While it is true that the 24-inch size is between the old 21.5-inch and 27-inch options, it doesn’t quite fill the gap of the old 27-inch all-in-one. For starters, the 24-inch screen resolution is only 4.5K compared to the full 5K 27-inch iMacs of yore. That means the 27-inch Apple Studio Display yields more screen real estate than the iMac, when coupled with something like a Mac mini or Mac Studio.
The iMac also does not provide top-end performance, only being available with the base M3 chip. The old Intel iMac Pro featured 28-core Xeon CPUs, making them attractive for intensive computational workloads. (The equivalent Apple Silicon M2 Max, M2 Ultra and M3 Max chips are found only in the high-end MacBook Pro models, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro.)
That’s why the 32-inch iMac rumor made so much sense, as it would give pro customers an even bigger screen canvas, and more power, in an all-in-one form factor. The jump from 21.5- to 24-inch would also mirror a similar move from 27- to 32-inch on the high-end.
