Episode 982: Mac mini shortage and the status of the iMac

0:00No one goes to Hank's for his spreadsheets. They go for a darn good pizza. Lately, though, the shop's been quiet, so Hank decides to bring back the $1 slice. He asks Copilot in Microsoft Excel to look at his sales and costs and help him see if he can afford it. Copilot shows Hank where the money's going and which little extras make the $1 slice work. Now Hank's has a line out the door. Hank makes the pizza. Copilot handles the spreadsheets. Learn more at m365copilot.com slash work.

0:30Unscripted, unfiltered, unafraid. Welcome to the Macworld Podcast. My name is Michael Simon, and I am joined by Jason Cross. Good morning. And our producer, Roman Loyola. Oh, hi there. Welcome back to the continuous United States, Roman. He was in Hawaii last week. Yeah, I was in Hawaii. We all felt bad for him. Yes.

1:00Now I'm back to the grind. Yeah, in horrible California. Yes.

1:09Shucks. This is episode number 982. Hey, is... Oh, no, that's not true. I was going to say, like, will 1,000 be, like, right around the iPhone event? Or am I missing a month? 4, 8, 12, 9, not quite. Close, though. It's going to be like 9.95 or something. Yeah. Yeah. We might be short of that. Yeah, I think it's going to be like 9.96 or something. Unless we skip. But there are, they are just labels.

1:42Yeah, it's just numbers. Yeah, but 1,000 is such a nice number.

1:47I'm just saying we could jump up to 1,000 whenever we feel like it. Right. This is episode 999A. Someone out there is keeping... Episode 999B. Are we sure that they've, like... This was before I got here. Probably before all of us got here. Like, who started the counting, and are we sure it's accurate?

2:08I can reassure you that it is not accurate. Yeah. I was going to say, there's no way. I think back in the day when we had Macworld Expo, they used to release the sessions as podcasts. Okay. Well, it's still accurate in the sense that it's a different episode. Yeah. Not all of them, but several of them. I don't think they did as many as 20, but it's possible that we're past 1,000 already.

2:38Those episodes kind of got lost in the whole part of, you know... Macworld has this history of, like, transitioning websites and stuff like that, and hosting services and other things like that. And a lot of episodes got lost. Do you know when the first, like, when did we start this podcast?

3:00Like, 2003 or something, or 4? I want to say 2001, but that might not be correct. Like, immediately? I mean, podcast wasn't a thing in 01. That was the thing. We started the podcast before it was a thing. And it was started by Cyrus Favrevar. I've never been able to say his last name.

3:21Cyrus was... I think he was an intern at the time here, and he's gone on to bigger and better things.

3:31But he's the guy who started the Macworld podcast. So it was... Like, we had a podcast before the iPod was a podcast? 2005. Ah, that makes sense. It started in 2005. And it wasn't called the Macworld podcast back then. It was called Geek Factor. Oh. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's interesting. But I think he called it Geek Factor for, like, 12 episodes, and then it switched to the Macworld podcast. Oh. How about that? And 21 years later, we're at episode number 982.

4:04Today, we're going to talk all about the iMac and where it's at, where it's come from, where it's been, where it's going, and anything else that comes up. Before that, we're going to talk a little bit about the Mac Mini, because Apple made some news late last week, some quiet news that, you know, is an interesting little thing, but not a full show. But I do want to talk about it. And then we'll have this week in Apple history, and we will close with Comment Corner. Speaking of comments, you can contact us through Blue Sky Facebook threads.

4:35Search for Macworld. Look for the Blue Mouse logo. Send an email to podcast.macworld.com. Send an email to one of us. Comment under a post. Comment under a video. Get us your thoughts, and we'll talk about them on a future show. So, yeah, before we get to the iMac, let's talk about the other desktop, or the other affordable desktop, which is the Mac Mini. Yeah. I mean, basically. Slightly less affordable now. And also slightly less, like, you can't get them. Like, even for a while, we've been either out of stock or.

