A bunch of recently surfaced reports has been hinting at Apple's plan to get rid of its MacOS and as expected, this stirred conversations among professionals. In the bid to take the edge off the rumor, the Cupertino-based tech titan has spilled the beans about its decision to come out with a new Mac Pro with a pro display. It also revealed its plan for the iMac 2017.

Phil Schiller, Apple's SVP of worldwide marketing stated that Apple has big plans for the lauded iMac product line, in an interview with BuzzFeed News. Bearing the pro customer in mind, Apple will start designing configurations of iMac, Schiller added.

While he did not divulge a lot of details about the new configurations, Schiller confirmed touchscreens will not be part of the new features. Elaborating on this, he told BuzzFeed News that Touch is not one of the things pro users are bent on having. On the contrary, they are interested in things such as storage and expandability and performance.

Although it seems to make sense, Schiller's confirmation does not coincide with the tech firm's odd decision to add a Touch Bar on its latest high-end MacBook Pro models, which regrettably, failed to sweep professionals off their feet. Apparently, professionals have been reporting about mediocre battery life and performance, along with a lack of the standard USB expansion ports.

Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering noted that the iMac has seen the incomparable evolution over the past decade. While not many would have thought of the original iMac as remotely touching Pro uses, Federighi told DaringFireBall's John Gruber (via TheGuardian) that the current generation 5K iMac, packed with top configurations is incredibly powerful.

Moreover, tasks that would ideally have required the Mac Pros of old are now being taken care of by the current generation iMac, Federighi added. At the same time, there have been more indications that point to the inclusion of the MacBook Pro's lauded Touch Bar OLED touchscreen on Apple's iMac and even the Mac Pro.

Checking into the list of recently awarded patents to Apple thoroughly, and digging through Apple patent applications published by USPTO (US Patent and Trademark Office), PatentlyApple (via BGR) ferreted out more documentation that suggests both the iMac and the Mac Pro might soon get the Touch Bar with Touch ID.

The pictures from the latest patents indicate that Apple may be hard at works on Magic Keyboards that would comprise the same Touch Bar. If this comes to fruition, Touch Bar functionality and fingerprint unlocking will be possible on the iMac and Mac Pro. It's worth noting that the new Magic Keyboard could also be incorporated in the MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and the MacBook models.

iMac 2017 Release Date

While Apple has kept the iMac 2017's release date under wraps, the company could probably stick to its pattern of refreshing its desktop computers towards the end of the years. Nevertheless, more concrete details are likely to surface online sooner rather than later.

Watch this space for more iMac 2017 related news and updates!