Will there ever be a new large iMac (Pro)?

[iPadified]

Considering how the iPhone range has been managed:
The 21.5 " could stick around as the low cost alternative with HDD, price cuts, no development and perhaps no BTO ("iMac SE"=iPhone SE). Cost sensitive customers.

The 27 " might be split into redesigned 23 and >=27" and go all SSD and T2 etc with the 23 as the lower cost option of the two (iMac = iPhone 11 and iPhone XR). Average customers.

The iMP is waiting for an XDR screen and CPU/GPU upgrade all know to arrive in the autumn and hence is out of this equation entirely.
(iMac Pro=iPhone Pro). Demanding customers. I know the MP exist but an all Apple setup is twice the price of an iMP.

That would explain the lead times but will increase the complexity of the iMac line. However, compared to other PC vendors, the Apple line of computers would still have smaller number of variants. I counted about 20 lines of computers with different forms at HP home page.

Keynotes are getting less interesting every year. Make some good videos at put these on the home page. If people want to get information they search the net. They are not waiting for WWDC Keynote because the majority of Mac user do not know it exits or does not bother.

I can imagine though that it is derirable for lots of people to have a look at a newly designed iMac in stores before ordering one and store lockdown just prevented that. I looked at the iPhone 11 Pro in store and was surprised by the weight and did not like it (I have a 6). If it is a radically different design, for example the iMac concept made from a bent sheet of glass, many people will want to see it before buying.

 

[JLOAKS]

The next-gen iMacs need to have this design, nobody cares about slim form factor at the expense of internal performance. iPad's have this design, next-gen iPhones are getting this design, Pro Display XDR has this design, let the iMac be next.

 

[gusping]

The next-gen iMacs need to have this design, nobody cares about slim form factor at the expense of internal performance. iPad's have this design, next-gen iPhones are getting this design, Pro Display XDR has this design, let the iMac be next.

I can only get so erect. I completely agree that a slim form factor is irrelevan. That change in 2012 was a mistake imo, and has lead to years and years of **** cooling/temps.

 

[KTK1990]

Interesting. This could be completely unrelated but there have been more imacs in the refurb store. Last night a few more appeared, they were sold out of iMacs for a long time over the past month with the very basic lowest model coming in and out of stock every few days.

edit: there are 31 27” iMacs in the refurb store now. Yesterday there was just one iMac and the day or two before there were zero iMacs for a while. The amount of refurbs exploded overnight, I did not count the 21” iMacs however there appeared to be quite a bit of them.

if they stay in the refurb store then maybe I won’t have to pay full price when I buy on Wednesday.

 

[AlexGraphicD]

Interesting. This could be completely unrelated but there have been more imacs in the refurb store. Last night a few more appeared, they were sold out of iMacs for a long time over the past month with the very basic lowest model coming in and out of stock every few days.

edit: there are 31 27” iMacs in the refurb store now. Yesterday there was just one iMac and the day or two before there were zero iMacs for a while. The amount of refurbs exploded overnight, I did not count the 21” iMacs however there appeared to be quite a bit of them.

if they stay in the refurb store then maybe I won’t have to pay full price when I buy on Wednesday.

31??? I see only 2 iMacs in the refurb store now.

 

[ridgero]

I believe next week is the week! Since Jon Prosser said, that the iMacs are still ready to ship.

 

[KTK1990]

31??? I see only 2 iMacs in the refurb store now.

the only way I could upload proof was taking a screenshot, i couldn’t find a good way to upload the whole page pdf from my iPad. There are 30 devices per page and only one 27” iMac on page 2. So 31 iMacs. I did upload 2 screenshots to show there are more than 2 iMacs. In the two screenshots there are 15 iMacs visible.

 

[stillcrazyman]

Interesting. I just looked a moment ago. There are three total in the refurb store. US.

 

[Mike The Soundguy]

I believe next week is the week! Since Jon Prosser said, that the iMacs are still ready to ship.

