Apple has kept the iMac on the sidelines for many years, instead Apple chose to focus on portable and mobile devices.
The iPhone remains Apple’s cash cow worldwide and the fervor is palpable every time a new version is released. The MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with Retina Display are two beautiful notebooks that impress with both their design and their performance. Nevertheless, iPad debuted all the way back in 2010, and still has some wondering if the notebook is even necessary anymore. As each of these products were unveiled, the current iMac design — originally introduced in 2009 — routinely underwent dramatic upgrades. It was barely mentioned at Apple’s splashy media events.
Not this time — when Apple debuted the new iMac alongside the iPad mini and a newer Retina display iPad at its media event last October, it was the iMac that surprised millions of people. Sure, the iPad mini was the hot item of the day recently, but the stunningly thin iMac generated more buzz and consumer interest than we were expecting.
iMac’s exceptional design, and impressively slender all-metal case capped by edge-to-edge glass, deserves wows. But the fact that Apple managed to pack in areal computer — in my tester, a 3.1 GHz quad-core i7 processor, 16 GB of RAM, and a 1TB Fusion Drive running OS X Mountain Lion — is just amazing. This piece of technology doesn’t just look good, it knows how to work it, too.
From the front, the new iMac is almost indistinguishable from the last iteration. It has the same folded-metal base, and beneath the black-edged display is the same silver “chin” with a shiny black Apple logo in the center. It’s not until you spin the thing to the side that you notice its almost unfathomable slenderness and gentle curves.
Some people hate it when you refer to a consumer electronics product as “sexy,” but … this is a damn sexy piece of machinery. At its edges, the iMac’s thickness measures a mere 5 millimeters. That’s so thin, Apple couldn’t use traditional manufacturing methods to bond the front and rear aluminum pieces together. It instead had to come up with a new method called friction stir welding, which creates a completely seamless, aerospace-quality juncture. It’s only that thin at the edges though. It gently tapers to a modest bulge at the center rear — you’ve got to fit those hardware guts in there somewhere. Let us know what you think about new iMac in the comments.
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Mallorie Aquino
Mallorie Aquino is based in sunny Kihei, Hawaii. A marine scientist and avid traveller who enjoys sharing informative articles to a broad audience on a variety of interesting topics. She is constantly learning and ready to share her experiences with the world through words.
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