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We’re at the end of Apple’s week of Mac announcements, and while the news of the new MacBook Pro is undoubtedly what everyone was waiting for, the Cupertino-based company had a lot more up its sleeve than we were expecting.
On the surface of it, a new iMac and a new Mac Mini was exactly what we were expecting, but there’s a lot more under that surface to unpack: the new and improved M4 chip is a big boost to both devices, and paves the way for creatives – and gamers, surprisingly – to make the most of the next generation of Apple Silicon.
Mac Mini is Apple’s First Carbon Neutral Mac
The Mac Mini has gotten even smaller this year, but adds the powerful M4 chip alongside more ports (USB-C, with three impressive Thunderbolt 5 ports), and the ability to tap into Apple Intelligence for more of those AI shenanigans.
And, finally, we got to see what the business has in store for its M4 Pro chip. The M4 Pro is designed to take on more demanding workloads than the standard chip, such as video editing, graphics processing, and using Google Chrome. The CPU has been bumped to 14-cores, while it’s GPU has hit 20 cores: if you don’t know what that means, it just means its unlikely the Pro will suffer under heavy use.
But, most interestingly to us is that Apple claims the new Mac Mini is the company’s first ‘carbon neutral’ Mac due to its reduced use of aluminium, use of over 50 per cent recycled materials, and it being made using 100 per cent renewable energy. Plus, Apple will prioritise non-air shipping methods to keep the emissions down further.
You can pre-order the new Mac Mini today, starting at $999 for the M4 model and $2,199 for the M4 Pro model. It’ll ship starting the 8 November, 2024.
Related: Apple iPad Air (2024) Review: Have We Reached Peak iPad?
iMac Gets M4 Boost, Matching Mouse
Apple’s original breakout device, the iMac is has seen an M4-shaped upgrade this year in order to bring the device up to speed with what Apple Intelligence is bringing to the table, as well as to match where it’s iPad Pro is already sitting.
That bump will push the iMac’s performance to around 1.7x the M1 iMac’s efforts in ‘daily performance’, and more than twice as fast in more demanding workflows. Plus, with the addition on an NPU (neural processing unit), the new device will be well equipped to handle the strengths of Apple Intelligence, with a lot of the processing happening on the device itself, rather than sending data back and forth between Apple’s data centres and your computer.
Plus, the iMac now comes with 16GB RAM as standard, which should make the all-in-one feel snappier and faster in most tasks (yes, even gaming, which Apple is actually starting to care about).
And, as an additional bonus, Apple’s dropped fresh shades of green, yellow, orange, pink, purple and blue to choose from, alongside the classic silver, and every iMac sold comes with a colour-matched Magic Mouse and Magic Keyboard (or trackpad, if you’d prefer), which have all been updated to the new USB-C standard.
Beyond that, if you don’t need the portability of a laptop but still want to live in Apple’s ecosystem, the iMac isn’t a bad shout: especially once you can get one that sits on the bleeding edge of Apple’s silicon.
The new iMac is up for preorder today for AU$1,999, and will ship to customers on 8 November, 2024.
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