Apple has got a new iMac and I’m gonna tell you why what’s inside is actually more important than the cool new colors.
The Apple iMac finally has a new design I met some look pretty much the same since 2012, which in technology terms is basically forever.
And they had this big screen and then a gigantic heavy foot, they bowed out around the back of then tapered as you went towards the edge.
It’s a testament to how forward looking that design was that even all these years later It looks a little out of date but not terribly.
So the same thing happened to the MacBook Air.
It kept the same look for many, many years, frankly, a few too many.
And eventually they had to do a big refresh and the same thing is happening here in the same way in that they’re getting rid of that bezel.
So you have more screen and less other stuff right in front of you.
And in this case, there’s also the added bonus that the screen goes from a 21.5 inch diagonal screen to a 24 inch screen, which is really much more in line with what a mainstream all in one desktop is going to have these days.
Now of course on top of that Apple would like you to know that this product now has Apple’s M1 chip.
That’s what they used to replace Intel chips in the laptops, the 13 inch air, the 13 inch pro and also the Mac Mini at the end of 2020.
And it’s part of this two year transition period where the Intel systems are gonna go away.
They’re frankly almost gone now and the new M1 systems are gonna come in Apple says that’s going to give you better performance especially on optimized software applications things that have been rewritten to be m one native and also give you better battery life in the laptop.
You don’t need to worry about battery life obviously in a desktop, and then it also it puts the final part of the puzzle under Apple’s control.
They already made the hardware.
They made the operating system well now they make the chip it runs on as well.
And that means the Macs whether it’s Mac books or IMAX like this are much more in line with iPads and iPhones now and I feel like you’re gonna start seeing a lot more bleed over.
Phones that act like computers, computers that act like tablets.
That brings to mind that iPad commercial from a few years ago where someone asked a kid using an iPad.
What kind of computer is that?
The kid said, What’s a computer?
Everything becomes the same thing now because they’re all running the same chip.
Now I’ve tested a lot of the M 1 Max, I did it back at the end of 2020.
And what?
They’re faster on a lot of tasks if you have software that’s not specifically optimized for them and frankly about the same as the Intel versions they were replacing, which means they’re only gonna get better.
As more m1 native software comes out and you don’t have to use Apple’s Rosetta emulation to get an m1 system to run Intel based software.
So I don’t have a lot of concerns about adding that M1 to this new iMac.
Although it’s interesting that the MacBook Air and the pro and the mini and the 24 inch iMac all basically are the same computer in a lot of ways.
They run the same chip with some very minor differences.
Some models have seven GPU cores some models have eight.
But generally speaking, it’s pretty much the same.
We used to call the old 21 inch iMac which was fairly basic in terms of its power.
We used to call it basically a MacBook Air on a stand.
And in a sense, that’s what this new iMac is.
It’s one of these M1 Mac’s that we’ve already seen.
Put up on a very nice stand.
Speaking of which I like that the stand hinge has moved down it used to be right dead centre in the iMac and that was for balanced reasons the thing was incredibly heavy and if you didn’t have that balance just right it would tip over.
The foot also used to taper out as it came towards you like a big trap avoid.
Now it’s a nice squared off foot going to take up less desk real estate And frankly people working at home as many of us are, if you’re gonna have something indulgent like a desktop computer like an iMac, you’ll want to save a little bit of space.
Frankly, I’m pretty excited about these colors before now if you wanted a recent Mac with any kind of Color Splash to it You could choose on a lot of the Mac books between space gray and silver and gold and frankly these were all pretty muted colors and if your idea of a big bold personal statement was going with spacecrafts that is silver, the colors on these new iMacs may be a little bit too much tree.
It does of course bring me back to 1999 and the iMac G three that big candy colored shell version.
I think there were 13 colors of that there are seven colors of this.
Some of the colors are only available in the more expensive models but if that’s how they get you up You can also get the new colors in some matched magic keyboards and magic mice and magic trackpads.
The mice and the trackpads have a little color accent around the side.
So yes, you can still get the traditional magic keyboard but you can also get the extended version that has the number pad built in Apple’s had that for a while though, but now color match And you can get a version of the magic keyboard with a touch ID fingerprint reader in it.
Now of course Mac books have had Touch ID for a while now even the MacBook Air has now and it’s frankly pretty great.
It works very much like Touch ID used to on iPhones and iPads.
Now before you even ask, I know what your question is.
And the answer is no, exactly no both times.
You can’t get the Touch ID keyboard and use it with a non m one Mac.
You can use it with other m one macs.
Whether it’s a Laptop or if they have, you know future desktops or a Mac Mini, I suppose you could use it with that too.
But it’s unique in that the Touch ID is connected to the security features on the M one Mac.
So so that’s it you can it’s not backwards compatible.
You can use the regular keyboard but you can’t use the touch ID part.
Now the second question and the answer to this one is also No, you can’t buy the colored keyboards and mice and other accessories separately.
At least not yet.
I remember being very jealous that the iMac pro came with this cool space gray keyboard and they did not sell that separately.
later on.
They did so maybe someday you’ll be able to get a Mac keyboard and a magic touchpad in any color you want.
So yes, these new IMAX, they have new colors.
They’re thinner, they’re lighter.
They’ve got that new m one chip.
But that doesn’t really talk about the most important component in any computer today, and especially today and that, of course, is the webcam.
Because what do we do all day we either do videos like this or we talk to people on video calls that kind of look like this.
Well the new m one version of the 24 inch iMac as a 1080 camera, Apple tells me that it’s actually a more advanced camera.
It’s a different piece of hardware than what’s in that 27 inch iMac and it is additionally helped by some camera helper software they call ISP software that does a lot of exposure correction and color correction and they have that on the 27 inch iMac version two.
Apple says that the M one powered version of that is even better.
So this 1080 p webcam is going to look better than the 27 inch 2020 iMac 1080 p webcam.
So I hope to get a new 24 Four inch iMac hopefully in a fun colour to start testing soon.
That said based on my previous experience testing the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro and the Mac Mini all with the M one chip I kind of know how this story is gonna go.
And frankly the performance was pretty good.
It’s interesting however that Apple was not committed to putting that m one in the 27 inch iMac yet that is much more of a workhorse machine.
Especially if you work in the Professional video or animation or things like that.
Maybe that is Apple holding off a little bit and saying we really wanna make sure that maybe we have the MTU or maybe we can support more RAM or bigger hard drives.
Before we commit to putting the M line in that workhorse 27 inch iMac when they do that.
And then everyone can really say Apple is just 100% in the game and they’re leaving the Intel chips behind because especially right now that 24 inch iMac only comes with eight gigs of RAM, it’s expandable to 16 you can help Well I think it up to two terabytes of storage.
The new m one power 24 inch imac is going to be available to order at the end of April and they should ship in the first half of May.
