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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

5k Retina iMac

Maybe the straight 5K display will be announced at the same time?
 
danbrazda said:
Maybe the straight 5K display will be announced at the same time?
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Not likely. It's in Apple's best interest to hold off on that until next year, when DP 1.3 and HDMI 2.0 are co-existing in monitor reference designs as there will likely be new hardware refreshes in 2016 for the Mac Pro and 2015 for the iMac and MacMini when Skylake is available.
 
Sergio Perez said:
Is it technically possible, through thunderbolt 2, to get this working at 5K 60hz now?
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Yes, but not with a single cable. The monitor would require two Thunderbolt connections and that might not even change with DisplayPort 1.3 until improvements are made to GPUs to push that much data over a single connection.
 
Was the iMac the first "smart" TV?

Was the iMac the first "smart" TV?

I'm wondering if we're nearing the end of the "dumb" display as a peripheral device dependent on a computer, STB, etc. How much real difference is there between a "smart" TV and an iMac or other AIO (all in one), or even a tablet? With the razor thin margins in the display biz these days I think the CE companies have a lot of motivation to create differentiation that can be leveraged into decent retail markups. With all the growth in mobile devices, manufacturers have a huge array of low power/low cost chips that can be integrated into display hardware to add myriad features to spur faster replacement cycles.

I can also see a number of benefits to "screens" that have enough on board processing muscle that they can serve a wide variety of usages. I wonder what the manufacturing cost delta is between an iMac sporting a 28" 5K display and the same display without the "computer" bits? What if the iMac could use it's ThunderBolt2 port (probably x2) as a way of accepting a display feed from an outboard device?

There are obvious human interface differences between interacting with a hand held device like a phone or tablet vs sitting at a desk vs the living room - but does that necessarily mean it would't be useful to have many of the same capabilities in all display devices? IMO, all next generation screens should have direct connection to the internet via Wi-Fi/Ethernet, the ability to interact with the display using a phone/tablet/laptop/remote/bluetooth keyboard/Kinect/etc, some USB 3 ports for storage/expandability and HDMI2/DP1.3 input capability (perhaps via TB adapters) for AV system integration/computer monitoring.

Cheers - #19
 
Eric Bowen said:
It would be foolish of Apple to release a new Imac before Broadwell is out. I would seriously not expect that.
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Totally agree. Then again, they may still do something like this just because they're pushing the retina screen. I don't expect a 5K monitor to come from Apple until DisplayPort 1.3 hits the market and possibly not until a bit after that when Thunderbolt 3 arrives. A retina iMac is more plausible because they can use a proprietary and direct internal interface to drive the display. Realistically, I think the retina iMac is coming "soon" and by "soon" I think it's 4 to 6 months out... Broadwell being the key here. We already know about the 5K panels.
 
Id pay a couple G's if you can scale the screen to 4K and use the iMac as a TB hub with one (or two) TB cables off a nMP. It would be the perfect companion allowing remote USB, Ethernet, and maybe even share GPU loads with the 900 series Nvidia that may go in?? Ok that's highly unlikely...

If it's a good panel, paying an extra grand for a Broadwell inside vs a dumb panel would possibly alleviate the rMBP workloads that are paired with nMP at moment for TB2 tasks.
 
Eric Bowen said:
It would be foolish of Apple to release a new Imac before Broadwell is out. I would seriously not expect that.
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They would have to choose between Broadwell or time-to-market. Broadwell for desktops isn't coming till well into 2015. Historically, Apple have always optimized for time-to-market when it comes to "Retina" displays. What would likely happen in the latter case is a new high-end model with the 5K display, Haswell and a high-end discrete AMD/Nvidia GPU; the Iris Pro model will stick with the WQHD display.
 
Blair S. Paulsen said:
What if the iMac could use it's ThunderBolt2 port (probably x2) as a way of accepting a display feed from an outboard device?
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That's already possible and has been for some times, and I'm using it; I have a 27" iMac as the 'desktop' display device hooked up to my Mac Pro in my setup.

