Wild and unfounded speculation: I feel that the thinness of the new iMac was not an explicit design exercise, but rather a consequence of bringing the M1 over to the desktop. Because of how powerful the M1 is, they were just able to recycle the already thin laptop designs, putting them in a desktop enclosure. They couldn't do this before, because Intel mobile CPUs didn't match the performance of their desktop equivalents. And since those desktop CPUs had more demanding thermals, they couldn't make a thin iMac.

While that seems to be the case, I bet Cook, with his supply-chain focus, was very excited to save a few grams of material here and there, knowing how it adds up.

The old iMacs were also pretty thin, relatively speaking. And they did emphasize that a lot in marketing.

But they did choose to make the new iMacs thin rather than small, they could have tucked the computer part behind the display and done away with the chin, but they didn't.

Dropped even the Ethernet port for the thinness.

Really moving into the lifestyle product market.

Ethernet is still there, it’s just in the power brick instead of the monitor.

which, honestly seems fine to me. it's likely to be running from the floor anyway, probably from a nearby place to the power outlet. one cord on the desk.

some have also mentioned potential synergy with future MacBooks, which might also adopt this port on the power brick. that could bring a magnetic connector back to laptops _and_ ethernet without a $30 dongle

Or they could reverse it and start charging the battery of a macbook with power over ethernet

Too bad they couldn't figure out how to put the SD card reader in there too. At least it still has an audio jack.

I am of 2 minds on the SD card reader thing.

1. Lot of use cases for SD cards besides cameras. Audio recorders, notably.

2. A fair number of high-end cameras are no longer using SD cards, or at least, not exclusively; lot of CFexpress for the big boy cameras out there now. (I mean, they used to use CompactFlash cards, but it’s not like they’re gonna jam a CF card reader in there.)

SD cards are the answer for badusb attacks.

you'd want an SD card reader in the brick, on the floor? that seems inconvenient. people were complaining when it moved from the side to the back of the imac.

>it’s just in the power brick instead of the monitor

Sure, but it was removed from the main device.

How well does an iMac work without that power brick? It’s functionally part of the main device.

Well good luck booting that iMac without that whole, you know, power cord thing.

Honestly I think that’s an inspired bit of design. It solves for Apple’s desire to keep clean lines, and, in many offices I’ve been in, the Ethernet is wired in close to the power, so it’s very functional. Win-win.

> Sure, but it was removed from the main device.

You say that like it’s a bad thing. The iMac gets an Ethernet port, and there’s one fewer cable to run up to the machine. That seems like a win all around.

I think it’s a very elegant solution. The iMac is a device for companies, reception etc. And they typically run on Ethernet.