5:10Many configurations are out of stock, yeah. Yeah, either out of stock or, like, if you order it today, you'll get it sometime in, like, mid-July. Because I guess it was a couple months ago, like, they became, like, an AI thing where people who run these agents all the time realize that the Mac Mini is super cheap and efficient and can run these things. You know, even on 16 gigs of RAM, which is what the base model has for, at the time, 600 bucks.

5:41And Amazon always ran sales. You can get them for 500, maybe even, like, 480. Black Friday, they were down to, like, 475. But Amazon doesn't have them anymore. Like, if you search for Mac Mini, you're going to get a bunch of old refurbished products because they're just completely out of stock on Amazon. And last Friday, Apple didn't really announce it, but it just decided to stop selling the 256-gigabyte model that was $599.

6:12It's just gone. So it starts at 512 gigabytes of storage for $799. Yeah, 200 bucks more. Yeah. For... Right. And it's one of those, it's not a price increase, but it's really a price increase. Yeah, it's... They took the floor out. Like, the minimum price you can pay is now higher, even though it's the same price for the same configuration it used to be. And they've sort of pulled this before on some things.

6:44Everyone's kind of wondering why they did. They don't announce it. There's no press release. They don't say why. It's just one day that configuration's gone. Usually when they do this, what makes it so unusual is typically when they do this, it's when they introduce a new product. Right. Right. Like, they'll... They did that with their MacBook Pro a couple months ago. Yeah. It's whenever, when the new M5 version comes out or something, they'll say, it starts with double the storage, but the price went up also.

7:16Right. They'll just leave that part out. Right. And they've done that in the past. This is a product that's out there. There's no new version or configuration. They just took the bottom config out and said, no, you have... Basically, they said, you have to buy the 512 gig upgrade for $200. Like, that's now required.

7:35And that's a lot of money for what it is. I mean, that's... I mean, we're talking about 30%. To Apple, that's $10 worth of flash storage. Yeah. Well, there's that. It's not... But it's also 30% more than it was... It's 30% more, even though you get double the storage. And the speculation is that in the RAM crunch situation that we're in, where memory is so expensive, all chips are gone up, but memory especially. Apple's kind of offsetting that.

8:07This is one of the strategies to offset it, is to do multiple things. But one of them being, well, kind of make people buy the upgrades that are massive profit centers. Like, Apple charges egregious prices for additional RAM or additional storage compared to the cost, to the rest of the industry, anything. Like, we've all known for many years that those upgrades are way out of whack with the rest of the thing.

8:37So if you kind of make someone buy that, then you can offset where you're losing money on the RAM here, you can kind of offset it. Maybe that's what's going on. Maybe it's just a supply issue. You know, maybe they're just going, boy, we don't have a lot of these. Let's just sell more expensive ones. Or, you know, we don't know. Right. The 256-gigabyte model has been out of stock for some time. They still offered it for sale.

9:08I wonder if, like, if you place an order. We should reach out to Apple and ask them this. If you place an order that was backordered, will they still fill those? By, like, I'm talking like they were pushed, like, months away. Yeah, I've not heard that anybody's gotten, like, an email or a notice saying your order has been canceled or would you like it and whatever. It was pointed out that, hey, Apple sells this other inexpensive product, the Mac Neo, MacBook Neo, and it starts at 256.

9:42Right. And for it to go to 512 and get a Touch ID sensor is only $100 more. Right. So why is this one $200 more? Right. Yeah. And the answer is because Apple's prices are not based around cost. They're based around the price that they want to sell it at, whatever price sounds good. I mean, so the MacBook Air went from 256 to 512 like a month and a half ago. And that's $100 more than it was. It went from $999.

