New 24" M1 iMacs come in 7 Colors / Orders starting on April 30th

[pastrychef]

I kind of miss the old Beige Box Macs. Simple, clean and elegant. Definitely not a work of art but still aesthetically appealing. Compare it to some of the older Lenovo black box towers.

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I liked the way the Power Mac 8100/8500 cases looked too but opening and working in it was a real pain. I remember cutting my hand in there once.

 

[zipb]

I liked the way the Power Mac 8100/8500 cases looked too but opening and working in it was a real pain. I remember cutting my hand in there once.

Sharp sheetmetal inside.

 

[pastrychef]

I still have a B&W G3 with a Korg Oasys PCI card + accompanying blue 20" monitor(a behemoth waiting 20 kg). I thought it looked nice, back then. I didn't like the beige quadra 950 I had once. Just as plain as a normal 80ties PC. The Motorola en PowerComputing clones I had looked awful too.
Design made Apple a big company, people prefer nice looking stuff, even if it's technically inferior or really expensive.

Yes. I also had the matching monitor. Lol.

I also remember overclocking my G3 by just changing a few jumpers and it was still passively cooled.

There's no doubt in my mind that aesthetics matter with just about everything. But the flip down side panel was also extremely functional on those El Capitan cases. Also, lets not forget how beautifully the G4 Cube opened up or how balanced the Lamp iMacs were.

 

[nicksoph]

Setting aside the chin and colours I think there are two functional reasons these are poorly designed.

The main one being the power connector - it would have been possible to have this as a USB C connector delivering power to the monitor and data to the power brick which would have a USB C female port, that would have allowed for usb connections to things at the brick end. As it is they have made it proprietary and functional only as much as it will carry network traffic.

2. The USB ports on the back of the monitor - works if its easy to get to the back of the monitor, not so easy in a cubbyhole against a wall. But even when the USB ports are accessible it's usually ugly to see the cables dangling. The placement of ports is not good and I suspect there will be a secondary market of colored IO port bases for the iMacs.

I love the monitors thinness but not much else - I think the design overall was driven by Apple wanting it to look like the old iMac (maybe to reassure as they swap CPU's) and that commitment to form led to bad placement of ports. The propriety power/network cable must have at least prompted conversations about using USB C which would have been easier to implement than doing all the work to get just Ethernet. But purple.

 

[pastrychef]

I love the monitors thinness but not much else - I think the design overall was driven by Apple wanting it to look like the old iMac (maybe to reassure as they swap CPU's) and that commitment to form led to bad placement of ports. The propriety power/network cable must have at least prompted conversations about using USB C which would have been easier to implement than doing all the work to get just Ethernet.

Has it been confirmed that the ethernet on the adaptor is a USB device and not PCI?

I don't know why Apple hasn't standardized on 10GBase-T on all the Macs yet... Even on PC motherboards, 2.5GBase-T has become very common. Apple is falling behind the curve here.

 

[nicksoph]

Has it been confirmed that the ethernet on the adaptor is a USB device and not PCI?

Don't know but the fastest usb/network dongle Ive seen is 2.5Gbps and if there was a decision to be made between having a USB hub on the power brick or having 10Gbps network speeds through Apples proprietary cable I think Id still go for the the hub despite losing network speeds to keep at least some of the cabling away from the desk.

 

[pastrychef]

Don't know but the fastest usb/network dongle Ive seen is 2.5Gbps and if there was a decision to be made between having a USB hub on the power brick or having 10Gbps network speeds through Apples proprietary cable I think Id still go for the the hub despite losing network speeds to keep at least some of the cabling away from the desk.

Having USB on on the power adaptor is a matter of opinion. Instead of using traditional USB hubs, I use a monitor stand with integrated USB hub. If/when I get an iMac, there's a strong likelihood that I would get one with VESA mount so that I can continue using this stand.

Typically, I keep the brick part of power adaptors on the floor and it would be a major PITA if I had to crawl under and behind my desk every time I wanted to plug/unplug a USB device.

Ethernet is different. I never have to plug/unplug it. It just needs to be plugged in during initial setup of the system.

Keeping the brick part on my desk near the iMac would probably require me to twist tie the excess amount of cable between the iMac the brick making things look unsightly. Then plugging devices to the brick would just create an octopus on my desk. I also don't keep my power strips on top of my desk.

 

[nicksoph]

Keeping the brick part on my desk near the iMac would probably require me to twist tie the excess amount of cable between the iMac the brick making things look unsightly. Then plugging devices to the brick would just create an octopus on my desk. I also don't keep my power strips on top of my desk.

Not intended to be used like that - the USB hub on the brick gets tucked away near power supply and then the things that are permanently needed - Printers and network etc go into the brick (or a hub running off it) the things that are swapped in and out stay where they are on the monitor, the only thing that has changed is that instead of just the ethernet being connected away from the monitor, other things can be too. This helps get rid of the octopus by offering the option of relocating cables away from the monitor and to wherever the brick can be hidden. (And because it's a USB cable, the distance between the brick and the monitor is limited only by how far the cables are capable of carrying the power/data rather than what ever the length of cable Apple supply)

 

[nicksoph]

I like the hub - it pretty much fits the functional design that I think is right for the iMac, with the M1 in the base and a cable running through the monitor arm feeding the display (and no chin!). The ports on the base rather than monitor make cable management easier. Might be a few decisions to make about which ports go where but it strikes me a much better All In One design than what they have gone for.

 

[pastrychef]

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I like the hub - it pretty much fits the functional design that I think is right for the iMac, with the M1 in the base and a cable running through the monitor arm (and no chin!)

Just get an M1 Mac mini and you can use whatever monitor/stand you like. They can be specced out pretty much identically.