Today's refresh of the Intel-based 27" iMac was very interesting. And in classic Apple fashion, the most interesting elements were in what WASN'T announced rather than what was. First off, some facts:
- The 27" iMac got a top-to-bottom refresh of everything except its external design (pretty sure that due to thermal restrictions on Intel's chips, this was never going to be in the cards until we landed at the other end of the Apple Silicon transition). This includes the love-it-or-hate-it T2 chip along with either soldered on or damn-near-impossible-to-upgrade SSD-only storage. We got 10th Gen Intel (up to 10 Core!) and we got AMD Radeon Pro 5000 series as well as a 1080p camera with True-Tone displays and that nano-texture option!
- The 21.5" iMac got none of that. Best you can say here is that hard-drive-only options are now gone and that all models come standard with an SSD with the option of moving to either a bigger Fusion Drive or an SSD. The hardware here is otherwise unchanged. It is still a 2019 21.5" iMac rocking 8th Generation Intel. No T2 chip either, for whatever that's worth.
- The iMac Pro got a change in its lone stock option; the 8-core Xeon is replaced with a 10-core Xeon on the low-end. No other changes here. Not even that nano-texture display option.
Given all of this, here's my theory on what that spells for the Apple Silicon transition:
- The 21.5" iMac, at least in its current Intel-based form, is REALLY NOT long for this world. If the iMac side of the Apple Silicon Mac rumors are true, and the 21.5" Intel iMac will become the 24" Apple Silicon iMac (having been given the 16" MacBook Pro's bezel-shrinking treatment) while the 27" Intel iMac eventually will become the 30" Apple Silicon iMac (having been given said bezel-shrinking treatment), THEN the 24" Apple Silicon iMac is, indeed, going first as far as iMacs are concerned.
- The only reason not to update the 21.5" iMac in tandem with the 27" iMac (as was done in 2019) is because the 30" Apple Silicon iMac needs more time in the oven (specifically an Apple Silicon SoC that can run rings around that 10-core 10th Gen Core i9 doesn't yet exist and will need more time to actually develop and engineer) and the 21.5" iMac's successor (the rumored 24" Apple Silicon iMac) is ready to launch soon.
- The iMac Pro is likely not making the jump. It not getting the nano-texture option in today's updates is telling. It may, however, linger after the 27" Intel non-Pro iMac gets replaced by a 30" Apple Silicon iMac for those that need an x86 iMac. Or it may get discontinued and the 27" iMac that came out today may linger. Or both may disappear when the Apple Silicon replacement to today's 27" iMac comes out. I'd say that last option is most likely (as the incumbent tower Mac has usually served well as the legacy option for desktops; the only reason to keep any 27" Intel iMac around for that purpose would be because the Mac Pro is otherwise prohibitively expensive and the need to stay on x86 isn't just limited to the high end).
- Apple already has the technology to replace pretty much every 8th Gen Intel processor based Mac still being sold (so, the 2020 two-port 13" MacBook Pro, the Mac mini, and the 21.5" iMac) with a markedly faster Apple Silicon SoC based model today. The A12Z in the current iPad Pro and the Apple Silicon DTK are proof of that. Selling users on the performance gains of Apple Silicon over 8th Gen Intel will be easy. They'll do what they did in the PowerPC-to-Intel days and compare gains specifically from predecessor models on the old architecture ("4x faster performance!") and that'll be enough to persuade people to buy the newer Macs without tossing THAT much shade on the Intel models that aren't ready to make the jump yet (just as no one really cared about the Core Duo iMac from the standpoint of it being a Power Mac G5 Quad replacement prior to the first Mac Pro).
- Apple also already has the technology to replace the 10th Gen processors in the MacBook Air and the 2020 four-port 13" MacBook Pro with Apple Silicon SoCs that run rings around them. Again, the A12Z is proof of this. It's strange that both machines would get such recent updates and also be first in line for the transition, though Apple did do similar releases with the PowerPC to Intel transition. Then again, as I've stated before, all lower-end Macs (21.5" iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Air, all 13" MacBook Pros) are fair game to go first as the bar is relatively low and Apple can beat it handily RIGHT NOW. (Whereas their ability to go beyond that is speculative at the current moment.)
- The 2020 MacBook Air has thermal issues stemming from the fact that Intel's 10th Gen Y-series CPUs are still too underpowered for Apple's thermal envelope (though why they didn't put in a heat pipe is still dumbfounding to me). This has been a problem for the MacBook Air since its inception (perhaps excluding the 2010-2017 body style). It will behoove Apple to move this Mac over to Apple Silicon as soon as it can.
- Apple not updating the two-port 13" MacBook Pro with 10th Gen is about as analogous to the minimal update that the 21.5" iMac received today as one can get. Clearly, both Macs (along with the 4-port version of the 13") is, as rumors are predicting, likely to move to Apple Silicon first. The Mac mini's "update" earlier this year is similar as well. All three are 8th-gen Intel based. They're all important Macs in Apple's line-up too (being the first choice for budget-conscious buyers and low-end users). It's much easier to overtake Intel, when you're overtaking Intel's technology from two years ago.
