iMac
iMac is a family of all-in-one Macintosh desktop computers designed and built by Apple Inc. It has been a major part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since its debut in August 1998, and has evolved through seven distinct forms.
| In its original form, the iMac G3 had a teardrop or egg-shaped appearance, with a CRT monitor, mainly enclosed in a translucent, coloured plastic case, which was soon refreshed with a sleeker design notable for its slot optical drive. The second major revision, the iMac G4, shifted the design to a hemispherical base that contained all the main components and an LCD monitor on an arm that moved freely attached to it. The third and fourth major revisions, the iMac G5 and Intel iMac respectively, placed all components immediately behind the display, creating a thin, unified design that only tilts up and down on a simple metal base. |
The fifth major revision (mid-2007) shared the same shape as the previous model, but was thinner and used anodised aluminium and a glass panel across the front. The sixth major revision (late 2012) uses a different display, omits the SuperDrive, and uses different manufacturing techniques from the older unibody versions. This allows it to be thinner on the edge than the old models, with a thickness of 5.9 mm (but the same maximum depth). It also includes a dual-microphone configuration and includes a solid-state drive (SSD) or hard drive, or an Apple Fusion Drive, a hybrid of solid-state drive and hard drive. This version of the iMac was announced in October 2012, with the 21.5-inch (55 cm) version released in November and the 27-inch (69 cm) version in December; these were updated in September 2013, with new Haswell processors, faster graphics, faster and larger SSD options and 802.11ac Wi-Fi cards.
In October 2014, the seventh major revision of the 27-inch (69 cm) iMac was announced, the main feature of which is a "Retina 5K" display with a resolution of 5120 × 2880 pixels. The new model also includes a new processor, graphics chip and IO, along with several new storage options. The seventh major revision of the 21.5-inch (55 cm) iMac was announced in October 2015. Its main feature is a "Retina 4K" display with a resolution of 4096 × 2304 pixels. It has the same new processor, graphics chip and I/O as the 27-inch iMac, along with several new storage options.
On 5 June 2017, Apple announced a workstation-class version called the iMac Pro, which features Intel Xeon processors and standard SSD storage. It shares the design and screen of the iMac 5K, but is coloured in Space Gray rather than silver. Apple began shipping the iMac Pro in December 2017. The iMac Pro was discontinued in 2021.
On 20 April 2021, Apple announced a 24" iMac (actual diagonal screen size is 23.5 inches) with an Apple M1 processor, its first as part of its transition to Apple silicon. It comes in 7 colours (silver, blue, green, orange, yellow, purple and pink) with a 4.5K Retina display. On the base configuration, the iMac M1 comes with two Thunderbolt 3/USB 4 ports, and two USB Type-C 3.1 Gen 2 ports on higher configurations. Apple claims that the iMac M1 offers up to 85 percent faster CPU performance than previous 21.5-inch iMac models. This iMac is the thinnest being only 11.5mm thick due to the entire logic board and speakers being housed in the lower "chin" of the iMac.
