Macnificent
On April 20, 2021, Apple revealed the new iMac, the first from-the-ground-up redesign of an Apple product since the announcement of Apple Silicon, & the first substantial iMac redesign in over a decade.
Last fall, we got our first glimpse of what Apple's Silicon meant for the Mac. Incredible battery life, shocking thermal efficiency, and up to 5x performance. M1 MacBook Airs were now outperforming Macs which cost 5x more without breaking a sweat or revving up a fan. The Mac community, myself included, was shaken.
What we didn't see last year was how Macs would be built around this new architecture. The mini, Air, and MacBook Pro announced the previous fall were, visually speaking, carbon copies of their Intel predecessors. But by unifying the memory and significantly reducing the components required to cool them, M1 Macs have shed much of that old baggage and bulk. And on April 20, 2020, we finally got to see our first from-the-ground-up Mac redesign: the iMac.
The new iMac has breathed new life into a decades-old design, available in seven bold two-toned colours reminiscent of the original iMac. It's fresh, it's fun, it might even be a bit controversial, and it has a lot of people struggling to decide which colour they should order.
The colour palettes of the 2021 iMac harken back to the bold colours of the iMac G3 that Apple introduced in 1998.
First, here's what's not new. In many respects, this is the same computer that lives inside the mini, Air, and current M1 MacBook Pro. Same 8-core CPU, same 7-or-8-core GPU, same 8GB unified memory, & same 16-core neural engine. Performance-wise, we currently have four Macs that in day-to-day operations function identically. I would've loved to see an M1X or M2 or whatever the heck Apple decides to call their next chip, but it's clear that Apple's cooking up something special for when they debut their first Apple Silicon-inspired pro computers later this year.
Visually, the new iMac is very inviting. From the light grey bezels to the bevy of bold colours, the iMac demands to simultaneously fit in and stand out in whatever environment it's placed. The first word that comes to my mind when I saw the iMac reveal was that is the computer is "fun," and I think that's the perfect motif for this consumer product. The Pros will get their greys and greyer greys, but this product is all about accentuating the fun side of the Mac. This is a computer that hooks your attention and draws you towards it. And if Apple wants to reinforce that Macs are as personal and easy to use as the iPhones and iPads that over a billion people have enjoyed for so long, then this iMac is mission accomplished.
It's astonishing to see how Apple’s evolution since abandoning Intel. This new iMac is a unified 11.5mm thin, half the volume of the 21.5" display, and is reported to run at around 10db (about as loud as a leaf falling). And this profile still delivers a computer that will deliver a 3-5x improvement for many of the everyday tasks people do. If the MacBook Air is the best laptop for most people, I don't doubt the iMac is the best desktop for most people.
Questions
But like cutting the head off a hydra, seven more questions take their place for each question that gets answered.
This iMac is still quite spartan on ports (having only 2 Thunderbolt ports (with the option of an additional two USB-C ports) and a headphone jack. With rumours of more ports slated to arrive on the pro laptops, we still don't have a sense of what choices Apple may make. The current M1 chip seems to be at peak port capacity, so it's reasonable to assume the next chip will feature the capability for more or a broader range of ports to be included on the Mac. But I was surprised to see the lack of an SD card reader on this iMac, given how much smoke there has been about this port potentially coming to the next Pro laptop.
It also needs to be stated that this is not a Pro desktop. It's a very capable desktop, but it's not a Pro desktop like the iMac Pro has been for many professionals. From the display size, graphics, and the limited array of ports, many pros are still anticipating what the first genuinely pro-level Apple Silicon Mac will offer. It'll be interesting to see how Apple bifurcates the lineup between its consumer products (Air, iMac, mini) and pro-level products (MacBook Pro, MacPro, and potentially some version of a "Pro mini" and/or iMac Pro) in terms of the CPU/GPU counts, memory, ports, thermal performance, and so on.
Third, we haven't seen Apple's complete GPU strategy for Apple Silicon. Up to now, Apple had relied on its own custom graphics, and it'll be interesting to see whether they invite third-party cards into their next Apple Silicon products or are planning an entirely in-house solution.
In Sum
I won't get ahead of myself. This latest iMac is our first taste of what will undoubtedly continue to be an exciting year for the Mac. We saw what M1 could do and were gobsmacked. Now we've just seen the first Mac reengineered for Apple Silicon. I'm delighted to see Apple's bold & minimalist design choices in this product and love the homage it pays to the original iMac.
