• Apple has launched a revamped iMac computer with the M4 processor, Apple Intelligence and new aesthetic look.
• The machines are going for a more fun and colourful design, with a super thin screen and performance-geared hardware.
• South Africans will likely be able to pre-order the new iMac on 8th November 2024.

The expected brand-new iMac computers from Apple have been launched worldwide. The devices were previously anticipated to only launch early next year, but now they’re here and they have a bunch of improvements over the previous generation of the Apple iMac.

This includes a brand new aesthetic, even stronger performance hardware and the inclusion of Apple Intelligence, the much-discussed generative AI features Apple has designed with the help of OpenAI’s technology.

A new look

The new Apple iMac sees a revamped design, with the inclusion of pastel colourways that are a bit more playful than the iMac you may be familiar with. There are now green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, and blue colourways, alongside a more classic silver.

The back of the machines has more striking shades of colour, while the front is lighter.

The more rounded shape of the iMac devices has been squared more, with thinness a key look for the new machines, that also include a 24-inch 4.5K Retina display.

Every iMac also now comes with a colour-matched Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse or optional Magic Trackpad, all of which now feature a USB-C port, so users can charge their devices with a single cable.

Improved hardware

Apple has now upgraded the new iMac with its home-made M4 processor. The company says that the new machines are up to 1.7 times faster than the M1 iMac launched in 2021. This is a bit of a disappointing degree of improvement especially with just how much the Cupertino giant is pushing the M4 chip’s performance power.

It also adds that the new iMac has Apple’s “most-advanced graphics architecture” in its graphics card.

“iMac with M4 handles more intense workloads like photo editing and gaming up to 2.1x faster than iMac with M1. This also enables a smoother gameplay experience in titles like the upcoming Civilization VII,” reads the announcement.

Additionally, you get 16GB of unified memory (which is Apple’s branding for RAM) which can be configured up to 32GB, with SSD storage space from 256GB up to 1TB.

Apple Intelligence, of course

The final addition is Apple Intelligence, which is only launching in South Africa in December, according to the local iStore. The company says that the new iMac will get the generative AI features in macOS Sequoia 15.1.

These include Writing Tools that use AI to summarise and proofread text, and the newly redesigned Siri, Image Playground which is the Dall-E-powered image generator and finally the integration of ChatGPT within Siri and Writing Tools which means users won’t have to open the ChatGPT app or webpage to use the AI software.

Apple iMac users also get to use ChatGPT without creating an account, but Apple does not indicate if this will be a free account or it will be a Premium account, which has more features, stronger AI models and no usage limits.

Price and availability

Users in the US will be able to pre-order the new iMac from 28th October 2024, with South African users likely getting pre-orders on Friday 8th November 2024.

The machines retail for $1 299 (~R22 939) for the base model with 8-core processor, 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage space, as well as two Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports, mouse, trackpad and keyboard. Meanwhile, the 10-core processor edition, which is faster, comes in at $1 499 (~R26 478) with four Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports.

No actual release date has been set yet.