Alas, I have in the past year gone from an optimistic soonish, to a pessimistic never.
Still, who knows? Sometimes I wonder if Apple know what they are about…
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Poll: When do you think the new Mac Mini is almost certainly coming?
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Still, who knows? Sometimes I wonder if Apple know what they are about…
We know Apple are working on a new modular Mac Pro because they told us so.
What if this modular idea has spread internally at Apple, like something I've talked about before? A common main board that can be used in the Mac mini, the iMac and the MacBook.
Look at the MacBook logic board. It's almost a rectangle. Make it more generic with a secondary board for each machine in order to connect to the external/internal ports and displays/connectors. That logic board above fits inside the MacBook so it can certainly fit inside a smaller Mac mini and there's no question that it can fit inside any iMac.
Benefits:
You need speed and power? Buy a MacBook Pro, iMac Pro or the future Mac Pro. This would also explain the iMac Pro which right now seems out of place in the line-up but would make perfect sense in a world where entry-level Macs are ARM-powered.
What if this modular idea has spread internally at Apple, like something I've talked about before? A common main board that can be used in the Mac mini, the iMac and the MacBook.
Look at the MacBook logic board. It's almost a rectangle. Make it more generic with a secondary board for each machine in order to connect to the external/internal ports and displays/connectors. That logic board above fits inside the MacBook so it can certainly fit inside a smaller Mac mini and there's no question that it can fit inside any iMac.
Benefits:
- the Mac mini, iMac and MacBook would always be upgraded at the same time.
- the development and production costs would decrease.
- options would be the same no matter if you choose the mini, iMac or MacBook.
- since they're putting the RAM and SSD right on the logic board anyway right now, options would be kept simple (good, better, best) with CPU/RAM/storage being tied together. They would only need to make three, maybe six logic boards (double RAM options).
- Since everything that requires speed is on the logic boards, no bandwidth problems so it's easier to future-proof the "logic board-to-shell" connectors and could be used for decades. Your iMac shell from 2020 could still be working in 2030 or even 2040.
- the "good, better, best" options, coupled with the year of the board, would make it extremely easy for developers to target a minimum configuration and it would also make it much easier for users to know if their Mac meets the requirements of the software/game (ex: "requires better or best, 8GB RAM, 2020 or later").
- main board upgrades would be possible (even if only done by Apple itself, it would at least be an option and also be environmentally-friendly since you keep using the rest of the machine). Buy a "good with 8GB RAM" board in 2018, upgrade to a "better with 16GB RAM" board in 2020.
- inventory would be simplified at every step (ex: stores would only have shells of Mac mini, iMac and MacBook in store, along with the three/six models of logic boards).
- inventory would take a lot less space (stores wouldn't need to keep an inventory of every model of Mac mini, iMac and MacBook, only shells and stacks of much smaller logic board boxes).
- even though they're still doing a great job right now at keeping macOS compatible with older Macs, upgrading the main board would cost less than replacing the whole thing so more people would upgrade more often, meaning Apple could push macOS development even faster while losing even less users.
- everybody would be happy!
You need speed and power? Buy a MacBook Pro, iMac Pro or the future Mac Pro. This would also explain the iMac Pro which right now seems out of place in the line-up but would make perfect sense in a world where entry-level Macs are ARM-powered.
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I strongly think that the Mac Mini is dead, some day we will wake up in the morning to find that Apple no longer sell it.
I think you're probably right, which is unfortunate for those that really enjoy the machine. Didn't someone at Apple say that they were still committed to the Mini? If that's the case it would look really bad if they then discontinued it only months after saying that. Of course, it has been a long time since Apple was too terribly concerned with perception in some areas.
Did Apple ever “announce” that the Airport was discontinued? IIRC, rumors of its demise surfaced when it was learned that employees who had previously worked on it were moved to other departments. Then there was a long silence (years?) until there were new rumors, and Apple finally confirmed them.
But that sounds like a template for what might happen to the Mini.
OK, you're right: https://www.macrumors.com/2018/04/26/apple-officially-discontinues-airport-wireless-router-lineup/
But that was almost two years after it was pretty widely assumed it had been discontinued: "in late 2016, Bloomberg said that Apple had stopped development on the AirPort lineup with the AirPort engineers reassigned to other products."
That is only speculation from Kuo & co.
However we will see on the 30th October 2018, what they will annonuce and what not. Crossing fingers thou ...
They will update the iPads, that's for sure. And maybe the iMacs.
