Comment by chrisguilbeau
14 hours ago
I've bought several iMacs (2008, 2012, 2014, 2020) Anyway, it is frustrating once they aren't supported anymore. I think they are overbuilt, they are built to last forever but designed to be obsolete in 7 years. ChromeFlex has saved a few from recycling at our house (A chromebook with a retina display seems like such a waste)
I suggest spending a bit more and getting a mac mini and a studio display instead (Equally well built but can be used almost forever). If you could only (easily) use them as monitors once they went out of support...
Agreed on the iMac, but disagree on the Studio Display.
I own two 2022 Studio Displays and as beautiful and overbuilt as they are, it just does not make sense to own such an expensive 60hz display today. You can get a 144hz 5k 27inch LG for $800 now. Yes, Apple makes a $3300 120hz version of the Studio Display.
Maybe it wouldn’t bother some but 60hz is pure agony at this point
I recently chose a Studio Display over the alternatives, because I wanted something with an integrated camera to use as the primary display. There are already too many devices on my desk, so anything that needs an extra cable or comes with a battery that must be charged feels like a poor choice.
And I don't really see much value in high refresh rates outside gaming. The difference between 60 Hz and 144 Hz is minimal in most uses. Given what displays were in the 90s and 2000s, I would have chosen a different career if I was too picky about display quality.
I mean, to this point, my Logitech Brio sits atop my monitor, with a tightly cinched cable hanging down, plugging straight _into_ said monitor. It might not be the cleanest possible option, but it's not adding desk clutter.
I totally don't care about refresh rates above 60 Hz. I do not enjoy but can tolerate even 30 Hz.
What I care about is resolution, color fidelity, color gamut, viewing angles, (anti-)glare, even how quickly the monitor wakes up. I don't play competitive FPS games, I do coding, graphics, and video work on my monitors.
I dunno. Scrolling around at 120+hz on web pages can be hard to let go. I have a few monitors around my home running at 120 or better, and it's painful to go back to 60hz sometimes.
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I have a few Huawei Mateview 27 monitors. No branding facing you, brushed Alu, slightly higher that 4k (as they’re 16:10 not 16:9 - bonus), very accurate and beautifully designed - as if they were made for the Mac.
Real shame they discontinued them.
Interesting, I have used Samsung 5K displays for a year or two with my Mac Studio, and recently bought an Studio Display after one died. I am SO much happier with the studio display, it powers on so much faster, the black is much more "black", etc. The built-in camera is also really good.
I'm almost considering getting rid of the other two Samsung displays and replacing them with Studio Displays because it's just so much better.
I work with 30hz and cannot tell the difference. Mind it's mostly iTerm work.
They also have fans in them, that's not necessarily good for longevity. Thermally, yes, until the fans clog up or start making noise.
I think quite a few monitors that have USB-C input also have fans in them.
why doesn't 60 hz work for you?
60hz on old CRTs used to give me headaches as the flicker was subtly perceptible. On modern displays it's fine for me (though I mostly look at text so there's not a lot of movement happening).
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Yes, but does your LG monitor have an Apple logo on it?
It does if they take the case off.
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The older imacs at least had target display mode. That was pretty amazing so you could say least use it at a screen after it's useful life as a computer. Unfortunately they dropped it years ago. It wasn't very efficient on power and you had to use a key combo, I don't think you could make it boot straight into it every time. But at least it was there.
I really loved target display mode. It made me so happy
agreed! I am just one of several people in my circle who would have loved to keep using our 27" Intel iMacs as target mode displays. Within the Apple ecosystem, once the old 27" iMacs were discontinued there was no simple (again within there Apple ecosystem) inexpensive way of having displays larger than 24".
The studio display is priced like a ultra high end monitor but gets beat by $800-900 monitors all day. It's small, it has bottom of the barrel 60Hz, and it's only saving grace (the resolution plus the build quality) is made way less exciting by the fact it's not a modern OLED with amazing HDR.
Too many great options today to settle that overpriced undersized thing.
Some of the old iMacs could just be displays natively.[1] it was just an odd ball feature no one used.
[1] <https://support.apple.com/en-us/105126>
It's a real shame they got rid of target display mode. But then people would hold onto iMacs even longer.
Today, you can use software like Luna or Duet, or native screen sharing to control an iMac from another Mac (or vice versa). I have a 2019 iMac, bought for pennies and upgraded after to max out; way better value than buying the display on its own or a comparable monitor alone. The screen quality is just great.
