Thoughts on the M4 iMac, and making peace with the death of the 27-inch model

Remembrances of a former iMac person

Apple never stopped selling an entry-level iMac to cover the niche filled by the original Bondi Blue plastic version, but during the Intel era it gradually became Apple's main workhorse desktop computer for creative professionals. This period ran from the early 2010s (when Apple lost the plot on the Mac Pro) to the release of the last Intel iMac in mid-2020, and it overlaps with the window where I used the iMac as my primary desktop (roughly 2011 to 2018).

These were the days when Intel's CPU core counts were steadily increasing, making a high-end iMac a realistic substitute for what would have been a dual-socket desktop tower just a few years before. The 27-inch 5K iMac pushed the boundaries of what was available in desktop monitors at the time. The GPUs were, if not top-of-the-line, at least capable of midrange gaming when booted into Windows via Boot Camp. It was one of Apple's last desktops that still allowed users to upgrade their own RAM.

This era of the iMac even gave us the first and only iMac Pro in 2017—Apple's overture to people who felt neglected by the Mac Pro's long dry spell (and, incidentally, the oldest Mac currently supported by macOS Sequoia).

And then came the Apple Silicon era. The 24-inch M1 iMac was pretty, but it also didn't suit my needs, with its smaller screen, its single-external-monitor limit, and its inability to run Windows—a conscious return to what the iMac was meant for back in 1999. Apple has turned to the Mac Studio and, increasingly, the Mac mini to fill that enthusiast/power user desktop niche. The 27-inch iMac is dead—apparently permanently, despite vague rumors that Apple has tested larger Apple Silicon iMacs internally—and the iMac is back to being the approachable, stylish Internet machine.