>A 'thin iMac' - whose thin-ness was absolutely pointless.

For you maybe. Many of us (millions, judging from the sales numbers) appreciate the thin-ness, even if it's for a desktop machine.

I had to drag my old non-thin iMac several times to different locations, and it was no joy. Nor do I need a behemoth on my desktop.

Hmm, you're implying that everyone that bought a new iMac appreciates the thinness and bought it because of that?

Or perhaps they bought them because they had no other choice when choosing a reasonably fast desktop machine compatible with their software?

Seriously, the argument "oh, this feature must be popular because the whole machine is popular" really doesn't hold water in complex machines like computers, phones or cars.

>Hmm, you're implying that everyone that bought a new iMac appreciates the thinness and bought it because of that? Or perhaps they bought them because they had no other choice when choosing a reasonably fast desktop machine compatible with their software?

iMacs sold better even when the "cheese graters" were available, so yes.

The cheese graters cost between two to four times the price of an iMac depending on the era we're talking about (price fluctuations of the PowerMac/Mac Pro). Counting the fact that you do need to buy an external monitor to go along with it. That counts for something.

Apple never had a usable entry level desktop computer tower. Something with high performance on consumer class CPUs, rather than Xeon and ECC ram. The Mac Mini was always crippled to keep it from competing with the iMac and cheese graters among people who want something better performing.

The iMac is popular because it's the best performance to price ratio. Not because the form factor is any good. For the longest time the entry level MBP (and unibody Macbook before then) was also Apple's best selling laptop and they only recently cut it out from their line-up and replaced it with the Air as their entry level offering. The Air will also exist for as long as they keep selling the current Macbook at those prices because most people are not willing to spend 1449 euros on a machine that barely performs better.

As someone who owned both an older iMac and a new iMac, I really fail to see much difference. Form factor, overall, is much the same, as is the weight. I think it's more than a little exaggeration to call the older iMac a "behemoth".

Depends on what you call the "older iMac".

The 27" Core 2 Duo 2008-9 era iMacs, one of which I had, weighted 13.8 kg!

The new 27" model is 9.5 kg. That's over 30% less weight...

Yes, are technologists so effete that they can't handle a 5lb laptop anymore? Size constraints I understand as I fly on airplanes a lot, but weight constraints can really be annoying. At least for higher end machines its okay for a lot of us to have an extra bit of weight for more features. It can be both.

>Yes, are technologists so effete that they can't handle a 5lb laptop anymore?

Apparently they are. Just read this effete technologist's comment:

  I’m personally just hoping that I’m ahead of the curve in my strict requirement 
  for “small and silent”. (...) I want my office to be quiet. The loudest thing 
  in the room – by far – should be the occasional purring of the cat. And when I 
  travel, I want to travel light. A notebook that weighs more than a kilo is 
  simply not a good thing (yeah, I’m using the smaller 11″ macbook air, and I 
  think weight could still be improved on, but at least it’s very close to the 
  magical 1kg limit). -- Linus Torvalds

Size and noise I am totally on board with. Just not the obsession with weight. And I am an ultra-light gram obsessed backpacker. I may just be an outlier or unusually strong. (Kidding on the last qualifier :))

The focus on weight baffles me. Most _bags_ are now heavier than laptops.

> I want my office to be quiet. The loudest thing in the room – by far – should be the occasional purring of the cat.

Any reasonably well built desktop PC does that. It's a matter of applying a modest amount of care when selecting and assembling components.

>Any reasonably well built desktop PC does that.

When it comes to off the shelve towers and laptops, you'd be surprised.

And if you mean it's easy if one personally "selects and assembles components." you'd be surprised again on how atypical this is for the average PC buyer.

So? I claimed neither.

Well, by writing "Any reasonably well built desktop PC does that" it seemed like you imply that most models available in the market do it as well.

No, most aren't well built, but that's nothing specific to PCs or even computers. Most stuff is designed to be assembled easily, quickly and cheaply by unqualified workers. That doesn't per se contradict that the result is well built, but usually means that compromises are made to accomodate the assembly process, which diminishes other qualities of the product.

E.g. you'll never find a high-end CPU cooler in a factory-assembled PCs, simply because they are too difficult and slow to mount. Compared to a simple push-pin or lever-mounted cooler these can have a dozen parts or more and require funneling screws through cutouts in the cooler itself etc. -- you just won't see that on an assembly line.

There are also other issues, more specific to PCs, e.g. the standard case form factor does a poor job supplying graphics cards with fresh air. Other case form factors solve this (e.g. Silverstone has some; the "trash can" Mac Pro follows a similar concept), but tend to incur other compromises (and price tags).

> whose thin-ness was absolutely pointless.

Design isn't pointless. That in itself has value. I'm thinking the poor upgradeability is actually a feature (for the seller - not the buyer) and not arbitrary either.