Google 'target display mode'.

Mike
 
If they release without Broadwell anytime next year then the unit will be outdated within 6 months by the Broadwell release. It would take months after Broadwell release for them to sell enough Imac's to justfy a new production of Broadwell Imac's. Remember Apples partner manufacturers pricing is based on MoQ requirements and orders. They will have to meet those before any new Production is started. So any gains made by the market release for a panel and GPU update are lost by the time to market with Broadwell. This is a classic case of sacrifice the future sales for minor immediate gains. I just dont see the BoD of Apple signing off on that.
 
Agree with Eric here. It should also be considered that there are no new GPU offerings to upgrade to. Or at least not any offerings that haven't been available for a while. If they were to launch anytime in the next 3 or 4 months, it would bring us nothing more than a new screen with an under-powered GPU and soon-to-be-replaced CPU architecture. I don't see it happening.

I won't completely rule out the possibility that Apple could just ship the current 27" iMac with an updated 'retina' panel. It would require very little tweaking to make that happen. They may sell enough in the short term to finish out the next 6 months or so of the current iMac's realistic lifespan.

I think the next new offering we'll see from Apple will be the revamped MacBook with the 12.5" retina screen, Broadwell mobile CPU, comes in gold, silver, space grey colors like the iDevices... Updated Mac Pro about the same time or shortly after. They could launch that now, but with the current DDR4 situation and few other compelling reasons to update the 9 month old trash can, they will probably hold off until next year when they can ship with more reasonable and available memory options, updated GPUs and upgraded TLC NAND Flash storage. If they launch in January or February, that still puts them 12 to 16 months out from Broadwell core Xeon and Thunderbolt-3.
 
Mike 'Fireman' Ross said:
That's already possible and has been for some times, and I'm using it; I have a 27" iMac as the 'desktop' display device hooked up to my Mac Pro in my setup.
Google 'target display mode'. Mike
Click to expand...

This is right up the alley of what I'm suggesting. By putting basic computer functions right into "smart" displays, they can be operated as desired either with or without another device involved. A simple internet client that can handle email, web surfing, content consumption, social media, etc is less than $100 worth of hardware added to a "dumb" display. The ability for a display to serve as an expanded desktop for a phone/phablet/tablet/laptop/MacPro tower/etc is a feature that I believe consumers will expect going forward. The seamless ability to interact with multiple devices simultaneously is the obvious next step. With ever more powerful smart phones and expanded cloud storage of assets, I can imagine a world where one simply interacts with the most convenient screen at hand.

Cheers - #19
 
I guess we'll see on Oct 16th. There seems to be a lot of rumors behind Haswell 5K machines.
 
Jason Osterday said:
I guess we'll see on Oct 16th. There seems to be a lot of rumors behind Haswell 5K machines.
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There are a lot of credible rumors and it will happen at some point in the near future -- Apple has secured a huge allotment of those 5K panels. I think the real question here is if they will push a 5K iMac to market now in light of Broadwell being only 4 to 6 months out for the mid-range class CPUs they typically use in the iMacs. Or will they launch one anyway just banking on people buying them for the display and maybe a couple other small upgrades? I've also heard some semi-credible rumors that they might take advantage of the improved TDP design of Haswell-E and give us a full desktop-class i7 CPU in an iMac with a 5K display? That would be one sexy beast and I think many of us would welcome the possibility of a 6-core, possibly even 8-core, iMac. That would really eat into their Mac Pro market, though.... Hmm... A launch of a Haswell 5K iMac now could be indicative of further delays to Intel's desktop Broadwell platform...

Intel is launching mobile Broadwell before the end of this month, according to the last known roadmap, I'm fully expecting to see the revamped MacBook Air and/ or simply MacBook and yet the October 16th rumors seem to be completely devoid of mentions for those devices. Weird.
 
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