Apple’s Mac Week kicked off today with a newly announced iMac, now beefed up with an M4 chip and more internal memory. Apple says the iMac is up to 4.5 times faster than an equivalent Intel Core 7 all-in-one Windows PC, and promises that the machine will offer up to six times the performance of the most popular Intel-based iMac.
The inference is obvious: if you use your iMac professionally, you might want to think about an upgrade. To reinforce this point, Apple says that the iMac is up to 1.7 times faster for most tasks and 2.1 times faster for more advanced tasks compared to the M1 model.
Apple sets the stage for its AI
Part of the reason for this improved performance is the large increase of 16 GB of unified integrated memory (configurable to 24 GB). That memory increase is to support Apple Intelligence, which is also available for Macs running macOS Sequoia 15.1 or later. The Neural Engine in the M4 chips is 3 times faster than the M1. (Apple Intelligence is now also available for iPhone and iPad with iOS/iPad OS 18.1.)
Note that the base $1,299 iMac may not reach these performance levels since it comes with an 8-core CPU; the rest of the range offers 10 cores. You do get hardware accelerated ray tracing, which will make a big difference when using Mac.
Apple’s AI platform means that all of its current devices will now be compatible with Apple Intelligence, meaning the company now offers the largest AI ecosystem in the world.
What else is new?
The iMac screen remains the same 24 inches. 4.5K Retina display we all know and love, with a new nano-textured glass option available if color fidelity and anti-glare are important to you.
Starting at $1,299, the new iMacs are available in a “parade” of colors, including green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, blue and silver. Buyers get: a 12-megapixel Center Stage camera with Desk View support; a brilliant microphone and speaker system; and four USB-C ports, all compatible with Thunderbolt 4. You can even run two external displays. To conclude, you’ll find Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1 along with TouchID support, thanks to a button on the keyboard.
Overall, this is a solid update, but it has to be said that it doesn’t seem to be the main attraction – this week’s honor is likely to be a smaller machine…
We are still waiting for the Mac mini
I can’t help but feel like the iMac is being viewed through a lens of pre-Mac mini announcement speculation. That product is already attracting a lot of interest; Just look at the pre-launch headlines:
- “This is the big moment of the Mac Mini” (The edge).
- “A small Mac mini could be the best travel companion and I can’t wait for it to arrive” (TechnologyRadar).
- “Apple Mac mini with M4 chip could be a game-changer for creatives, here’s why” (Hindustan Times).
Talk about setting the stage.
Even Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has presented his well-founded evaluation; indirectly tells us that even if you are quite happy with your M1 Mac mini, the switch to M4 processors “might seem as significant as the first switch from Intel machines to Apple chips.”
This is confirmed by previous claims about Apple’s iMac. What we can deduce from the introduction of the iMac is that the new Mac mini will also offer huge performance improvements compared to the M1 or M2 models already in use.
This is an upgrade that takes advantage of productivity benefits in some industries and suggests that if your company has M1 (or older) Mac minis in your fleet, the new M4 models seem to be a tempting upgrade. After all, you don’t even need to replace the screen….
Will a Mac mini M4 be the new Mac for business?
This introduction is expected to be about more than just the silicon inside these Macs: it’s also about the new design that surrounds them. If reports are correct, the new mini may be significantly smaller, as Apple designers reap another benefit from the power and heat dissipation advantages of the company’s Arm-based chips.
Expect it to be a small aluminum box that is taller but similar in size to the current Apple TV. I envision this as a box about half the size of a regular paperback and perhaps as thick as three average-length novels stacked on top of each other. That’s really small. And it should now come with 16 GB of base memory and support for Apple Intelligence.
Speaking last year, MacStadium CTO Chris Chapman told me that his existing server farms full of Mac minis were using much less power than his data center providers, “always calling us to tell us we’re not using enough power to the space. “
If smaller size means lower power consumption (and given what we know so far of the evolution of Apple silicon, it probably does), then for companies running hundreds of these machines (or any other Mac, come the case), the M4 update promises significant reductions. in energy costs.
A good start to a Mac week
Combined with the faster chip, these small desktop Mac minis or larger iMacs will run almost anything you want as effectively as a hot knife through butter.
That’s why the next Mac mini has generated so much interest, even before its introduction. Combined with the impressive iMac launch today and the anticipation around the powerful MacBook Pro improvements expected, Apple’s big week of Mac news is off to a good start. But will it distract or focus interest on the company’s objectives? year-end results announcement on Thursday?
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