The new Mac mini is almost certainly coming

[JippaLippa]

I'm returning my mbpro 16" as the macbook format isn't for me (certantly not at the 5K I spent), however working on my Mini M1 for an additional 4 months would be true hell...

Is there any hope to see the new minis earlier than april?
Will apple do no events before that date?

 

[MajorFubar]

I'm returning my mbpro 16" as the macbook format isn't for me (certantly not at the 5K I spent), however working on my Mini M1 for an additional 4 months would be true hell...

Is there any hope to see the new minis earlier than april?
Will apple do no events before that date?

Can't you plug it into the peripherals you use with your Mini?

 

[Neodym]

working on my Mini M1 for an additional 4 months would be true hell...

Why would working on an M1 mini be „true hell“ to you? Is the M1 Pro/Max really that much faster for your use case or do you have other reasons? After all the M1 mini is not actually a slow machine by any means.

Reason why I’m asking is that I’m in a similar position: I can bring the UHD-630 in the 2018 mini to a screeching halt by simply handling 3d objects. Thus I am wondering whether I should switch to an M1 asap or rather hold out for an M1 Pro/Max mini for performance, Ram and ports improvements.

 

[EugW]

Why would working on an M1 mini be „true hell“ to you? Is the M1 Pro/Max really that much faster for your use case or do you have other reasons? After all the M1 mini is not actually a slow machine by any means.

Reason why I’m asking is that I’m in a similar position: I can bring the UHD-630 in the 2018 mini to a screeching halt by simply handling 3d objects. Thus I am wondering whether I should switch to an M1 asap or rather hold out for an M1 Pro/Max mini for performance, Ram and ports improvements.

3D? Wait!

I guess it depends on how much you'd tax the machine and how important this is to you, but it seems like you may be a user that can actually make use of the power of an M1 Pro or Max. I also wonder if you might be a user that might actually benefit from 32 GB RAM too.

 

[killawat]

Why would working on an M1 mini be „true hell“ to you? Is the M1 Pro/Max really that much faster for your use case or do you have other reasons? After all the M1 mini is not actually a slow machine by any means.

Reason why I’m asking is that I’m in a similar position: I can bring the UHD-630 in the 2018 mini to a screeching halt by simply handling 3d objects. Thus I am wondering whether I should switch to an M1 asap or rather hold out for an M1 Pro/Max mini for performance, Ram and ports improvements.

I'm in a similar position. The UHD-630 is complete garbage. I actually have an eGPU case but no GPU to put in it (what????). A M1 Mac mini would be cheaper than an GPU. Just suffer through it for now. Although the M1 is no slouch, we could see an M2.

 

[EugW]

I'm in a similar position. The UHD-630 is complete garbage. I actually have an eGPU case but no GPU to put in it (what????). A M1 Mac mini would be cheaper than an GPU. Just suffer through it for now. Although the M1 is no slouch, we could see an M2.

If you're not going to get an M1 for 3D, I suspect you wouldn't really want an M2 either. The M2 is most likely an evolutionary upgrade over the M1 with an incremental performance improvement.

In contrast, we already know M1 Pro/Max is a huge upgrade over M1 for this sort of stuff.

BTW, I would expect M1 Pro/Max would come out first anyway, with M2 coming later.

 

[killawat]

BTW, I would expect M1 Pro/Max would come out first anyway, with M2 coming later.

Good point. Yes I expect the M1 Pro/Max to be released first as well. I don't need extreme 3D performance but I do need a decent amount of RAM. From what I can tell, the M1 based Macs max out at 16 GB which would not be enough for my workload (containers, VMs, app dev). I need at least 32. I am currently at 64 GB and it is quite roomy.

 

[JippaLippa]

Why would working on an M1 mini be „true hell“ to you? Is the M1 Pro/Max really that much faster for your use case or do you have other reasons? After all the M1 mini is not actually a slow machine by any means.

Reason why I’m asking is that I’m in a similar position: I can bring the UHD-630 in the 2018 mini to a screeching halt by simply handling 3d objects. Thus I am wondering whether I should switch to an M1 asap or rather hold out for an M1 Pro/Max mini for performance, Ram and ports improvements.

