iMac pre-installed macOS

[themacobserver]

Hello everyone,

I am considering the purchase of a new iMac and I was just wondering whether it would be wiser to wait until it comes pre-installed with Monterey, possibly later this year. Would that "extend" its life-span support-wise? What are your thoughts? Thanks.

 

[mcnallym]

Unless the iMac is refreshed and a new model then the life span of the iMac will be same in terms of support if buy now or when ships with Monterey,
your 12 month warranty/AppleCare would expire later but the actual life span as to when Apple drop support for the current iMac model won’t change due to the OS release it ships with.

 

[Fishrrman]

It will be several months before Monterey starts showing up on the current m1 iMacs.

Do you want to wait that long?

If you ARE willing to wait that long, might as well wait just a bit longer until the larger-screen iMac is released !

 

[themacobserver]

It will be several months before Monterey starts showing up on the current m1 iMacs.

Do you want to wait that long?

If you ARE willing to wait that long, might as well wait just a bit longer until the larger-screen iMac is released !

I assume that the rumored and soon-to-be-released [sometime between September-November] MBPs will come pre-installed with Monterey. With their release wouldn't Monterey be made available to everyone else soon after and be pre-installed on the rest of the Mac lineup?

 

[robco74]

I would guess that Monterey won't ship until mid-October at the earliest. Even then, depending on what you use the machine for, it might not be a bad idea to wait for one of the point releases. I assume you're considering the new 24" iMac with M1, and it should be supported for quite some time - as long as any of the current M1 models. It doesn't really which version of macOS came preinstalled. I would imagine that it won't start being preinstalled for a while, and then it will depend on when your particular unit was manufactured.

 

[CheesePuff]

I assume that the rumored and soon-to-be-released [sometime between September-November] MBPs will come pre-installed with Monterey. With their release wouldn't Monterey be made available to everyone else soon after and be pre-installed on the rest of the Mac lineup?

Depends on the stock available. Let's say Monetary is released in mid October (its usually always a few weeks after the iOS/iPadOS releases) then you're still looking at mid-November at the earliest to get an iMac that possibly could have it pre-loaded.

But to your original question, no it will not extend the life of the machine. Apple will still classify a day 1 iMac M1 2021 machine as a day 300 iMac M1 2021 machine as the same.

 

[Realityck]

I would guess that Monterey won't ship until mid-October at the earliest.

Assuming that's right, the new ones being produced with MacOS 12 wouldn't ship until a month later anyway.

 

[themacobserver]

Thank you very much for all the constructive replies. I just ordered a new iMac.