An unannounced Apple iMac has appeared in leaked Geekbench benchmarks indicating that not only is one on the horizon, but that it'll potentially be running an exclusive Intel Core i9-10910 CPU. Rumors earlier this year suggested that Apple is working on a new iMac model, stoking anticipation that it may have been on the WWDC 2020 roster -- hope that didn't ultimately pan out.
The first few months of the year were rough for companies and organizations that regularly hold large events year in and year out. Most have canceled while others have put their events on hold, albeit indefinitely. Google did cancel its annual I/O developers conference but Apple is pushing ahead with an online version of its yearly WWDC. And it's a good thing, too, because it's now expected to make one of the biggest announcements in the company's history since the late Steve Jobs announced it would be abandoning the PowerPC platform for Intel.
Apple's WWDC isn't normally a hardware-fest, but that could change this year with talk of a new iMac making its debut at the annual developer event. Set to be held later this month, WWDC 2020 was already expected to have big news in the shape of official confirmation of Apple's efforts to oust Intel from its computers in favor of its own, Arm-based chips. Now, there's a second big hardware rumor.
Despite the lockdowns, quarantines, and shelter-in-place orders, work still has to be done. This is especially true for physical products that have a limited window of opportunity to get out the door. That's harder to do when you very secretive company like Apple that is known for keeping things under tight wraps, or at least as much as they can. The global pandemic has forced Apple to yield some ground and, in doing so, may have also yielded some clues to its upcoming products.
The gap between the iPad Pro and the MacBook only gets smaller, and now I suspect it's time for Apple's tablet to get bigger. The arrival this week of the new 2020 iPad Pro, complete with LiDAR Scanner camera and fancy new Magic Keyboard cover, saw Apple take a huge step with the addition of mouse and trackpad support, and an on-screen cursor.
Today a set of new Apple products were tipped for release in the next few months with mini-LED technology inside. Information comes largely from Apple-centric analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who suggests that production of this new set of six devices is not expected to be delayed by COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) over the next couple of years. These products are going to be bright!
It may not be long before we see the iMac sporting a dramatic redesign. New Apple patent filings point to a potential iMac that's made almost entirely out of a single sheet of glass, which would be a big departure from the iMac we're familiar with today. Obviously, there's no guarantee that Apple will actually pursue such a design in a mass market product, but the fact that patent filing exists does indicate that it's something Apple has considered.
What would need to happen to the consumer tech market in order for Apple to stop selling desktop computers? What would happen in your life if Apple, one day, announced that they'd be phasing out MacOS, iMac, Mac Pro, and MacBooks of all sorts? We were reminded today in Apple's quarterly earnings call that the company is at a point of great change.
Apple's new iMac (2019) isn't the only all-in-one Mac getting an update today, with the iMac Pro adding some ultra-expensive performance upgrades too. The professional desktop wasn't about to let its mainstream iMac sibling get all the changes, with a hefty 256GB RAM update the pinnacle of the madness.
It's been a busy couple of days for Apple. Yesterday, the company introduced a new iPad Air and a new iPad mini, opting to forgo the reveal event it typically hosts for product announcements and revealing them instead through a press release. Today, it's doing the same thing once again, but this time around, it's the iMac that's getting a refresh.
Satechi today announced a new accessory made only for iMacs. Known officially as the Type-C Aluminum Monitor Stand Hub for iMac (which is quite the mouthful), this new product is exactly as described on the tin. With it, you'll be able to lift your iMac up off your desk while gaining easier access to a variety of different ports.
It would appear that the Mac mini from late 2018 is quite a bit more versatile, hardware-wise, than most other Apple products. Today the folks at iFixit revealed they'd been working on a set of RAM stick replacements for those delivered with the most recent Mac mini release. They suggested that they'd seen such opportunity when their community-made RAM replacement guide saw tens of thousands of hits in a very short amount of time.