Apple gearing up to ship Conroe-based Macs?

Circumstantial evidence

By Tony Smith • Get more from this author

25th August 2006 13:22 GMT

Is Apple about to upgrade its Mac Mini and iMac consumer computers? One blogger reckons so after a big order for Mac Minis was rejected by his usual supplier. The reseller told him he would be able to order the kit from 5 September onwards.

What makes the posting worthy of note is that the same thing happened some seven months ago, days before Apple launched its Intel-based Mac Minis on 28 February.

Is history repeating itself? Interestingly, US retailer BestBuy's website has run out of stock of both versions of the Mini and the two iMac desktops Apple currently offers. It's tempting to see this as confirmation, but plenty of other online suppliers in the States do have immediate availability of all four iMacs and Minis. Closer inspection reveals only the 20in iMac is also unavailable from BestBuy's bricks'n'mortar stores, though the 17in model and the 1.66GHz Mini are marked for their "limited availability".

Speculation of late has centred on claims Apple is about to re-launch the MacBook Pro, and possibly the MacBook too, with Intel's mobile Core 2 Duo processor - aka 'Merom'. Last month, Intel said Merom-based notebooks would ship late August.

There's been little discussion of rumoured iMac and Mac Mini CPU updates, largely because they've been overshadowed by the Mac Pro launch, which took place earlier this month. In the event, the Mac Pros shipped with 'Woodcrest' Xeon 5100-series processors and not 'Conroe' Core 2 Duo desktop chips. Apple has no Core 2 Duo-based desktops, so it's hard to imagine the company not considering kitting out at least the iMac with Conroe processors in the near future. ®