Apple had their "Mac Week" this week. Except it was more like "Mac Part-Week" because they stopped announcing new stuff after three days. I was fully expecting updates across the entire Mac line... iMac, Mac mini, MacBook, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro (or possibly some new Mac-based HomeKit device or wildcard tech).

Instead we got iMac, Mac mini, and MacBook.

Which ain't nuthin', but still.

   
iMAC
I bought the first Apple Silicon iMac with the M1 chip back in 2021. The only thing I didn't like about it was the color. The original yellow model I got was too light and the yellow aluminum looked like urine. It was so bad that I exchanged it for blue because the photo looked nothing like what Apple showed on their website. The new models have deeper, more vibrant colors, so my one complaint was addressed...

My iMac is mostly used for video conferencing. It's exceptional for that. I do work on it too, and the M1 chip is plenty good for the basic stuff I do on it. I won't be upgrading.

   
MAC MINI
The new mini is more mini than ever before. I want one, but not because I need it for anything. I just want one because it's so darn adorable...

The price is pretty good for the power you get. If I didn't have a NAS already, I'd buy one to hook up to a RAID and use it to serve files at home. NAS drives are usually so embarrassingly underpowered with last-gen chips and barely enough memory. With Mac mini I could build a better, faster, more-powerful NAS for the money. But, I don't have a bunch of cash laying around, so I'll just be sticking with what I got. It's fine.

   
MACBOOK
And here we are. The one temptation which might be too good for me to pass up. I skipped last year's M3 Max upgrade because it wasn't a hefty enough upgrade to my M2 Max (which was an upgrade from the year before). But the leap from M2 Max to M4 Max? Well. That's another matter entirely. I use my MacBook for serious work. The most demanding of which is 3D rendering. It takes a lot of power to do that quickly...

The M4 Max is 3.5× faster than M1 Max. So it stands to reason that it's around 2.5× faster than the M2 Max. Or thereabouts. Even if it's just twice as fast, that's a game-changer for me. To finish a render in half the time? I dunno, man. That's a lot of time saved. That might be worth it. And so... I'll be waiting to see the benchmarks. If there's a significant leap, like two times or two-and-half times, then I may not be able to stop myself from upgrading. Dangit anyway. That'll be a good chunk of money I can't afford, even with trade-in. Though the matte display option is kinda the icing on the cake.