New 24-inch iMac in production testing, but won't ship until late 2023

24-inch iMac

A refresh of the 24-inch iMac was anticipated to be held back until the launch of M3 chips, with previous rumors putting a potential launch of the model into very late 2023 or early 2024. It now appears that the release could occur earlier in the latter half of 2023, rather than the next year.

According to Mark Gurman's "Power On" newsletter for Bloomberg, the New iMac has reached EVT, or engineering validation testing, which is a late stage in development which involves production testing.

However, the models won't necessarily enter production immediately, as it is reckoned that mass manufacturing will start in at least three months. This puts a shipment of the model into the second half of 2023, which is better than previous estimates.

The new 24-inch iMac is expected to be the same size as the current model, and have the same color range, but with changes to how the stand attaches and the relocation of some internal components. With development supposedly coinciding with the M3 chip timeline, the iMac may become one of the first to use chips from that generation.

The timing from serial leaker Gurman seems plausible, since this would put the iMac as updating about 2 and a half years after launch, rather than three for a 2024 launch. However, Gurman is also the source of the previous late-2023 and early-2024 timescale, with no other corroborating leakers at this time.

Along with the iMac, Gurman claims three new Macs will be arriving between late spring and summer. The list includes the rumored New MacBook Air with a 15-inch display, though rumors have previously claimed a late-2023 release was happening.

Gurman also refers to an updated 13-inch MacBook Air, as well as a first Mac Pro with Apple Silicon, though the latter is a long-rumored Mac that may not necessarily land in the short term with its potentially complex chip setup, depending on which rumors you believe.