Will Apple Come Out With a New Larger iMac?

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Apple no longer sells a large screen iMac. Will they in the future? If not, what are the alternatives?

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So here's what happened last week. Apple introduced the new Mac Studio. This computer is a stand alone computer. The screen is separate. It's much more powerful than the Mac Mini. At the same time Apple discontinued, it stopped selling, the 27" 5K iMac. Now the only iMac for sale is the 24" iMac which is new and was introduced last year. So this left people wondering is Apple still going to come out with a larger screen iMac that uses their new Apple silicon processors. 

So what was the 27" iMac. Well it was an all-in-one computer that featured a 5K display. That was probably its most prominent feature. As even now 5K displays are hard to come by. Apple's new Mac Studio display is 5K but outside of that there's really only one or two decent 5K displays for computers out there. Prices for the 27" iMac start at $1799. That was for a pretty bare bones one. So if you wanted more power it cost a lot more money. As a matter of fact it was really easy to configure an iMac for more than four or even five thousand dollars if you wanted a higher end processor in it. A decent amount of memory and a bigger SSD. So I think typically people that bought this were buying something that was at least $2000. Probably more like $3000. 

So here's Apple's current lineup of Macs. The lines here represent from the lowest price model all the way up to something that has about a 2TB hard drive. You could see here the 24" iMac has quite a bit of range. The low end for $1299 is the base model. But you could go way up from there. Now for the desktops overlapping the iMac on the low end is the Mac Mini. Overlapping it on the high end is the new Mac Studio. So why did Apple discontinue the 27" iMac. Well, there are a number of different factors we can look at. We can only really make educated guesses. Apple doesn't provide sales figures for each individual model of Mac. But we can assume that the 27" iMac didn't sell very well. Otherwise Apple would never discontinue it. 

Apple was very successful for a long time selling iMacs that were all the same screen size. We know that in addition to the 27" iMac Apple also had the 27" iMacPro which most likely didn't sell very well because Apple stopped making it. I've heard some people claim that the 27" iMac was very popular but I couldn't find any actual evidence to back that up. We do know that most people prefer a MacBook model, not a desktop model. The smaller iMac was probably more appropriate for most home use. In fact there are probably a lot of people that wished that there was something in-between the 21½" screen and the 27" screen which is exactly what Apple has given us now. A 24" iMac.  

Another thing to consider is even if the 27" iMac sold fairly well before but now that Apple has come out with Mac Studio they would expect fewer people to be buying a larger screen iMac. Those pros who can't afford the high end Mac Pro would naturally gravitate toward the Mac Studio. So I think looking at this chart and trying to predict Apple's strategy it's clear that they want to return to having the single option for an iMac. I think this covers most people's home use. For Pros a Mac Mini or a Mac Studio or a future MacPro at the top end that will fill everybody's needs. Pros usually like to have more than one screen anyway. 

So what if you do want to get something as close as you can to the 27" iMac. Well, you have three possibilities now. One is to get the 24" iMac. This screen isn't that much smaller than the 27" iMac but that still beats a lot of third party screens that are out there. It's a pretty nice design. It's pretty lightweight. It features the new Apple silicone in it. Another option is to get a Mac Mini. This gives you a really low starting price. You can get a Mac Mini for $699. Chances are you want to spend a little over a $1000 to get one with decent storage and maybe some extra RAM. Then you pair that with a screen of your own choice or the Studio Display. Adding the Studio Display to the Mac Mini is going to bring you up to the $3000 price range. So if you're on a budget what you may want to do is actually get a third party display. Then you can actually bring the price way down. The base Mac Mini and say a $400 4K display like the ones that I use that can bring you in way less than any 27" iMac. You won't get the number of pixels on the display that you will with a 5K iMac but you will get the screen size. So that's a really good budget option. You can also have a Mac Mini with some more memory and a larger drive and you can get, maybe, a slightly nicer display and it brings the price right in line with the low end 27" iMac. 

Now the same is true with the Mac Studio. The Mac Studio is much more powerful than the Mac Mini jumping from the base M1 processor all the way to the M1 Max. But the price goes up to $2000. So if you want to add a Studio Display to that you're talking at least $3600 for that pair. But you're getting something that's pretty powerful. You can't compare that to the old base 27" iMac because it's far more powerful than that. You could also do something fairly cheap by getting that $2000 Mac Studio and pairing it with a $400 4K display. One of the things that people may be concerned about getting either the Mac Mini or an iMac is those only have the M1 processor. There is no M1 Pro option and no M1 Max or M1 Ultra like in the Mac Studio. But the M1 is actually a really good processor. I hear from a lot of people that, oh they don't want to get the M1 processor because they work with iMovie or they have a lot of photos, and things like that. I have a MacBook Pro that has the base M1 processor and only 8G of RAM and I've used it for Final Cut Pro. I've used it for Xcode. I've used it to export and combine lots of videos and to do lots of heavy work and it's never been a problem. So I think if you're a professional video editor or you're a professional photographer that needs to process a lot of photos or a developer, then maybe getting one of those higher end Macs is the best bet for you. But for most home users the M1 processor is all you need. A 24" iMac will perform fantastic for you. A Mac Mini with a M1 will also be great. 

Now there are four M1 processors. The M1, the M1 Pro, the M1 Max, and the M1 Ultra. A lot of people ask why is there only the M1 available in the Mac Mini and the iMac. Why not a M1 Pro as well. I think that may be a possibility in the future. Not for the M1 but perhaps for the M2 that the next generation of Mac Mini may have an option for the M2 and M2 Pro and perhaps the next generation iMac may have an option for a M2 Pro as well. I don't see Apple changing things now. I think their lineup for the M1 processor is pretty set. 

Now what I'm hearing from a lot of people is they want something slightly different than what Apple is offering. Like they want something in-between the Mac Mini and the Mac Studio. Or perhaps in-between the iMac and the Mac Studio. Let me tell you this is something that I've always heard. No matter what Apple comes out with there's always going to be people that want to have something right in-between two options that Apple offers. What I always say is there is always going to be room for indecision. Whenever you're faced with choices you're always going to say, Oh, you know what would be perfect if it was right here in-between these two choices. But the bottom line is these are the models that Apple is offering. So if you're looking for something you have got to pick from what's available. So if you're on a budget and you want to get an iMac take a really close look at the 24" iMac. It's a decent machine and if you go into the store and take a look at it you may find that the 24" screen is fine for you. If you want something bigger, you want a bigger screen but you don't really care about the pixels, then getting a Mac Mini with a 32" 4K display is probably a great option. It's going to be a bigger screen than what Apple is offering in the more expensive Studio Display, just fewer pixels and options. If you use your Mac professionally then you probably want to take a really good look at the Mac Studio. If adding the Studio Display to it is going to make it too expensive then look at third party displays. But if you get the base model Studio maybe adding a larger hard drive to it and then the Studio Display, the price is going to be around $4000. The $4000 is actually getting you quite a lot especially with that M1 Max processor. 

So I hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.