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'iMac Pro' Coming in 2022 With M1 Pro/Max Chips, 27-Inch Mini-LED Display, MacBook Pro Ports and More

dawnrazor said:
What I’m finding intriguing to think about is by looking at Apples own timeline for the completely rollout of Silicon across its entire Mac range, they say it will be complete by WWDC in June 2022… Now the pandemic might have slowed that down somewhat and chip shortages might also have slowed that down, because that would mean we have to get a large M series iMac, perhaps an M series iMac Pro and M series Mac Pro by June… and some folk seem to think the Mac Mini will be updated in that time as well, which I can’t see happening…

But heres the thing to think about… say apple released a Mac Mini with a M1 Pro or Max, then where do they go with the Mac Pro? Unless there is another M series chip that is going to be insanely powerful, why would Apple put M1 Pro or Max in an Mac Mini… That leaves the larger iMac and iMac Pro… Lets not forget that the iMac Pro was a stop gap machine to appease pro users because the Mac Pro hadn’t been updated since the trashcan, Apple might not be so keen to reintroduce those pro users with another iMAc Pro, they may want to steer them to the M series Mac Pro instead.

I really want to see what Apple do with a Silicon Mac Pro, it has to be an escalation in CPU, RAM and GPU, a Mac Pro with a M1 Max isn’t going to do it…

My prediction, the Mac Mini remians unchanged, there will be lowered end 27” iMac with M1 and higher end 30” iMac with M1 Pro and Max. There will be no M series iMac Pro. That leaves the Mac Pro, which could be released a WWDC and needs to be something different again, so the all new M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max or whatever it’ll be… The new Mac Pro has to blow the current top end Mac Pro into the weeds and a M1 Max Mac Pro won’t do that…

Lastly, I need a new desktop machine, it needs to be a beast… Once the M1 Max iMac comes out, it’s going to be hard to not buy one to replace my 2015 27” iMac… but I have this feeling that waiting for the silicon Mac Pro to be released is going to be worth the pain….
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The new Mac Pro and Mac Pro Mini for sure will have more than the M1ProMax chip. There’s no way they could call it a Mac Pro if it’s performance was the same as a laptop.

Maybe Dual or Quad M1Pro chips if such a thing is possible?
 
Dustman said:
27” is a ‘massive’ mistake Apple. I can’t imagine anyone wanting 27” over 32” as anyone with size constraints will surely get the 24”.

Maybe the return of 3 iMac sizes? ..Maybe?
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I agree, 27" is not "Pro", when there are so many huge monitor options out there.
 
I don't think there's any reason to worry about a notch here. It makes sense on a laptop where you have space constraints where you also have reason to maximize said space for the purpose of portability. I imagine the notch is probably harder to deal with from a manufacturing standpoint.

Putting it on an iMac would be complete silliness (although that's not guaranteed to stop Apple, lol) and utterly pointless.
 
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sideshowuniqueuser said:
Relax, nowhere in his tweet did he say 27", that was either a typo in MacRumors's headline, or they jumped to conclusions. Of course it won't be 27".
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Your right about that, so I don't know why the story is talking about 27" display. But, I guess it's pointless to argue about rumours.
 
the8thark said:
I feel that model is going the way of the dodo. Just like Dgpus will one day too.

The performance gains Apple had made going all unified on one SoC is massive. Just look at what we have now. Outside a few hardcore edge cases, people are actually finding it hard to max out their M1Max. Even Anandtech noted that not many workflows exist today that will max out what the M1Max has.

By the time such workflows exist, we will have M2Max or M5Max or whatever the current generation is at the time.

Eventually we will get to a point where it’s just the same thing, just more/faster cores for the pros. Of cause ads in the ports SSD space and RAM that pros need.

At their core the base cpu and gpu compute units will be based on the same thing.

We need to realise that M series is not like the old days of notebook vs desktop components. Apple silicon is all about giving everyone the same crazy good technology just in different configurations / packages to suit all the different kinds of users out there - casual / prosumer / pro.

Crazy high end bleeding edge is the exception and they are not looking for a Mac anyway. They are in the supercomputer league. Universities, research laboratories etc etc.
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I agree with your reply and I don't see it invalidating mine.
A simplified naming scheme is not intended to reflect the peculiarities of one architecture (which as you said is vastly different from what the market had to offer before) but it's incredibly useful to target the product to the right audience.
We tech geeks will always know every detail of a machine before making a purchase, which will always be an informed one, but the vast majority of consumers won't, and that's why the old Non-Pro / Pro differentiation still holds up and it always will: it helps the uninformed audience to make an informed decision.
Do you use the machine to work on spreadsheets and browse the web? You're not a Pro and you know that, so you know what product to go for. Do you do 2D, 3D, video editing or music production? You are a pro and again, you know that only the Pro lineup will offer what you need.
This also helps Apple place its products well against the competition: before you saw shop owners buying top-specced iMacs to process simple spreadsheets and read emails because there was just the iMac and they didn't know what configuration would suit their needs, so they would go for the most expensive models "just to be sure" and then compare the price to the competition and go "hey, Apple products are so overpriced, I can get a Windows All-in-one for a quarter of the iMac price". With a non-pro/pro differentiation this problem wouldn't exist as everyone would be able to discern the difference and avoid overspending; no auntie looking for a Youtube/Facebook machine or parent buying a computer for their kid's studies would go for a Pro model, they'd see the consumer models ( which, strange coincidence, are starting being made in various colours, and as we all know colours are attractive and convey a sense of joy and playfulness ) and immediately know that's what they want/need.
Besides, isn't said differentiation what we saw Apple going for in recent years with the iMac Pro, iPad Pro, iPhone Pro and AirPod Pro? Add to this the introduction of the new iMac with colours and a good price point, then rumours start circulating about a future Macbook "Air" in different colours...to me it all adds up....
 
