Lower-Priced 23-Inch iMac and 11-Inch iPad Models Rumored to Launch in Second Half of 2020

[Stephen.R]

I prefered the text on my iMac 24 inch. The 27 inch has done nothing (pre-5k) but squeeze my eyes since I got it.

I’m not even sure what you’re trying to say

The Mac Mini iG is crap.

thanks for that thorough response. Really helped.

I guess it's subjective, but I think the 23.7" LG 4k Ultrafine sold in Apple stores looks excellent.

The picture is fine - I use 2 24” 4Ks, my point though is that at “default” macOS scaling for them, everything is a lot bigger than on other macs which include a display.

 

[sublunar]

They might very well have done so, however Apple was still using the 21.5" Retina / 219PPI display for the iMac even though LG had stopped selling it as an external monitor (in favor of the 23.7" 4K model, which is aimed at the MacBook and Mac Mini families).

That being said, Apple might consider 186PPI "good enough" for Retina now, especially on a lower-price iMac as these rumors claim (so Apple can still call it a "great display", even if it is not as great as the 21.5" display) while keeping the 27" iMac / iMac Pro at 5K and 219PPI.

That's an excellent point there - Apple is already stocking an LG display that isn't 219ppi and could be the 23" iMac display that has been described (because they would round down the panel size for description reasons) - the next iMac panel might have been staring us right in the face here.

If you take that at face value Apple would be breaking their own 'retina' rule that they've stuck with from 4k iMac 21.5" all the way up to 6k Pro Display XDR.

The LG UltraFine 23.7" is £629 in the Apple Store - not that much different in price than the 21.5" UltraFine was when it was on sale. It's also a lower resolution panel than the 21.5" - 3840x2160 (classic 4k) vs 4096x2304 (Full DCI P3 spec in the 21.5").

It's not the cheapest 4k panel out there but its IPS P3 wide colour gamut and 500cm/m2 brightness is easily better than the average 4k display. That monitor includes Thunderbolt ports and charging for 16 inch MacBook Pro (85w, not the full 95w) over the older display which only had USB-C ports.

Now, if Apple believe that this could form the basis of a replacement product for the 21.5" and quietly drop any claims of Retina display as long as the saved budget gets them full SSD then I'm with them on this.

A second half of the year launch could put them into Comet Lake S territory here but I'll still hang on to my idea of Apple consolidating parts with demand expected to fall by going with Comet Lake H (MacBook Pro 16") parts with mobile graphics cards like the AMD 5300M and 5500M - I note that the RX 5600M is out now.

Let me also add that I still get the feeling that Apple could still leave the existing 21.5" and 27" iMacs alone aside from a combination of adjusting the price, dropping models, or raiding the parts bin for upgrades - just like they did with the Mac mini.

 

[gusping]

That's the way to go. That's what I'd want. A substantial boost to both iMacs.

That would be be a great line up. We're long over due for it.

24 inch monitors don't cost that much. 32 inch ones like the delightful BenQ 4k 32 incher about £500. So it's about time Apple offered a true boost to the iMac which is, design wise, about the screen real estate.

Long overdue.

Azrael.

I also just got a 32in 4K monitor, so it would be strange to have a ‘tiny’ 27in iMac....

 

[Spock]

Just bring back the iMac G4 and be done with it.

 

[Stephen.R]

32 inch ones like the delightful BenQ 4k 32 incher about £500. So it's about time Apple offered a true boost to the iMac which is, design wise, about the screen real estate.

You realise that a 27” 5k panel has more “screen real estate” than a 4K display at any size right? You don’t have more “real estate” because the physical dimensions are bigger, you’re just stretching the real estate out to a bigger scale.

 

[Zwhaler]

I have a 4TB external drive that I use to store older projects and other files I don't access too often, and it works great for that. But I would never want to run my OS or software on a spinning hard drive ever again.

For sure. My boot drive is SSD and large storage drives spin, but I have 4 internal slots.

 

[CarlJ]

They should have ditched the 21.5 iMac years ago. Bring the 24 inch iMac back with 4k and make the larger iMac 29 inches.

Oddly enough, I have a friend who bought a 21.5" last week - she could easily afford the larger one, but didn't want it, the smaller one fit her home office space better. And she's used to working on laptop screens, so it seems huge in comparison to her.

 

[Spungoflex]

Oddly enough, I have a friend who bought a 21.5" last week - she could easily afford the larger one, but didn't want it, the smaller one fit her home office space better. And she's used to working on laptop screens, so it seems huge in comparison to her.

I'm in the same boat. A 21.5" screen is just fine by me. I hope if Apple goes with 23", it is simply by reducing the borders and keeping an identical footprint and weight of the current 21.5".

 

[Tarantularock]

Hmmm, I wonder about the need of a 2020 all in one type machine... almost everyone I know uses a portable machine Macbook Pros & iPads, and those who don't - are covered by a Mac mini or Mac Pro. I'd love to have a very polished beautiful 30+ inch display that worked with all my apple devices. I'm not quite in the market for a $5000 XDR but maybe a "baby" XDR with FaceTime camera and speakers... & IF it happened to run iPados with a keyboard and mouse/trackpad that would be something special.

