Yep. There's more to graphics capabilities than video editing. The M1 leans heavily into hardware encode/decode because it's a very common task -- but not the only one.
I was wrong, that is true of my late 2013 iMac model as well but requires you know exactly what you are doing.Well I was being more generalized than specific.
The later 21.5" models went back to upgradeable RAM, though you had to pull the screen off to get to it (same with the iMac Pro).
Yes, as mentioned by others, this is the classic Apple move of fleecing the early adopters before the more economical options appear.*
BTW, I was wondering if they'd keep a SKU or two of the high end Intel Mac mini around for the legacy types, even after the high end Apple Silicon Mac mini is introduced. They did this at the last transition. The last of its kind was no longer advertised on the Apple Store online, but there was a link you could click that would take you to a single legacy option for those that needed it. I think they kept the legacy model around for an entire year after the whole line was already transitioned.
Well Apple's refurb section currently goes back to 2017 for iMac, iMac Pro, 2018 adds in the Mini, 2019 gives MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac Pro as options and so on.
Sure, there's that, but some customers prefer to purchase new. Furthermore, Apple's hardware and software support typically lasts for 5-6 years after discontinuation of the product. If you buy a refurbished item that's already been discontinued for 3 years, that might mean there is support for only another 2 years or so.
With Apple officially finishing the transition of its Mac portfolio to Arm chips within this year, I‘m not sure that this support for Intel machines will get the same attention and resource allocation as the M chip Macs.
Perhaps, but that's not really that important for people who need these for mission critical business usage.
We can look back to PowerPC support when the shift to Intel happened. Snow Leopard (August 28, 2009) was when direct PowerPC support ended (Rosetta lasted until Lion) and the first Intel Mac were publicly available January 2006.
When we talk about business use, I would expect the majority of Intel-based machines to be switched to AppleSilicon way before official support runs out:
I would recommend migration to AS earlier than later too of course, but we all know that doesn’t always happen.
Apple might support them with upgrades but it will likely make them run like poo. I don't expect my Intel 2018 mini to run well much past 5 years. It runs wonderful right now on Monterey and 32 GB memory with a 4k monitor. But she is over 3 years old. Apple definitely wants people like me to upgrade and give them money.Apple has a clear policy of supporting Macs for at least 5 years after they were discontinued. So, the Intel Mini's that are still being sold should be supported until 2027 or 2028, maybe even 2029 if they continue selling them into 2023.
Obtaining service for your Apple product after an expired warranty - Apple Support
Learn about your options for getting service and parts for Apple devices that are past their warranty period.support.apple.com
I boot my 2013 iMac off of a 1 TB SSD and that has sped it up substantially - it not longer takes an insane amount of time to boot up (though Apple's patch of the ROM means I have to boot to the internet to get to it boot off the SSD if I have other drive attached). I have plans to eventually replace it with a mini and a monitor (its cheaper).
We replaced the Fusion drive in our 2013 iMac but it is stuck on Mojave, which is no longer supported. And Safari in Mojave is pretty dated. It's my husband's machine. He likes it. At work he has a 2018 Mac Mini (like mine). We no longer support all in 1 machines after our 2013 iMac had the monitor die and we had to place another monitor in front of it to get it to work. We swapped parts around with another 2013 and made one that worked. The monitor died just after 3 years. Terrible for a $2200 machine. I'm waiting for Mojave to have problems with iCloud as macOS gets upgraded each year and they sometimes mess with iCloud when doing so.
A Mac mini with M1 Pro would probably be in the $1500-1800 price range so not sure that it would kill Studio sales.
Then let’s hope for a $1499 maxed out M1 Pro on the mini!
Have you seen details of the Studio power consumption? All I can find is the Apple figure of 370W maximum continuous power, which will likely only be for the M1 Ultra, and in extreme circumstances. The Mini is 150W by the same measure.
Yea I’ve seen those numbers too, but I’m pretty sure a Pro will still consume less energy than the Max in high performance tasks, right?
That is the rating of the power supply. It is scaled to be able to supply power to the SOC and to all of those thunderbolt/USB ports.
Well, that is the difficult question for Apple. They once went nearly bankrupt for trying to offer a multitude of devices at various price points to have all bases covered. First action Steve did after his return in that situation was to cut most of the SKU‘s and have the company focus on a few select core items and do those right.
