Apple introduces first iMac to feature M1 chip

Apple has introduced its newest addition to its iMac lineup, which features the company's famed M1 chip and ships in seven different colours.

The new design incorporates an 11.5mm thick side profile and a 24-inch screen featuring a 4.5K Retina display with 11.3 million pixels, 500 nits of brightness, and over a billion colours.

"M1 is a gigantic leap forward for the Mac, and today we're excited to introduce the all-new iMac, the first Mac designed around the breakthrough M1 chip," says Apple senior vice president for worldwide marketing Greg Joswiak.

"With its striking design in seven stunning colours, its immersive 4.5K Retina display, the best camera, mics, and speakers ever in a Mac, and Touch ID, combined with the amazing performance of M1 and the power of macOS Big Sur, the new iMac takes everything people love about iMac to an entirely new level.

Other new features of the latest iMac include a 1080p HD camera, a six-speaker sound system, and Touch ID — which has been incorporated into the iMac for the first time.

Apple says the introduction of the M1 chip to its line of iMacs allowed the company to overhaul the iconic computer's design — with the reduced thickness being the most obvious difference.

The electronics giant says this was enabled through consolidation of the logic board and thermals by virtue of the power efficiency of the M1 chip. This results in a reduction in volume of 50%.

As well as the slimmer form factor, the new iMac ships in seven different colours — green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, blue, and silver. It also comes with a new power connector that attaches magnetically with a 2-meter-long colour-matched cable.

The new iMac's 24-inch display features 4.5K Retina with narrower borders, 11.3 million pixels, a P3 wide colour gamut, over a billion colours, and 500 nits of brightness. It also comes with True Tone technology, which automatically adjusts the colour temperature as the environment changes.

The 8-core CPU in the M1 chip and the 16-core Apple Neural Engine allows for faster integrated graphics, higher efficiency and a better unified memory architecture when compared to standard models of the 21.5-inch iMac.

The advancement in performance includes:

• Up to 85% faster CPU performance
• Up to 2x faster GPU performance for certain apps like Affinity Photo and Photoshop
• Up to 50% faster than the most powerful discrete graphics in the fastest 21.5-inch iMac
• Up to 3x faster machine learning in apps that leverage the 16-core Neural Engine in M1.6

The new iMac features two Thunderbolt USB-C ports for faster data transfers, and also comes with Wi-Fi 6 capability.

The 8-core iMac configuration offers two additional USB-C ports and also features a 1Gbps Ethernet port in the power adapter.

The new iMac is available to order online on Friday, 30 April. It will arrive in Apple Store locations and through Apple Authorised Resellers beginning in the second half of May.

iMac with 7-core GPU starts at NZ$2149 and NZ$2069 for education. It features an 8-core CPU, 8GB of unified memory, 256GB SSD, two Thunderbolt ports, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Mouse.

Mac with 8-core GPU starts at NZ$2499 and NZ$2329 for education. It features an 8-core CPU, 8GB of unified memory, 256GB SSD, two Thunderbolt ports, two additional USB 3 ports, Magic Keyboard with Touch ID, Magic Mouse, and Ethernet.