I think it’s also useful to see how Apple updated the iMac before the transition. The reason being: we know there was no major bottlenecks like the pandemic and chip shortages. Intel always had new chips every year appropriate for the iMac. So we can assume their release cadence pre-2019 was likely mostly unobstructed.
With that in mind:
2015 - new imac
2016 - nothing
2017 - new imac
2018 - nothing
2019 - new imac
2020 - nothing (small 27” update)
2021 - new imac
2022 - nothing
It seems Apple started to prefer a 2 year cadence for the iMac starting in 2015. Of course I’m not saying this means 2023 should get a new iMac - because I think TSMC and Apple are behind schedule. I think had everything gone to plan, we should have seen an iMac this year. Maybe that’s still possible. But I think Apple is waiting for M3. TSMC is very quickly ramping up 3nm chips, and according to their roadmap, they plan to be off 5nm chips by 2024.
I don’t think Apple is always going to update every Mac on every generation. I think apple will always update the MacBooks every generation, but desktops will depend on the year. Here is how I think their chip candenxe will go, and I suspect iMac will be updated on odd-numbered generations only.
M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max, M1 Ultra
M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max
M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max, M3 Ultra, M3 Extr
M4, M4 Pro, M4 Max
M5, M5 Pro, M5 Max, M5 Ultra, M5 Extr
M6, M6 Pro, M6 Max
M7, M7 Pro, M7 Max, M7 Ultra, M7 Extr
Just my theory!
