Apple ends the 27-inch iMac without offering a direct replacement

Apple may have brought a new Mac product to market yesterday, but it has also discontinued a long-standing model. Following the announcement of the Mac Studio and Studio Display, Apple removed the 27-inch iMac from its web store. While third-party retailers still have 27-inch iMacs on their books, Apple is unlikely to replenish their warehouses when they exhaust their stock levels.

Currently, the 24-inch iMac is Apple's only all-in-one (AIO) desktop. However, this machine relies on the Apple M1, a significantly less powerful option than the M1 Max and M1 Ultra found in the Mac Studio. As we reported yesterday, the M1 Ultra offers 20 CPU cores and 48 or 64 GPU cores compared to the maximum 8 CPU and GPU cores that the M1 provides. Also, you cannot configure the 24-inch iMac with more than 2 TB of storage.

Effectively, Apple has replaced the 27-inch iMac with the Mac Studio and Studio Display, a combination that starts at US$3,598. In saying that, Apple charges US$3,999 for the Mac Studio with M1 Ultra, bringing the total cost to US$5,598 before adding a height and tiltable stand or more than 1 TB of storage. For reference, a fully-specced Mac Studio and Studio Display will retail for US$10,298.

Purportedly, Apple will release a new 27-inch iMac powered by its in-house silicon at some stage. Initially rumoured to launch this summer, Mark Gurman announced on Monday that this would no longer be the case. Instead, Ming-Chi Kuo predicts that a new Mac Pro and iMac Pro will not land until 2023. Incidentally, Apple teased a new Mac Pro at yesterday's 'Peek Performance' event, although it offered no specifics about when the machine would debut.

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