Apple first introduced the iconic iMac back in 2012 and it has stayed that way for the longest time although Apple did up its hardware and software configuration. Apple’s Spring Loaded 2021 event held on April 20 virtually did something everyone was waiting for. The historic Apple iMac received its first major design refresh with its in-house M1 chipset that earlier powered Mac Mini and MacBooks released late last year.
The new iMac arrives in various colors that you can get your hands on. It includes seven different hues such as blue, silver, purple, pink, orange, yellow, and green. The new iMac arrives with an Apple M1 chipset based on ARM and has eight cores CPU and 7 or 8 cores GPU depending upon the configuration you pick. Also, Apple is pretty adamant about providing a series of upgrades with the new iMac.
The webcam used for video calls on iMac has now been bumped to 1080p which is twice when compared to the previous webcam. The new iMac arrives with spatial audio with Dolby Atmos, six built-in speakers that include two pairs of force-canceling woofers, and an array of three mics that promises “studio quality”.
Moving ahead, the new iMac now has a 24-inch size with a 4.5K Retina Display and with 11.3 million pixels and the display is able to produce 500 units of maximum brightness. The display, which has a 23.5-inch actual size, supports P3 1B color as well as True Tone technology that calibrates the color temperature of the display based on the environment.
Coming to the icing on the cake, the new in-house M1 chipset manufactured by Apple after years of research and development is 85 percent faster when it comes to CPU performance and 50 percent better performance when it comes to GPU compared to the chipsets used by previous iMac models. The M1 also improves upon machine learning by fastening its speed by almost three times.
The new iMac arrives with Wi-Fi 6 support, two Thunderbolt ports while the most expensive model arrives with two more USB Type-C ports and supports to 1Gbps Ethernet port in the power adapter. Apple has also added magnetically attaching components with the new iMac such as the magnetically attaching cable from the adapter to the computer in a neat fashion.
The new iMac gets a Magic Keyboard with Touch ID integration. You can color-match the keyboard when buying it. The Touch ID comes with the first wireless implementation of biometric authentication which uses a dedicated security chip mounted on the keyboard to create an encrypted channel storing your fingerprint data for authentication.
Talking about the pricing, the iMac with M1 with an 8-core CPU and 7-core GPU configuration and 8GB+256GB SSD storage commences at $1,299. You can buy it in four different color variants green, silver, blue, and pink. It arrives with a color-matched Magic Keyboard (no Touch ID) and Magic Mouse.
The iMac with M1 (8-core CPU and 8-core GPU) is available in seven hues mentioned above. It commences at $1,499 and you get a Magic Keyboard (with Touch ID) and a Magic Mouse. This one too has 8GB RAM and 256GB of SSD storage.
Both the computers will be available for pre-order on April 30 and the shipping will commence in the second half of May 2021.
