MacCentral reviews and benchmarks the new Intel iMacs released at Macworld Expo.
MacCentral's tested both Universal applications as well as PowerPC applications on the new 2.0GHz Intel iMac and compared them to the 2.1GHz iMac G5.
Of the Universal Applications tested, they focused on iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes, iDVD, iSquint, BBEdit and Zip Archiving. In these native applications, the Intel iMac was up to 1.82x as fast. Average increase however was closer to 1.2-1.3x, with one test coming in slightly slower (.91x) than the G5 iMac.
Meanwhile, PowerPC applications were tested using Rosetta emulation. They tested iTunes (PowerPC), Photoshop CS2 and Word. The tests showed the Intel iMac to be running .34-.48x as fast as the iMac G5. The performance penalty is expected due to the Rosetta emulation layer allowing PowerPC instructions to be run on the Intel processor.
Apple is preparing to refresh every Mac it sells over the next two years, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
The plans come amid a Mac resurgence, with sales projected to climb for a third consecutive year, partly thanks to a growing following among users who lean on the machines for demanding, agent-based AI workloads.
The wave of new Macs will begin this fall with a refreshed...
Wednesday July 22, 2026 9:10 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple has finished development of a new iMac that it plans to release later this year, according to a report today from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The updated iMac is one of 11 new Mac models that Apple plans to release over the next two years or so.
The next iMac will unsurprisingly have a newer chip, but the report did not indicate if Apple plans to use the existing M5 chip or the upcoming...
Monday August 10, 2026 4:34 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
LG Display is developing a five-layer OLED panel structure that could end up in a future iMac, with an extra layer added to prevent screen burn-in and increase brightness, reports The Elec.
LG Display already builds four-stack OLED panels for high-resolution monitors, and arranges the light-emitting layers in a blue-green-blue-red pattern. The five-stack version reportedly under development...
Apple's first foldable iPhone, with a book-style design featuring a ~5.5-inch outer display and a ~7.8-inch inner display with a minimal crease down the middle.