 

[s1m]

Dear god I need a new iMac - my 27in late 2012 model is struggling with being in use 16 hours a day under the plague confinement and working from home. I will be buying one as soon as they launch.

I would have updated to a mac Mini plus two screens if the recent update had been better.

 

[sublunar]

Oddly enough, I have a friend who bought a 21.5" last week - she could easily afford the larger one, but didn't want it, the smaller one fit her home office space better. And she's used to working on laptop screens, so it seems huge in comparison to her.

There's definitely something to be said for smaller screens. I would have been happy with a 21.5" but the total package (with hard drives and locked in RAM) doesn't thrill me about the iMac.

A 25" 4k would be fine for me. 23.7" (as per the LG UltraFine) would be interesting too given the specs of that panel. The brightness alone puts it head and shoulders above many other 4k panels.

And for highly specific workflows the iPad Pro is looking a very good product too.

 

[kreasonos]

The base model imacs are already ridiculously underpowered, a dual core, a spinning hard drive? And now they want to introduce a lower cost model? What are they gonna put in it? Parts from the 1990s?

 

[sublunar]

The base model imacs are already ridiculously underpowered, a dual core, a spinning hard drive? And now they want to introduce a lower cost model? What are they gonna put in it? Parts from the 1990s?

Let's be reasonable here, I think the 2019 iMacs are ripe for a refresh and if not a refresh then Apple can probably afford to drop price or bump spec.

I can't see where they get their context from but cheaper might be referring to the 27" - in fact I ran the original article through Google Translate and I must have missed the bit about 'cheaper' - but I did read about a plan to launch the 23" iMac in Q3 this year.

By that time Comet Lake CPUs should be available but it might be too soon for RDNA2 GPUs.

 

[shyam09]

Read this as 23" iPad and I was pretty excited. LOL

 

[kazmac]

23" iMac with user upgradable ram, SSD, solid WiFi, Bluetooth with decent graphics and speaker inside? I'd consider, IF Apple gets their stuffing together with hardware and macOS.

I need a new desktop Mac badly, but after fracturing my arm I can no longer wrangle a 27" iMac*. May the ports on my 27" iMac hang on until this is released. *As much as I love the idea of a Mac Mini, this wasn't a good upgrade this year.

At any rate, this could be good news.

 

[TechGuy327]

Im sure they will release a new low end iPad now since I just bought the 10.2 on sale last week.. The iMac needs a redesign and a lower price but with the Mac mini starting at $799 without a mouse, keyboard or 4K display, I’m pretty sure the price will stay the same but maybe add a 256 gig SSD and a slightly upgraded graphics card.

So did I.

 

[macfan90]

If all we get is a cheap iMac and not upgrades to the main models, that would suck.

 

[RJQJ]

How cheap can this "budget" iPad Air (assuming it's going to be apart of the Air line) be? The Air 3 is already $499 for the base model, which is a little under $200 more than already affordable iPad 7.

 

[PowerMac G4 MDD]

They better not place a spinning disk in the new iMac; it is unbelievably slow with modern macOS — it's practically unusable.

Just make a 23" iMac, reduce the price to $1000 (with basic SSD or hybrid drive, and add a 29" counterpart. Also, retain the ability to upgrade the RAM.

 

[Warped9]

These rumours are sketchy. There isn’t much difference between a 10.2 7th gen iPad and a 10.5 Air to really justify the price difference. But if they make the iPad Air 11in. then it’s a real sales job to make a case for the 11in. iPad Pro.

Remaking the iMac shouldn’t be a big deal. The current precedent is the current MacBook Air—significant upgraded specs with a lower price. So the current iMac with slimmer bezels and significant upgraded specs and lower price is quite doable. The current iMac design is still quite nice such that a moderate cosmetic refresh could easily work—thinner bezels with less to no chin. What I would like to see is that all iMac models regain the easily upgradable RAM access.

I’m currently using a mid 2011 iMac with aftermarket upgrades of an i7, 500GB SSD and 32GB RAM, but I’m stuck with High Sierra so a nicely upgraded and redesigned iMac is something I could be seriously interested in.

 

[CWallace]

Hmmm, I wonder about the need of a 2020 all in one type machine...

Speaking for myself, I have been an iMac man since 2007 and I intend to stay that way as long as they come with such nice displays.

Even if the new Mac Pro was half the price, an iMac still is a better deal for me because of the included display.

The base model imacs are already ridiculously underpowered, a dual core, a spinning hard drive? And now they want to introduce a lower cost model?

This rumored 23" iMac would not be a replacement for the $1099 21.5" HD model, but the base $1299 21.5" 4K model. Now the base 4K model does come with a 1TB spinner, so I am hoping Apple at a minimum drops that in favor of a 1TB Fusion Drive.

 

[Warped9]

I’m not a laptop guy and I have no use for that kind of computer. Also doing 3D modelling on an iMac with a big display works alot better than with a MacBook. From my perspective an iMac is a far better value than a MacBook.

 

[arvinsim]

32" iMac. Make it happen Apple!

Also drop the HDDs. It's 2020 for f*cks sake.

 

[Ulfric]

I would like to ask a question? How good is ray tracing performance on Metal?

 

[high heaven]

Make a whole new iMac. Apple didn't change iMac since 2012. The cooling system sucks and yet they charge you a lot of money for the 2012 version of iMac with new parts.