New 27" ones ? As I see the refurb store just loaded up with a bunch of iMacs . Yeesh tempting to get a good refurb and not look back if something new ships

 

[spidertaker23]

Man I hope when they refresh the iMac and hopefully remove fusion drives and upgrade the graphics that you will be able to get 1TB of SSD and decent gpu for less money. The value of the 16" MacBook Pro outstrips the iMac right now because of how powerful the gpu is in the 16" compared to what you get on the iMac.

 

[KTK1990]

Interesting. I just looked a moment ago. There are three total in the refurb store. US.

it looks like there is some general weirdness going on with the site. I’ve opened and closed the website about 5x this morning and have seen some different results. I saw all 31 iMacs on views 1-3, time 4 while I was writing the post showed only the two iMacs you see, then I checked one last time and all 31 were back and decided to delete everything and restart my post from scratch.

Im betting they are selling out fast or have caching issues. The one I was looking at went to out of stock when I viewed it for the 2nd time on attempt 3.

I would love for this to mean we are getting new iMacs next week as no matter what happens I’m buying one on Wednesday as my current laptop cant survive much longer. However it could just mean that the employees cleared more refurbs and the store is just getting restocked. I’m sure that Covid-19 slowed the refurbishment process dramatically.

I do hope that they keep the prices similar. Hoping to get a 2tb hard drive even if it is a traditional 3.5” hard drive, 8gb of ram, 27” screen, basic processor, 8gb video card for around the same $2100 price when I priced it out and nearly bought yesterday.

 

[stillcrazyman]

I'm not in the market for a new iMac at the present time, but I am interested to see what they come out with. I've had iMacs of some sort since they came out in 1998.
Currently have a 2018 mini with an eGpu and a nice display.
But I could be tempted with a new design..... if there is one.

 

[AlexGraphicD]

I'm not in the market for a new iMac at the present time, but I am interested to see what they come out with. I've had iMacs of some sort since they came out in 1998.
Currently have a 2018 mini with an eGpu and a nice display.
But I could be tempted with a new design..... if there is one.

This has got to be the most anticipated waiting for an iMac redesign ever.. Love that silver fuji you got by the way. I have the black X-T1 and although it is old, it is a great fun to use.

 

[sublunar]

The UK refurb store is completely unpopulated at the moment (as in no refurbished products) - I think someone probably forgot to put refurbs on.

A thought occurred after listening to the recent Jon Prosser Gadgetcast that dropped the suggestion that Apple would be completely converting to ARM in due course. I had assumed that Apple would at most convert only the non Xeon Macs in the medium term. A full Intel refresh of the iMac would have to be amortised over 4 generations (over 4 years) to make it worth it.

But perhaps Apple could complete an ARM transition very quickly as they did with the PowerPC to Intel transition all those years ago?

With the news that an A12x was going to be employed by Apple to run the next AppleTV you could also see a Macbook appearing at WWDC with a variant of the A13 or A12x.

But I was thinking - what if the A12x or A12z was also powering the first desktop ARM Mac and it was the forthcoming 23" 4k version to sit alongside the MacBook? If they saved it till next year it could even be upgraded with an A14x and have miniLED thrown in too.

 

[Azrael9]

I think people are already not that interested anymore in the mobile devices market as they were a couple of years ago. iPhones are going the route of the desktop macs, so why continue to treat them as this amazing products that they were 10 years ago when they were released and neglect desktop devices?

A phone is now 'a phone' to me. My 6S+ is plenty.

I did the '4' and the '5'.

That's enough coin from me for 'a phone.' Rather an iPad. But we got 'z' rather than A14X which would have been far more compelling.

I know the iPhone drives Apple's revenues and focus but that's up to the rest of Apple's customer's now. I'll keep my iphone until it stops 'moving.'

My concern is now the new iMac. I've had my current one 7.3 years and it's time for a new one (due to fried egg gpu.) And I mean *new* in design and substantial specs boost.

