if your usage is this light then why not just get the Air? Why spending more money than you need to?
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The new Mac mini is almost certainly coming
- Thread starter GabrieleR
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My needs are light too, but I want that OLED, and Face ID too. I'd consider an Air with OLED and Touch ID though.
Oled is overrated 
FaceID I do understand but I think Touch ID is better for a lot of things.
FaceID I do understand but I think Touch ID is better for a lot of things.
I prefer iPhones with Touch ID and iPads with Face ID, but ironically I own an iPhone with Face ID and iPad with Touch ID. 🙃Oled is overrated
FaceID I do understand but I think Touch ID is better for a lot of things.
Just a friendly reminder from your neighborhood moderator... let's try to stay on topic, this is the Mac Mini forum.
Hehe, I prefer touchID on the phone too and this year I've finally switched to the Pro (from SE).
Love the phone but sometimes I feel the touchID is just better for certain things.
Love the phone but sometimes I feel the touchID is just better for certain things.
12.9in screen, baby!
Edit: I mean.... 13in MacBook AIR, baby.... And also waiting for an OLED screen on the M2 Pro Mac mini so I can monitor temps and power draw
Yeah, we are waiting for the Mac Mini M2 Pro. Maybe next tuesday we got it via press release?
No Mac mini news to talk about! Even the damn iPad got M2, but the Mac mini didn't.
One thing though, pricing on the iPads in Canada perhaps bodes well for pricing of the M2 Mac mini.
iPad 64 GB - CA$599 / US$435.69 vs. US$449
iPad 256 GB - CA$799 / US$581.16 vs. US$599
That means that both iPad models actually cost 3% more in the US than in Canada.
OTOH, they raised the pricing of the 9th generation iPad. It used to be CA$429 / US$312, but now it's CA$449 / $326.61, a 4.7% increase, but that brings it in line with the US$329 pricing.
For the Mac minis I was convinced they'd increase Canadian pricing by approximately 5%, because of the (small) drop of the CAD vs. the USD. However, now I'm not so sure. They might increase the Mac mini pricing, but they may keep the pricing the same to keep the same psychological price tiers.
M1 8/256 - $899
M1 16/256 - $1149
M1 8/512 - $1149
M1 16/512 - $1399
M1 16/1000 - $1649
Intel 8/512 starts at $1399
They definitely did that with the Apple TV 4K 2022:
Apple TV 64 GB - $179 / US$130.21 vs. $129 in the US.
Apple TV 128 GB - $199 / US$144.75 vs. $149 in the US.
They made the Canadian pricing cheaper just to stay under that CA$200 barrier. Considering the Canadian pricing of the 128 GB model is only US$14.50 more than the 64 GB model, it's a no brainer in Canada to get the 128 GB model which also provides Ethernet too.
How are the prices looking in other countries?
Unfortunately, thats the current climate so nothing to do with Apple.
And it won't get any better for a while.
And it won't get any better for a while.
Correct. Although I will say Apple is always the biggest offender when it comes to passing on exchange rate movements to customers. Most other tech companies I follow and buy from are less aggressive with their price movements. I don't think that comes as a surprise, however. Apple will always be Apple. I suspect they make a small fortune on their currency hedging.
That's why I was a bit surprised they *mostly* didn't pass on the currency exchange changes in Canada... making iPads cheaper in Canada than in the US.
Now we can just hope that Apple actually replaces M1 with M2 in the Mac mini at the same US (and Canadian?) price tiers.
Fingers crossed! I'm just puzzled whilst the iPad went up in price massively versus the iPhone 14, and I'm trying to think what that means for the Mac mini. I think the M2 mini will get a £100-150 price bump, and if... there is an M2 Pro, it'll be significantly more than the Intel mini and start encroaching on the Mac Studio at it's current £2,000 starting price. Not to worry though, Apple can bump that up a touch
I haven't got the time tonight to do a deep dive into pricing but it does feel like the price increases this time are higher than the once when M2 superseded the M1 in laptops earlier this year in the UK.Fingers crossed! I'm just puzzled whilst the iPad went up in price massively versus the iPhone 14, and I'm trying to think what that means for the Mac mini. I think the M2 mini will get a £100-150 price bump, and if... there is an M2 Pro, it'll be significantly more than the Intel mini and start encroaching on the Mac Studio at it's current £2,000 starting price. Not to worry though, Apple can bump that up a touch
We have the UK 'government' to thank for that unfortunately - look up the 'mini budget' for the full horror of what's happened.
Apple will be aware that prices will have to rise a lot in Europe due to the exchange rate - anyone who needs a Mac now really needs to look hard at the 14" MacBook Pro right now in my opinion. While it's high priced the Pro laptop line is going to skyrocket when the M2 Pro comes along (and possibly even before that).
