Last night, Apple announced the first of its ‘new’ M4-powered devices that isn’t an iPad – an updated iMac. Not only is the all-in-one desktop now powered by the Fruit Company’s new M4 SoC, but it also gets a few ‘new’ coats of pastel paint. Options include green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, blue, and silver.
Oh, and Apple Intelligence. But that’s about it.
New year, ‘new’ iMac
The M4 chip at the heart of the new base model iMac packs in an eight-core CPU and GPU with a sixteen-core neural engine. The company has also bumped unified memory (read: RAM) up to 16GB in the base model while higher-end models can be fitted with up to 32GB. Paying more will net you two extra CPU and GPU cores and additional storage, starting from 256GB in the base model and growing to 1TB in the top-specced model.
Apple is graciously giving customers the chance to slap a sheet of “nano-texture glass” in front of the iMac’s 24in ‘4.5K’ retina display that “drastically reduces reflections and glare, while maintaining outstanding image quality.” That’ll be an extra R3,550 ($200).
Additionally, the colour-matched Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse also receive an update – they now charge over USB-C. Wow. You still can’t use the mouse while charging though. Because port placement.
Front and centre, there’s a 12MP webcam, and around back, Apple has included Thunderbolt 4 ports for connecting things. The base model iMac features two ports while more expensive models sport four Thunderbolt 4 ports and Gigabit Ethernet.
Other than charging your peripherals, those Thunderbolt 4 ports facilitate speedy data transfer or external displays. The ‘new’ iMac can handle up to two external 6K displays at 60Hz or one 8K display at 120Hz. For wireless connectivity, your options are Wi-Fi 6E or Bluetooth 5.3.
The only other upgrade worth mentioning is support for Apple Intelligence, which the company started rolling out globally alongside its new money printer.
If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably wondering when you’ll be able to get your hands on the ‘new’ iMac and how much you’ll have to cough up. Exact local details are still to be determined however there’s a good chance the ‘when’ will be on or a little after 8 November when they go on sale in the US. The ‘how much’ is harder to guess. Prices start from $1,300 (R23,060) and ramp up to $1,900 (R37,700). We’ll have to add a few thousand on top of that because South Africa.
