Apple’s new M4 iMac: Faster, smarter, and made for AI

Apple’s week of Mac began today with a newly announced iMac, now beefed up with an M4 chip and more internal memory. Apple says the iMac is up to 4.5 times faster than an equivalent all-in-one Intel Core 7 Windows PC — and promises the machine will deliver up to six times the performance of the most popular Intel-based iMac.

The inference is obvious: if you use your iMac professionally, you might want to think about an upgrade. Reinforcing the point, Apple says the iMac is up to 1.7 times faster for most tasks and 2.1 times faster for more advanced tasks when compared to the M1 model.

Apple sets the scene for its AI

Part of the reason for this improved performance is the big boost to 16GB of unified onboard memory (configurable to 24GB). That memory boost is to support Apple Intelligence, which is also available for Macs running macOS Sequoia 15.1 or above. The Neural Engine in M4 chips is 3x faster than the M1. (Apple Intelligence is also now available for iPhones and iPads running iOS/iPad OS 18.1.)

Be warned, the entry-level $1,299 iMac might not reach these performance heights as it ships with an 8-core CPU; the rest of the range offers 10 cores. You do get hardware-accelerated ray tracing, which is going to make a big difference when you use the Mac.

Apple’s AI platform play means all its current devices will now support Apple Intelligence, meaning the company now offers the world’s biggest AI ecosystem.

What else is new?

The iMac display continues to be the same 24-in. 4.5K Retina display we all know and love, with a new nano-texture glass option available if color fidelity and anti-reflection matters to you.

Starting at $1,299, the new iMacs are available in a “parade” of colors, including green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, blue, and silver. Buyers get: a 12-megapixel Center Stage camera with support for Desk View; a brilliant microphone and speaker system; and four USB-C ports, all of which support Thunderbolt 4. You can even run two external displays. Wrapping it up, you’ll find Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1 along with TouchID support, thanks to a button on the keyboard.

Overall, this is a solid and update, but it has to be said that it doesn’t seem to be the main attraction — that honor this week is likely to be all about a smaller machine….

We’re still waiting for the Mac mini

I can’t help but feel the iMac is being seen through a lens of pre-announcement speculation for the Mac mini. That product is already attracting lots of interest — just look at the pre-release headlines:

• “This is the Mac Mini’s big moment” (The Verge).
• “A tiny Mac mini could be the ultimate travel companion and I can’t wait for it” (TechRadar).
• “Apple Mac mini with M4 chip could be a game-changer for creatives, here’s why” (Hindustan Times).

Talk about setting the scene.

Even Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has put his well-connected assessment out there; he obliquely tells us that even if you are quite happy with your M1 Mac mini, the move to M4 processors “could feel as significant as that first shift from Intel machines to Apple chips.” 

That’s borne out by Apple’s iMac claims above. What we can piece together from the iMac introduction is that the new Mac mini will also deliver huge performance boosts in contrast to the M1 or M2 models already in use.

That’s an upgrade productivity benefits are built on in some industries, and it suggests that if your business has M1 (or older) Mac minis in its fleet, the new M4 models seem to be a tempting upgrade. After all, you don’t even need to replace the display….

Will a M4 Mac mini be the new Mac for business?

This introduction is expected to be about more than the silicon inside these Macs — it’s also the new design around them. If reports are correct, the new mini may be significantly smaller as Apple’s designers draw yet another benefit out of the energy and heat dissipation advantages of the company’s Arm-based chips.

Expect it to be a small aluminium box that’s taller but otherwise similar in size to the current Apple TV. I visualize this as being a box about half the size of a regular paperback book and perhaps as thick as three average length novels stacked atop each other. That’s really small. And it should now come with 16GB of base memory and support for Apple Intelligence.

Speaking just last year, MacStadium CTO Chris Chapman told me his existing server farms full of Mac minis used so much less power that his data center providers were, “always calling us up to tell us we’re not using enough power for the space.”

If the smaller size means lower energy consumption (and given what we know of Apple’s silicon evolution so far, it probably does), then for enterprises handling hundreds of these machines — or any other Mac, come to that — the M4 upgrade promises significant reductions in energy costs. 

A good start to a week of Mac

Combined with the faster chip, these tiny desktop Mac minis or larger iMacs are going to run just about anything you want as effectively as a hot knife through butter.

That’s why the upcoming Mac mini has generated so much interest, even before its introduction. Combined with the impressive iMac rollout today and anticipation around the expected powerful MacBook Pro improvements, Apple’s big week of Mac news is off to a strong start. But will it distract or focus interest on the company’s end of year results announcement Thursday?

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