Since Apple discontinued the iMac Pro in March of 2021, rumors have swirled that the company may be planning to bring the heavyweight all-in-one desktop back in some form.
Last year, Apple unveiled its brand new 24-inch iMac featuring Apple silicon and a stunning new design to complement its speedy M1 chip. Yet Apple still doesn’t have a ‘Pro’ iMac offering or a replacement for its 27-inch iMac, which still runs on Intel and sports the old iMac design.
It should be noted that it’s not clear at this stage how exactly Apple plans to update its larger iMac options. Will Apple replace the 27-inch iMac with a colorful M1 version, and also release an iMac Pro with more powerful chips like the M1 Pro and M1 Max? Or will it simply release one new 27-inch iMac that is both larger and more powerful?
We’ve heard very little about a possible 27-inch ‘non-Pro’ iMac, but here’s what we do know about the rumored ‘iMac Pro.’
Release date
According to recent reports, an iMac Pro could debut in the middle of this year, perhaps in June at WWDC. From February:
…in response, Young said that a mini-LED iMac Pro “could launch in June” and while some believe that the display technology will be more old school, he expects it to be much more impressive. Think 1,000 zones and more than 4,000 individual LEDs.
Other release windows we’ve heard include August or September, and as early as Q1 of 2022. We know that Apple has filed recently for three new Mac models in the Eurasian Economic Commission database, only one of which is definitely a new laptop. Could Apple release a new iMac at its March event? That seems less likely, and a WWDC launch definitely makes sense.
Design
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple’s next 27-inch iMac should come with a design similar to the M1 iMac from 2021. This makes perfect sense, Apple made a really big design change to the iMac last year, there’s no way that those design changes won’t carry over to the larger model, Pro or not. That means an all-new square design.
Apple silicon
Gurman also states that this is going to be a ‘Pro’ iMac, so would likely feature ‘Pro’ chips from Apple. The model here of course is the new MacBook Pro (2021), which comes with the M1 Pro and M1 Max Apple silicon chips. If the new iMac is a Pro machine, then it probably won’t come with the base-model M1 chip from the 24-inch model.
Display
Another big expected upgrade for the iMac Pro is a mini-LED display. From Ross Young:
OK, tweeted too early. The 27″ MiniLED screen is going in an iMac in Q1’22, not an external monitor. May see a monitor later. Still 24Hz – 120Hz variable refresh…Sorry for the confusion!
Not only is Young anticipating an all-new mini-LED display, but also a variable refresh rate just like the MacBook Pro, enabling up to 120Hz ProMotion. This again makes a lot of sense as it would reflect the MacBook Pro lineup well.
Price
We haven’t heard any concrete info about a possible price of the iMac mini. An educated guess would state that Apple would likely follow quite closely the previous pricing configuration, so the iMac Pro could cost an eye-watering $5,000. Apple’s non-pro 27-inch iMac currently costs $1,800 for the base model, so if Apple upgrades the design and adds Apple silicon to the non-Pro model we could definitely see this increased.
