So the new iMac finally showed up. Mine landed on the porch last Tuesday, which if you're counting is a full week after Apple started actually shipping these things on May 21st, and about five weeks after they announced them at that Spring Loaded event back in April. I ordered blue. I want to talk about the blue for a second before I get into the complaining, because the complaining is coming.
It's a genuinely good blue. Not the aggressive Bondi-blue-and-clear-plastic thing the old G3 did in the computer lab I grew up using (anyone else spend hours of middle school waiting for ClarisWorks to load on one of those?), but a much quieter, more grown-up color. The front is basically white with just a hint of blue at the edges, and the back panel is the full saturated color. It looks like a product a design team argued about for way too long, in a good way.
Here's the part that annoys me though. Apple sells this thing starting at $1,299, and that gets you two Thunderbolt/USB4 ports, no Ethernet, and a keyboard with no Touch ID. Bump up to $1,499 and you get two more USB-C ports, Gigabit Ethernet built into the power brick (which is a genuinely clever bit of industrial design, I'll give them that), and a Magic Keyboard with a fingerprint sensor built in. Same computer, same chip, same screen. You're paying two hundred bucks for ports and a keyboard feature. I paid it, because I use Ethernet at my desk and I've wanted Touch ID on a desktop Mac since it showed up on the laptops, but I paid it resentfully, typing this sentence right now on the very keyboard I'm complaining about.
The chin. I have to mention the chin. There's still a big blank strip of colored aluminum under the screen with an Apple logo on it, and no, it doesn't do anything, no screen, no camera, nothing. It's just there. I've seen people online say it houses the speakers or extra components and look, some of it probably does, but not four inches of it. I don't hate how it looks, I actually think the color makes it feel intentional instead of wasted, but I do think in three or four years we'll look back at this design the way we look at bezels on old phones.
One thing I will not complain about: the camera. It's a 1080p sensor now instead of the ancient 720p webcam Apple was still putting in Macs in the year of our lord 2021, paired with the same image signal processor from the M1 chip, and after fourteen months of Zoom calls from a laptop camera that made me look like I was being deposed in a basement, this is a real, noticeable upgrade. I did a call with my sister on Wednesday and she asked if I'd gotten a ring light.
No SD card slot anywhere on this thing, which is a shame if you're a photographer, and I still need a USB-C hub to plug in an older external drive I've had since 2016, so add another $40 to the real cost of ownership if you don't already own a drawer full of dongles like I do.
Separately, and I promise this is related in spirit if not in subject: the Epic Games versus Apple trial wrapped up closing arguments on Monday out in Oakland, after about three weeks of testimony that pulled back the curtain on how much money actually moves through the App Store. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said she's going to take her time with a ruling, which tracks, because there's a lot to untangle in there about whether Apple's 30% cut counts as anticompetitive or just the cost of doing business on the platform. No decision yet, and from what I've read it might be months before there is one. I'll believe it when I see it, honestly. These things always seem to take longer than anyone expects.
Anyway. The iMac's on my desk, the blue one, dongles and all, and I'm mostly happy with it even though I clearly have opinions about the pricing structure. Ask me again in six months whether the chin still bothers me.