Mac Mini Expected to Receive First Major Redesign Since 2010 Very Soon

[dannyyankou]

As small as an Apple TV would be impressive.

 

[OneDunya]

I have the M1 Mac mini and it is still going strong. Apple's products are so well made that I tend to keep them a long time. I still have an older iPhone and iPad as well.

 

[Chuckeee]

As small as an Apple TV would be impressive.

But all of the rumors have been indicating it would be taller.

 

[Cirillo Gherardo]

Apple's laptops are the cream of the crop for the industry, purely in terms of elegance and performance-per-watt, not necessarily connectivity. You can't deny that.

I can absolutely deny that. They are the best laptops that exist. Period.

 

[CWallace]

With an M4 Pro, not sure I can rationalize the extra expense of a Studio upgrade. Maybe I’ll be surprised.

While I am in no hurry to replace my M2 Mac Studio, for me the difference will come down to what an Mx Pro Mini with 32GB costs compared to what an Mx Studio with 32GB costs.

Are people really excited that the Mac mini being redesigned to be smaller will inevitably mean the continuation of Tim Cook's corporate greed-based anti-consumer decision to prevent the entire Macintosh line from having upgradable memory and upgradable hard drives?

That ship sailed a long time ago and it is never going to return to port.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

It doesn't need to be smaller. It needs RAM expandable to 128GB, TB5, on-board FPGAs for Audio plugins (public frameworks for 3rd party plugins, 256GB for Studio and 2x FPGAs).

 

[AAPLGeek]

As small as an Apple TV would be impressive.

And probably noisy if you do anything more stressful than browse Facebook

 

[polyphenol]

I wish Apple would completely rethink the Mac mini and make it stackable.

• 2024 - Buy your first Mac mini.
• 2025 - Buy the next Mac mini, not to replace your original, but to supplement it. Just stack on top and plug it in with a single cable for all power and communications. It becomes part of the "mesh".
• 2026 - Repeat.

Over time, you get a more and more powerful computer, not by replacing, but upgrading incrementally.

That's the opportunity that Apple has here.

Whether they stack, or go side-by-side, I absolutely agree with the idea of more-or-less daisy chaining them.

Further, while you speak of one person adding a mini, those who want to run shedloads could do so from the start.

 

[ignatius345]

the Fusion drive in my 2014 iMac 5K which was my music machine just went kaput so I need a new machine now.

Amazed you got this far with it! My 2014 5K fusion drive died like 3 years ago.

It's like a couple hours' work to cut it open, yank out the HDD and replace it with an SSD, if you're handy and take it step by step. I think I spent maybe $250 on a repair kit from iFixit and a 1TB SSD. All that said, even with the SSD inside it was still massively slower than the M1 iMac I replaced it with...

 

[polyphenol]

Amazed you got this far with it! My 2014 5K fusion drive died like 3 years ago.

It's like a couple hours' work to cut it open, yank out the HDD and replace it with an SSD, if you're handy and take it step by step. I think I spent maybe $250 on a repair kit from iFixit and a 1TB SSD. All that said, even with the SSD inside it was still massively slower than the M1 iMac I replaced it with...

Partner recently got an M3 iMac - which largely replaces an iMac from about 2016. She reports the speed difference is incredible.

And I remember the difference replacing the old hard drive in a 21.5" iMac (can't remember year - but old!) by an SSD made. And that changed it from unusable to quite decent - for a while.

 

[altaic]

I run my home automation software and eight outdoor security video cameras 24/7 with a 2019 Intel Mac Mini. I'm so looking forward to an M4 Mini with faster video processing and much lower power dissipation. My current Mini does get pretty warm simultaneously processing eight hi-rez video streams (along with everything else).

What software do you run, if you don’t mind me asking? I’m considering rolling my own with some ML features and releasing it open source. As of a year or so ago, the OSS options weren’t great.

 

[Slix]

I dont see the point of making a small desktop.

Do you like your desk looking like this?

 

[Orange Bat]

Genuine question. Does anyone actually want the Mac mini to be smaller? Who would take smaller over more ports, or heaven forfend some user servicable parts.

I would generally like a slightly smaller footprint from the Mini. It wouldn’t have to be Apple TV small, but from the teardowns I’ve seen there is a lot of empty space inside a Mini. Smaller, even if a little taller, would really fit well under my monitors.

 

[klasma]

I can absolutely deny that. They are the best laptops that exist. Period.

Only if you want to run macOS. In which case they are the only laptops that exist.

 

[ignatius345]

I have the M1 Mac mini and it is still going strong. Apple's products are so well made that I tend to keep them a long time. I still have an older iPhone and iPad as well.

I work at a small design firm and we're all running M1 Minis, I think with 16 GB RAM on all of them. Lots of Illustrator and InDesign plus all the other stuff one ends up running (email, web, office document stuff). They keep up super well. We're all running kind of mediocre 1440p monitors (unfortunately), which probably lightens the load on the graphics.

 

[Corefile]

Max Tech have a video confirming this.

 

[eperitus]

16GB RAM base? Cmon, Apple, you know you gotta do it for AI

 

[tskwara]

The smaller [optionally USB-C-powered] design will bring macOS to iPad and Apple Vision Pro by way of Virtual Mac Display and new headless boot support option.

 

[Powerbooky]

Yeah guys, Apple bad, making it smaller is stupid!
If half of the device isn’t empty like the current model, I’m switching to Windows 😤

We're waiting for Mac Invisa, the smallest Mac ever 😁

 

[MichaelDroste]

This is my next machine!!!! Without a computer now… Please release asap lol 😂
I figure: $2200 M4 Pro 32gb ram 2tb SSD

 

[citysnaps]

What software do you run, if you don’t mind me asking? I’m considering rolling my own with some ML features and releasing it open source. As of a year or so ago, the OSS options weren’t great.

Two different apps.

For home automation I use Indigo Domotics' app called Indigo. All of my IR sensors, switches, dimmers, outlets, sirens, etc use Z-Wave for communication. I think they also handle Zigbee as well, but I have no experience with that. For security camera software I use SecuritySpy, by Ben Software. Both have monitoring apps that also run on Macs/iPhones/iPads.

I've been running both on Mac Minis going back 7-8 years. They're well-supported, have loads of features, and have frequent updates. And have a pretty good community of users.

 

[iAssimilated]

This is my next machine!!!! Without a computer now… Please release asap lol 😂
I figure: $2200 M4 Pro 32gb ram 2tb SSD

Being that the M2 Pro 32gb ram 2tb SSD is $2299-$2599, I doubt it will be cheaper.

 

[Eracles]

I think that the US presidential election will push Apple to announce in mid october the new macs, so that they could launch before Halloween.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Yeah all of the recent Macs have been a disaster, LOL.

Oh wait, no, they are the best Macs Apple has ever shipped. Whoops.

Look you, >kaff< as long as I can’t put a gol’ durned Dark Castle floppy disk in there LIKE YOU USED T’ BE ABLE TA DO IN A MAC, then it ain’t no real Mac. I’m waiting fer them to gets back t’ their roots!

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Here's an idea Apple. For the new Minis, more colors. Not just silver, grey, dark grey, space blue or whatever the frak new name for grey color there is. Also not just black or white. Give me colors. You used to be able to do this. Orange, yellow, red, green, blue, COLORS! OR COLOURS!

As for the iMac. How about not just colors but also a 27 inch model? It's not 2006 any more. We can tolerate larger screens.

They’ll sell snap on covers called Foven. And one if their prized colors will be Wine. People will proclaim the wonders of the Wine Foven cases!