10:13Now it starts at $1099 for double the storage. The MacBook Pro went from 512 to one terabyte, but didn't, that's $200. So they kind of play fast and loose with the rules when it comes to that stuff. And that MacBook Air update, it was also the update to the M4 chip or the M5 chip. M5, yeah, right. It all came at the same time, right? Yeah. This is the first time in a while that I can remember Apple just saying like, which is not offering that model anymore. Although they did, I don't know, three months ago, maybe less.

10:43They took away the 128 gigabyte RAM option from the Mac Studio, which was a million dollars and no one bought, well, the people bought, but I'm not buying it. So like that is clearly related to like, this RAM is too expensive. We can't sell it for the price we were selling and that's it. We're just not selling it anymore. Well, I think if you bought that update, that upgrade, it would be totally worth it. Like they would be. Well, not anymore.

11:13I think the price of RAM is so expensive like that to get that much RAM. I think I would have, they'd have to, maybe, maybe I'm wrong. No, I mean, they, they charge way more than it costs them for that. Of course. Like, like sky hot. I mean, so I just think it was a matter of, uh, they didn't, they, I don't think it was just a very popular build to have that in that price and stuff. But yeah, this is the first time I can recall that, that sort of mid cycle without upgrading the chip or anything else, they've just taken away the entry level model.

11:47Right. And now there's a new entry level model. That's more expensive, a lot more expensive, 40% more expensive. It went from $500 to $800. Well, $500 on sale, $599 to $799. I would say $599, $6. Yeah. So $6. But yeah, it's, it's significant. And now listen, we used to always recommend if you can afford it to, to up the storage, even though it was too expensive because you can't do it after the fact. But to force people to buy a $799 device that was $599, you know, that kind of sucks.

12:22Yeah.

12:24And we don't know what's the next steps are here. Like if you try to buy that 512 model now, you're not getting it to like mid June. I just looked, uh, deliveries are, uh, end of May to June 5th or pick up in store on June 5th. So, you know, they're about three weeks out. Okay. It looks like some, some higher end confirmed configurations were like last time I looked like September or August. So, oh yeah. Like they're, they're clearly having issues. If I just start clicking some updates here, it's going to say something else.

12:58Uh, 10 to 12 weeks is where if once I start just adding RAM and adding storage, it's, it's higher than that. So, I mean, I was probably shifting some things around to push the RAM that they can have or can get or do have to other products that aren't like, you know, I don't know how many people are buying a 64 gigabyte RAM Mac mini. So it's, it's, it's a balancing act and it's going to be a balancing act for a long time.

13:30Tim Cook and the, um, earnings call last week basically said, we're looking like at least six months, maybe more that this is going to be an issue, like a serious issue. And we have to figure out what to do because. Yeah. He, um, uh, he said that there was, um, in the previous quarter, not, not the current quarter, but the previous quarter, he had mentioned that like, there's, there's, um, the impact of all this RAM crunch stuff was offset by the fact that they've got a bunch

14:00of stock. Basically they have not really stock. Uh, that's not really, it's not like a warehouse full of chips. They have a great, they have a, uh, purchase agreements with their suppliers to supply so many chips and they're still in that. And that happened this current quarter too. And it's going to still be true the next quarter to a small degree. And he said, we don't give guidance past the next quarter. June, the June quarter. Yeah. The June quarter. Uh, but, uh, yeah, the June to September quarter, like we don't, we don't give guidance

14:31past that, but that when that happened beyond that, we're, we don't have like inventory to offset the cost of these chips. So we're looking at ways to deal with it. And I think what, what's going to happen is Apple's probably going to do a bunch of stuff like this. Targeted products are going to get certain configurations removed and, you know, and they're going to, they're going to do everything they can to just do a bunch of small things

15:01rather than just one. Everything's, you know, plus 20% for Ram, like, or whatever.