Looking over the last ten years...the Mac Pro stands out as a mighty fine piece of design in terms of desktops. I can't say I've been that bowled over by the Mini or iMac. It feels like Apple fell asleep at the wheel re: desktops.

That hasn't stopped other companies from stepping up. eg. HP (who have a 32 inch 4k, fully specced 'Pro' AiO for 3k...) and M$ with their spectacular M$ Studio desktop (the iMac 'Pro' I wish Apple *WOULD* ship.)

Not much longer to go, I sense. I'm in no rush to buy their old wares at steep prices. It's time to catch the new crest of a wave re: iMac.

I'm trying to be optimistic. But I can only go on the evidence of the last ten years. Sure, we had the beefy iMac Pro...but that's the same design on the outside and it's 3 years old. It's a shame we've had to wait 3 years to get the superior cooling from the iMac Pro into an iMac and it still hasn't happened.

Azrael.
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The next-gen iMacs need to have this design, nobody cares about slim form factor at the expense of internal performance. iPad's have this design, next-gen iPhones are getting this design, Pro Display XDR has this design, let the iMac be next.

Yes. Give me this at 6k 32 inches.

The recent design moves hint at the place iMac 'may' go.

If only???

I'd be very tempted if they could do 6k and rotate to portrait two of the things I really like about Pro display.

Azrael.

 

[CWallace]

As I recall, the Intel Development Macs used the Mac Pro chassis so I could see the Mini being the first customer ARM Development Desktop Mac since it is more than large enough to handle an A14X and one can connect their preferred external monitor to it (the cloud software devs at my team prefer 32" 4K displays connected to Minis and MBPs).

I do expect the first consumer ARM Mac to look like a 12" MacBook (with the new keyboard and two USB-C ports). When Apple is ready to release a desktop consumer ARM Mac, the iMac makes sense for that, but I expect it will be years away as I see the initial market driver being significantly better battery life than an Intel-powered device and that is irrelevant to a desktop.

 

[Azrael9]

The UK refurb store is completely unpopulated at the moment (as in no refurbished products) - I think someone probably forgot to put refurbs on.

A thought occurred after listening to the recent Jon Prosser Gadgetcast that dropped the suggestion that Apple would be completely converting to ARM in due course. I had assumed that Apple would at most convert only the non Xeon Macs in the medium term. A full Intel refresh of the iMac would have to be amortised over 4 generations (over 4 years) to make it worth it.

But perhaps Apple could complete an ARM transition very quickly as they did with the PowerPC to Intel transition all those years ago?

With the news that an A12x was going to be employed by Apple to run the next AppleTV you could also see a Macbook appearing at WWDC with a variant of the A13 or A12x.

But I was thinking - what if the A12x or A12z was also powering the first desktop ARM Mac and it was the forthcoming 23" 4k version to sit alongside the MacBook? If they saved it till next year it could even be upgraded with an A14x and have miniLED thrown in too.

The ARM transition is the subject of much (natrually) speculation. And at the least, we have to look at the last transition to see what Apple did and what they 'may' do.

They did release a developer kit for Intel Mac.
They did offer PPC transition emulation.
They did phase out PPC relatively quickly. (Just over a year in terms of hardware.)
The software emulation didn't last 'that' long either.

Just like losing the 'legacy' ports from Macbook. Apple tend to rip off the band aids (it was Steve himself that put Mac OS9 in the coffin...)

In short, I expect them to show no mercy when they make the move to Mac Arm.

So any of those statements might be the *least* of what we expect Apple to do. And with X Code being far more mature and 'Mac' being more OS independent then it was then(?) and the transition train track being put down (eg. pulling 32 bit, Open GL being deprecated...Marzipan to bring iPad apps over to 'Mac'...and Swift..!) we can only summise that it won't be any impediment to Apple's progress. All the iPhone/iPad apps available to a 'Mac' Arm will incentivise a Mac World Order.

