ARMs Race | ARM64 iMac to reportedly have larger than 27-inch display

As our coverage of ARMed Macs countinue in 2021, new information is leaked, painting a more detailed picture if how the new 2021 iMac will look and what will power it. The new 2021 iMac isn’t only getting a new brain but a fresh design too. The design update will come during a time when Apple is transitioning their entire Mac lineup to in-house designed Apple Silicon chips like the A14 Bionic found in iPad Air and iPhone with the M1 found in Mac mini, MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro. Now the unreleased iMac’s display for the largest model is being corroborated by a number of credible leakers such as l0vetodream who says ” The ‌iMac‌’s screen is really big, bigger than the biggest one.”

Recently, Mark Gurman of Bloomberg provided some design details like how the new iMac will feature “slimmer bezels, no metal chin, and a design similar to the Pro XDR display”, which itself features a large 32-inch display.

ARM 64 iMac shows up in xCode

The screenshot was provided by developer Dennis Oberhoff who developed the DaftCloud app for Mac and was provided to 9to5Mac. While there are not too many revealing details since Apple does a good job at hiding them, we can at least see that the crash did happened on an ARM64 architecture iMac.

What will it look like?

A design refresh for Apple’s iMac is long overdue and with the imminent integration of Apple Silicon on the horizon the time is right for a design refresh to accompany the new chipset. The design is a mystery at this point but some insiders have said it will resemble the iPad Pro/iPhone 12 design with flat sides. Some speculate that the iMac will get touch support and curved display corners like the iPad Pro. If the design is rumored to look much like Apple’s iPad Pro/Air in that it will feature flat edges like many other recent devices like iPhone 12 and a bezel-less display, then the iMac may finally nix the curved back. Based on reputable rumors we may see a smaller 24-inch model earlier in the year then a 27-inch later in 2021 with similar designs, one being smaller than the other.

What will power the 2021 iMac?

According to Bloomberg, “Apple is working on designs with as many as 16 power cores and four efficiency cores. That configuration is most likely for the iMac and Mac Pro models, whereas the 8-12 high performance core enabled model we previously reported on would likely be for the next-gen 16-inch MacBook Pro. The first of the three Apple Silicon chips will be a 12-core processor with a unique mix of eight high performance cores called “Firestorm” cores and four energy efficient core called “Icestorm” cores. There is a clear Fire & Ice reference here that also relates to the cores that will be hotter and cooler. Apple is said to already be working Apple Silicon with more than 12 cores with the company designing second-generation processors for Macs based on the future unannounced M1X/M2 chip.

Apple engineers are developing higher performance GPU’s with 16-core and 32-core configurations in testing, says Bloomberg. They go on to say that GPU upgrades could reach 64-core and 128-core configurations in its high-end machines by 2021 or 2022.