Monday’s launch of a 24-inch iMac renewed calls for a 27-inch version. While this is a product Apple made before, there are multiple reasons why it hasn’t come back and almost certainly isn’t going to.
I’m not arguing that an extra-large all-in-one desktop is a bad device, but it does have at least one serious drawback. And it’s also apparently weak in a critical area. Plus there’s one more reason that’s hard to argue with.
A brief history of the 27-inch iMac
Apple introduced its first 27-inch iMac in 2009. For its time, this was huge. Consider that it launched alongside a much smaller 21.5-inch version. This super-size model stayed in Apple’s product line up for years, virtually unchanged except for processor upgrades. But the last version launched in 2014.
Then Apple brought out the 27-inch iMac Pro in 2017. This stuck around until 2022 but was never updated. And that was the last Mac with a built-in screen that large. The new M4 iMac introduced Monday comes only in a 24-inch design.
Screens outlive processors
To begin to understand why Apple moved away from giant all-in-one desktops, consider the 5120×2880 Retina 5K display in the aforementioned 2017 iMac Pro. That’s a better screen than I use today.
But that seven-year old processor didn’t age so well. Despite originally costing $5,000, today that elderly iMac can’t hope to keep up with a $600 M4 Mac mini.
And this is typical. The technology in screens improves far more slowly than that in processors. There’s no Moore’s Law for LCDs.
So if you could buy a 27-inch iMac today, in a few years you’d have a beautiful screen hobbled by a rubbish processor. That high-res LCD panel would be usable for maybe another decade, but the obsolete processor means the whole computer would be ready for the recycle bin.
There’s a better alternative
If only you could get an iMac that let you pull out obsolete CPU, RAM and storage and pop fresh new equipment. That would solve the obsolescence problem.
Good news: you can. Buy a 27-inch Apple Studio Display and connect a Mac mini to it. While not exactly an all-in-one, it’s very close. And it comes with multiple advantages. Being future-proof is just one of them.
Another is the expense. The combination I suggest costs $2,200. I factored inflation into the cost of the original 27-inch iMac launched in 2009 and came up with $2,500 — which I consider a likely price for a theoretical version released now. So you can build your own 27-inch iMac equivalent for $300 less than Apple would probably charge you.
The other advantage is this is something you can put together today. I understand your frustration that Apple won‘t make the computer you want, but simply wishing for it isn’t helping you.
Apple said it’s not making a 27-inch iMac
I’m not basing my comments on guesswork. Apple flat out said in 2023 it has no plans to make an iMac larger than 24 inches. And a company spokesperson went on to urge people to pair a Studio Display with a Mac mini or Mac Studio.
You can try to argue that Apple makes a habit of denying it’s working on products that it’s really actively developing. Most notably, company co-founder Steve Jobs denied plans to make a phone or a tablet and we know how that turned out. But that argument ignores the other reasons that make a super-size iMac unlikely.
Trust Apple to follow the money
If you have difficulty giving up hope for a genuine 27-inch iMac, consider this: Apple is in business to make money, and if a super-size iMac generated a profit, it would still be in the product lineup. But it’s not. Which tells me the large version of this all-in-one desktop wasn’t profitable.
To be clear, I understand your frustration. I think everyone does because we all have some product we want a company to make more of. For me, it’s an iPad with more than one USB-C port. And while we’re on the topic, I also want someone to bring back Firefly, McDonald’s Fried Apples Pie and affordable cars.
But we have to accept the reasons why these products are gone. That includes the 27-inch iMac. It’s gone and not coming back.
Ed Hardy has been writing full-time about tech for 25 years, and using it for much longer than that. His intro to Apple was a Macintosh Classic II (which he still has), but now he uses a 13-inch iPad Pro as his primary computer. He’s written for NotebookReview, TabletPCReview, and Brighthand, as well as other sites.