In English, an iBook with 12X could well be put into Dev's hands and be more than enough to get started.

Nobody thought Steve would drop PPC for Intel. It dropped like an H BOMB. I still get surprised when I re-watch that keynote.

Azrael.
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As I recall, the Intel Development Macs used the Mac Pro chassis so I could see the Mini being the first customer ARM Development Desktop Mac since it is more than large enough to handle an A14X and one can connect their preferred external monitor to it (the cloud software devs at my team prefer 32" 4K displays connected to Minis and MBPs).

I do expect the first consumer ARM Mac to look like a 12" MacBook (with the new keyboard and two USB-C ports). When Apple is ready to release a desktop consumer ARM Mac, the iMac makes sense for that, but I expect it will be years away as I see the initial market driver being significantly better battery life than an Intel-powered device and that is irrelevant to a desktop.

True. They did use the 'grater chassis for the dev' kit. I wanted to buy one. But I never did buy the grater. I so wish I had rather than the 24 inch iMac.

The Mini being a dev' kit? Sure. Why not. It *could* be.

The A14X should be a kick az piece of kit.

Why do your devs on your team prefer 32 inch 4k displays? (I'm curious. I like 32 inch 4k displays...)

When Apple did the Intel transition...what was the order of the Macs that brought over to Intel 1st..?

Azrael.
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As I recall, the Intel Development Macs used the Mac Pro chassis so I could see the Mini being the first customer ARM Development Desktop Mac since it is more than large enough to handle an A14X and one can connect their preferred external monitor to it (the cloud software devs at my team prefer 32" 4K displays connected to Minis and MBPs).

I do expect the first consumer ARM Mac to look like a 12" MacBook (with the new keyboard and two USB-C ports). When Apple is ready to release a desktop consumer ARM Mac, the iMac makes sense for that, but I expect it will be years away as I see the initial market driver being significantly better battery life than an Intel-powered device and that is irrelevant to a desktop.

True. They did use the 'grater chassis. I wanted to buy one. But I never did buy the grater. I so wish I had rather than the 24 inch iMac.

The Mini being a dev' kit? Sure. Why not. It *could* be.

The A14X should be a kick az piece of kit.

Why do your devs on your team prefer 32 inch 4k displays? (I'm curious. I like 32 inch 4k displays...)

When Apple did the Intel transition...what was the order of the Macs that brought over to Intel 1st..?

Azrael.

Man I hope when they refresh the iMac and hopefully remove fusion drives and upgrade the graphics that you will be able to get 1TB of SSD and decent gpu for less money. The value of the 16" MacBook Pro outstrips the iMac right now because of how powerful the gpu is in the 16" compared to what you get on the iMac.

What are the benches of the macbook gpu vs the iMac standard and BTO? The new imac should address any deficit given how much room there is in the 27 incher.

Azrael.

 

[sublunar]

I just looked through the RAM specs of Comet Lake S, and there's a clear divide in the RAM used between i3/i5 (DDR4 2666) and i7/i9 CPUs (DDR4 2933).

Currently on the 2019 mid and top SKU iMac 27" iMac you could BTO an i9 CPU up from the i5 and Apple would use the same DDR4 2666 RAM. They don't currently list the i7 Coffee Lake.

On Coffee Lake and Coffee Lake Refresh this doesn't matter as all the i5, i7, and i9 CPUs use DDR4 2666 RAM as standard.

Go down to the mid tier SKU 21.5" iMac and you get an i3-8100 using DDR4 2400 RAM - but you can go up to i7-8700 but there's no explanation of the RAM to be paired with it even though that CPU can use DDR4 2666.

What this could mean is that if Apple stick with i5 Comet Lake CPUs on the iMac that we'll be sticking with DDR4 2666 RAM even though upgraded i7 and i9 Comet Lake CPUs can accept faster RAM.