As you might have guessed by my avatar, I mostly work in After Effects, and as much as I don't work on hollywood films, I still have to deal with complex timelines and continuous rasterization of vector assets.
I can tell you that the M1 Max, while not miraculous, it makes everything so muchs snappier, especially GPU wise.
Also having 64GB of ram is heaven if compared to 16.
Naturally After Effects, while actually having a usable beta, still needs to be fully optimized for apple silicon.
Ideally I'd get a "low tier" apple silicon mac pro or an imac, but I'm sure an M1 Max imac would cost more than my macbook, not to mention a version with 2 of those chips...
Considering the machines wil realistically be delivered in early may, "losing" 5 months of work isn't an easy decision to make.
The macbook, while not being a very laptop person myself, is an M1 Max I could use now instead of living in the promise of a new machine in mid 2022.
I'd also be able to get an external display with the extra money I'd save in these 5 months.

With regards to your situation, it depends if you can afford to wait the time (assuming the new minis will be available this spring). Also I don't think the high end minis will have anything beyond the M1 Max, therefore I'm not sure you'll find 128GB of Ram in the Minis.
Personally 64GB is the sweet spot for my workflow.

Considering how gaming is my second passion (after my job) I'm thinking of returning my mbpro and get a 2.5k $ gaming machine I'd play and work on for the next 4 months, as I'd still have half the money saved (I paid 5K for my macbook) and I could make the difference back with my job.
I strongly prefer macOS but I grew up with Windows, therefore I can still use it, although I really don't enjoy it.

 

[Neodym]

Personally 64GB is the sweet spot for my workflow.

Reading this makes you realize you're old, remembering the days when 64kiloBytes were all the rage ... :-D

 

[LFO8]

What makes your current M1 mini 'True Hell'?

Edit: nvm.. I see the question has been answered already.

 

[MNLondon]

Hi,

i work in an Apple Reseller and like many of you i'm waiting for the mini 2013 refresh.

From monday the two major Apple suppliers in Italy are suddenly and completely out of stock of minis. I know that this happen from time to time, but the timing is no coincidence.

Trust me, a new mini is coming next week, or at least we have solid evidence to believe it.

I think March is the best bet.

I'm waiting for a Mac mini M1ProMax which I hope won't cost much more than £2000. I already have the screens ready. I think it'll be a best seller, especially for the people who use these in racks as servers. Come on Apple, you can do it!

 

[JippaLippa]

Reading this makes you realize you're old, remembering the days when 64kiloBytes were all the rage ... :-D

My first computer (that was actually mine) had 512MBs of ram.
Was a decent amount for late 2003.
On the other hand, I have been using computers since 1995 when I was a kid.
As much as I adore macOS, my childhood was on Windows 95

 

[fastlanephil]

I think March is the best bet.

I'm waiting for a Mac mini M1ProMax which I hope won't cost much more than £2000. I already have the screens ready. I think it'll be a best seller, especially for the people who use these in racks as servers. Come on Apple, you can do it!

It looks to me like the larger screened iMac(s) will be the next desktop to be released by Apple. At least that’s the what the rumors and leakers are saying. No hints of a new Mac Mini coming anytime soon.

 

[Jorbanead]

It looks to me like the larger screened iMac(s) will be the next desktop to be released by Apple. At least that’s the what the rumors and leakers are saying. No hints of a new Mac Mini coming anytime soon.

They can release more than one product at once - and if there is an event, they more than likely would release multiple macs at once.

Remember the last Mac mini had absolutely zero rumors before the event. It’s one of Apples least-popular macs so it doesn’t generally receive the same amount of attention as their notebooks. We actually have way more rumors about the next mini than we ever have about any mini in the past.

Also Gurman, who is the most accurate leaker by volume, said the mini was coming in the months after the MacBook Pro announcement.

 

[Cape Dave]

I KNOW a new Mini is coming VERY soon. Because I just bought the M1 Mini and set it up and I LOVE it. So Murphy's Law states that within ONE week after my return date has passed, a new Mini will be announced. I think we all know this to be the most accurate way to predict a new Mini, right? On a separate note, does anyone want to buy a almost new M1 Mac Mini? LOL! Merry Christmas to all.

 

[sublunar]

I KNOW a new Mini is coming VERY soon. Because I just bought the M1 Mini and set it up and I LOVE it. So Murphy's Law states that within ONE week after my return date has passed, a new Mini will be announced. I think we all know this to be the most accurate way to predict a new Mini, right? On a separate note, does anyone want to buy a almost new M1 Mac Mini? LOL! Merry Christmas to all.

Nice to know you took one for the team 😂

Merry Xmas all

 

[JippaLippa]

I KNOW a new Mini is coming VERY soon. Because I just bought the M1 Mini and set it up and I LOVE it. So Murphy's Law states that within ONE week after my return date has passed, a new Mini will be announced. I think we all know this to be the most accurate way to predict a new Mini, right? On a separate note, does anyone want to buy a almost new M1 Mac Mini? LOL! Merry Christmas to all.