- The 16" MacBook Pro (at least at its high end), along with the 27" iMac and Mac Pro will need more time to develop Apple Silicon SoCs that surpass their current performance. By "more time", I'm talking about a year, if not a year and a half at most. But, given how Apple handles sensitive transitions, they'll likely keep the Intel version around for those that NEED x86 for a while thereafter. (Apple will otherwise consider the transition to be complete when every one of their Macs has an Apple Silicon option rather than the moment when the Intel options disappear from sale.) Apple did this with the iBook G4 and the Power Mac G5 after the Intel switch was completed with the launch of the first Mac Pro. Apple did this again in 2013 when transitioning to the Retina MacBook Pro design from the Unibody designs and then again in 2016 when transitioning to the TouchBar design (by keeping the 2015 MacBook Pro around for an additional two years). We likely will see an extended transition time for the Mac Pro as well (with the Intel version lingering around after the Apple Silicon version is released for those that have a myriad of plugins that are taking their sweet time to become ARM64-native).
- Apple separating releases within the same product line (i.e. 16" MacBook Pro and 2020 13" MacBook Pro, 2020 27" iMac and 2019 21.5" iMac) is probably the most telling. They clearly need to do this because, during this transition, not every MacBook Pro will make the jump at the same time. Same goes for the iMac. This was true of Apple's laptops during the PowerPC to Intel transition too (15" was first, 17" followed two months later, followed by the merger of the 12" PowerBook with the iBook to make the first MacBooks), however, it wasn't true of Apple's iMacs. I do believe that it will be different this time around. I feel this way because, unlike in the late PowerPC and early Intel eras, the later Intel era has huge performance disparities between lower-end models (21.5" iMac and 13" MacBook Pros, for example) and higher-end models (27" iMacs and 16" MacBook Pros, for example). The 17" and 20" iMacs of 2005 and 2006 were not as far apart in performance. Nor were the 12" and 15" PowerBook G4s of that era.
- Apple has to account for all of this in marketing the newer Apple Silicon models; every Apple Silicon Mac model has to at least be substantially faster than its fastest possible Intel predecessor in order for that Mac model to be ready to make the jump.
tl;dr: Lower-end Macs are making the jump to Apple Silicon first; the iMac Pros days are numbered, and the clues are all in today's announcements!
- The 27" iMac got a top-to-bottom refresh of everything except its external design (pretty sure that due to thermal restrictions on Intel's chips, this was never going to be in the cards until we landed at the other end of the Apple Silicon transition). This includes the love-it-or-hate-it T2 chip along with either soldered on or damn-near-impossible-to-upgrade SSD-only storage. We got 10th Gen Intel (up to 10 Core!) and we got AMD Radeon Pro 5000 series as well as a 1080p camera with True-Tone displays and that nano-texture option!
- The 21.5" iMac got none of that. Best you can say here is that hard-drive-only options are now gone and that all models come standard with an SSD with the option of moving to either a bigger Fusion Drive or an SSD. The hardware here is otherwise unchanged. It is still a 2019 21.5" iMac rocking 8th Generation Intel. No T2 chip either, for whatever that's worth.
- The iMac Pro got a change in its lone stock option; the 8-core Xeon is replaced with a 10-core Xeon on the low-end. No other changes here. Not even that nano-texture display option.
Given all of this, here's my theory on what that spells for the Apple Silicon transition:
- The 21.5" iMac, at least in its current Intel-based form, is REALLY NOT long for this world. If the iMac side of the Apple Silicon Mac rumors are true, and the 21.5" Intel iMac will become the 24" Apple Silicon iMac (having been given the 16" MacBook Pro's bezel-shrinking treatment) while the 27" Intel iMac eventually will become the 30" Apple Silicon iMac (having been given said bezel-shrinking treatment), THEN the 24" Apple Silicon iMac is, indeed, going first as far as iMacs are concerned.
- The only reason not to update the 21.5" iMac in tandem with the 27" iMac (as was done in 2019) is because the 30" Apple Silicon iMac needs more time in the oven (specifically an Apple Silicon SoC that can run rings around that 10-core 10th Gen Core i9 doesn't yet exist and will need more time to actually develop and engineer) and the 21.5" iMac's successor (the rumored 24" Apple Silicon iMac) is ready to launch soon.
- The iMac Pro is likely not making the jump. It not getting the nano-texture option in today's updates is telling. It may, however, linger after the 27" Intel non-Pro iMac gets replaced by a 30" Apple Silicon iMac for those that need an x86 iMac. Or it may get discontinued and the 27" iMac that came out today may linger. Or both may disappear when the Apple Silicon replacement to today's 27" iMac comes out. I'd say that last option is most likely (as the incumbent tower Mac has usually served well as the legacy option for desktops; the only reason to keep any 27" Intel iMac around for that purpose would be because the Mac Pro is otherwise prohibitively expensive and the need to stay on x86 isn't just limited to the high end).
