The ship date for the new $5,000 iMac Pro is rapidly approaching, which you likely may not remember given the silence surrounding Apple's desktop since it was revealed by at WWDC in June. The company has given us little new information, so we have to rely on leaks from a couple of code diggers to find that the computer will likely have an ARM A10 Fusion coprocessor and support and always-on "Hey Siri" support.
Noted firmware experts Steven Troughton-Smith, Jonathon Levin and Guilherme Rambo revealed different details over the weekend, pulling the info from a leaked copy of the BridgeOS 2.0. Rambo confirmed that Siri will be part of the new Mac.
Confirmed: "Hey, Siri" is coming to the Mac pic.twitter.com/Dw9bRAzbxD
— Guilherme Rambo (@_inside) November 18, 2017
Troughton-Smith said it is possible that "Hey Siri" would still work even if the iMac Pro was shut down. He further said that the ARM64 processor, an A10 Fusion chip that ran the iPhone 7 and the first for a Mac, would "handle the macOS boot & security process, as expected" in conjunction with Intel's x86 chip, but with the A10 "in control." The chip would also control the 1080p FaceTime camera.
The unit can be configured with either an 8-core, 10-core, and even an 18-core Xeon processor and will be graphically powered by AMD's latest Vega GPU. The iMac Pro will also allow for up to 128GB ECC memory, along with up to 4TB using SSDs. It will have Apple's 5K display and dueling fans to keep the high-end unit running cool.
In addition to the camera, other first time features include a UHS-II SDXC card slot and four Thunderbolt 3 ports.
There is still no official release date for the iMac Pro, short of a December launch window.
Source: The Verge
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