Apple’s Mac week: everything announced

Apple appears to have wrapped up its week of Mac announcements — and it had a lot to share. Along with updating several devices across its Mac lineup with a more powerful M4 chip, Apple showed off some revamped accessories, too.

If you want to catch up on all the news, here’s a quick rundown.

The M4 iMac adds new colors and 16GB of RAM

The new iMac comes with an upgraded M4 chip, offering up to a 10-core CPU and a 10-core GPU. It comes with a 24-inch display with an optional “nano-texture glass” to help reduce glare, along with a base 16GB of RAM.

The entry-level iMac starts at $1,299 and has two Thunderbolt 4 ports. There’s also a more expensive $1,499 model with four Thunderbolt 4 ports. The new iMac comes in seven colors: green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, blue, and silver.

The MacBook Pro gets an M4-powered performance boost

Apple is giving its MacBook Pro a big upgrade as well, with three new options featuring a standard M4 chip, an M4 Pro, and its highest-performing M4 Max processor. The MacBook Pro comes in both 14- and 16-inch models with the same nano-texture display option as the iMac. And this time around, the entry-level model starts with 16GB of RAM.

The 14-inch M4 MacBook Pro is priced at $1,599, while the 16-inch model starts at $2,499. The laptops are available in space black and silver finishes.

An even more miniature Mac Mini

The new Mac Mini comes with an M4 chip and 16GB of RAM — all in a smaller package, measuring just five inches in length and width. Despite its size, the Mac Mini comes with several ports, including two USB-C ports and an audio jack on its front, along with ethernet, HDMI, and three Thunderbolt USB-C ports on the back.

The Mac Mini starts at $599 with a standard M4 chip, but Apple bumps the price to $1,399 with the more powerful M4 Pro.

Apple doubles the MacBook Air’s RAM

Even though the MacBook Air didn’t get a full update this time around, Apple is increasing the base amount of RAM that comes with the M2 and M3-equipped versions of the laptops from 8GB to 16GB — likely to account for the addition of Apple Intelligence.

Before this change, it cost $200 more to upgrade the MacBook Air’s RAM to 16GB. But now, both devices will still ship with the extra memory, without a bump in their starting prices.

USB-C comes to Apple’s accessories — without other big changes

Apple has finally brought USB-C to all of its Mac accessories, including the Magic Keyboard, the Magic Trackpad, and the Magic Mouse. While this is great and all, Apple still hasn’t changed the location of the charging port on the Magic Mouse, leaving it on the underside of the device.

The new Magic Mouse starts at $79; the Magic Keyboard starts at $99; and the Magic Trackpad starts at $129.

Apple Intelligence starts rolling out

Apple highlighted the rollout of Apple Intelligence during each of its announcements. The launch introduces AI-powered writing tools and a redesigned Siri on the Mac, iPhone, and iPad, but Apple plans to add other features, like an integration with ChatGPT, in December. You can sign up once your device is updated, but there’s still a waitlist to access the features.