27-inch Retina iMac w/ 5K display will arrive by end of year?

According to TrendForce subsidiary WitsView, a firm based in Taiwan, Apple is gearing up to launch a brand new iMac with a 27-inch display and a 5k3K* resolution by the end of this year. “That product is expected to spur a new wave of demand for ultra high-resolution monitors,” WitsView said in its report, which also calls for a new display from Samsung. The report doesn’t offer much else on Apple’s plans, but 9to5Mac reminds us of code found in Yosemite that offers support for higher-res displays all the way up to 6400 x 3400-pixel resolutions.

That’s not the only machine we’re expecting to see from Apple. Recent rumors have also pointed to a new 12-inch MacBook Air with a Retina display and a thinner body.

*Note: The “5K3K” resolution referenced appears to be one with a 5000 x 3000 or more resolution and is the term used by WitsView to identify a 5K display.

There have been several hints that Apple is working on a higher-resolution iMac that would introduce the pixel-doubled Retina resolution mode available to Apple’s Retina display equipped MacBooks. In June, code found in Apple’s upcoming OS X Yosemite release hinted at Retina resolution scaling options for a larger desktop-sized Mac. Those resolutions included 6400 x 3600 (probably a 3200×1800 HiDPI), 5760×3240 (2880×1620 HiDPI) 4096×2304 (2048×1152 HiDPI) resolutions, but didn’t reveal a native resolution for the device in question. Apple also recently added new resolution scaling options and improved support for 4K displays.

WitsView, which closely tracks the display industry and supply chain, claims Apple will release the new 27-inch 5K iMac by the end of the fourth quarter and that the release “is expected to spur a new wave of demand for ultra high-resolution monitors.”

source: techbuffalo, 9to5mac