Apple's senior vice-president of marketing Phil Schiller presents the new iMac to the press in San Francisco
During its press event today in San Jose, California, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that Mac was both the No 1 laptop and desktop computer in the US, which calls for an update to the almost two-year-old iMac line-up.
The super-thin new iMac is just 5mm thick at its edge, making it Apple’s thinnest ever desktop computer. Not only thinner than its predecessor, it’s also 8 pounds (more than 3.5kg) lighter.
The edge-to-edge display is laminated to the glass – just one of this computer’s space-saving design features. The new iMac also features a FaceTime HD camera, dual microphones and stereo speakers.
As far as the internal components go, the new iMac comes with up to 32GB of RAM, Nvidia Kepler dedicated graphics and quad-core Intel Ivy Bridge processors.
While Apple will be selling separate optical drives for the all-in-one desktop, senior vice-president of marketing Phil Schiller joked that this was for people “stuck in the past”, as the iMac is packing an Apple Fusion Drive. This innovative piece of hardware contains 128GB of flash storage and a choice of a 1TB or 3TB hard drive.
The Fusion Drive is very clever and keeps users’ most frequently accessed applications on the flash drive for rapid access, while the hard drive is for lesser-used storage.
The updated 21.5-inch iMac starts at US$1,299 and starts shipping in November, while a 27-inch priced from US$1,799 will follow in December.