I use it both as a daily driver and as a "thin client" for all my other machines with the software above.
opendisplay - https://github.com/peetzweg/opendisplay - can make a old iMac's screen useful again. In my case, a 2015 27" iMac can be used as a monitor for my modern Mac laptop, connected via ethernet cable.
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They are never as good as native input. There are a lot of compression going on that reduce image quality and increase latency.
Also they require software on both sides, so if you want to use your imac to display your computer BIOS, no.
I wonder if Apple dropped it because of some proprietary licensed IP, such as Intel WiDi, making the feature possible.
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I think this disappeared with Retina displays.
I'm still using a 2019 iMac 27" and starting to think about Linux again.
I've got a 2014 Retina iMac and a 2017 Retina iMac. Both of them run flawlessly but are now past Apple's support window. And third party software developers are mostly already adopting a "LOL we don't care" attitude about them. The hardware works impeccably, but software developers refuse to lift a finger to make their software run on them anymore. The Apple ecosystem is infuriating. With great sadness, I retired both of them a few months ago and am now running a boring Linux box with a pretty standard DPI monitor. I miss the Macs but their window of usefulness is way too short.
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I still lament buying a G5 PowerMac back in the day, top of the top spec, absolutely killer machine. Thousands and thousands of dollars. And it just ended up as ewaste while my freaking 486 is still chugging along.
I empathise!
The thing that makes older iMacs "disposable" is that the required cooling vents end up [mostly] blocked, within just a few years – then they thermally throttle, until death.
If you open them up and keep them clean, they can have uses forever:
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My 27" iMac (2009) still sits faithfully alongside my main 48" setup (because I own the copy of CS4 installed upon it – FU Adobe!). It mostly plays background shows (while I work on main computer, adjacent).
My 24" iMac (2006) still sits faithfully on my tax desk, for its annual usage/filing. It also still plays Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne (quite well!).
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>I suggest spending a bit more and getting a mac mini and a ... display, instead
This is fantastic advice; my past two Apple's have been Mini's. My three main machines all connect to the same massive 48" display (that is about to outlast its first retired Mini).
The only new iMac I would ever again consider purchasing would be something on-par with the iMac Pro (2017) – but in 2026+ any iMac would need a 32"+ display (minimum) to be "usable" IMHO.
Yeah and the old ones are actually pretty easy to open up. You just take a suction cup and clip the screen off.
I mean even the newer ones aren't bad but cutting the tape, cleaning up and putting new tape is kinda annoying. They should have stuck with the magnets.
I agree, the 7 years is way too short and it's very frustrating.
Your point about them being overbuilt and built to last forever is spot on. Another way to repurpose these machines is to install Linux. I think people will find they are still snappy and supported.
I like Omarchy because it is so different from what I am used to but still useful. Opinions on its creator (DHH) vary, but from an O/S perspective, I enjoy it. I am sure other distros are great too.
Does “support” really matter? My 2020 iMac still performs great, although I use Sequoia on it instead of Tahoe. It also runs Windows or Linux very well and was easy to upgrade to 128GB RAM.
My 2015 iMac is 11 years old and still works fine - I use it to run Windows 10 for the occasional thing that needs that and to test builds of software in High Sierra. It also runs Linux great.
It does, because everyone and their dog started releasing software that only runs on the latest version of macos. So if you are not running the latest macos, you can't use the latest software version.
For example, I used Sketch on my ond mac once and was quite happy, but then they dropped support for the OS version that mac was stuck upon. And since newer libraries resources etc all target latest version of Sketch, the version of Sketch I could run quickly became useless.
The worst is when an application updates itself just so it can stop running and tell you to upgrade to the latest OS version.
Hyperbole. Almost no software on macOS requires the latest.
However, it's great that developers are not too concerned with backwards compatibility. It was really holding back a lot of software
The difference being that the M-series machines do not have good prospects in terms of running Linux well. As I would personally not want to run Windows for sure, this matters a lot.
It has better prospects of being able to run Linux than it does of being able to run Windows, to be fair
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Old M series runs Linux well.
Trying using a Mac on which you cannot install latest Firefox and see how your statement holds.
That's one thing Windows is generally much better at.
Firefox runs fine on High Sierra.
It matters because AI is finding more security vulnerabilities than ever.
I was happy but all of a sudden my VPN refuses to release versions for Sonoma
My desktop is still a 2017 iMac Pro and I’m holding out for a workstation-class machine with similarly excellent speakers & display, pitched at the same target market but contemporary spec main board. The standard iMac is not up to this level, and hard pass on the M5 Ultra Studio + Studio Display combo, I like the integrated form factor too much. In the meantime I work mostly on MBP. Fortunately, I am patient.