If you look back through Apple\u2019s history, it appears that the venerable iMac, the desktop computer that once saved the company from bankruptcy, may be running out of steam.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
From 2002 to 2009, the iMac was consistently updated every couple of years. The gaps then began to grow: there was a span of over three years between the 2009 \u201cunibody\u201d iMac and the 2012 \u201cslim\u201d iMac<\/a> and another three years before the Retina iMac<\/a> in 2015. We then got the iMac Pro<\/a>, but that was kind of its own thing; the real successor to the 2015 product didn\u2019t arrive until 2021, almost six years later. That was the iMac <\/a>in which Apple\u2019s Silicon would debut.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Since then, we\u2019ve gotten a refresh<\/a> of the M1 Mac Mini<\/a>, two generations of the<\/a> Mac Studio<\/a>, and a somewhat inexplicable refresh<\/a> of the 2019 Mac Pro.<\/a> There\u2019s been a new MacBook Air<\/a> and a bigger MacBook Air<\/a> and a whole cadre of MacBook<\/a> Pros<\/a>. At this point, almost all of Apple\u2019s lineup has been updated to the M2 (or M2 Pro, or M2 Max, or M2 Ultra) chip. But not the iMac.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In fact, as of this writing, Apple hasn\u2019t updated the iMac in well over 800 days<\/a> \u2014 which is the longest gap in recent memory and double the average gap between updates over its history. And that conspicuous hole in the M2 lineup has been making me wonder: in a future where MacBooks rule the market and most of the desktops Apple produces are niche, enthusiast products, where will the iMac fit?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Various factors could explain why Apple has been dragging its feet on upgrading the iMac. One could argue that it has to do with its target audience. The most recent iMac isn\u2019t marketed heavily to professionals. It\u2019s pushed as a family product, much like the original back in 1998. It comes in one size, seven colors<\/a> (with matching keyboard and mouse accessories), and only a handful of configurations. It\u2019s as port-starved and unupgradable after purchase as Apple\u2019s laptop lineup.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s been well over 800 days since the current iMac came out<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Apple\u2019s promotional images<\/a> show people video calling in their living rooms and children watching movies from bed. (If you have an iMac set up at the foot of your bed, please let me know. I\u2019m intrigued.) Its array of color options (including the bright yellow that my TikTok feed fell in love with) makes it easy, we\u2019re told, to customize for various areas of the house. Since this iMac is a consumer-focused, distinctly non-Pro device, perhaps its audience\u2019s workloads largely aren\u2019t pushing the M1 \u2014 and therefore won\u2019t be boosted much by the M2.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The obvious counter to that is the MacBook Air, which is about as consumer-focused as a computer can get. Not only did Apple put the M2 chip in the Air last year but it also shipped out an even bigger MacBook Air this year, which has basically no differences from the regular M2 Air other than its size. In neither case did the company reconceptualize the MacBook Air\u2019s form factor or push it toward an unexplored demographic. It just seemed to recognize value in keeping the most popular laptop on the market up to date.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Another theory I\u2019ve seen thrown around is that Apple\u2019s making an economic calculus: desktops just don\u2019t sell as well as laptops do \u2014 and that Apple is therefore stuffing all of its eggs into the MacBook basket. There\u2019s certainly truth to the first part. The desktop market, as a whole, is facing major headwinds. The first quarter of this year saw GPU sales<\/a> hit their lowest point in decades. It\u2019s also common knowledge that Apple\u2019s MacBooks sell much better than its desktops do. The Pro and Air make up almost three-quarters of Mac sales, according to a recent CIRP survey<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But I don\u2019t quite buy that, either, because Apple did update the Mac Mini and the Mac Studio. Those models, the same research indicates, each make up a whopping 1 percent of Mac sales. That\u2019s right: those two flashy models are 2 percent of Apple\u2019s computer sales combined. The iMac is 13 percent. (It\u2019s hard to find data on who buys which Mac models, but anecdotally, I certainly see a whole lot more iMacs in doctor\u2019s offices, spas, and other customer-facing businesses than I do Mac Minis, and the former certainly has a friendlier, more welcoming look than, say, the Pro Display XDR<\/a>. I wonder if that\u2019s part of it.