On Tuesday morning, Apple held its first hardware announcement event of the year. We were expecting to see some new iPads, and Apple did show those off. But the company also unveiled a whole lot more: Newly redesigned iMacs, a new Apple TV 4K with a refreshed remote, and a location-broadcasting iPhone accessory called AirTags.
The slickly produced virtual event was packed with information and even more new products. Here’s everything Apple announced.
New iMacs
That super slim profile is the result of a redesigned thermal system made possible by its M1 chip, Apple says.
Photograph: AppleLast fall, Apple updated the 27-inch iMac with faster processors and greater graphics capabilities, but it’s been years since Apple truly overhauled the iMac. Thanks in large part to the company’s relatively new, custom-designed M1 chip, Apple was able to ditch the bulky thermal system in earlier iMacs and finally give the desktop PC a proper makeover. The company revealed completely redesigned hardware today, a super-slim all-in-one machine that has about 50 percent of the volume of previous models.
The new iMac has a 24-inch, 4.5K display, and comes in seven bright colors: Green, yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, and silver. It has an updated, 1080p front-facing camera with a new sensor, new microphones (Apple says the best mics ever in an iMac), and six speakers that support spatial audio and Dolby Atmos. It also has a new foot; supports TouchID, Apple’s fingerprint-based authentication system; and has a smaller charging block that includes an Ethernet port. But the big sell with the new iMac will undoubtedly be its power and speed. It’s supposedly fast; Apple is claiming it wakes instantly, and is expected to be a whopping 85 percent faster overall than the previous iMac (which, of course, ran on Intel silicon).
You’ll pay for that power and speed, though: The new 2021 iMac starts at $1,299, and will cost $1,499 if you want to bump up the specs even more. They’re available to order now.
New iPad Pro
The 2021 iPad Pro comes in a refreshed 11-inch model and a more feature-rich 12.9-inch model.
Photograph: Apple
