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points by chrisguilbeau 2 days ago | 0 comments

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...

[–] burner54828182 2 days ago

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

[–] nine_k 2 days ago

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.

[–] relativeadv 1 day ago

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/tools/compare/lg-27gm950b-b-v...

The $800 LG outperforms the studio display in almost every dimension you mention.

[–] whynotminot 1 day ago

What you’re paying for with an Apple branded monitor is effectively opting out of the panel lottery.

Look at the reviews for that LG. Sure the specs on the tin are better but quality control looks like garbage.

Apple does not accept that. I have never got a bad Apple screen in any Apple product I have ever bought. Not the case from other companies.

[–] xyzzy_plugh 1 day ago

This is pretty funny. As someone who has overseen the purchase of thousands of high end LGs and maybe a hundred Apple monitors, we saw many, many more issues with the Apple monitors.

Their lower tier monitors have issues but so do literally every other manufacturer. The high-end LGs are very good and QC as of 2026 has been phenomenal.

[–] whynotminot 1 day ago

Just look at the reviews on the Amazon page for the LG in question man. It’s got like a 3 out of 5.

[–] bigyabai 1 day ago

Amazon reviews have lacked proportionality to product quality for at least 10 years now.

[–] chocochunks 1 day ago

There's plenty of bad panels in Apple displays posted on Reddit and other forums.

(e.g., https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/studio-displays-with-sc...)

Maybe the panel lottery is more in your favour but it isn't gone.

[–] whynotminot 1 day ago

Apple sells millions of these displays I did not say you wouldn’t be able to find a Reddit thread with some problems.

“But ackshully” — you fully understand the point I was making!

[–] NBJack 2 days ago

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.

[–] Dylan16807 2 days ago

I don't like smooth scrolling so my web pages might as well be scrolling at 10Hz for how much it matters visually.

[–] ProllyInfamous 1 day ago

Thought this way until 144Hz; now 30Hz is cheese-grated-eyeballs, and 60Hz ponders "is something wrong/corrupted with this slow/glitchy system?"

I spent three decades @30Hz, and just the past few ≥60Hz@4K... as I've aged I appreciate the analogue more, and the jarring stutters of 30Hz are constant reminders of computized digitality.

Also, PoE at 144Hz is incredible (I went from <30Hz to 144Hz with this one simple trick: $1000 5070Ti, which turns out was actually a great investment, too [today's price $1449]). But so is scrolling through walls of text, now.

¢¢

[–] Dylan16807 1 day ago

Well I'll let you know I have a 120Hz screen and I will only game on that screen.

But a web page just sits there. And I never scroll slowly enough for refresh rate to matter, I go for big jumps that look the same on anything faster than e-ink. The benefit I get from a faster screen during normal desktop activities is slightly better mouse precision and latency.

[–] skybrian 1 day ago

It seems unfortunate to become so sensitive to frame rate that you can only buy high-end equipment. I wonder how that can be avoided?

[–] raegis 1 day ago

It can happen by accident. I assembled a system for my son (for "gaming"), and noticed that the window movement on his monitor was significantly smoother than on the cheaper monitors I'm accustomed to. It was just...nice. So I upgraded the monitor on my desktop too.

[–] ProllyInfamous 1 day ago

I cannot distinguish between 120Hz and 144Hz.

I avoid any-higher refresh rates, by your own reasoning =P

I still maintain an entire fleet of 30Hz equipment, but my main two machines are each 144Hz (sharing one screen $$). The $600 Mac Mini handles this easily. Obviously the other's nVidia GPU is a different $tory$$$$ == PoE@144Hz so_pretty

My favorite digital reading method, conversely, is probably less than 1Hz (eInk)? But even hundred of pages of text I'll always prefer printouts.

[–] sgt 1 day ago

Exactly - I've looked at a lot of monitors. Including top end Dells, one of which I have currently. But nothing that I see beats the Studio Display at its price point. Also 60Hz is perfectly fine on that screen, maybe 60Hz feels different on others for those who feel this is inadequate.

[–] stingraycharles 2 days ago

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.

[–] AdamN 1 day ago

Apple will be head and shoulders better than the Samsung display - it just costs more than you feel like it should.

[–] stingraycharles 1 day ago

Well yeah but that’s the case with all Apple products, not?

[–] MrBuddyCasino 1 day ago

Not the laptops.

[–] stingraycharles 1 day ago

Isn’t that equally subjective as, say, the price of the iPhone?

It just depends on what you value. A MBP with 32GB memory and 2TB disk is much more expensive than a Dell equivalent.

(I say this as someone who owns a MBP)

[–] AdamN 20 hours ago

Dell laptop hardware doesn't really match MBP hardware - objectively.

[–] MrBuddyCasino 1 day ago

I don't think there exists a laptop with a similar value proposition as a MacBook Neo or a MacBook Air?

For phones its not as clear, I agree, but at least they added iPhone 17e starting at $599.

[–] jltsiren 2 days ago

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.

[–] disillusioned 2 days ago

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.

