Apple quietly discontinues the 21.5-inch Intel-powered iMac

Apple has apparently pulled its 21.5-inch Intel-based iMac from shelves (via MacRumors). Its discontinuation doesn’t come as much of a surprise, now that Apple is transitioning from using Intel processors to its in-house M1 chip.

The 21.5-inch iMac was still available after Apple’s October 18th Unleashed event — it didn’t appear to go missing until sometime this week, according to MacRumors. The $1,099 21.5-inch iMac, which came with a 2.3GHz dual-core 7th-Gen Intel Core i5 and an Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640, is no longer found on the list of available iMacs on Apple’s online store. A “Buy” button also doesn’t appear for the 21.5-inch iMac on Apple’s product comparison page.

We reached out to Apple to confirm the changes, but didn’t immediately receive a response. However, the company confirmed to MacRumors that the machine is being discontinued and won’t be sold through Apple’s online store or in its retail stores.

Apple hasn’t eliminated its entire lineup of Intel-based iMacs just yet — it’s still selling the 27-inch Intel-based iMac, which sports up to a 3.6GHz 10-core Intel Core i9 CPU, at a starting price of $1799.99. As MacRumors notes, you can still purchase a refurbished 21.5-inch iMac from Apple’s online store.

In March, Apple discontinued the 512GB and 1TB configurations of the 21.5-inch iMac, so the company has been slowly phasing out this model for a while. And since Apple debuted its thinner, more colorful M1-powered iMacs in April, it only makes sense for Apple to clear some space on its shelves.