It’s been a wild couple of weeks for Apple, with a bunch of speculation and leaks having
to do with everything from Apple’s upcoming march event and new MacBook Pro features to
some massive iMac leaks and of course, Apple essentially discontinuing the iMac Pro.
Now this might be a huge surprise for a lot of people since the iMac Pro is still a great
machine, and a better deal than the Mac Pro since you already get a great 5K display,
but let me tell you.. The iMac Pro definitely had it coming..
So in this video, I’m gonna talk about why Apple is discontinuing the iMac Pro, and why
I think it’s gonna make a huge comeback with new Apple Silicon hardware, and then
I’m gonna talk about the rest of the iMac lineup, and finally I’ll discuss some new
information on Apple’s March Event, so let’s get right into it.
If you go to Apple’s website right now, there is only one configuration of the iMac
Pro available, the base model for $5,000.. And as you can see.. It says while supplies
last.
Apple even confirmed to MacRumors that the iMac Pro is officially being discontinued,
so yeh.. It’s a goner..
But don’t worry.. Like I said before, I think there’s a chance it’ll come back,
and sooner than you think, but let’s get into why this current Intel model is going
bye bye.
The iMac Pro was originally released in 2017 with an 8-core chip at the same base $5,000
price, and at the time, it was a great machine.
However, in 2019, the high-end updated 5K iMac came out and basically destroyed the
iMac Pro in terms of CPU performance, which was surprising since you’d be saving between
$750 and $1600 by going with the 5K iMac.
And then in August of last year, the 2020 iMac was released, and this was basically
the death of the iMac Pro, because surprisingly, the base 27” model for $2300 with some aftermarket
RAM was outperforming the $5,000 iMac Pro in many different tasks.
And of course, at the same time, Apple upgraded the base iMac Pro to start with a 10-core
chip, just to give it a bit of a push, but to be honest, at that point, it was already
too late.
Anyone buying an iMac Pro after that point was making a huge mistake, and that’s why
Apple discontinued it, showing that the iMac Pro was basically just a stopgap product for
the Pros until the 2019 Mac Pro was released.
And now, let’s finally get into my theory on how and when Apple could bring back the
iMac Pro, because if Apple does this.. It’s gonna be genius.
As we all know, the new Apple Silicon Macs have been absolutely killing it, leading to
record Mac Sales and incredible market share predictions, especially when we get the 14
and 16” MacBook Pros sometime this summer or fall at the latest.
But in terms of the iMacs, it’s been a wild ride with leaks and rumors.
Some of the first rumors we got pointed to a redesigned 24-inch iMac coming between the
4th quarter of 2020 and first quarter of 2021, which points to a possible release at Apple’s
March event.
And just recently, Kang, the absolute most reliable Apple leaker out there, came out
and said that there will in fact be an Apple March event on the 23rd, and then Jon Prosser
basically confirmed, so that’s extremely exciting.
However, Jon didn’t give us any mention of an iMac being ready for the March event.
He simply mentioned AirTags, iPad Pro, AirPods and Apple TV.
And on top of that, last month, Mark Gurman claimed that the iMac redesign would happen
toward the end of the year, but Sam from iupdate thinks that we could see a staggered iMac
launch this year, which could actually make a lot of sense!
So now, let’s get into my theory on Apple’s Master Plan for the iMac Pro.
First off, I’m 100% sure that there will never be another Intel-based iMac of any kind
ever again. Apple Silicon going forward from now on.
And I personally believe that it makes total sense to release the 24” redesigned iMac
first, and then release the larger iMac later.
Why? Well, because Apple needs to make sure that they have an iMac with a relatively cheap
base price for the lower-end of the market who don’t want to have to deal with getting
a display, keyboard and mouse for the Mac Mini.
So that means that the new 24” redesigned iMac needs to start at around $1100 to $1300,
and the way they can do that is by giving the base model the same M1 chip that we already
have, but then obviously having an upgraded chip option which will likely be the M1X that
we’ve been waiting for.
But on the other hand, the larger iMac which is said to potentially get a 30-32” display,
needs to pack a ton of performance. This means it’ll likely come with the M1X at the base
price, and it’ll likely have an upgrade option for an even better chip, and it could
even get an option for a dedicated graphics chip which has been rumored for some time
now, specifically for the larger iMac model.
Because of this, there’s no way that the higher-end iMac is coming before the 14 and
16” MacBook Pro models this summer, so we’ll likely only see it toward the end of the year.
So here’s where the whole iMac Pro thing finally shows up in my theory.
What if Apple is planning to make the new redesigned 24-inch iMac the only regular iMac
model, and then the larger 30 to 32 inch iMac will be renamed… wait for it.. The iMac
Pro?
Now if you think that sounds absolutely crazy, I actually have quite a few reasons for why
this makes total sense.
First off, the current iMac lineup is a bit confusing because there are two different
sizes, and people often get them mixed up, so giving them two different names would fix
that problem.
On top of that, the new redesigned iMac is rumored to be getting a 23 to 24 inch display,
which is the perfect middle-ground, since 21.5 inches is way too small right now for
most people.
And since this model could potentially come with an M1 chip at the base price, it’s
basically ready to go any time between now and the end of spring, unless Apple wants
to wait until after the M1X MacBook Pros arrive.
But the weird thing is that Apple chose to discontinue the iMac Pro 2 weeks before the
leaked March event date, which could mean that the iMac might actually be coming sooner
than we thought.
And to make it even more interesting, Jon Prosser dropped a leak showing that the iMac
could be coming in a bunch of different color options, which Apple only does for their lower-end
products.
So I personally can’t see Apple doing that for the larger iMac, and the best way to solve
that issue is by calling the larger one the iMac Pro and giving it one or two color options,
just like before.
And now getting deeper into that larger iMac, it’s rumored to be getting an even larger
30 to 32 inch display, which could show that Apple is going all out with the performance
as well, so if Apple is going all out, why not just call it the iMac Pro?
This will allow them to do a couple of different things that actually make a whole lot of sense.
Number 1: They get to reuse the iMac Pro name, which will definitely help with sales.
Number 2: It’ll give Apple more time to work on it and give it a better chip, since
Pro Macs are usually released in December. Number 3: It’ll allow Apple to give the
dedicated custom Apple graphics chip exclusively to the iMac Pro and not the regular 24”
iMac. Number 4.. It’ll give them an excuse to
bump up the base price, potentially to $2,000 or above if they really pack it with great
performance, simply because of that iMac Pro name.
And lastly, if you really think about it, the one main thing that differentiated the
27” iMac from the iMac Pro was the fact that the iMac Pro always got the Intel Xeon
chip with ECC RAM which was tuned specifically for professional work.
But now, with Apple switching to their own custom Silicon chips, that difference is now
gone forever, so it totally makes sense for Apple to take advantage of the iMac Pro name
for the larger iMac model.
Once again, doing this would be a genius move for Apple because they’ll be greatly simplifying
their Mac lineup while being able to bump up the base price and give it some extra performance
with that dedicated graphics chip, and of course, they’ll be able to release it in
December for that end of year tax write off sales push.
So there you guys go, that’s basically my theory on how Apple could resurrect the iMac
Pro and do it in a way that maximizes profits and minimizes confusion.
If you totally disagree with my speculative take, let me know in the comments below, and
if you enjoyed this video, click that circle above for more videos like this one! Thanks
for watching, and we’ll see you in the next video!