The M1 Mini is a glorious machine, and the only reason I'll keep my mbpro16 or send it back and buy a high end mini in spring is because I just need more ram and gpu for my workflow.
That said I heroically did motion design work on it for a year and despite everything, I survived.
The mac mini M1 is just such a great machine and I even love the form factor and IO, a good mix of USB A and Thunderbolt ports.
It'll be a sad time when I'll sell it, which will either be now or in april.

 

[EugW]

I KNOW a new Mini is coming VERY soon. Because I just bought the M1 Mini and set it up and I LOVE it. So Murphy's Law states that within ONE week after my return date has passed, a new Mini will be announced. I think we all know this to be the most accurate way to predict a new Mini, right? On a separate note, does anyone want to buy a almost new M1 Mac Mini? LOL! Merry Christmas to all.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. I am quite sure the M1 Pro/Max will be in a higher tier price class. If the M1 mini serves your purposes then great, you've saved a few hundred bux. It will eventually likely get replaced by an M2 in a similar price class, but I don't see that happening in the next 6 months.

My main issues with the M1 Mac mini are:

1) Design. I want a new form factor. Just because. I'm convinced the M1 Pro/Max and M2 will have a new design. The current design represents the last decade, of Intel. The new design will represent the next decade, of Apple Silicon.

2) Ports. There are just not very many. However, I don't foresee the M2 Mac mini gaining ports either. That would be for the higher priced M1 Pro/Max. My dilemma is that I don't need even M1 performance but I'm less than impressed with the M1 mini's port selection, so I'll have to decide if want to save money and make do with few ports, or bite the bullet and get a needlessly overpowered machine (for me) with more ports. Most 3rd party hubs suck and introduce other problems.

3) Reported wireless and monitor compatibility issues. It's hard to separate out what is Apple's fault and what is not, but nonetheless I tend to avoid 1st gen designs partially because of stuff like this.

 

[sublunar]

I wouldn't worry about it too much. I am quite sure the M1 Pro/Max will be in a higher tier price class. If the M1 mini serves your purposes then great, you've saved a few hundred bux. It will eventually likely get replaced by an M2 in a similar price class, but I don't see that happening in the next 6 months.

My main issues with the M1 Mac mini are:

1) Design. I want a new form factor. Just because. I'm convinced the M1 Pro/Max and M2 will have a new design. The current design represents the last decade, of Intel. The new design will represent the next decade, of Apple Silicon.

2) Ports. There are just not very many. However, I don't foresee the M2 Mac mini gaining ports either. That would be for the higher priced M1 Pro/Max. My dilemma is that I don't need even M1 performance but I'm less than impressed with the M1 mini's port selection, so I'll have to decide if want to save money and make do with few ports, or bite the bullet and get a needlessly overpowered machine (for me) with more ports. Most 3rd party hubs suck and introduce other problems.

3) Reported wireless and monitor compatibility issues. It's hard to separate out what is Apple's fault and what is not, but nonetheless I tend to avoid 1st gen designs partially because of stuff like this.

1 and 3 might be linked in some way - years of reports of wifi/bluetooth interference in that form factor coupled with the recent thinner redesign might explain it.

If there weren't any alleged longstanding issues with the current form factor I'm sure some people might not mind using the existing Mac mini form factor if it came back with the additional Thunderbolt port and SD port that is largely expected from looking at the 14" MacBook Pro.

It is designed to cool a 65W TDP CPU, it's silent when the M1 CPU (approx 20W TDP) isn't overly taxed.

Granted, if the M1 Pro is a 60W TDP CPU at full pelt it's probably going to be understandable if the M1 Max would require a more comprehensive cooling solution, especially if M1 Max users are particular about potential noise.

And in that case, any move to make the chassis thinner and make the PSU external would make sense for an M2 variant Mini where wifi might be an important feature.

This would allow the M1 Pro and M1 Max to become entry level options for a future Mac Pro in a bigger case in my view.

With comparisons between the M1 and M1 Pro products, it looks like Apple don't intend for the M1 or M2 to have more than 2 Thunderbolt ports (although it's handy that each one has its own controller).

In your situation a thunderbolt Dock might add the extra ports you need. And by the time the M2 CPU is launched it's possible that they will be fully fledged Thunderbolt 4 ports like with the M1 Pro/Max.

 

[theluggage]

Reading this makes you realize you're old, remembering the days when 64kiloBytes were all the rage ... :-D

64k? luxury! When I were a lad I 'ad 4k and I were grateful. an' we 'ad to lick the EPROMs clean with our tongues*, none of this modern Flash malarkey.