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n There\u2019s no shortage of other cynical ways that one could view the lack of updates to the iMac. Maybe Apple wants to curb the all-in-one desktop to sell more of its own displays. Maybe it worries about cutting into the sales of its newer Mac Studio. But I\u2019m choosing, partially for my own sanity, that an iterative M2 upgrade was skipped for another reason: that for the iMac\u2019s 25th anniversary, Apple is planning something very cool.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n While the most recent MacBooks are fantastic machines, and the portability they offer is quite valuable to a lot of people, I still think the iMac occupies a unique place in Apple\u2019s lineup. For one, where else can you get a yellow Mac? (You can\u2019t \u2014 and no, rose gold doesn\u2019t count.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But more importantly, the iMac delivers a large high-quality screen and a simple setup in one. If you buy the Mac Mini but also want an Apple display, your options are either the Pro Display XDR<\/a> (in which case you can say goodbye to a whole<\/em> bunch of money) or the Studio Display<\/a> (which also costs more, on its own, than most configurations of the current iMac). You can use a third-party display, of course, but the build quality won\u2019t be nearly as good. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Even if the prices of a display, microphone, and webcam aren\u2019t cost-prohibitive for you, there\u2019s just a simplicity to the iMac. Reviewing the Mac Studio was a whole process of opening a bunch of boxes and arranging wires and plugging all kinds of things in. Reviewing the 2021 iMac was a matter of plonking the thing onto a desk and turning it on \u2014 unchanged from the simple and easy experience<\/a> Apple provided in 1984 and 1998.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n And it\u2019s not only families who value that kind of convenience with a giant screen. There\u2019s a market for it in the professional space, too. I remember the pre-Apple Silicon days when every designer or video editor I know was on a 27-inch 5K iMac<\/a>. The office I was working in at the time had a truckload of them scattered across its edit bays. They were ginormous, and the fans always seemed to be running at full speed. These days, most of those acquaintances have moved over to the MacBook Pro. They love that it\u2019s a simple all-in-one system, it\u2019s quiet and cool, and its combination of speed and efficiency is unparalleled in the enterprise PC space, but the most common complaint I hear is about screen size; when you\u2019re working in programs like Premiere, especially for those with vision that isn\u2019t exactly 20\/20, 16 inches can be just a bit small.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I like to imagine an iMac with the slim and functional design of the current model but the power of the Mac Studio and a screen the size of a Pro Display XDR. While it may be early for a complete redesign of the current 24-inch device, it\u2019s about time we had a new version with the screen real estate and power ceiling of the last 27-inch Intel models. And while kids watching movies in bed may not care about incremental chip bumps, video and design professionals certainly do.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Rumors have been predicting new iMacs for a while \u2014 perhaps Apple has something special in store for the iMac\u2019s silver anniversary<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The rumor mill seems to agree that something like this is coming. For one, it\u2019s likely that we\u2019re getting a new iMac of some kind before the end of 2023. The exact forecast has been a bit of a journey \u2014 first it was the second half of this year<\/a>, which was pushed to early next year<\/a>, but it also now might be October of this year<\/a> \u2014 but it does seem likely that this new iMac will be one of the first Mac models to include the as-of-yet-unreleased M3 chip. Maybe the next iMac has traits or capabilities that made it the best possible showcase for the CPU\u2019s debut. Exciting! Oh, and there also may be a monstrous 32-inch model coming a few years down the road<\/a>. That\u2019s a lot of inches.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The iMac was once the computer that everyone I knew had on their desk. That is now, without question, the MacBook. The laptop, as a category, has come so far and permeated culture so thoroughly in the past two decades that it\u2019s hard to see any desktop \u2014 regardless of its purported numbers \u2014 as a mainstream option. I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if, like the Mac Studio, the iMac leans more into a niche over the next few years. Maybe that\u2019s offices that want a beautiful setup. Maybe that\u2019s people with yellow bedrooms.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Or maybe it\u2019s the high-performance space. If there\u2019s an opening in the market for a premium desktop like the Mac Studio, I don\u2019t see why there\u2019s not a larger one for a premium iMac. It could essentially be a MacBook Pro with a much larger built-in screen than any MacBook Pro can provide. Plus, maybe this one could also come in yellow.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n