A new leak from Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman suggests that Apple will release a super tiny Mac mini later this year with an M4 chip.
This new model will be closer in size to the Apple TV than the existing Mac mini, but the report mentions that it’s likely taller than an Apple TV, making it more of a cube or a tower than a flack puck. It will still be made from aluminum and should have at least three USB-C ports and an HDMI jack, we don’t know more than that.
People working on this device are reportedly calling it an iPad Pro in a box, but a higher-end option with an M4 Pro chipset will be released afterward.
It will be interesting to see if Apple keeps a fan in the unit or removes it. If it’s taken out, it will bring the mini more in line with the MacBook Air and iMac. However, since one of the models is slated to have an M4 Pro chipset, I believe that the new mini will have a fan to help the redesign work for higher-end chipsets over the next decade.
The previous Mac mini has maintained its design since Steve Jobs revealed it in 2010, so I’d expect the next model’s design to last at least another ten years.
There’s actually a small cottage industry of people on YouTube transplanting their Mac minis into smaller cases, if you want to see how much actual hardware is in the current iteration. However, I expect since Apple can design its motherboards around the hardware limitations of a smaller case it should be able to create a smaller unit than most content creators.
While this redesign is really exciting, we can only hope it leads us closer to the computer in a keyboard design that Apple patented and was revealed to the public in 2022. However, it will likely be another decade before we see this redesign.
The standard M4 version should be shipping from suppliers to Apple soon, suggesting it’s ready to go on sale sometime in the next few months. The high-end version isn’t slated to finish production until October.
Beyond the Mac mini’s redesign, the report mentions that Apple is on track to unify its Mac lineup over the next 12 months, with each model getting an M4 chipset of some kind. After the mini, it’s expected that Apple will do a new iMac and a MacBook Pro, and those might even come out this year. Next year, there will be a MacBook Air, a Mac Pro, and a Mac Studio.
Source: Bloomberg
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