15:10Yeah. Um, we'll see how, how it, if it affects pricing, I mean, obviously the iPhone is the number one question and they have to secure that stuff for the next 12 months to cycle there. There's a new model that iPhone ultra does probably going to have a 12 gigs of Ram, I would assume. So they have to, you know, they can't just say, oh, well now the iPhone starts at 999 and just deal with it. Like, you know, they, they have to figure out how to cut those costs. There's some, there's some talk that the, the base iPhone might get a slightly different

15:45display or some different internal stuff. Like Apple's really good at that stuff. So they have to figure it out. This is a bit of a landmine for John Ternus to navigate like immediately, but Tim Cook will be around and he'll, and he'll help out. But although most of these deals, uh, are, and decisions are made like now, like you're not made when you, by the time we buy them, they've already been in production for months. Everything's all these deals are worked out. So, but he is going to have to step into a role where the immediate products that go on

16:19sale that September, that's all dealt with, but the, the products for the spring and beyond like, there's going to be stuff with, yeah, there's gonna be stuff with like pricing and so on. That's going to be tough for him to, to deal with. Yeah. Like we're all really hoping, uh, for a Mac Neo update next year with the next A series processor. Cause that's a 12, that's like a 12 gig processor. And now it's like, Ooh, now the Mac Neo with 12 instead of eight gigs, that's really neat. Maybe that doesn't happen. Right. Right. Yeah.

16:50He's going to have some hard decisions. Maybe Apple gets rid of one of its iPad lines. Maybe, you know, the, like there's, there's decisions to be made that are, that aren't easy and Apple is in a better position. We we've written about this before. Apple's in a better position than most, but it's still, it's still tough as we saw last week by getting rid of that, um, that Mac mini. So Jason, do you think the Mac mini ever returns to five 99, a starting price of five 99

17:21ever is a big word. Um, I don't think it happens soon. Like I think, I think when the M five Mac mini is announced, released whenever, which may happen at WWDC and it may be later this year, but when they update it to the M five, it's not going to surprise me at all. If it just starts at five 12 and, but it's not seven 99, it's six 99. Sure. Right. Yep. That's what they did with the Mac book air. Yep. So it's actually a hundred dollars more.

17:52It's still, it's like double the, and this is what they've done. Like you said, the air and other products before the, the minimum price goes up, but they go, but, but it's double the storage of, of before, you know, or whatever. Although can they claim that now that they changed it? It's double the storage of what the M four of what it was. Yeah. Yeah, but it's not what it was, but yeah, my guess is that they quote, lower the price to six 99, but it's still going to be more expensive than it ever was.

18:24And give you that five 12 cause, cause a flash is under short supply and everything else too, but it's nowhere near like what memory is. Memory is the, I was going to ask you that question. Like storage is, is hidden. There's a supply crunch there as well, but it's, it's just not literally every chip. Like anything made in a chip fab is right now under short supply. Cause AI is gobbling up everything. AI servers. It's all for the AI servers. Yeah.

18:55And even like non-servers, like normal computers and laptops need a bunch of RAM just to run, you know, Gemini and Siri and Apple intelligence. And it's like RAM is more important than it's ever been right now. And you know, that's why we're in this ridiculous crunch. So if you want a Mac mini, uh, I don't know, go get one, I guess, because it's only going to get harder. It's only going to get harder to buy. If you can find a 256 gigabyte one, go for a 600, grab it.

19:28You know, if you see, it has become sort of, it has sort of become the darling of like small businesses and hobbyists that want to run local models. They, they can, because it has unified memory, they can, it's pretty inexpensive to get something with like say 64 gigs of RAM, you know, and then, and, and it's really, really small and you can have a closet full of them and now run a bunch of local models or, or whatever it's virtual Macs. You know, there's no, there's no Amazon web service to spin up a virtual Mac.

