Apple's 24-Inch M6 iMac Starts at $1,499 and Ships November 6

By Grace Kim

Apple's 24-inch M6 iMac starts at $1,499, opens preorders October 28 at 1:10 p.m. ET, and begins shipping November 6.

The machine retains the thin all-in-one design introduced with the first Apple Silicon iMac in 2021 and comes in seven colors: blue, purple, pink, orange, yellow, green and silver, with color-matched accessories.

Apple calls it “the world’s best all-in-one.” That is a marketing verdict rather than an independent result, but Apple positions the machine as a complete computer and display, and one of the few all-in-one options for users who do not want an external monitor.

The iMac has belonged to Apple's Mac family for nearly 30 years, beginning with the 1998 model. The first M-series iMac used M1; the new machine uses M6, and Apple skipped the M5 generation.

What does the M6 iMac change for photographers and photo businesses?

The M6 is Apple's first 2-nanometer chip, launched in August inside the new Mac mini. Apple says the chip brings its fastest CPU core to date, a more powerful GPU and better memory performance.

The dual 16-core Neural Engine delivers up to twice the previous generation's AI compute for AI models and large language models. Apple says its faster graphics and AI compute benefit photographers and video editors, but the announcement offers no independent results.

Photographers get a more specific claim: the M6 iMac delivers up to 3.3 times faster graphics performance than the M1 iMac for photo editing in Affinity, and up to twice the performance of the M4. More than three times the M1 graphics performance is a workload-dependent comparison, and the announcement does not detail the matching test conditions.

That does not mean every application will run 3.3 times faster; the benchmark names Affinity photo editing, and Apple supplies no independent test results, power measurements or thermal data.

For working photographers and photo businesses, the practical change is the claimed speed of an integrated editing setup. Graphics-bound Affinity work receives the largest advertised lift, while faster file movement and multi-display support target studio and client-delivery bottlenecks. The unchanged display specification leaves color-critical work unchanged.

Apple also adds Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. The 2.5Gb Ethernet port claims up to 2.5 times faster wired connectivity than the previous iMac generation.

“This means faster transfers of large files, smoother streaming of high-resolution content, and even better performance for gaming and demanding business workflows,” Apple says.

The internal SSD also claims up to twice the previous generation's read and write speeds. Those claims point toward faster movement of large media files, but Apple publishes no absolute transfer rates, so buyers cannot translate the multiple into seconds saved.

The iMac includes up to four Thunderbolt 4 ports and supports up to two external 6K displays alongside its built-in screen. That combination can serve a photographer running reference and editing views without giving up the center display.

Apple rates the built-in panel at up to 500 nits on the same 4.5K Retina display. The announcement gives no color-gamut or calibration figures, so brightness alone does not establish a professional color-monitoring use case.

It also retains a 12-megapixel Center Stage camera, two force-canceling woofers, a pair of tweeters and Dolby Atmos support.

Shelly Goldberg, Apple's vice president of Hardware Engineering, said: “iMac is the world’s best all-in-one, and today it raises the bar yet again.”

Goldberg paired that claim with M6 performance, next-generation Apple Intelligence with Siri AI, the 24-inch Retina display, seven vibrant colors and macOS 27. She said the package gives users what they need “to run their businesses, manage their lives, and bring their ideas to life.”

The software and AI claims remain unbenchmarked in the announcement. Apple does not identify local versus cloud processing, specific model support or productivity gains for photo editing, leaving agencies and freelancers to assess practical value after release.

Price, configurations and shipping

• Base model: $1,499, with a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16GB unified memory and 256GB storage.
• Higher-core model: 12 CPU cores and 12 GPU cores, starting at $1,699, a $200 premium over the base starting price.
• Memory and storage: Configurations reach up to 32GB unified memory and 2TB internal storage; Apple has not quoted separate upgrade prices here.
• Display and mounting: A $200 nano-texture glass upgrade; VESA Mount Adapter at no additional charge.

For working photographers, the relevant comparison is the base model's 16GB and 256GB against the maximum 32GB and 2TB configuration. The higher-core model's $200 starting-price premium is clear; Apple does not disclose separate memory and storage premiums.

Preorders open October 28 at 1:10 p.m. ET, equivalent to 10:10 a.m. PT. The first iMacs ship November 6.

The next purchasing checkpoint is October 28; independent testing after the November 6 shipments will show whether Apple's claimed 3.3-times Affinity gain, doubled AI compute and faster storage and networking translate into measurable savings for paid photo work.