Jump to content

Recommended Posts

In a thread about iMacs a little while ago it was said that Apple do not drop their prices.

 

GLORY BE!  

 

I have seen that all iMacs in the range have been reduced in price by a whopping £81 in the UK.

 

Hope it stays that way till I can place my order, or will they come down further??

 

Allan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Allan,

 

You may find that the price drop is a "Black Friday" offer - in which case depending on the retailer it might be over today, or by the end of Monday.

 

The alternative is to look at the refurbished part of the store:

 

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

 

which isn't flush at the moment but where you might find 15-20% off depending on the spec of the kit vs new models. The items are effectively new, although they come in a plain box, and are warranted. Over the years I have bought refurb'd iMac, Macbook Air, and I have an Apple TV as a Christmas present also from the refurb store which has just been ordered at 25% off list price - even though it is the current model - arriving at a family members this week.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My present iMac was a refurb not just to save a few £££s but because some of my legacy software would not run reliably (or in one case, at all) on whatever version of the operating system was on offer on the latest model. My wife upgraded to whatever the latest cat was a year ago and behold: NO MORE WORD. just how clever is that?! So she is forced to buy and use PAGES, which she hates. It was cheap, but a poor compromise.

 

a little nod to PC users (who I think are not immune to this kind of thing)

 

Robert

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's probably a Black Friday offer. I just sent my second iMac back to Apple yesterday for full refund this time, as opposed to just an exchange for the same model; namely iMac 3.5 turbo to 3.9 i7 etc.

 

But fear not. For photographic use it's fantastic and I will miss that part of it. The issue with the new iMacs is completely unrelated to photographic use and is purely specific to one problem that happens to be massive in that field. They will eventually fix that through either firmware/software updates but until then I will have to go without it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wonder is the price drop anything to do with the strong £ at the moment. It's $1.63 or so which is the strongest it's been in a while.

 

 

My present iMac was a refurb not just to save a few £££s but because some of my legacy software would not run reliably (or in one case, at all) on whatever version of the operating system was on offer on the latest model. My wife upgraded to whatever the latest cat was a year ago and behold: NO MORE WORD. just how clever is that?! So she is forced to buy and use PAGES, which she hates. It was cheap, but a poor compromise.

 

a little nod to PC users (who I think are not immune to this kind of thing)

 

Robert

 

That seems very odd. Are you sure she wasn't misinformed? Office for Mac 2008 and (2011 as far as I know) run on any OS up to Mountain Lion and I've not heard that there is any problem with Mavericks either.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's probably a Black Friday offer. I just sent my second iMac back to Apple yesterday for full refund this time, as opposed to just an exchange for the same model; namely iMac 3.5 turbo to 3.9 i7 etc.

 

But fear not. For photographic use it's fantastic and I will miss that part of it. The issue with the new iMacs is completely unrelated to photographic use and is purely specific to one problem that happens to be massive in that field. They will eventually fix that through either firmware/software updates but until then I will have to go without it.

 What's the actual problem then?

 

And what about the impending http://store.apple.com/uk/buy-mac/mac-pro

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whoa you just caught me MDM.

 

The new late 2013 iMacs have no problems for anything at all other than their ability to connect to audio interfaces, especially when it's coming from a Firewire port to say, a Firewire to Thunderbolt adapter. Although there is still the same issues apparently with USB connectors too. It's become a known issue and as far as I can tell, loads of the late iMacs have been returned to Apple via Apple Support for full refunds. In other words, the iMacs don't work with Audio Interfaces from a number of suppliers such as RME, Apogee or Focusrite, for example. This issue has not been sorted out as yet and could very well be related to the FD and Mavericks.

 

The impending MacPro is really a machine made primarily for graphics people. Takes 64 gigs of ram. Overkill for using Lightroom etc. IMO. It's all about external linking too. HDs will almost certainly be SSD Arrays for power users and so on.

 

I look forward to being able to get another iMac next year when the issues have been resolved.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting Gervais. Thanks for the info. I don't do anything with creative audio so it's over my head.

 

However, I don't think there is any such thing as overkill when it comes to Photoshop and RAM though - when I bought my last MacPro in 2009, I wasn't expecting to be doing big panoramas with 36MP files.

 

From the specs on the new MacPro, there will be no internal hard drive apart from the SSD for the OS and apps. Thunderbolt or external USB 3 drives look like the way forward - no Firewire either.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My present iMac was a refurb not just to save a few £££s but because some of my legacy software would not run reliably (or in one case, at all) on whatever version of the operating system was on offer on the latest model. My wife upgraded to whatever the latest cat was a year ago and behold: NO MORE WORD. just how clever is that?! So she is forced to buy and use PAGES, which she hates. It was cheap, but a poor compromise.

 

a little nod to PC users (who I think are not immune to this kind of thing)

 

Robert

Why don't you download Open Office? It's a  free suite for Mac,Windows and is updated all the time. Pages doc's would not open for me when I upgraded to Mountain Lion but they do have a download on the Apple site to upgrade however they have omitted something important which is "SAVE AS." If I use the form letter I had open before it does not let me rename to save.So,using Open Office again. I'm frustrated that many things I could not longer access when I upgraded to Mountain Lion.

 

 

L

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting Gervais. Thanks for the info. I don't do anything with creative audio so it's over my head.

 

However, I don't think there is any such thing as overkill when it comes to Photoshop and RAM though - when I bought my last MacPro in 2009, I wasn't expecting to be doing big panoramas with 36MP files.

 

From the specs on the new MacPro, there will be no internal hard drive apart from the SSD for the OS and apps. Thunderbolt or external USB 3 drives look like the way forward - no Firewire either.

 

Yes that's a probably a fair point MDM. It's slightly crazy but tend to think in terms of ram for audio and not so much for photography. You can tell I'm not a photography software power user by any means.

 

The whole thing with the new MacPro looks modular. No, definitely no more Firewire. This has caused consternation in some circles mainly because of existing hardware issues. I will put up some ideas for you shortly re: SDD storage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

MDM I was getting one of these until the issues arose. Probably will go for the Black Magic because I can stick it in a 19 inch rack. But the desktop J4 looks great.

 

 

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Promise%20Technology/PRJ4US/

 

or

 

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/blackmagicmultidock

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the info Gervais - very useful. I am completely out of touch with all of this so will need to do some research before doing anything so those links are a good starting point. My only experience with computer SSDs is with my now ageing MacBook Air and that is certainly very fast for disk operations. I've not decided yet whether to go iMac or MacPro when I upgrade which I will have to do at some point. I will probably wait a while and see what the news on the street is about the new MacPro before diving in. I'm not expecting one from Santa in any case.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.