An Apple Silicon iMac Pro Launch Was Supposed To Happen After The M1 iMac’s Release, But Cost Concerns Prevented Its Inception

22.10.2023 - 21:39 / wccftech.com / Mark Gurman / Pro

The Apple Silicon transition is not yet completed, as the iMac Pro featuring the company’s M-series SoCs is yet to launch. Whenever it arrives, new information states that it was always slated to be unveiled shortly, but Apple’s cost concerns pushed its launch into limbo.

Almost everyone remembers that the Intel Xeon-powered iMac Pro started from an eye-watering $4,999 price, and that only meant that Apple was going to charge customers a similar pricing. To be fair, the new iMac Pro would sport better build quality and internals than the M1 iMac, possibly including a high-resolution 5K display, an M2 Pro or M2 Max, lots of I/O, and other goodies that would shoot up the total, so charging a premium would be justified.

Even with the current M1 iMac, excluding the creative software suite bundle, maxing out the ‘All in One’ gives you a grand price of $2,658, so the iMac Pro would offer substantially more. Now, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, in his latest ‘Power On’ newsletter, he states that the iMac Pro was scheduled to launch after the iMac, but that did not happen.

“Fans of the iMac have waited more than 900 days since the last model debuted. This was never the plan. Apple had aimed to release a larger, pro-focused iMac soon after the 24-inch iMac launched. Under the original road map, you would have seen the M1 24-inch iMac, then an M2-based iMac Pro and, finally, a 24-inch iMac refresh.”

According to people familiar with its Apple’s plans, a launch was discarded due to cost concerns, so the company had to make other products, such as the Mac Studio and Studio Display, with the latter carrying a $1,599 and offering nothing more than a 5K panel, and some ports. You still need to hook up the monitor to a computing device. With the iMac Pro, you would get the best of both worlds in a single machine, but that is an expensive process to overcome.

“I’m told that the company tabled the iMac Pro plan a while ago due to cost concerns. So Apple has had to adjust. That’s included positioning the Mac Studio and Studio Display combination as a high-end iMac replacement. But any passionate iMac user knows that’s not an apples-to-apples comparison.”

While Gurman has not mentioned when the new iMac Pro will be announced, we might not see it before 2025. It is reported that Apple’s Mac shipments for this year will dip by 30 percent, reaching just 17 million units for 2023, and with global inflation wreaking havoc on people’s savings, the situation may not improve until late 2024. In these circumstances, it is pointless to invest millions in a premium workstation, with hundreds of units continuing to remain unsold.