In the run up to yesterday’s WWDC 2012 Apple keynote, there were all sorts of rumors about just what Apple would and would not announce. In fact, if you paid much attention to the rumor mill before hand (and some people on Twitter clearly didn’t), little of what Apple announced was a surprise. Nevertheless, some of the rumored announcements never came.
Most notably, three things were left out: the Apple TV, the iMac, and the Mac Pro. While major updates to the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines – including the new retina display model – had been predicted, the rumor mill had also hinted at similarly major updates to the iMac and the Mac Pro. While the Mac Pro did get a very minor feature bump (which Apple neglected to mention during the keynote), nary a peep was heard about the iMac.
This, naturally, raises an interesting question: has Apple abandoned the desktop computer? Are Apple’s desktop models headed down the same path as optical drives in Apple notebooks (i.e., toward nonexistence)? The answer, it seems, is no. While Mac Pro fans may lament the lack of a major update to their beloved machine, it seems that the model’s modest bump isn’t the end of the story, nor is the iMac’s absence from yesterday’s keynote. After Apple’s keynote yesterday, David Pogue of the New York Times provided his own analysis of the day’s news. At the end of that analysis, tucked into the second to last paragraph of the (quite lengthy) piece, was a claim that all hope is not yet lost for fans of Apple’s desktop models:
Many Apple observers also wonder if Apple thinks that desktop computers are dead, since not a word was said about the iMac and Mac Pro. An executive did assure me, however, that new models and new designs are under way, probably for release in 2013.
So, it seems that the iMac and Mac Pro were passed over yesterday in favor of an announcement to come next year. There are, of course, lots of reasons that might be the case. Any number of technical issues could be standing between the new models and their release date. That being so, there’s every reason to think that Pogue’s information is correct, and that while yesterday was all about the MacBook (and OS X Mountain Lion and iOS, of course), Apple hasn’t forgotten its desktop models.