To compete with Ryzen, therefore, could the 27" iMacs therefore go upmarket and come with 8 core/16 thread i7 as standard with 10 core/20 thread i9 as BTO and all with DDR4 2933 RAM? And 16Gb RAM as standard?

With All core turbos and higher TDPs being a given I would say that it's looking increasingly logical that the iMac Pro case and cooling solution ends up being used for a Comet Lake S refresh, with 2 Titan Ridge Thunderbolt 3 controllers to allow for 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports on the iMac. Don't forget the footnote that upgradable RAM could become history with this update...

And where does that leave the iMac Pro? If they were keeping it around it might see a CPU boost to W2255 10 core/20 thread or 12 cores/24 threads as standard - with 2Tb SSD and perhaps 64Gb RAM for the same original starting cost. That's IF they decide they want to keep it around, because the W22xx series CPUs run hotter than the W21xx series.

As I mentioned earlier one way of keeping the Xeons around would be as last man standing device to keep people on the Mac platform that needed Intel for specific reasons.

 

[Mike The Soundguy]

Interesting. I just looked a moment ago. There are three total in the refurb store. US.
View attachment 913460

Well there were a bunch of iMac pros with different configs in the refurb store about an hour ago . lol Now its only the base model again I was about ready to spend around 5k for one of the configured ones .

 

[Azrael9]

I just looked through the RAM specs of Comet Lake S, and there's a clear divide in the RAM used between i3/i5 (DDR4 2666) and i7/i9 CPUs (DDR4 2933).

Currently on the 2019 mid and top SKU iMac 27" iMac you could BTO an i9 CPU up from the i5 and Apple would use the same DDR4 2666 RAM. They don't currently list the i7 Coffee Lake.

On Coffee Lake and Coffee Lake Refresh this doesn't matter as all the i5, i7, and i9 CPUs use DDR4 2666 RAM as standard.

Go down to the mid tier SKU 21.5" iMac and you get an i3-8100 using DDR4 2400 RAM - but you can go up to i7-8700 but there's no explanation of the RAM to be paired with it even though that CPU can use DDR4 2666.

What this could mean is that if Apple stick with i5 Comet Lake CPUs on the iMac that we'll be sticking with DDR4 2666 RAM even though upgraded i7 and i9 Comet Lake CPUs can accept faster RAM.

To compete with Ryzen, therefore, could the 27" iMacs therefore go upmarket and come with 8 core/16 thread i7 as standard with 10 core/20 thread i9 as BTO and all with DDR4 2933 RAM? And 16Gb RAM as standard?

With All core turbos and higher TDPs being a given I would say that it's looking increasingly logical that the iMac Pro case and cooling solution ends up being used for a Comet Lake S refresh, with 2 Titan Ridge Thunderbolt 3 controllers to allow for 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports on the iMac. Don't forget the footnote that upgradable RAM could become history with this update...

And where does that leave the iMac Pro? If they were keeping it around it might see a CPU boost to W2255 10 core/20 thread or 12 cores/24 threads as standard - with 2Tb SSD and perhaps 64Gb RAM for the same original starting cost. That's IF they decide they want to keep it around, because the W22xx series CPUs run hotter than the W21xx series.

As I mentioned earlier one way of keeping the Xeons around would be as last man standing device to keep people on the Mac platform that needed Intel for specific reasons.

Apple should just make the Mac Pro more accessible. It's not difficult to make an extra mother board (they used to in the PPC days...) to bring a more mainstream Mac Pro in the 2500-£3500 range. I'd certainly jump on a £2500-ish one.

I think that is a well reasoned post re: the 27 inch iMac. I think if the iMac Pro comes down a lot and the iMac goes up a little...there's no reason why £1700, £2000, £2500 and £2795 iMac 'Pros' can't be the new iMac 'Pro.' Thus, eliminating the iMac Pro. (Just put a cheaper Mac Pro with i10 based motherboard in the £2500, £3000, £3500 area.)

