The iMac is dying a slow death and Apple doesn’t care

The Mac rumor mill has been going into overdrive lately, with information about Apple’s release schedule for 2026. We’ve heard reports about every Mac in the lineup (including the enigmatic Mac Pro), except for one: the iMac. Not a peep about Apple’s iconic all-in-one desktop computer.

The current M4 iMac was released a year ago, and Apple released the M5 MacBook Pro a month ago. An M5 update to the iMac certainly seems timely, and it’s entirely possible that Apple releases it sometime next year, perhaps along with the M5 MacBook Air in the spring.

Or maybe not. Given that we haven’t heard any rumors about an upcoming iMac, Apple might now have a different approach to its product cycle. When you consider Apple’s past chip history, how the iMac is built, and its target audience, we could see longer gaps between iMac updates.

M1, M3, M4…M6?

Longer update cycles with the iMac are not unheard of. It happened in the later years of the Intel iMac, and it happened recently when Apple skipped the M2 chip and upgraded the 2021 M1 iMac with an M3 model in 2023.

Then Apple released the M4 iMac a year later, which may set the expectation that Apple will update the iMac with every new chip generation. But various reports stated that Apple wanted to move off the M3 chip because it was a first-generation 3nm chip with high product costs and low yields. When the M4 (which is made using a less expensive enhanced 3nm process) became available, the company was eager to replace the M3.

With this in mind, the M4 iMac may be an anomaly in the schedule. Apple established a longer cycle with the M1 to M3 transition, so that precedent is in place. The next iMac could be released at the end of 2026, when the M6 is expected to debut, and Apple may continue with even-numbered M chips going forward. (Though the only M6 Mac we’ve heard about so far is the MacBook Pro.)

Does the iMac really need to be updated every time a new M-series chip is released? No. Apple’s base M chip is plenty fast for the types of tasks people do on a consumer-level iMac. New chips are between 15 to 25 percent faster than the ones they replace, and iMac users go a lot longer between upgrades than, say, MacBook users. Also, the current M4 iMac offers a tremendous improvement over the last generation of Intel iMacs–if an Intel iMac owner isn’t upgrading, it’s for other reasons than performance. Updating the iMac every other year or maybe even longer may be a more effective strategy for Apple.

Nothing to change, really

The M4 iMac is a really impressive machine–I gave it a five-star rating when I reviewed it last year.  The main reason I was so enthusiastic about the M4 iMac was that Apple finally made much-needed changes and offered appealing options, such as 16GB of RAM as a base, a 12MP Center Stage camera, and a Nano-texture glass option. So, what could Apple do with an M5 iMac, besides a chip upgrade?

Foundry

The current design of the iMac was introduced in 2021, and it still looks fresh enough. There was a time when the iMac would get a radical redesign every few years, but those days have passed, and besides, nothing about the iMac’s current components seems outdated. The display is an LCD, which is an aging technology that will eventually be replaced by OLED, but since the iMac has a large 24-inch display, OLEDs at that size are not cost-effective yet. The LCD on the iMac is here for a little while longer.

While we don’t know actual sales numbers, the consensus is that the market for the iMac doesn’t justify upgrading it every year. That’s why we haven’t heard anything about an M5 iMac, because it’s quite possible that it’s not happening. We’ll likely have to wait for the M6 before the next iMac update—and even then, it’ll likely just be a chip refresh.

Where’s the big iMac?

Back in 2023, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo posted that Apple would release a “higher-end 32-inch mini LED display iMac in 2025.” Bloomberg’s Mark Guman reported in 2023 that such an iMac would be “coming in either late 2024 or 2025,” though he also said Apple had “cost concerns” about the product. Well, there are only a few weeks left in the year, so it’s pretty clear that the big iMac isn’t happening.

The iMac Pro was discontinued in 2021 after a four-year run. Apple currently has two desktops that fill the needs of users who want a more robust chip: the M4 Pro Mac mini and the Mac Studio. It doesn’t really seem like there’s a place for a new, M-series iMac Pro. The Mac mini and Mac Studio aren’t all-in-ones, but if the consumer demand for an iMac is on the lower side, then the professional demand is even lower. And I mentioned earlier, the cost for large OLEDs may still be too high. Reports state that prototypes of an iMac Pro exist in the secret labs at Apple Park, but the market may dictate that it never actually ships.

A slow death?

It’s hard to believe Apple would just suddenly kill the iMac, one of the iconic devices from the Steve Jobs era. However, with longer updates, fewer design changes, and declining sales, it’s slowly fading into irrelevance. The world around it has shifted to MacBooks and iPads, and the iMac is more of a vestige of a bygone era than a prominent member of the Mac family.

The current model isn’t bad, but it’s also not very exciting. And there aren’t any indications that that’s going to change anytime soon. As the iPad platform becomes more powerful and MacBooks become more versatile with rumored touchscreen support in 2027, the once-iconic iMac could be dying a very slow death.

Apple iMac (M4, 2024)

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