100% agree. The Mac part makes all the difference. Whilst they are annoying as hell (price and lack of extra usabilty features), they are quality.
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Apple's 2024 M4 Mac Mini: What We Know
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Thought they would have with the Mac Mini Pro, but they didn't. I'm ok with it as personally I'm Space Grayed out. To me Silver never gets old/dated.
I wouldn't suggest they call it that haha! Just always thought Space Grey indicated more of a pro device in Apple's color scheme, at least for MacBooks...
A Mac Mini with the M4 Pro would actually be a serious powerhouse (and ideally a relatively cheap one). 🫢
16GB or more of RAM should be base 🙏 Some ports on the front.
Space Grey would indeed be cool if it brought the right specs and performance to the table.
Apple does need to be careful with the name; made that ridiculous example to show they've been a bit generous in labeling things "Pro". Maybe say it with Space Grey instead?
The way things are going, 16 should be the base model for all of the lineups. However, Apple seems to love people to move up lines faster. Ever notice how Mini with 8 gigs tend to show up shortly after in the refurbs?
PLEASE apple for the love of whoever! Please if you give us a M4 chip include 16GB as the default! C’mon quit being greedy punks! It’s 2024 and you should be ashamed to release any ipad or phone with less 128GB of storage and anything less than 16GB of ram on any laptop or desktop. C’mon!!
but they want more $ from you thats how it works
Upgradable storage will not come back to the Mac.
Spot on. 8gb will be fine for the majority of Apple customers - why should they pay for more that they'll never use?
People should purchase whatever the amount of ram they actually need. Though I recognize that would give many one less thing to be unhappy and complain about.
Mini M2 Pro user here. The AI noise reduction in Lightroom is painfully slow. I'm all for upgrade if the M4 chip makes it faster.
While I care about RAM, I want to know will there be a 16/512 M4 non-pro SKU so that we won’t have to custom build from Apple?
Right now the only 16/512 SKU for the mini is the M2 Pro configuration. If you don’t want a pro chip, you gotta go through Apple’s nickel-and-dime upgrades.
Right now the only 16/512 SKU for the mini is the M2 Pro configuration. If you don’t want a pro chip, you gotta go through Apple’s nickel-and-dime upgrades.
I can think of two possible technical reasons: the need to pull out and reserve PCI lanes* for a socket that may not be used by a lot of buyers, and the extra heat an NVMe stick would generate, especially assuming the socket is put on the underside of the machine. PCIe Gen 5 support would be even more of a thermal issue. Seems like something they'd want to reserve for at least a "thick" Mini, aka Studio, with a better fan.
There's also the terrible marketing segmentation reason, of course: sadly, room for more internal storage is one of the few reasons to buy a Pro any more. And you'd still have to buy a PCIe card with the NVMe slots you needed.
*Do they even have a PCI controller in the M* chips, or would they have to add one? How is it handled in the 2023 Pros, which do have PCIe ports?
For more advanced work, the studio is a better value
I know they're just rumors, and therefore worthless, but if true this backs up what we all figured - that Apple would skip the M3-based desktops (aside from the iMac) and go straight to M4s.
Except for everyone who swore up and down in this thread that there would be M3 Minis, this move was expected. I just wish it was sooner rather than later!
Except for everyone who swore up and down in this thread that there would be M3 Minis, this move was expected. I just wish it was sooner rather than later!
Apple is working to refresh the entire Mac lineup with chips in the M4 series, and the Mac mini could get an update as soon as late 2024. Apple is expected to skip the M3 chip, going straight from M2 to M4.
This guide highlights everything that we know about the Mac mini refresh so far.
Design
Apple hasn't changed the Mac mini design in many years, and there are no rumors of a design update coming in 2024. Apple did make the Mac mini a little bit thicker and lighter when it was refreshed in 2023, and that same design will likely be used for the 2024 model.
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said in January that the "next new Mac mini" will have the same "form factor design." Back in 2021, there were rumors that Apple was working on a Mac mini with a plexiglass top and other design changes, but that device never materialized.
The Mac mini is Apple's smallest, most portable desktop machine, measuring in at 7.75 inches square and 1.41 inches thick. The Mac mini is meant to be connected to a standalone display, keyboard, and mouse, and it does not ship with those accessories.
M4 Chip
The Mac mini will be equipped with Apple's M4 and M4 Pro chips, with Apple skipping the M3 line entirely and going from M2 to M4.
Apple introduced the M4 chip in the iPad Pro, and the chip is built on a second-generation 3-nanometer technology. Compared to the M2 chip, the M4 chip offers 50 percent faster CPU performance and up to 4x faster rendering performance.
The M4 chip features a 10-core CPU and a 10-core GPU. There is a variant of the M4 with a 9-core CPU, but Apple is unlikely to use it in the Mac mini, instead reserving it for the iPad Pro and a future MacBook Air.
There is also a more advanced 16-core Neural Engine and the GPU supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing, a feature not available with the M2. According to Apple, the Neural Engine in the M4 chip is an "absolute powerhouse for AI."
We don't yet know details on the M4 Pro because that chip is not expected to come out until later this year.
Release Date
According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the Mac mini will be refreshed alongside the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models in late 2024.
The Mac mini was last refreshed in January 2023, so it will be close to two years old when it is updated. Apple often does Mac refreshes in October or November, so we could see the M4 Mac mini sometime in that timeframe.
Article Link: Apple's 2024 M4 Mac Mini: What We Know
The title says: “What we know.”
Which parts of the article are known and which parts are still rumors and therefore unknown?