Apple announces faster, smarter iMacs

CNN/Stylemagazine.com Newswire | 3/19/2019, 10:34 a.m.
Apple is on a product launch spree ahead of its spring press event. The company announced on Tuesday its iMac …
Apple is on a product launch spree ahead of its spring press event.

By Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business

(CNN) -- Apple is on a product launch spree ahead of its spring press event. The company announced on Tuesday its iMac line is getting a refresh after nearly 14 months.

Its new 21.5-inch iMac with a Retina 4K display, due out next week, will come with a 8th-generation quad-core processor, and for the first time 6-core processors. The 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display features up to 6-core and 8-core processors, making it twice as fast as the previous model.

The computers also come with an improved graphics chip that'll give video games and editing programs an 80% boost in performance.

But the design remains unchanged, so you still won't find FaceID or TouchID on the iMacs.

This is the second news announcement from Apple this week. On Monday, Apple quietly announced in a press release new versions of the iPad Air and iPad mini, the company's first refresh for those products in years.

Apple typically creates fanfare around the arrival of new hardware, but its focus at its upcoming spring event this year will be on its rumored streaming service.

"Apple wants to get the iPad out of the way so it can hold its first event truly focused on streaming," Lauren Guenveur, senior research analyst at IDC, told CNN Business at the time. "If Apple announced new Pads, it would turn into a hardware event, and that's not what it wants."

Perhaps Apple feels the same way about the new iMacs. The 21.5-inch iMac will start at $1,299 and the 27-inch iMac with will start at $1,799.

View Our E-Editon