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I am very disappointed. iMac 27" should have more performance than a laptop. M1 Max isn't powerful enough for a desktop. For example, M1 Max only scores ~13K in Cinebench R23, whereas AMD R9 5900X scores ~22K. They need to put more than 8 performance cores in 27" iMac to make it a "Pro" desktop.
 
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I’ve been pretty much iPad Pro only for the last few years. Using it for all my photography & video editing. But i think I am going to get this iMac Pro for some heavy editing while at home & use my iPad Pro for when i am traveling.
 
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iBluetooth said:
I was hoping for a 32" version with the 6K monitor. I hope they give it as an option, then I will upgrade the current development machine: iMac27 Intel Core i9 9900 which is always turning on the fans.

The Pro Display XDR is 6K 32" monitor.
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Whatever it is its at least 6 months from now!
 
madmin said:
Interesting news, but why can't they work on more than one iMac at a time ?
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What would be the point as they would just run into supply bottlenecks when it comes to sales of multiple models. It's better for Apple to offer different models over the year. I'm sure the coming Apple Silicon Pro/Max Mac mini will also have to be deferred because Apple wants to sell these new MacBooks Pro and they don't want to run into any more shortages than necessary. I don't see why Apple should have to rush these products. I'd rather Apple just took its sweet time and hopefully do an even better job.
 
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I guess only offering 27" for an iMac Pro (and not a larger option) makes sense in order not to cannibal sales of the Mac Mini. Ideally, anyone who wants a larger screen would just configure a Mac Mini with the monitor(s) of their choice. Apple silicon has really homogenized the playing field.
 
4jasontv said:
Based on the new MBP it would be weird to not include a notch on the next iMac, especially a pro model. I can see them making a 27-inch screen exclusive to the pro, and reducing the bezel to require a notch.
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The new iMac Pro could end up being the replacement for the old iMac Pro, but at a much cheaper price. I don't think there will be a notch as the iPad doesn't have a notch, and the bezel on an iMac really isn't that important.
 
glindon said:
The new iMac Pro could end up being the replacement for the old iMac Pro, but at a much cheaper price. I don't think there will be a notch as the iPad doesn't have a notch, and the bezel on an iMac really isn't that important.
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Yeah, that’s tough. On the one hand the MBP foreshadows hardware design, but on the other Apple does seem to be preparing to merge the Mac with iOS.
 
Probably stated already but the M1 Pro/Max is not a desktop class processor and is not suitable for a PRO desktop machine. It won’t outclass the next Intel i9 chip with discrete graphics, which is the whole point of switching to AS.

Need an M2 with higher single core performance and better GPU performance per core, not just more GPU cores. It will need to go in the iMac and the mini, with an M2 Pro as an option.

Then an M2 Max for the Mac Pro.

Dragging the M1 into a new product 18 months after the launch is not going to fly. The M1 is a proof of concept product, not a long term solution.
 
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4jasontv said:
Yeah, that’s tough. On the one hand the MBP foreshadows hardware design, but on the other Apple does seem to be preparing to merge the Mac with iOS.
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iMac never got thin at the expense of performance, never got a thin travel keyboard or Touch Bar, never got the limited port selection. HDR and notch came to oled iPhone X first. XDR came to desktop monitor first, then iPad, then MBP. Retina came to iPhone, then iPad, then 15" 2012 retina MBP. USB-C came to 2015 MacBook first.

iPhone is driving feature set and that bubbles up to iPad and Macs so it's not a merging but compatibility and constancy layer.
 
glindon said:
iMac never got thin at the expense of performance, never got a thin travel keyboard or Touch Bar, never got the limited port selection. HDR and notch came to oled iPhone X first. XDR came to desktop monitor first, then iPad, then MBP. Retina came to iPhone, then iPad, then 15" 2012 retina MBP. USB-C came to 2015 MacBook first.

iPhone is driving feature set and that bubbles up to iPad and Macs so it's not a merging but compatibility and constancy layer.
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The 2009 iMac routinely died because the gpu got so hot the chips became unsoldered.

The M1 iMac has two ports.
 
27'' with no chin ???? I really hope so that would make a big difference in screen size and appeal as we already know its going to be a powerful machine.
 
HDMI port on an iMac?

that’s the tell that someone just made this up, purely based on the MacBook pro
 
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Hoping for better performance than their mobile range.
Desktop Intel/Amd has twice the score of M1 Max (in 3d).
 
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