It looks the same as the prior two iMacs, but comes in new shades of green, orange, pink, blue, yellow and purple, in addition to the standard silver. — Apple
Apple Inc, heralding a "new era” for its devices, started rolling out its first set of Apple Intelligence features and introduced a new 24-inch iMac desktop with an AI-focused M4 processor.
The iMac, starting at the same US$1,299 (RM5,668) price as the previous model, is faster and sports an enhanced Neural Engine for handling AI tasks, the company said in an announcement. Apple began taking orders on Monday for the new model, which arrives in stores Nov 8. It looks the same as the prior two iMacs, but comes in new shades of green, orange, pink, blue, yellow and purple, in addition to the standard silver.
Separately, the company said its Apple Intelligence software is now available for the iPhone, iPad and Mac. Though Apple previewed a broader set of AI capabilities in June, the initial features represent only a sliver of its plans for the service. The lineup includes writing tools for summarising and editing text, a new visual interface for the Siri digital assistant, and the ability to recap incoming text messages and other notifications.
It’s a critical moment for a company that’s playing catch-up in AI. Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT set off an artificial intelligence frenzy in late 2022, Apple has been on the sidelines – with tech peers like Google and Microsoft Corp grabbing more of the attention. Apple Intelligence is an attempt to show that the iPhone maker can be a leader in this field.
But some of the most anticipated Apple Intelligence capabilities aren’t coming until December. That includes an integration with ChatGPT and tools for editing images and creating custom emoji, as well as automatic sorting of messages in the iPhone’s email app. An upgraded Siri and support for devices in the EU, meanwhile, won’t arrive until April.
Apple said it has been trying to deliver its AI tools to that region in compliance with the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which took effect last year.
"Since announcing Apple Intelligence, we have been working to find a path to deliver as many features as we can in the EU in a way that complies with the DMA while maintaining user privacy and security, and to determine what additional product engineering would be required to do so,” the Cupertino, California-based company said in a statement.
The iMac, meanwhile, is Apple’s best-selling desktop and the product that helped turn the business around from the brink of bankruptcy in the late 1990s. The original idea is the still the same: putting all the computing components behind the display and requiring little to no setup.
The base model of the M4 iMac includes the same number of cores - a measure of data-crunching and processing capabilities – as the M3 model from last year. That includes eight for the central processing unit, or CPU, and eight for the graphics processing unit, or GPU. A US$1,499 (RM6,540) version includes 10 CPU cores and 10 GPU cores, matching the M4 chip in the higher-end iPad Pro from May.
In its announcement, Apple compared the performance of the new model to the 2021 version with the M1 chip, saying the new machine is roughly 1.5 times to 2 times faster depending on the task. It didn’t compare the processor with last year’s M3 model, implying there are only minimal gains by that measure.
The entry-level model includes two standard USB-C ports on the back, while all of the higher-end versions include four faster Thunderbolt 4 inputs. Those models also include Ethernet connectors for hardwired internet connections and a Magic Keyboard with a Touch ID fingerprint scanner.
Other upgrades to the iMac include a new front-facing camera with 12 megapixels of resolution, up from prior versions. For the first time in four years, there’s also an option for reducing screen reflections and glare known as nano-texture glass, but it costs US$200 (RM872) extra.
The iMac now starts with 16 gigabytes of random-access memory, or RAM, double the 8 gigabytes that Apple had offered in its entry-level model the past several years. Users can also configure the iMac with 32 gigabytes of RAM, a US$400 (RM1,745) upgrade that’s only available on versions with at least half a terabyte of storage.
Makers of Windows computers generally offer more RAM – and that’s drawn complaints from Apple customers. The extra memory also will help support the new Apple Intelligence features, which can take up a few gigabytes of RAM at a time during use.
Along with updating the iMacs, Apple is releasing new Magic Trackpad, Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse accessories that use a USB-C charging port for the first time. That allows them to meet regulations from the EU and means that iPad, iPhone and Mac buyers will be able to use the same cable to recharge accessories.
Bloomberg News reported in April on the M4 iMac and more recently said the new models would arrive this week. – Bloomberg
