If you’d told us a few years ago that iPad chip technology would end up ‘trickling down’ to the iMac - as opposed to the other way round - we wouldn’t have believed you, but that’s Apple in 2024 for you.
Which is a roundabout way of saying that the M4 chip that made its debut in the iPad Pro earlier this year - you know, the one that was going to render all your musical instruments irrelevant - has now been shunted across to the new iMac. This comes in 8-core and 10-core flavours (both CPU and GPU), and with a starting spec of 16GB RAM and 256GB of storage (you can go up to 32GB RAM and 2TB storage).
You can choose from seven colour options, and either two or four Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports. There’s a 24-inch, 4.5K Retina display with a nano-texture glass option for those that both want and can afford it.
Unsurprisingly, the new M4 iMac supports Apple Intelligence, the new suite of AI features that’s available from today. This includes writing tools, an enhanced Siri experience, smart image editing and more.
Where the iMac M4 differs from the latest iPad Pro, of course, is in its operating system: macOS rather than iPadOS. As we all know, the former remains far more flexible than the latter if you’re a musician, being capable of running full desktop DAWs and standard VST/AU plugins.
The M4 iMac is available for pre-order from today, with prices starting at $1,299/£1,299. Find out more on the Apple website.
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