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Apple Will Ship A Pro iMac Later This Year, It Won't Feature Touchscreen (buzzfeed.com)

Apple's expected update to its iMac line will arrive later this year with some previously unexpected additions: pro models. From a report: "We have big plans for the iMac," Phil Schiller, Apple's SVP of worldwide marketing, said during a recent reporter roundtable at the company's Machine Shop hardware prototyping lab. "We're going to begin making configurations of iMac specifically with the pro customer in mind." Just what those configurations will entail, Apple won't yet say. Nor will it comment on the possibility of an iMac Pro moniker for the more powerful machines in the lineup. Company executives are, however, quite happy to confirm a feature the pro iMac will not have: touchscreen. "No," Schiller said when asked if Apple would consider building such a thing. "Touch doesn't even register on the list of things pro users are interested in talking about. They're interested in things like performance and storage and expandability."

6 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmm by John+Allsup · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Tasks that previously would have required the Mac Pros of old are now being well addressed by today’s iMac."

    And creative tasks that require a high-end machine, where once creative pros would turn to Mac Pros, are now being well addressed by high-end Windows workstations, that, you know, allow newer CPUs than Sandy Bridge.

    --
    John_Chalisque
  2. A "small" internal SSD is fine by Bender+Unit+22 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A "small" internal SSD is fine. Like 1TB. I would be running an external RAID encloure anyways. I can't see having less than 8TB for editing 4K videos anyway.
    But what I REALLY would like was a workstation like the old Mac Pro. My late 2013 iMac runs OK(the big 4gb graphics card and fastest cpu) still but it bothers me that I have to replace everything, including the screen. I can extend the life of it now that I make more and more in 4K by getting a faster external RAID.

    So what I think what I will do is that I will build a 8 core hackintosh workstation so that I can get a proper workstation to run FCP X on now that Apple don't make one and haven't done for some time.

  3. Re:Apple will never give you what you want. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yeah, lets go back to the days of endless shipping delays due to IBM fabbing chips for their P-series servers, and then Apple as an afterthought. Let's go back to not having any performance whatsoever in notebooks, because there was no such thing as a low-wattage G5 and never would be. And, even better, let's get all the software incompatibility of not running a common instruction set with the rest of the world, causing you to have to run needed applications in virtualization + emulation rather than just virtualization.

    You may have missed it, but the transition to Intel was the smartest thing that Apple has done in 15 years, other than release the iPhone.

  4. Re:No trackpoint by Phics · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I agree with this sentiment. Touchpads are the ultimate in dumbing down a HID to make it 'friendly' but ultimately less efficient. I refuse to use a consumer notebook these days, so I stick with my T-series ThinkPads with TrackPoint. I understand why some people like touchpads, but I find them irritating, slow, awkward, and inaccurate. Also, nothing like moving a mouse without taking your hands off the home keys.

    --
    There are two types of people in the world; those who believe there are two types of people, and those who don't.
  5. Once, long ago... by puddingebola · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Once, long ago..., Slashdot was a place of serious programmers. They were interested in the philosophy of open source programming. They were committed to the development of good open source software, of promoting its use and development. They were interested in the technical challenges that it's development created, and they discussed the various facets of the issues involving open source software. Now...now there are only people like us discussing the latest Mac! Ha ha ha ha! We've destroyed them ALL! We've RUINED THEIR WEBSITE! HA HA HA HA HA! BWAHAHAHA!

  6. People settled for the iMac. Old Pro was better. by enjar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The old Mac Pro (4U aluminum chassis) had:
    - Four drive bays, and you could get an aftermarket tray to add SSDs/
    - Easy RAM upgrade
    - Interchangeable GPU(s) -- it would take nVidia or ATI boards.
    - Two network drops

    The "replacement" Pro garbage can had stuff soldered in place, no upgrade option for GPU and a form factor that didn't allow upgrades, in addition to being abhorrently expensive and never updated. Not to mention having to do simple things like expand hard drive space with daisy chained expensive Thunderbolt stuff strung together like Christmas lights. I remember the mocking Jeff Goldblum Apple ad asking if PC stood for "Perpetually Cabled". In the old system you could keep all that stuff internal and using PCI, which was still faster.

    When we retired the old Pros, we replaced them with MacBookPros -- the garbage can just priced itself out of contention, and into the realm of "can we do the same thing Linux or Windows instead, since that garbage can is now more expensive than some really decent servers we bought recently"