Apple to offer all of its 24-inch iMac colors at retail stores in September

Apple will reportedly begin offering all of its current 24-inch iMac colors at its retail store locations, a departure from its current sales strategy for the model.

Ahead of Apple's "California Streaming" event on Sept. 14, Bloomberg reports that no new Macs are likely to debut at the keynote. However, Apple will begin offering yellow, orange, and purple 24-inch iMac models at its Apple Store locations.

Currently, those three colors cannot be purchased in-store and must be ordered online. Apple only has green, pink, blue, and silver models available at Apple Store locations.

In addition to the increased availability at Apple Store, the shift may also allow third-party retailers like Best Buy to offer the additional color options in-store.

Apple is largely expected to debut a refresh of its MacBook Pro lineup with M1 chips in 2021, though it's looking increasingly likely that those models won't debut in September. A more likely scenario is that Apple will hold a second media event sometime in October or November focused on the Mac.

5 Comments

dewme 5739 comments · 10 Years

About 3 years ago

That was a bit of a wait, but it's nice to see it finally happening. There is a one major caveat having to do with the new iMac colors. My wife really wanted a yellow iMac and we waited and waited and waited. But finally after seeing the iMacs in the Apple Store, and seeing how all of the front colors are so muted, and knowing that the iMac was going to be placed up against a wall where the lovely colors will never be seen, she decided that the traditional silver model was actually more to her liking.

I'm sure there are a million reasons Apple decided to tone down the colors on the part of the iMac you actually see when using the computer, but the difference between the front and back (or sides as shown in the picture above) is very jarring. Who knows, maybe putting the subjectively nicer and more satisfying (in my opinion) tones from the back and sides on the front would come off as clownish. Who knows, but just make sure that you look at the front of these before you fall in love with a color that you may very rarely if ever get to see. It's not even subtle, it's possible that you will love the back color, like I like the red tone of the pink model, but at the same time despise the front color, which on the pink model is a My Little Pony pink.

macxpress 5910 comments · 16 Years

About 3 years ago

I'm gonna assume maybe at launch there were production capacity issues so they had to limit where they could sell. Now those seem to be resolved so they can spread their inventory out better.

leighr 256 comments · 15 Years

About 3 years ago

Hmm… perhaps an indication that there may be some colour coordination next Tuesday.

StrangeDays 12964 comments · 8 Years

About 3 years ago

Finally saw these in the store - very impressive little machines. It looks just like a monitor, in fact much sleeker than most monitors, and it’s the entire kit & kaboodle. Obviously not for everyone, but for mainstream users I think they’ll be very popular. And as a developer with a 2019 iMac sitting on my desk, I think even some power users are going to dig them. Just need the bigger models.

rob53 3307 comments · 13 Years

About 3 years ago

Having all colors is great but non-Apple stores having configurations other than the base one would be even nicer. Not the maxed out version but more than just the base model especially since they're impossible to upgrade. I'm sure Apple has some non-base models for sale but Costco and Best Buy only seem to have the base model.