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21:14So as Jason said, the, the MacBook Neo comes in two 56 gigabytes. The other Mac that is offered in that's with two 56 gigabytes of storage is the iMac, which doesn't seem to be affected as much by this whole thing. Like you can go to Amazon and you can get one for a hundred dollars off. Like, like, like you always could. I wonder if that's, so the Mac mini makes sense because the people who are buying that computer,

21:45they have a setup, they have a monitor. It's, it's, it's inexpensive. The iMac is a different animal because you're getting a keyboard and mouse display. You're getting the all in one. Yeah. So that still starts at 16 gigs, right? But 16 gigabytes of Ram and 256 gigabytes of storage. It has an M four, right? Roman. Yeah. It has an M four. Um, I wondered if Apple just skips the M five because they've done that before. The iMac has,

22:16for example, it went from M one to M three. It didn't get an M two. I wonder if Apple skips the M five and uses those chips for the Mac mini, which is obviously more popular right now.

22:29Yeah. I don't know if they have a shortage of M five. I don't know if M five production is sort of short, um, and base M five because there's no M five pro that you can get an, you can get an M four pro Mac mini. Like you can't get an M five pro M four pro iMac. Um, right. Yeah. I wonder if the M four pro Mac mini has not changed in price because that one started at five 12 previously. Yes. Um,

23:00and I think it starts with more Ram. I want to say. Yeah. 24. Does it start at 24? Um, yeah. So, so I, I have no idea if they're kind of short on the M five chips compared to demand, but I do know that, um, I would really assume that the iMac is much less popular than the Mac mini laptops way outsell desktops. And then when it comes to desktops on the, on the Apple side, it used to be kind of iMac was really popular, but now it's these Mac mini being used for everything.

23:32Yeah. Right. Hold on. I got a Romans raising his hand. I've never seen that before. I thought I'd chime in. So my theory, so I have a theory on this. So I think Apple wanted to have the iMac in a two year cycle. So they had the M one, they came out with the M three, but then if we remember right, correctly, if you remember back then, Apple wanted to move off the M three as soon as possible. That was our speculation, but yes. Yeah. Yeah. That was all the reports was that they want to move off M three because M three

24:05production was really expensive because it was the first. Oh no. I don't, was it three nanometer? Yeah. It was the first. They use a more, there's a more efficient and cost effective three nanometer process being used for the M four. So the M fours are probably cheaper to make than M three's were. Right. And they did that with the, the, was it the Mac book pro? I don't remember. They moved. Yeah. The only M three is the, is the, was the iPad air for a while. And then like, I don't,

24:35there's nothing, nothing uses the M three anymore. Yeah. So the, the only reason why they went, so my theory is the only reason why they went from M three to M four is because they wanted to move off the M three process. That makes sense. They have the M four. So I, you know, so that's why I think they're coming, they're going to, or waiting until the M six come out with an iMac. That's why we haven't really heard anything for a while. Cause they weren't going to come out with an M five. We'll see if that holds true.

25:06And they eventually do.

25:10Cause they, I mean, there was a report by, was it Mark Gurman who said that was it back in March when he said that they're coming out with new colors, but that's about it. You think they would come out with new colors without upgrading the chip? Maybe it did it for the, the AirPods max. That's true. Yeah. The thing is this whole supplier thing now throws a whole new wrench into the thing. So, you know, so who knows if Apple's going to stick with their preferred production cycle.

25:41Who knows? Yeah. I mean, I think the iMac is fine for what it is right now, but I like, it's not a very future forward machine. Like even as a budget all in one, like your first Mac kind of thing, it, it definitely needs a larger display. And I really want them to be able to offer something that's also a higher end, either at least let them put the pro chip in it. Like they do the Mac mini or offer a whole pro model. Apple that's got a better display and also the pro max,

26:15like the equivalent of a Mac book pro, but for the iMac. And I wonder how many people would buy that, but I think it's because, you know, all in ones aren't what they used to be.

26:27Yeah. Back in 2017,

26:30I want to say Roman, you can correct me if I'm wrong on that. They Apple came out with the iMac pro, which was 27 inches. Really cool looking. It was only available in space. Black had black accessories. It was awesome, but they never updated it after its original release. And I, it was kind of like an olive branch to like higher end Mac people because they were still fixing the, well, it's like, you know, fixing the Mac pro, which was that. Yeah. Mac pro was taking too long.