The Mac mini, Studio, and iMac 24 are the next machines in line for the M2 treatment - the Studio probably next year I'd have thought - but the two M1 models are clearly going to get a price increase in the UK.
And my thinking before that Apple could replicate what they did with the M1 Air and carry over an M1 model at the old price as the base model is probably the most positive I can be right now.
M2 mini will clearly get a UK price increase but - as with the iPad Pro - no significant change in body shell in my opinion.
If the M1 Pro 14"/16" laptops remain last Macs standing because Apple are delaying the M2 Pro and M2 Max CPUs that will going into them and the Mac Studio then Apple are probably accepting that these high end models may (temporarily) look like the best Apple deals up against all the other lower end hardware they offer.
Of course, they could just bump the price of all of the M1 Pro/Max CPU products when they finish updating the Mini and iMac 24 line like they have done with the iPad Air 5 just so the entire lineup looks sane.
After all, they wouldn't want people saying that obviously the 14" MacBook Pro must be bought at 'current' prices before an inevitable price rise occurs.
I don't recall too many occasions when Apple have cut prices in Europe but I believe they have. They have raised prices in the UK from my recollection thanks the Brexit vote currency crash in late 2016 which caused Apple to raise prices of the 2015 model iMac in 2016 (with no spec bump).
They just pick a price that will stay current for a year or whatever the model lifespan is rather than constantly amending the price downwards with sales and gentle price erosion over time - they tacitly leave that to third party resellers.
but isn't that because Apple almost never changes the pricing until refresh? So a little buffer is included? Thats always how I looked at it.
Apple has amended non-US pricing outside of product refreshes, but I imagine that if they know a refresh is coming, they hold off until then to do the adjustment (if for no other reason it likely helps move old product before the new one launches).
Just a thought has occurred after reading up on the new (cost reduced) Apple TV. It's the third generation 4k model using the A15 CPU - the basis of the M2 CPU (the previous 2 came with A10X and A12 CPUs).
It's actually little smaller (less tall) and lighter than the outgoing model and omits the cooling fan and the base model comes without ethernet port which I guess makes it cheaper to make (fewer materials) and more cost effective to ship on pallets etc.
If Apple have decided it's worth doing to make a slight redesign of the AppleTV to save money on transport costs due to lower weight (back to a polycarbonate case?), smaller package size, and fewer components could Apple be planning something similar with the M2 mini?
Imagine making an Ethernet port optional and using the 8 core binned M2 (yes, 10 core on higher models), potentially even getting rid of the fan if the redesign is more than just a minor one and looks more like the dearly departed Time Capsule (yes, probably not something our co-location friends would be too thrilled by!)
That way they could drive people up the range with SKUs that do include the ethernet port (make it 10Gb for $100 or assume people will add their own USB one) and a better cooling assembly or 10 core GPU. Remember, the iMac 24 has already done something like this while reducing the port count on the lowest SKU and it does have a power supply brick that could be re-used complete with ethernet if some parts sharing was going to be done.
Apple have had a few months to forecast the cost of shipping and might have been then able to decide on the well publicised 'alternate' design that looks like an AppleTV mark 1. I would say that a Time Capsule style mini trashcan format would allow rising heat to escape better as well.
It's actually little smaller (less tall) and lighter than the outgoing model and omits the cooling fan and the base model comes without ethernet port which I guess makes it cheaper to make (fewer materials) and more cost effective to ship on pallets etc.
If Apple have decided it's worth doing to make a slight redesign of the AppleTV to save money on transport costs due to lower weight (back to a polycarbonate case?), smaller package size, and fewer components could Apple be planning something similar with the M2 mini?
Imagine making an Ethernet port optional and using the 8 core binned M2 (yes, 10 core on higher models), potentially even getting rid of the fan if the redesign is more than just a minor one and looks more like the dearly departed Time Capsule (yes, probably not something our co-location friends would be too thrilled by!)
That way they could drive people up the range with SKUs that do include the ethernet port (make it 10Gb for $100 or assume people will add their own USB one) and a better cooling assembly or 10 core GPU. Remember, the iMac 24 has already done something like this while reducing the port count on the lowest SKU and it does have a power supply brick that could be re-used complete with ethernet if some parts sharing was going to be done.
Apple have had a few months to forecast the cost of shipping and might have been then able to decide on the well publicised 'alternate' design that looks like an AppleTV mark 1. I would say that a Time Capsule style mini trashcan format would allow rising heat to escape better as well.
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Couldn't agree more than Apple's older products are looking very juicy in terms of pricing. MBA M2 is dead on arrival if you need 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD. It's a great product for £1750ish. Similarly with the Mac Studio, although it isn't on sale as frequently. KRC has it for £1900 though.
