced, way back when the display was still a CRT. What is the point of integrating a computer and a monitor in the same enclosure? These two products have completely different life cycles. The iMac forces me to replace them together for, what, aesthetics? Bah.

> What is the point of integrating a computer and a monitor in the same enclosure?

It’s a good display bundled with your computer, which is an appealing option to many because it’s one less thing they have to worry about.

Until they have to upgrade or repair it.

iMac users don’t upgrade their computers. It’s an appliance like a microwave.

I switched to an iMac after I realized that every time I tried to upgrade my desktop, everything was incompatible with the new stuff, forcing me to effectively upgrade everything at once and build a new computer. This kept happening every 4 years.

I could have avoided this with incremental upgrades, but who has time for that?

Strange, the last incompatibility-problems I saw were those caused by disappearing interfaces - things like parallel printer and SCSI ports - but those are all long gone. If I'm not using my HP SJ5200 scanner (with parallel and USB interface) - it is because the thing is slower than the somewhat newer version I came across at a flea market, not because it is incompatible. That thing is probably around 20 years old if not more but it works fine. The same goes for more or less all other 'old' external hardware - internal is often hampered by the absence of internal PCI (or VESA local bus or ISA or what have you) slots - so I can't really identify with this idiom of 'everything needing to be upgraded after a desktop refresh'.

It might help that I use Linux and as such am spared from forced upgrade trajectories.

Your monitors surely don’t stop being compatible every 4 years. I’ve been using one of my monitors for 10 years now, and other than needing an adapter it’s woeking just fine (I did buy a new monitor, but use both as a dual monitor setup).

Also, RAM, and hard drives are usually not a problem to upgrade at all.

> What is the point of integrating a computer and a monitor in the same enclosure?

So, like every laptop?

With a laptop it makes sense because I want to use it in disparate locations and it's easier to carry one thing rather than two. But for a desktop machine having both in the same enclosure has no benefit beyond aesthetics AFAICT.

That really depends on what you want and what kind of person you are, maybe it doesn't make sense to you but for a lot of people—myself included—it makes sense to have an integrated device at home too. I'd always consider this before making blanket "It doesn't make sense" statements. As you can tell by the unit sales I'm not the only one who thinks that way.

I didn't make any blanket statements. I said that it doesn't make sense to me, that I see no benefit beyond aesthetics. Obviously many people see it differently or they wouldn't buy iMacs. Either they value aesthetics more than I do, or they see some other benefit that I have overlooked. (But I will note that so far in this discussion no one has been able to actually identify such a benefit.)

I have had three iMacs: 24” I purchased in 2007 which died due to a failed/faulty power strip, a used 27” I bought in 2014, and a refurb 27” 5k I bought in 2017.

I value aesthetics more than you do, and I’m entirely comfortable with the amount I’ve spent on these machines over the years.

Integrating the display with the computer offers two advantages:

1) It's easier for customers. No need to think about which display to get -- you know the integrated display will just work, and it will be very high quality.

2) Tighter integration: the built in display wakes immediately when the computer wakes, you can adjust brightness via keyboard, and you won't have trouble connecting the display and fidgeting with a crappy OSD to set the picture settings...

Dealing with external displays is extremely frustrating -- there's always something that doesn't work right. The display doesn't wake up, refresh rate is limited if you use the wrong cable, colors look different depending on brightness setting of the monitor, ...

If you just want one computer and one display, an iMac saves a lot of time and frustration.

Neither of those benefits is a result of the display and the computer being in the same housing, they are the result of both being made by the same manufacturer (or at least adhering to the same interface spec). The same benefits accrued back when Apple made the Cinema Display. I had one of those and I loved it. It lasted through three or four different Macs.

I think you underestimate how easy it is to build an external display. When they first released the 5k iMac, there was no interface available that supported an external 5k display.

Now we have Thunderbolt 3, so in theory 5k displays shouldn't be an issue, but there are only very few options available, and from what I've heard they are plagued by bugs and compatibility issues. So it seems that it is somehow difficult to make external displays that work well.

And one thing we haven't talked about yet is price: getting a computer with an integrated display is almost certainly cheaper than getting a computer + a good display. The iMacs have always been pretty good deals if you consider how much a comparable display would cost.

The iMac isn't even that great for aesthetics, at least if you VESA mount it and have a decent amount of external gear connected. I have the VESA-mount model of the 2017 27" iMac, and I end up having a bunch of cables hanging down that I wouldn't with regular displays. Additionally, I find it difficult to rotate the display into portrait mode because of all the cables attached, so I don't bother even though I'd occasionally like to.

If I had a separate monitor, I'd only have at most two or maybe even only one cable running to each display which would be easy to tuck away within the mounting arm. I'd be able to have most of my cables tucked away instead of the exposed mess of cables I have with the iMac.

To make things worse, they don't offer Target Display Mode like they did for a short while, so I can't use the iMac's 5K display with any other machines (e.g. work laptop when I work from home).

If I were buying today, I'd get a Mac Mini (and maybe an eGPU if I ended up unsatisfied with the built-in GPU), and just use my old 30" 2560x1600 monitor or get something like a huge 38" ultra-wide display (the 27" 5K is very nice, but HiDPI isn't a game-changer for me). In 2017, the 27" iMac appeared to be the best desktop Mac option (user-replaceable RAM up to 64GB was a huge factor), and I don't regret purchasing it, but the integrated display with no Target Display Mode is a massive disadvantage.

> The iMac isn't even that great for aesthetics, at least if you VESA mount it and have a decent amount of external gear connected.

What kind of reasoning is that? Of course if you use it in a way that it's not intended for it's not delivering on it's original purpose?

If you put a storage box on top of a Porsche, add off-road tires and hook up a trailer it doesn't delivery on it's promise of being a sports car either.

> These two products have completely different life cycles. The iMac forces me to replace them together for, what, aesthetics?

I have a 2009 iMac that I still use daily as an external monitor. I haven’t used the computer portion in years, but it’s still a great screen.

All of these questions have obvious answers.

> Why are they still selling iMacs with hard disks rather than SSDs?

Because the average user likely to buy an entry level iMac doesn’t care that much.

> What is the point of the iMac Pro when they have a Mac Pro?

The Mac Pro is trash and they haven’t updated it in many years. The iMac pro is a stopgap while they design the new Mac Pro.

> Why is the new MAC Mini so expensive, it used to be the budget option.

It’s still cheaper than an iMac so it is the budget option.

> There doesn’t seem to be much of a strategy around their desktops, it’s as if nobody is in charge.

I think what you mean is that you don’t like their strategy. Mac sales are still good.

> Also why can’t they offer on site service for a £10,000 desktop? Lenovo can do it.

They could, but they don’t want do. It’s a lot of effort and far more important for a company like Lenovo that lives or dies by their enterprise offerings.

Why is the new MAC Mini so expensive, it used to be the budget option.

The number of people who buy desktops is minuscule especially low end ones. The people who buy Mac Minis are doing all types of specialize things. I welcome the high end Mac Mini.

The “budget” $499 4G Mac Mini was always something to be avoided.

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