This August the iMac will be 25 years old! Back on August 15, 1998, Apple introduced the G3 iMac. Will we see an M3 iMac this summer to celebrate the anniversary? It is possible.
In last week’s newsletter Mark Gurman of Bloomberg revealed that, according to his sources, Apple “is in an advanced stage of development called engineering validation testing,” which means that the Apple is already conducting production tests of a new iMac.
This does not mean that the new iMac will ship immediately. Gurman said the new iMac isn’t expected to go into mass production for at least three months, and that it “won’t ship until the second half of the year at the earliest.”
This new iMac is expected to have the same screen size as the current model (24 inches) and come in the same selection of colors as the M1 iMac that Apple introduced in April 2021. However, there “behind the scenes. changes,” said Gurman. The internal changes include the relocation and redesign of some internal components and a change in the manufacturing process used for iMac stand attachment.
The biggest change inside, of course, is the new chip. Currently, the iMac is powered by the M1, which has since been replaced by the M2. But reports suggest that Apple will skip the M2 for the iMac, going straight for the M3. The iMac is not expected to be the first M3-powered Mac, however—Gurman thinks the accolade will go to the 15-inch MacBook Air which may launch earlier than the M3 iMac.
Gurman speculates that the M3 system-on-chip could appear at WWDC 2023, a year after the M2 was unveiled at the same event. “The company could then follow up with the M3 iMac later in the year,” Gurman wrote.