And the £799, £999, £1200, £1495 can't be the iMac 'Air' 24 inch.

I'd say it leaves the current iMac Pro, a temporary sandbag, as somewhat irrelevant. Be easier to drop the i10Mac Pros into that price range. Sure, the iMac Pro offers better value. But it could be even better value if it gets a £2500 price cut and drops the Xeons. Many creatives would love access to the Mac Pro at a cheaper price point as opposed to the iMac Pro. Apple just needs to line up the desktops a bit better to their customer base for desktops and the ones that they could also access from PC land switchers.

The iMac 'Pro' as envisioned (by me) should be 8 core as standard, better cooling, better gpu, 16 gigs of ram standard, SSD standard. (It's not exactly exhorbitant as most PCs come with this as standard in the £1k-£2k price point and with a BenQ monitor at £450/500 for a 32 incher 4k that puts you at £2500.)

It's up to Apple to use it's supply chain powers to offer more bang for less buck. They have more leverage now then when we were on PPC and prices were way better then.

They need to drive value more. More clarity. Make the line ups more accessible. Just like they USED to. It's not without historical precedent. But they were obsessed with moving the products upwards and increasing upsell or adding £2-300 to the sticker price because 'Pro.'

Two iMacs (24 inch Air and the 27-32 inch iMac Pro) are enough.

Two Mac Pros would be nice. i10 and Xeon based motherboards democratise the Mac Pro.

Azrael.
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$4k for a refurb iMac Pro. Meh.

£3k would be better.

Azrael.

 

[iPadified]

The next-gen iMacs need to have this design, nobody cares about slim form factor at the expense of internal performance. iPad's have this design, next-gen iPhones are getting this design, Pro Display XDR has this design, let the iMac be next.

I like it and mirrors my thoughts if you give it a glass covered white back. However, I think the volume of the current iMac is larger than we think. So how deep does this design need to be to get proper ventilation? 2-3 cm?
Does it come with a $999 stand as well?

 

[Azrael9]

I like it and mirrors my thoughts if you give it a glass covered white back. However, I think the volume of the current iMac is larger than we think. So how deep does this design need to be to get proper ventilation? 2-3 cm?
Does it come with a $999 stand as well?

Touche. Don't tempt Apple...they might... They have thick necks.

As for the iMac. The Pro monitor with bullet holes in the back? I'm in. Seems like good ventilation? Or cool aid design.

Either way. I'd drink it.

The Pro display is super cool and the kind of design leap and direction that mirrors what Apple are doing with iPads and will prob' do with 'phones' this year?

The iMac is the only 'silver' Mac at the moment? Even the mini has gone 'Pro' (sans decent GPU...) Grey.

My 24 inch iMac was like that design. There is alot of volume in the 27 inch iMac tear drop 'bulge.'

I'd be quite happy with a 3 cm depth. Let those components cool. The HP 32 incher with 2080 gpu has spec ambition and a 'thick enough' design for an AiO. I'm not looking at it from the sides. Just front onwards.

Dazzle us, Apple.

Azrael.
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Nicely said, I feel the same.

I've switched to Mac in 2008 as I got 8 core Mac Pro. That was my first Apple computer and I was over the moon.
I started to be excited about keynotes and was part of the "Mac family". It was all great most of the times until Jobs passed away. Things were fine for a while as Apple still produced good stuff but slowly the magic was disappearing and it got us to the situation today.
I feel that if the trend continue this way then I might eventually leave Apple as I'm sure some other companies will be smart enough to take advantage of this "service/slofies/memoji" oriented Apple and those companies will bring great products to the market.
Who knows what will happen but as of now its sad to compare the Apple 10 or so years back to Apple now.
The comparision would be :
back then = romantic love
now = practical love (sometimes)

I came to Apple in 97. (It was C64 in 83 before that.

So the 'Clone' Tower featuring the 200mhz 604e chip was outstanding running the Adobe suite. It's my favourite 'Apple' computer so far.