The only time I can recall Apple reducing the price was the 13 Pro. I bought the X in 2017 at launch for £999. Four years later I bought the 13 Pro (same model, base config) for £949. Granted, the exchange rate was at rock bottom when the X launched, give or take. So the only way was up
You never know! I think Apple doesn't care enough about the mini to redesign it for the time being, and I don't blame them tbh. It's small enough as it is. The current case can easily accommodate the M2 and M2 Pro. It will never get anything more powerful anyway. As long as the chips get updated, I don't care what the box looks like.
I don't think we can use Apple TV as a comparison because the performance requirements are relatively fixed. Remember, for my 2017 A10X Apple TV, and it can play mostly the same 4K material as the A15 model, including 4K HDR with Dolby Vision and high resolution audio at the same bit rates. Plus, it's hardware accelerated anyway. The main difference with the latest model is that it can do it with less heat generation, and go fanless.
In contrast, we'd want the M2 Mac mini to be significantly more performant than the M1 Mac mini.
That said, they could go smaller, but that's because the M1 Mac mini is bigger than it needs to be in the first place.
M1 Mini is inside a case that is designed to cool an Intel CPU that produces double the wattage in heat and as a consequence one (pleasant) side effect is it's virtually silent for most people for most ordinary workflows. I'll add that my 14" MacBook Pro is stunningly silent compared to my 15" Intel MBP.
The hardware encoders/decoders do a great job of keeping the CPU relatively quiet and thus allows the heat to reduce quickly. In theory, the Apple of Jonathan Ive would have been looking to make that case smaller and more svelte. The Apple of Tim Cook would have kept it the same for more practical reasons and as a low seller the money wins out.
My argument at this point is that money is winning out again this time - Apple should hopefully have realised in the first half of this year that shipping costs were not going to come down quickly thanks to the war in Ukraine and energy prices staying high. While they can't do much about most of the range, Apple have been able to reduce shipping costs by removing the charger blocks from phones. They appear to have done the same with the AppleTV by removing ethernet and the fan - remember that iPhones and iPads are fan-less too and they play sophisticated mobile games.
I'm taking the mild redesign of the AppleTV as evidence that Apple is looking to reduce costs to keep headline prices down where they can. It's unavoidable in the iPads and iPhones of this world - the iPhones have already had the chargers removed to keep shipping costs down.
My point would be that Apple may have decided that fitting more Minis on to a pallet, ones which have been redesign to be polycarbonate and more radio transparent, and lighter, with cheaper or fewer parts on board will enable them to keep spiralling shipping costs under control.
If they have decided that component and shipping costs will remain high for 2, 3, maybe even 4 years - then a smaller, lighter, less complex to make Mac mini might be the way ahead to keep the low end ticking over.
Losing the ethernet port, for example, if the co-location guys are shown an alternate way to get ethernet on board - even if it's using a USB adapter - they might be on board with a price cut.
I doubt they will be overly worried about what a smaller form factor or less powerful (or even missing?) cooling does to acoustics or the people who want only the highest performance possible without the spectre of thermal throttling - it's a Mac mini at the end of the day - we're not very far away from Apple declaring something along the lines of:
'Mac mini - packing the same punch, only smaller.' - type taglines.
8/8/256 will be competitive with the same M1 performance wise (if not massively more powerful) but if Apple can pull off a price reduction in dollar terms or a marketing punch or even if it comes down to Apple taking more profit per unit if the M2 isn't new enough to show off massive new benchmarks.
I believe the goal with the 2022 Apple TV 4K was to make it cheaper to produce so they could lower the MSRP to make it more competitive with "the Sticks" while still maintaining strong margins (especially on the 128GB model - though even that is $30 cheaper than the 32GB 2021 model).
With the mini, I see Apple's goal to keep the same chassis and port configuration because making changes drives up the production cost and there are also the R&D costs that would need to be recouped. Yes, Apple Silicon is so much cooler than Intel that Apple could have made the M1 Mac mini in a much smaller case (many suggested it could be similar to the 2017-2021 Apple TV 4K case), but that means they just have that much more thermal headroom to work with should they want to use more powerful SoCs (like a 5nm M2 Pro).
With the mini, I see Apple's goal to keep the same chassis and port configuration because making changes drives up the production cost and there are also the R&D costs that would need to be recouped. Yes, Apple Silicon is so much cooler than Intel that Apple could have made the M1 Mac mini in a much smaller case (many suggested it could be similar to the 2017-2021 Apple TV 4K case), but that means they just have that much more thermal headroom to work with should they want to use more powerful SoCs (like a 5nm M2 Pro).