[–] havaloc 2 days ago

They also have fans in them, that's not necessarily good for longevity. Thermally, yes, until the fans clog up or start making noise.

[–] a1o 2 days ago

I think quite a few monitors that have USB-C input also have fans in them.

[–] bdavbdav 2 days ago

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.

[–] gregglain 2 days ago

I work with 30hz and cannot tell the difference. Mind it's mostly iTerm work.

[–] saussianglat 2 days ago

why doesn't 60 hz work for you?

[–] SoftTalker 2 days ago

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).

[–] Dylan16807 2 days ago

Well, flicker usually has no connection to framerate on LCDs.

[–] mcs5280 2 days ago

Yes, but does your LG monitor have an Apple logo on it?

[–] gnabgib 2 days ago

It does if they take the case off.

[–] 0xWTF 2 days ago

That's funny. If only LG could do proper design.

[–] wolvoleo 2 days ago

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.

[–] kccqzy 1 day ago

Target display mode couldn’t be supported since the 2014 iMac because the DisplayPort standard didn’t have enough bandwidth so the display was driven by two DP signals (tiling).

[–] wolvoleo 1 day ago

Yes for a year or two but then it was possible again. But they never reintroduced it.

[–] 0xWTF 2 days ago

I really loved target display mode. It made me so happy

[–] jeffhwang 2 days ago

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".

[–] mmmlinux 2 days ago

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>

[–] Tallain 2 days ago

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.

[–] romeinaday 2 days ago

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.

[–] Tallain 2 days ago

Very cool, I like this a lot. Will be giving it a try!

[–] worthless-trash 2 days ago

I've had good success with https://juicycrumb.com/product/docklite/#imac-model

There is a g4 model too there if thats the version you have.

[–] mrheosuper 2 days ago

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.

[–] evanjrowley 2 days ago

I wonder if Apple dropped it because of some proprietary licensed IP, such as Intel WiDi, making the feature possible.

[–] K7PJP 2 days ago

No, it was when the displays went to Retina. There was no way to drive them at 5K externally. Thunderbolt didn't have the bandwidth to do so.

[–] reverius42 2 days ago

They dropped it before the switch from Intel chips; my 2015 iMac could do it (I think) but my 2019 Intel iMac can't.

[–] dubya 2 days ago

I think this disappeared with Retina displays.

I'm still using a 2019 iMac 27" and starting to think about Linux again.

[–] ryandrake 2 days ago

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.

[–] reverius42 2 days ago

My 2019 iMac is actually great with Linux on it. It had some issues (built-in WiFi not working, sleep resume bugs) but Claude fixed them for me.

[–] dghlsakjg 2 days ago

Those retina Mac’s are intel, no?

You could just run any other OS if any of the free OS upgrades that Apple provides aren’t good enough.

[–] notsydonia 2 days ago

Unpopular opinion no doubt but I think iMacs were way better with Intel chips. I still resent that my fantastic 2012 (yes) iMac finally became unusable due to software incompatibility. It was a beast of a machine. I actually did put Linux on it but it's not particularly satisfactory. If Apple were the 'eco-conscious' company they claim to be, they'd somehow make it so their machines lived forever...or longer. I'd love a new iMac but had to switch to Mac Mini/BenQ monitor after experiencing vertigo with the new gen iMacs.

[–] ProllyInfamous 1 day ago

>Some of the old iMacs could just be displays natively.[1] it was just an odd ball feature no one used.

This oddball Apple cable sits proudly in our "old proprietary Apple cables" cardboardbox (Thunderbolt2 is NOT DisplayPortMini, despite their physical interconnectability)... and are now worth ≥$65/each.

Too bad my 2009 iMac 27" is still alive, occassionally requiring that cable's usage; a more-powerful 15" MBP can then use it as its main display =D

[–] elxr 2 days ago

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.

[–] asow92 1 day ago

I still rock a 2007 iMac for my iPod and CD collection. You can still run modernish Firefox using a port called Powerfox on Mac OS X 10.6. Put an SSD and appropriate OS in these old machines and you'll be shocked at how fast they are.

These computers are generally obsolete, although they're still useful for period-accurate single-purpose tasks.

Claude can SSH into these old machines to patch issues and write bespoke software. We should reconsider what obsolete means nowadays if agents can help us upcycle old hardware.

[–] ProllyInfamous 2 days ago

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:

----

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!).

----

>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.

[–] wolvoleo 2 days ago

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.

[–] ProllyInfamous 1 day ago

>You just take a suction cup and clip the screen off.

Having done this dozens-of-times, each attempt remains scary. Reattaching the glass, the magnets flex the pane incomprehensibly.

My favorite feature of these older iMacs (and laptops of the era) is that you can manhandle the glassed screens (pointing, touching, scraping), to no destriment of the LCD (beneath).

[–] wolvoleo 1 day ago

Hmm scary yes but it works fine though in 2 cases one of the magnets broke off the screen. It wasn't a big deal though because there were enough left to keep it together firmly.

