Little room for imagination? The iMacs that came after the G4 are not even height adjustable.
They also didn't just cut down on useless material. Power supplies are still large, but Apple has moved them out of the iMac in 2020.
The recent iMac redesign also makes it extremely awkward to connect external speakers using a cable, but the built-in speakers have received mixed reviews. Even that seems like a step back from the iMac G4.
Regarding the power supply I suspect that right now we are in transition just like when Apple was late on updating updating the design of the late intel notebooks. It seems like they know M1 was on the way and focused their efforts on that knowing that Intel was going away. If Intel was not going away my guess is that they would have resolved the later thermal/design issues of the laptops sooner.
Same goes for this power supply. We are probably moving towards even lower power consumer chips and while the current power supply is pretty small, just imagine a more power efficient base line M2/M3 chip + GaN based power supply. Maybe they could power the machine with a tiny cube shaped PSU or just have a usb-c connector coming out of the back.
The part about built-in speakers is interesting. How often would you be connecting/disconnecting them? Seems like the kind of thing you'd connect once and be done with it.
I guess it's only meant for headphones in a pinch, and you are supposed to buy Bluetooth speakers/headphones anyway? But Apple also discontinued the big HomePod that would give the iMac some oomph.
(I often suspect that the new iMac is that primarily meant as cashier machine in clinics, boutiques etc. In that context the design is probably fantastic, but then what is the successor to the iMac G4 line? Maybe everyone just uses laptops for family computers?)
Ugh, that does look bad. I didn’t realize it was on the side. Reminds me of the mouse with the charging port on the bottom.
If I owned one of these and had external speakers, I’d consider getting a basic USB audio adapter and using that so it’s out of sight. Bonus: it keeps your headphone jack free for actual headphones.
i would argue height adjustment is a feature not a design and they particularly chose not to include that in their features. Also the power supplies are not huge post M1 nor were they particularly large before that. From a comparison standpoint it’s nothing like the disgusting brick and Velcro you get with most other notebooks.
I’m not pretending to be an apple defender however I am a believer of intentionality and consideration which gives them the right to design a specific way if they rationalize it.
They also didn't just cut down on useless material. Power supplies are still large, but Apple has moved them out of the iMac in 2020.
The recent iMac redesign also makes it extremely awkward to connect external speakers using a cable, but the built-in speakers have received mixed reviews. Even that seems like a step back from the iMac G4.