In a surprise announcement on Monday, Apple unveiled a rainbow of new iMacs powered by its M4 processor with 16 GB of memory as standard, a 12 MP webcam, and no shortage of AI gimmicks… er… features.
The systems themselves haven’t changed much from when the M1 variant first made its debut in mid-2021. Perhaps the biggest cosmetic change this time is around the 24-inch 4.5K display, which can be had with new nano-texture antiglare coating — if you’re willing to shell out another $200, that is.
The real upgrades are all under the surface, where we’re treated to a new 12 MP “Center Stage” webcam that was presumably pulled out of an iPhone spare parts bin, and the beefier M4 chip first seen in Apple’s slimmed-down iPad Pros this spring.
As we discussed earlier this year, the M4 can be had with either eight or 10 CPU and GPU cores and comes equipped with a substantially more powerful neural processing unit (NPU) capable of churning out 38 TOPS of what we assume is INT8 performance. That puts it a fair distance behind AMD and Intel’s latest NPUs, which boast 50 and 48 TOPS respectively, which had to beat Microsoft’s 40 TOPS minimum spec to be considered a Copilot+ AI PC. Apple, naturally, can set its own performance targets.
The improved NPU should support a bevy of Apple Intelligence AI features teased back at WWDC. But, at launch, Apple says iMac users will be able to take advantage of its system-wide writing assistant to rewrite, proofread, or summarize text. Siri is apparently much better at making sense of your requests too, though we’ll let y’all be the judge of that.
However, many of the biggest features headlining “Apple Intelligence,” like OpenAI integration, won’t arrive until a December update.
As we understand it, if you’ve got an M1 Mac or newer, you won’t need to upgrade to get these features.
Beyond more TOPS and higher perf — Apple says the iMac with M4 chip is up to 1.7x faster in productivity tasks and up to 2.1x faster in “demanding workflows” like image editing and gaming compared to those with the M1 — arguably the most anticipated change was to the memory loadout.
Until now, Apple has insisted that 8 GB of memory is enough for most users. Late last year Apple execs opined that 8 GB on a Mac was the equivalent of 16 GB on a PC because the operating system is more efficient. However, with the world now obsessed with memory hungry generative AI models, it seems Apple finally sees reason to pump that up to 16 GB.
In addition to more memory, gone is the old base model iMac, which came with just two USB-C ports rather than the four found on higher-end models. On the topic of USB-C, Apple appears to be abandoning its proprietary Lighting charging standard entirely. Its Magic Keyboard, Trackpad, and Mouse now come equipped with USB-C.
Apple’s M4 iMacs are available for pre-order now and will hit store shelves on Nov. 8. Prices range from $1,299 for the base model and top out at around $2,899 if you max one out with the nano-texture display, 32 GB of RAM, and 2 TB of onboard storage.
As for when we’ll get refreshed MacBooks, Mac Studios, or Mac Minis, only time will tell. ®