27:01Right. And they were coming out with the, the, the reintroducing the, the tower. So the irony is they created the most closed system in the world and, and said, here, here's your, here's your stopgap. But it was cheaper than the, the, the Mac pro. And, uh, you know, it was very cool, very fast, you know, gorgeous. I just, I wonder how many of those they sold because normal people like me weren't going to buy one. And I don't know how many pros grabbed them either. It was, it started at like six, five or six grand. It was expensive. Yeah.

27:32Yeah. And yeah, you know, pros aren't necessarily looking for, for an all in one. Right. Like that's what I was, you know, when, when they came out, we're like, yeah, this thing's cool, but I don't know if anyone's going to really buy it. But, and then it, you know, it went away and they haven't offered an iMac that large since the current model, which came out in 2021 is a 23 and a half. They call it 24, but it's just 23 and a half inch, a four and a half K display.

28:02It's, it's, it's nice. But as Jason says, you know, it's, it's a little small for 2026. It's not, you know, 24 inches is, you know, when you have 85 inches and I mean, even cheap, it's small, even really cheap desktop monitors. And there's not a lot of all in ones in market, but the other cheap, all really cheap all in ones, much cheaper than an iMac. They're all 27 inches. So that, that feels like that should be the bottom.

28:33And of course that's what studio displays are. So it feels like that should be the minimum size and then just add features or performance from there. But that's right. I'd like to see them offer that. And I don't think it's coming this year, but that would be a good one for next year. You know, yeah. Before the, before this model, Apple offered a 21 inch and a 27 inch. So this was like right in between. And back in 2021, it was like, all right, it's, you know, that's a, that's an okay compromise.

29:03It was a slight, I guess a pretty major redesign. It was the same. It's the same kind of look. Like it's a, it's a rectangle with a little bit of a chin and you know, but it was a little bit bigger than the 21 inch. It was the similar price. 1199. It started at 1199. You know, it's a, it's a decent Mac. You get into the, the, the keyboard and the mouse and you get a, you know, it's a really good display. Even if it's a little bit too small, you're getting a, you know, an M4 display and you know, it's like the camera and it's,

29:35it's, it's a nice machine. Yeah. The camera's a little old that could use an update to, you know, just, there's just a bunch of stuff that could use a refresh, but I think it's very low priority because I just don't think it's a big seller. Yeah. That's what I'm wondering. Like how many people are going into an Apple store looking at all the options and deciding on an iMac? Yeah. Nobody there. I can tell you they're buried way in the back or sometimes, sometimes they're off on the side because they're big and they don't want to obscure the tables for the other stuff and everything.

30:07But yeah, they're people buy that people buy laptops. It's, you know. Yeah. And you know, they, I don't think they could just get rid of it.

30:19You know, the iMac is Apple. Like it was the machine. Well, we're actually going to talk about it later. 20. No. Yeah. 28, 27, whatever years ago, they came out with like that, that the iMac came out and it completely transformed, not just Apple, but the, the, the computer landscape as a, as a whole. Like it was a bombshell announcement. Yeah. That was the big, that was the first big product after the Steve jobs return. And the thing where they turned around Apple and they got rid of all these other products they were making from,

30:53you know, printers and all the other stuff and like 6,000 variants. The hints of Macs to try and sell to businesses and everything. They're like, no, no, no, we're, this was collapsing it all down to like, this is the thing. And the heart and soul of the Mac from the first one is it's a single box. That's got everything right. Like that was, that was what was unique about the Mac compared to the original Macintosh compared to everything else is it's like,

31:25it's like one thing you plop it on your desk and it's the computer and the monitor and the disk drive is in there. And back in those days, disk drives were often separate, like connected with a cable. So, so, I mean, and that's the current iMac is just the continuation of that thing. Even though people don't buy that, the all in one they buy now is a laptop. They're like, throw a battery in there. Right. And Apple, Apple came out with the iBook and stuff over the years,