I see you got the 8 core Mac Pro in '08. That's the machine I should have got rather than the 24 inch iMac. Beautiful machine, the 'grater. So I can understand why you were over the 'moon.'

Yes. The keynotes were exciting under Jobs and we all felt part of the 'Mac' family. It was the best of times.

But the transition from Product CEO to Chain Supply CEO has reared it's ugly head in the nickle and diming upsell and price rises of all Apple products over the last 8 years.

Apple have done ok with the new Mac Pro redesign but have completely left behind buyers like me that wanted your 2008 8 core model. £6k? And it comes with a substandard gpu for that price demographic. If they offered a £2500 i10 version? I'd be all over it.

Apple can no longer be assured of my loyalty. They've treated the Mac poorly over the last 8 years overall. I'll probably be cross platform from now on.

Steve Jobs and Apple back then? Lol. Sure. Why not. 'Romantic' love.
Now? = Strained relationship. A spouse that has been take forgranted 'practical' love.

Insightful post. But it's an example of perhaps how many feel pre Cook and Post Jobs.

Lamentably.

Azrael.

 

[CWallace]

Why do your devs on your team prefer 32 inch 4k displays? (I'm curious. I like 32 inch 4k displays...)

Screen area. They can have multiple windows open.

When Apple did the Intel transition...what was the order of the Macs that brought over to Intel 1st..?

The 15" MacBook Pro and iMac were the first two platforms to go to Intel, followed by Mac mini and 17" MBP. The MacBook was the first Mac designed around the Intel CPUs.

What this could mean is that if Apple stick with i5 Comet Lake CPUs on the iMac that we'll be sticking with DDR4 2666 RAM even though upgraded i7 and i9 Comet Lake CPUs can accept faster RAM.

Or Apple just uses the appropriate RAM for each CPU family. They do this on the 2019 Mac Pro - the 8-Core uses 2666MHz DDR4 ECC and the rest use 2933MHz DDR4 ECC.

Apple could also just drop in the fast RAM on all models, it will just run slower on the i3/i5.

 

[CWallace]

As to the idea of collapsing the iMac and iMac Pro lines into one using the iMac Pro case and cooling, it would be feasible and possible.

The W-Series Xeons are just the X-Series Core i9's with ECC RAM support so Apple could conceivably just smash the lines together - I expect ECC RAM is not really critical to most iMac Pro users, but it is what comes with Xeons. Intel did launch the 10th Generation (Cascade Lake) X-Series last fall at 10, 12, 14 and 18 cores and all are at 165W TDP and priced at less than half of what the W-Series were.

Apple is clearly seeing significant drops in NAND storage prices which is why they have been doubling their base SSD capacities. So I could see them dropping Fusion Drives in favor of 512GB SSD as the base level of storage. The iMac Pro case (including cooling) also likely costs more than the iMac, so I could see Apple raising the base price by at least $100 to cover all this. Maybe raise it $200 and bump base RAM from 8GB to 16GB. I mean people are going to erupt over the loss of upgradeable RAM so might as well raise the price, too.

And when you consider adding 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD to an existing base model 27" iMac is $500, paying $200 for it is a deal.

So where does this leave the iMac Pro? Perhaps as an option package instead of a separate model?

MCK says a 27" miniLED display is coming so what if it becomes a BTO upgrade option like the X-Series (12-18 core) CPUs? Same with 10GB Ethernet? And workstation-class GPUs?

So you have the "base" 27" iMac with the 10500 Core i5 CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD for $1999 compared to the current 8500 Core i5, 8GB of RAM and a 1TB Fusion Drive for $1799. I like to think that reasonable people would find that a reasonable deal.

From there you can add RAM up to 256GB, storage up to 4/8TB, faster Ethernet, workstation-class GPUs and miniLED display.

 

[ridgero]

Or they switch to Mobile CPUs and leave the iMac Pro as a separate high end model.