We had a ton of these at work and upgraded them to SSD because they got so laggy.

[–] ProllyInfamous 1 day ago

>one of the magnets broke off the screen

I had a similar event (but only once) supporting university labs: one of those four "alignment pins" broke off; but they're not necessary once the magnets are engaged. Unfortunately, I had to completely re-disassemble the entire unit to shake out that metallic-breakoff.

The 2006 iMac is a dream to work on: the back plate (including stand) simply detaches, exposing access to everything without having to remove the LCD – this latter part is the worst part of any newer iMac-opening.

Thanks for sharing your similarities, fellow-oldening-hat.

[–] bjackman 1 day ago

My extremely non-technical mum is using a 2008 MacBook Air on Ubuntu, it works great. Claude says the iMac is essentially the same to get running.

Only hassle was setting up the Broadcom WiFi drivers which aren't upstream, but I did this before I would have trusted AI with this task and even then it was not a big deal. I think these days running Linux on those things is likely trivial.

[–] trollbridge 2 days ago

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.

[–] Andrew_nenakhov 2 days ago

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.

[–] GloriousKoji 2 days ago

The worst is when an application updates itself just so it can stop running and tell you to upgrade to the latest OS version.

[–] abletonlive 2 days ago

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

[–] Andrew_nenakhov 1 day ago

I told you a true story about my experience and you call it 'hyperbole'. Well, ok if it suits you.

On your second point, proper developers release security updates and backports for software released decades ago, while others always chase new shiny things and contribute a lot to this unsupportable legacy hell that we have to deal with.

[–] abletonlive 1 day ago

> I told you a true story about my experience and you call it 'hyperbole'. Well, ok if it suits you.

It's almost as if your anecdote isn't reality or truth.

[–] 3form 2 days ago

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.

[–] odo1242 2 days ago

It has better prospects of being able to run Linux than it does of being able to run Windows, to be fair

[–] pishpash 2 days ago

Why would that be? You're stuck on drivers either way and ARM Windows runs just fine virtualized.

[–] odo1242 2 days ago

Asahi Linux exists for ARM Linux and has Windows has no equivalent (since it’s closed source and Microsoft doesn’t want to support that). Linux also runs virtualized, that’s obviously irrelevant because daily driving a VM isn’t a great idea.

[–] Telemakhos 1 day ago

Why isn’t daily driving a VM a good idea? Doesn’t Windows have a hypervisor now? Doesn’t Linux have KVM? It seems like modern OS design borrows a lot from the idea of virtual machines. Why not just go all the way?

[–] odo1242 1 day ago

- You have to run both the host OS and guest OS, losing you about 4-6GB of RAM and ~10% of CPU (and ~20-40 gigabytes of disk space)

- It’s slower

- GPU support in VMs is weird, especially when the host and guest use different graphics stacks (i.e. Windows games often don’t work in a Windows VM running on macOS because while the CPU can be passed through to the VM directly the GPU cannot; the VM driver has to try to translate DirectX GPU commands to Metal or OpenGL; some games can be a worse experience than using Wine)

There are systems with lightweight hypervisors for security purposes (like Android or PlayStation or even Windows sometimes), but those are (a) lightweight and built to use little resources, and (b) specifically designed to support the system APIs needed / use the same stack as the OS, so they won’t have the issues mentioned above.

Stuff like Qubes is also fine because you explicitly accept the tradeoffs when using it (that’s why Qubes has such high system requirements). And the VMs are all Linux-on-Linux, so the GPU issue is minimized.

While modern systems take inspiration from VMs, the sandboxing that most modern OSes do is designed to be much more lightweight than virtualization, since it doesn’t require virtualizing any hardware.

[–] trollbridge 2 days ago

Old M series runs Linux well.

[–] internet2000 2 days ago

It matters because AI is finding more security vulnerabilities than ever.

[–] xandrius 2 days ago

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.

[–] trollbridge 2 days ago

Firefox runs fine on High Sierra.

[–] xandrius 1 day ago

And before then?

[–] usern20260720 2 days ago

I was happy but all of a sudden my VPN refuses to release versions for Sonoma

[–] King-Aaron 2 days ago

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.

[–] notsydonia 2 days ago

I empathise!

[–] iSnow 1 day ago

https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/ can be helpful to run newer macOS versions on older hardware. I used a 2011 Air till 2024 that way.

But in principle you are right, the 7y is too restrictive.

[–] johnnywon 2 days ago

I agree, the 7 years is way too short and it's very frustrating.

[–] kccqzy 1 day ago

I have a soft spot for the tapered edge iMac. I kept my 2014 iMac and it’s still running Linux fine. The Haskell processor is just new enough to qualify for x86_64-v3. In daily use such as web browsing its slowness is basically not noticeable.

[–] jmann99999 2 days ago

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.

[–] inopinatus 2 days ago

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.

[–] simonh 1 day ago

The 27" 5K iMacs are great, I'm writing this on a 2020 model. So disappointed they went away. I'm resigning myself to having to go with a mini and a separate display when the time comes.