31:55you know, like it's, oh yeah, they, the iMac gave birth to all these things, but the iMac has been the thing that, you know, is synonymous with Apple. Everyone makes laptops. Nobody, nobody makes an all in one like Apple does. Yeah. I mean, we can have an, I guess we could argue the iPhone is what's synonymous with Apple, but, but it was even the start of the whole, whole iBranding, right? That was the first i something. Yep. And, and they carried that forward for years and years to,

32:28to all these things to the, to the Apple watch. Right. It was the first time they, everyone was expecting it to be iWatch. iWatch. Yeah. And, and that's what I all, there was all these articles before it was announced about the coming iWatch and everything and surprise we use Apple now. Yeah. And, you know, it's a little sad as a, I'm not, like a, a veteran, like Roman is for Apple, but you know, like I grew up around, I, I never had a, a G three iMac. I had the G four iMac,

32:59but like the iMac was the thing that, that brought me to the store that when, when that G four iMac came out, that sunflower thing in 2000 or whatever year it was, or nine, 2002 was it, was it after the iPod? It was after the iPod. Was it? Oh geez. I don't remember. Roman, when did the G four iMac come out?

33:19But I had to go to the Apple store to see one as did most everyone who saw it. Not the Apple store, but whatever, whatever, whatever they had at the time. Oh right. It was copy USA or whatever. Right. Right. Right. Circuit city or something, you know, there's all those things that no longer exist. Yeah. It was 2002. Oh, two. Okay. So a little bit. I remember. I remember my mom had to have one. She was, she was a big Apple user. They had all that they have for a long time offered deals for teachers.

33:51Um, so she, and, and she was always a, an Apple user through all this time when, even when I wasn't, but I remember going with her. She's like, was real excited to go get that new, that Bondi blue iMac. Um, and her old, her old computer needed to, needed to go anyways. But yeah. And it's like I said, it's sad that the iMac is just not, it's fine. Like this it's, it's, it's okay. It's good.

34:23If you gave me $1,200 right now, I wouldn't, I wouldn't buy an iMac. And I just wonder how much longer it has left before it's gone.

34:34Yeah. Not without doing something unique and special. I was going to say that's a good transition for, uh, last week's email. Okay. Yeah. If that's okay. Uh, David C, he had told us about how he's had, iMacs from the great color one to the, uh, current M series, but he was asking what would be a reasonable replacement for about the same cost. Right. That's a tricky question. When you consider what's going on with the mini right now. Mac mini was fine. 99.

35:05Now it's seven 99. You have a less to spend on a display. Yeah. So I was thinking maybe it's a Mac book Neo with, uh, and you can buy an external display for it. I don't know. So it, yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've always recommended, uh, that people get that storage upgrade anyway, because you can't, like you said, you can't expand it and you're going to run out of desktop computer. After a couple of years, you're going to be like, Oh gosh, two 56 was not enough.

35:36Yeah. But yeah, that's a tough one. and, and it's hard to recommend an Apple display to go along with any of this because the cheapest one is so expensive. 1600. Yeah. Cause yeah, the cheapest Apple standalone display is, I don't know, $300 more than an iMac. Yeah. It's crazy. So just get like a regular, you know, you just any other monitor, any other. Yeah. Like, like a 4k, like, you know, the iMac's four and a half care, but 4k is good.

36:06A 4k monitor will cost you $300, maybe less depending on. Yeah. Even, even a really good one could be, you know, six or $700, you know? Yeah. So yeah, that's, it's, it's hard to say like for, for somebody who wants a desktop computer like, and, and has a thousand to $1,500 to spend, it's hard to tell them like, well, what do you get in the Apple universe for that? Right.

