The next iMac could be sitting on your desk this summer

Just days after we reported that the M2 iMac may never appear, a new report says that the next generation of Apple's iconic iMac desktop is in the final stages of development and could be with us as early as this summer.

That's according to Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, who says that the iMac is in the Engineering Validation Testing (EVT) phase. That's one of the final steps before a computer goes into production.

Although Gurman says that the 2023 iMac will be more powerful, his sources don't appear to know which specific M-series processor is going to be inside. And it seems that the outside will be largely unchanged.

What to expect from the 2023 iMac

If you're hoping for a 27-inch iMac you're going to be disappointed again: this is a replacement / refresh of the 24-inch model. It's reportedly coming in the same colours as the current model, and while there are some minor external changes – a slightly different attachment method for the stand – the significant changes are all inside.

I'm hoping that as per previous reports the iMac will skip the M2 and go straight to the M3, but I'm not sure this timeline works for that: with the new iMac apparently going into production in three months time, that seems too early for the next generation of Apple silicon – not least because Apple usually puts its most powerful processors in its MacBook Pros before letting them trickle down to its consumer products. 

However, Gurman claims otherwise, saying that "Apple has developed the next iMac on the same timeline as the M3 chip, so I’d expect it to be one of the company’s first M3-based machines." An iMac with a processor more powerful than the 16-inch M2 MacBook Pro seems unlikely to me, but if it's true then this iMac is going to be a seriously compelling upgrade over the current M1 model.