MOST POWERFUL APPLE YET

APPLE’S ANNUAL developer conference, WWDC, brought a slew of updates, new hardware, and a very long keynote speech. We got the iPad Pro, watchOS 4, Siripowered HomePod, and myriad hardware and software upgrades, including beefier hardware on just about every Mac. But what many came to see was the iMac Pro. It looks fantastic, packs some delicious hardware, and is also majestically expensive.

Creative types have been complaining that their shiny Macs have fallen behind PCs. The company is seen as concentrating too much on the iPhone and iPad, and not enough on its desktops. The workstation market is growing, too, up over 20 percent in three months. The Mac Pro hasn’t been updated much since 2013, and is struggling. A new modular version won’t arrive until next year at the earliest. The iMac Pro will be Apple’s most powerful machine for now.

The iMac Pro certainly looks the part. Inside, it’s a Xeon-based machine with 8, 10, or 18 cores, coupled with 32–128GB of EEC RAM, a tasty Radeon Pro Vega GPU, 10Gb Ethernet, and a 27-inch 5K screen. Prices start at $4,999 and climb rapidly, due to the “Apple tax”–expect well over $10,000 if you go high-end. The upgraded iMacs are available now; for the delicious iMac Pro, you’ll have to wait until December.