Apple may unveil a pair of hotly anticipated upgrades for its consumer-oriented desktops this week. The Mac mini and iMac are each prone to get enhanced with the highly effective M4 processor, plus there’s supposedly a serious design change coming to the mini.
Right here’s what rumors reveal about these two.
Deliver on new Mac desktops
Though MacBooks make up 90% of U.S. Mac gross sales, Apple hasn’t given up on desktops. And it’s no shock — there are nonetheless tens of millions of people that favor a standard desktop over a pocket book.
Apple makes a spread of them, together with the high-end Mac Studio and Mac Professional. Nevertheless it’s two cheaper fashions which might be anticipated to get updates this week.
M4 iMac on the way in which
Photograph: Apple
The excellent news is that an iMac with an Apple M4 processor ought to launch any day now. The marginally much less excellent news is that it’ll supposedly be a “velocity increase” replace with no different vital adjustments to the all-in-one design.
The present iMac makes use of an Apple M3 chip. That’s allegedly going to be switched out with an M4. That chip is already in the marketplace — it launched in the M4 iPad Professional again within the spring. And a MacBook Professional operating it acquired benchmarked on video displaying the chip presents a 32% enchancment over the M3. The increase comes from two extra CPU cores, the next clock velocity and architectural enhancements.
However the remainder of the 2024 iMac must be unchanged. That’s no shock, because it’s what occurred in 2023 when Apple dropped the M3 chip into what had been the M1 iMac. And there actually no motive for a design replace now as a result of the all-in-one desktop acquired a dramatic revamp a number of years in the past, so it nonetheless seems nice.
Subsequently, count on the M4 iMac to incorporate a 24-inch LED-backlit show with 4.5K decision and 500 nits of brightness. There’ll be a 1080p FaceTime HD digicam, complemented by the six-speaker setup and three studio-quality microphones.
The present base mannequin begins at 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. There have been no rumors that the 2024 model will change that.
As of now, the value begins at $1,299. It’s not recognized if the M4 iMac worth will change.
Photograph: Apple/Cult of Mac
The shrinking M4 Mac mini
Simply because the M4 iMac isn’t getting a redesign doesn’t imply the M4 Mac mini received’t. Fairly the alternative — it’s rumored to be in for probably the most vital design revamp since 2010.
The macOS desktop will reportedly shrink to be roughly the scale of an Apple TV: 3.7-inch sq.. For reference, the present Mac mini is 7.8-inch sq.. However the Mac may find yourself barely taller than it now. There’ll nonetheless be room for a helpful variety of ports. Precisely what number of will supposedly depend upon the configuration, although.
Just like the 2024 iMac, the upcoming Mac mini will profit from the efficiency increase that comes from Apple’s newest processor. Rumors level to variations with both the bottom M4 or an enhanced M4 Professional chip.
The Professional variant will allegedly sport 5 USB-C ports, an Ethernet port, an HDMI connector and a headphone jack. The cheaper model with the bottom M4 ought to embrace fewer USB-C ports. Neither is anticipated to incorporate USB-A ports.
At present, the bottom M3 Mac mini sells for $599, whereas an M3 Professional variant begins at $1,299. There have, as but, been no rumors that the M4 improve will change that.
M4 Mac desktops and extra in below two weeks
We’d not want to attend lengthy for the M4-enhanced Mac mini and iMac. An unconfirmed report says the replacements will attain patrons on Friday, November 1. And a brand new MacBook Professional model with the M4 chip is anticipated on the identical time.
So some day earlier than then, both Apple will maintain a glitzy launch occasion, or all these Macs will likely be introduced extra quietly through press launch. Whichever possibility Cupertino chooses, Cult of Mac will likely be there to cowl the information.