- Apple already has the technology to replace pretty much every 8th Gen Intel processor based Mac still being sold (so, the 2020 two-port 13" MacBook Pro, the Mac mini, and the 21.5" iMac) with a markedly faster Apple Silicon SoC based model today. The A12Z in the current iPad Pro and the Apple Silicon DTK are proof of that. Selling users on the performance gains of Apple Silicon over 8th Gen Intel will be easy. They'll do what they did in the PowerPC-to-Intel days and compare gains specifically from predecessor models on the old architecture ("4x faster performance!") and that'll be enough to persuade people to buy the newer Macs without tossing THAT much shade on the Intel models that aren't ready to make the jump yet (just as no one really cared about the Core Duo iMac from the standpoint of it being a Power Mac G5 Quad replacement prior to the first Mac Pro).
- Apple also already has the technology to replace the 10th Gen processors in the MacBook Air and the 2020 four-port 13" MacBook Pro with Apple Silicon SoCs that run rings around them. Again, the A12Z is proof of this. It's strange that both machines would get such recent updates and also be first in line for the transition, though Apple did do similar releases with the PowerPC to Intel transition. Then again, as I've stated before, all lower-end Macs (21.5" iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Air, all 13" MacBook Pros) are fair game to go first as the bar is relatively low and Apple can beat it handily RIGHT NOW. (Whereas their ability to go beyond that is speculative at the current moment.)
- The 2020 MacBook Air has thermal issues stemming from the fact that Intel's 10th Gen Y-series CPUs are still too underpowered for Apple's thermal envelope (though why they didn't put in a heat pipe is still dumbfounding to me). This has been a problem for the MacBook Air since its inception (perhaps excluding the 2010-2017 body style). It will behoove Apple to move this Mac over to Apple Silicon as soon as it can.
- Apple not updating the two-port 13" MacBook Pro with 10th Gen is about as analogous to the minimal update that the 21.5" iMac received today as one can get. Clearly, both Macs (along with the 4-port version of the 13") is, as rumors are predicting, likely to move to Apple Silicon first. The Mac mini's "update" earlier this year is similar as well. All three are 8th-gen Intel based. They're all important Macs in Apple's line-up too (being the first choice for budget-conscious buyers and low-end users). It's much easier to overtake Intel, when you're overtaking Intel's technology from two years ago.
- The 16" MacBook Pro (at least at its high end), along with the 27" iMac and Mac Pro will need more time to develop Apple Silicon SoCs that surpass their current performance. By "more time", I'm talking about a year, if not a year and a half at most. But, given how Apple handles sensitive transitions, they'll likely keep the Intel version around for those that NEED x86 for a while thereafter. (Apple will otherwise consider the transition to be complete when every one of their Macs has an Apple Silicon option rather than the moment when the Intel options disappear from sale.) Apple did this with the iBook G4 and the Power Mac G5 after the Intel switch was completed with the launch of the first Mac Pro. Apple did this again in 2013 when transitioning to the Retina MacBook Pro design from the Unibody designs and then again in 2016 when transitioning to the TouchBar design (by keeping the 2015 MacBook Pro around for an additional two years). We likely will see an extended transition time for the Mac Pro as well (with the Intel version lingering around after the Apple Silicon version is released for those that have a myriad of plugins that are taking their sweet time to become ARM64-native).
- Apple separating releases within the same product line (i.e. 16" MacBook Pro and 2020 13" MacBook Pro, 2020 27" iMac and 2019 21.5" iMac) is probably the most telling. They clearly need to do this because, during this transition, not every MacBook Pro will make the jump at the same time. Same goes for the iMac. This was true of Apple's laptops during the PowerPC to Intel transition too (15" was first, 17" followed two months later, followed by the merger of the 12" PowerBook with the iBook to make the first MacBooks), however, it wasn't true of Apple's iMacs. I do believe that it will be different this time around. I feel this way because, unlike in the late PowerPC and early Intel eras, the later Intel era has huge performance disparities between lower-end models (21.5" iMac and 13" MacBook Pros, for example) and higher-end models (27" iMacs and 16" MacBook Pros, for example). The 17" and 20" iMacs of 2005 and 2006 were not as far apart in performance. Nor were the 12" and 15" PowerBook G4s of that era.
- Apple has to account for all of this in marketing the newer Apple Silicon models; every Apple Silicon Mac model has to at least be substantially faster than its fastest possible Intel predecessor in order for that Mac model to be ready to make the jump.
tl;dr: Lower-end Macs are making the jump to Apple Silicon first; the iMac Pros days are numbered, and the clues are all in today's announcements!
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