(*well, UV light actually, but you tell that to kids today and they don't believe you...)

 

[jazz1]

3D? Wait!

I guess it depends on how much you'd tax the machine and how important this is to you, but it seems like you may be a user that can actually make use of the power of an M1 Pro or Max. I also wonder if you might be a user that might actually benefit from 32 GB RAM too.

Well I have a M1 MacMini with 16GB and I'm pretty tired of the RAM running low, and getting warning dialog boxes. I'm running two monitors, Apple Music, Mail, Messages, or sometimes watching a movie via AppleTV, Hulu, HBO Max, or Amazon Prime Video. I am running 12.1 OS.

Yes, I assume OS memory leaks are probably the culprit, but unless Apple fixes the OS 32 GB of RAM won't do us much good I imagine.

 

[EugW]

1 and 3 might be linked in some way - years of reports of wifi/bluetooth interference in that form factor coupled with the recent thinner redesign might explain it.

Good point. Perhaps the rumoured polycarbonate top would be to directly address the wireless (BT and WiFi) issues.

In your situation a thunderbolt Dock might add the extra ports you need. And by the time the M2 CPU is launched it's possible that they will be fully fledged Thunderbolt 4 ports like with the M1 Pro/Max.

As you know, docks and hubs often introduce their own problems, take up more space, and of course cost money. In fact, the better Thunderbolt docks often cost a couple of hundred US dollars. There are a lot of cheaper non-Thunderbolt USB-C docks in the US$70 to US$100 range too, but they sometimes have even more problems. The other factor is that sometimes with OS updates, they may lose functionality. Given that context, that is the reason why I may be willing to just suck it up and pay the extra money to get the ports built into the Mac mini. And Apple counts on this for the upsell. 😕

A kinda stupid but nonetheless illustrative example:

With my current Mac mini, I've gone through 4 different "USB hubs" (a monitor with USB hub, a keyboard with USB hub, and 2 regular USB hubs) just to get my RF mouse (which I prefer to use for my Mac mini) to be able to wake up my current Mac mini. Weirdly enough, plugging the RF transmitter into my 30" Cinema Display usually works fine, except that it won't wake the Mac from sleep. Plugging the RF transmitter into my older wired Apple keyboard also works fine, but again won't wake up the Mac. This is a minor issue as I can simply wake it up from the wired keyboard, but it is annoying nonetheless.

It wakes it up fine directly plugged into the Mac mini. I then tried a USB hub. That didn't work. I then tried another USB hub and it works through that one, but only through specific ports.

Another illustrative example:

If I plug my Cinema Display's USB connector into a USB hub, usually the monitor display controls in macOS Monterey work fine, but very occasionally they stop working after wake from sleep until I log out and log back in. I've tried multiple hubs, with the exact same results.

However, if plug that Cinema Display's USB connector directly into the Mac mini, the monitor display controls in macOS work fine, always.

 

[Boyd01]

64k? luxury! When I were a lad I 'ad 4k and I were grateful.

I got one of the first Apple ][ computers in 1978, with a HUGE 16k memory. The base model only had 4kb, and that was not enough to load floating point BASIC. The system ROM only contained integer BASIC and you had to load floating point in to RAM from a casette tape. I can no longer remember the details, but for some reason only 48k of the address space was available to users, I think 16k was allocated to ROM. But (IIRC) the original ROM was only 4k, so that left a "hole" in the memory you couldn't use.

Later, they introduced something called an "Applesoft Card" (IIRC) which replaced the original ROM with a full 16k ROM that had floating point BASIC burned into it. No more loading it from tape every time! I think they rolled out the first floppy drive about that same time - it was expensive, but of course I got one!

You could buy a nice M1 Mini today for what I paid for my original 16k Apple ][, I think it was around $1400. And you had to provide you own monitor and cassette recorder too!

 

[JippaLippa]

Sent my mbpro 16" back, now the waiting game starts again...
It is 30% exciting 70% annoying, but now I'm waiting even more.
What I'm afraid of is:

- Apple releases the high end mac mini long after the new imac, to avoud compromising the latter's sales.

- Apple decides to keep the mac mini at a lower tier than the macbooks and imacs, limiting it to the M1 Pro or the M2.

I really hope for some kind of miracle Apple will host an event before spring and unveil the mac mini, especially giving the fact it's a "minor" part of their lineup.
This would free up spring for the iMac and new iPads, summer for the WWDC, september for the iPhone and October for the mac Pro.

 

[LFO8]

It's humorous that a M1 Pro based mini is now considered 'limiting' 😂