Apple may be quietly revisiting an idea it once walked away from.
According to information uncovered in internal Apple software spotted by MacRumors, the iMac Pro, the company’s short-lived professional all-in-one, could be lining up for a return as early as 2026, this time powered by a next-generation Apple M5 Max chip.
The discovery, spotted deep inside Apple’s kernel debug files, points to an unreleased iMac-class machine running a high-end Apple silicon processor. While far from confirmation, it suggests Apple is at least experimenting with the idea of reviving a professional all-in-one, a notable shift given how decisively the original iMac Pro was discontinued.
Apple launched the first iMac Pro back in 2017 as a no-compromise desktop for creatives, pairing Intel Xeon chips with a 27-inch 5K display and a $5,000 starting price. It struggled to find a clear audience and was quietly dropped in 2021 without a successor. Since then, Apple has instead pushed professionals toward modular setups like the Mac Studio and Mac Pro, paired with external displays.
A modern Apple silicon-powered iMac Pro, however, could change that equation. The rumoured M5 Max chip — expected to follow the M4 Max, which already boasts up to 16 CPU cores and 40 GPU cores — would make an all-in-one far more capable for demanding workloads such as 3D rendering, video production, and AI development.
Apple has already launched the base M5 chip this year, but the more powerful Pro and Max variants aren’t expected until 2026, aligning neatly with the timing of this leak.
There’s still plenty we don’t know. The leaked identifiers offer no clues about screen size, though speculation has long pointed toward something larger than the original 27-inch panel, with Bloomberg previously floating the idea of a 32-inch display. Just as importantly, internal testing doesn’t guarantee a product will ever see the light of day.
There’s also a lingering question about demand. Professionals tend to upgrade processors more frequently than displays, which makes all-in-one desktops a harder sell at the high end. That challenge hasn’t gone away, even with Apple silicon’s efficiency gains.
Still, the idea of a powerful, single-piece Mac with a large, colour-accurate display remains appealing to some creatives, and Apple clearly hasn’t forgotten it.
Whether this turns into a full-fledged iMac Pro revival or remains an internal experiment is another matter entirely, but for now, the possibility alone is enough to reignite a long-running debate about what a “pro” Mac should look like.
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