Apple might give the 21.5-inch iMac a 4K Retina treatment

4K 21.5-inch iMac

Apple's next big announcement could be a 4K 21.5-inch iMac if some registery details hidden in OS X El Capitan are to be believed.

A French journalist named Pierre Dandumont, supposedly discovered references to a new retina display resolution of 4,096 x 2,304 in a running beta of OS X El Capitan. Given that the only Apple device to come close to this resolution is the even higher-fidelity 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display, it's likely this new retina device could be the smaller 21.5-inch iMac.

Devil in the details

On top of references to a new screen resolution, Dandumont also claims to have uncovered some new and unannounced graphics chipsets including the Intel Iris Pro 6200. Lines of code in beta version of Apple's next desktop OS also supposedly revealed four new AMD Radeon R9 processors with the model names M380, M390, M395 and M395X.

As MacBook Pro have yet to run anything but Intel processors since the lineup switched from Power PC chipsets back in 2006, it seems even more likely this mystery configuration belongs to a desktop iMac.

That all said, we can only speculate for now.

If this 4K iMac truly exists, it will likely show up at Apple's next event, which will likely also introduce new iPhone 6s, or another event in the fall that could introduce the iPad Air 3 and iPad Mini 4.

Kevin Lee

Kevin Lee was a former computing reporter at TechRadar. Kevin is now the SEO Updates Editor at IGN based in New York. He handles all of the best of tech buying guides while also dipping his hand in the entertainment and games evergreen content. Kevin has over eight years of experience in the tech and games publications with previous bylines at Polygon, PC World, and more. Outside of work, Kevin is major movie buff of cult and bad films. He also regularly plays flight & space sim and racing games. IRL he's a fan of archery, axe throwing, and board games.