36:37Especially if you need a display, if you need all the things, you know, it's, it's maybe Romans, right. It's fine for $600 or 699, both of which are less expensive than the Mac mini right now. You can get a Neo, which, you know, arguably a lot slower than the Mac mini, but still pretty. Yeah.

36:56And, you know, you, it's a laptop, so you can take it wherever you want. And then when you plug it in, like I have, and you guys have, I'm sure I have a power book. I call it my power book. I, I have a Mac book pro plugged into a couple of monitors so I can take it into the dining room and to an office if I have to, or sit down at my desk here and plug it in. And I have a whole setup without having a stationary Mac. I mean, I don't have any, I don't have that kind of setup, but yeah,

37:27a lot of people do, especially, I, what, uh, an official doc would be something that Apple should sell. I've thought for a while now. Yeah. Yeah. But no, I mean, I have a, I have a Mac studio. That stuff. Right. You have a studio. Roman, you have a external display hooked up to a laptop at work. Is that why? Is that, is that your setup? Yeah. Yeah. And it works, you know, you can close it if you want, you can keep it open, have a, have a second screen, whatever, whatever you want to do. And it's just, you know, you're done with your day.

37:58You unplug it and you walk away. You're not tied to the desk. Like an, I'm like, like you are with an iMac. So in that sense, I understand why the iMac has declined in popularity and Apple's attention. However, it would be so cool if they just went crazy and just came out with like a brand new ridiculous design that like the iMac G4 that, people have never seen before. If they came out with like a retro G4 that would sell out instantly.

38:30Yeah. I mean, it would sell out. It's small limited run numbers to, right. To, you know, nostalgia enthusiasts. But I mean, it's displays really tiny and it's big and deep and cause it had a CRT. So like they made something look like that. It wouldn't, it wouldn't necessarily work. No, the sunflower one I'm talking about. Oh, the sunflower. Even so, that's a really small display. Like that's a tiny, that's a, that's an iPad. 15 inches is fine. I'm, that's a laptop.

39:00My, my, I use a 14 inch MacBook pro half the day. So yeah, it's a laptop. You have to sit back from. Yeah, but you can move it around. It was so cool. And it's so funny that they went from that to you can't move it. You can tilt it at all. You can't move it at all. Yeah. And they really get that design since. I know. So the iMac G5, which came out in Roman, you can help me here, but I want to guess like 2004, maybe was a basically a big giant monitor with the computer behind it,

39:35which at the time was pretty cool. You know, it was novel, but as Jason said, like the iMac G4 could literally had, I don't know, 2 million different configurations. You can put it wherever you want it to just move it around, up, down, left, right, circular. And the new one that they came out with an 04, which is the one they still use. It just tilts and that's it. Yeah. It doesn't even go up or down. Yeah. And it's all, they're all too low. Everybody who's got any kind of Mac display or iMac or anything since that

40:08time has it sitting on like two reams of paper, of like printer paper or like a whole cottage industry of like, like shell risers. Yes. There's that match the iMac aesthetic and everything. And I used to have one. Yeah. But yeah, it's just funny. Uh,

40:30yeah. So iMac G5 and then the Intel one, and then the, the, the, the newest one is the, um, Apple Silicon. And it's similar to that one. I mean, obviously it's skinnier and, you know, a little more svelte. Yeah. But nice colors. The same design from 2004 or five, whenever it came out, because they just, they just stopped really devoting attention to like Johnny Iva used to be his like playground Mac. And now they like, they stopped, they stopped really putting all that attention into it.

41:02You know, they're, they're still nice. You know, they're, they're colorful and cool and all, but I just don't know if we're going to ever see a new one other than, you know, here's a slightly different shade of orange or purple. I don't know if Apple's ever going to, going to bother releasing a, and like a, like a completely redesigned iMac ever again.

41:30Yeah. Yeah. Dark days of summer are here and so is the sizzling heat. Keep your home cool with one sources, $79 AC tune-up,