Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
What’s that black dot on the right side? A headphone jack?

Clearly this forum has forgotten this round port was invented in the 80s for this guy's pointed Thunderbolt 6 connector

iu
 
As someone with three Mac Studios now, if things don't improve I am just going back to PC. Apple's attitude with the desktop line and pro lineup since the 2013 trash can Mac Pro has been atrocious. I thought ditching Intel was the ENTIRE purpose to make sure things release on a regular schedule? I end up using my M3 Max more than my M2 Ultra for the GPU workflow, and it’s utterly frustrating I spent nearly $8,000 for my Mac Studio but only $3,600 for my laptop.

Who at Apple said to you they would be releasing processor updates for the entire Mac line up at the same time?

I don’t understand this complaint. People build up this expectation around what they want and complain when they don’t get it. Why not just wait and see what a company releases (which is completely out of your control) and either buy it or don’t?

Is the Mac Studio less capable of doing what you bought it to do now compared to day 1? Nope. Have Apple continued to innovate on their chips to further accelerate what’s possible with these machines? Yep!

Talking about Apple’s lack of focus on their high end machines… the things we use our computers for today wouldn’t be possible without the innovation on these chips but as the saying goes, you can’t please all of the people all of the time.
 
Mostly because the Ultra has the worst cost-benefit ratio for Apple. Low volume, high engineering cost. So they prioritize it the least.
Or, they’re going to treat it the same way they treated the M4 iPad Pro and release it with the first M5 chips next year. Classic marketing, make people feel forgotten about and then make them feel extra special. Create the problem, sell the fix.
 
cheers amazon! the wait has been too long already for a refresh of the mini, hopefully it's not too small and light
 
What’s that black dot on the right side? A headphone jack?
It's a UniCord port, Apple's proprietary port to save space. By 2026 it will be the only port on new Macs.

The press release:

Apple UniCord

Designed as the ultimate unifying connector, UniCord could serve as Apple's next-gen cable standard, integrating data transfer, power, and display into one sleek cable. With faster data rates, higher power delivery, and cross-device compatibility, UniCord would embody Apple's minimalistic philosophy—one cord for everything, from iPhones to Macs, AirPods to iPads.

Marketing line: "UniCord. One connection, endless possibilities."
 
"Pre-mature specification" — Steve Jobs

Seriously though this kind of tells me that at some point they were probably planning on announcing all of these new Macs at once.
Absolutely:

It's like they even sent out instructions to third-party retailers about a launch at an earlier date, but then rescheduled (after the Russian MacBook leak video) and then forgot to make sure retailers were onboard with the new dates.
 
Or, they’re going to treat it the same way they treated the M4 iPad Pro and release it with the first M5 chips next year. Classic marketing, make people feel forgotten about and then make them feel extra special. Create the problem, sell the fix.

Can’t rule it out, especially if “M5” is a bit of a misnomer (a half-generation or whatever), but my money is on no. The M4 was a bit of an outlier, probably mostly because they wanted to use the M3’s process as little as possible. I think they’re happy starting with the iPhone, then branching out to Apple Watch (e-cores only) and iPad and Mac (more cores, higher clock, Thunderbolt, more memory controllers, etc.).

What I’m wondering is whether the early-25 Air will still get the M4, because by that point, the iPad will have received in ~10 months earlier. Maybe they’ll instead wait a while, then take the Air straight to M5. And then introduce the Studio alongside that?
 
If that's to scale with the Mac Studio it looks like a 5" x 5" footprint and about 2" tall. Quick, rough pixel math but I bet I'm close.
My mental prediction was that the size would allow an exact number in a standard 19 inch rack. So nearer 4.5" - but any gap required would reduce maximum width, of course. I suppose they could be sized to allow just three across?

Indeed, I thought rack mounting density was a major reason for the change. (Not the only reason, of course.)
 
Because making Ultra chips are too inefficient, high cost, low yield, extremely niche chip, and more. They would probably gonna find another way to make Ultra chips as using two Max chips doesn't provide them enough performance that they were expecting.
However - the Max option got a lot more powerful w.r.t. the rest of the range with the M3 Max, and if that continues with the M4 Max then a M4 Max Studio would be a pretty good system that could be released without an Ultra option.

Of course - even if the M4 Max doesn't out-perform the M2 Ultra it's not going to make the $4k M2 Ultra Studio or $7k M2 Ultra Mac Pro look good... This is one of those annoying "Apple doesn't want to compete with Apple" situations.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: NetMage
If that's to scale with the Mac Studio it looks like a 5" x 5" footprint and about 2" tall. Quick, rough pixel math but I bet I'm close.
Sounds about right...

Also sounds a lot more reasonable than the rumours that it would be AppleTV-sized, which would make everything pointlessly cramped.
 
Little black dot looks like it may be an audio jack.
It's right where the power LED is on the existing Mini and Studio, so don't get your hopes up.

Moving the power button there would be welcome c.f. contouring it into the rear corner as on the Studio (not a big deal, though).
 
  • Like
Reactions: haydesigner
That looks really promising indeed! I used to be an iMac fan, still have an i9 27" with 64 gb ram... the new iMac size is too small IMO and the specs aren't impressive. The mini on the other hand seems to have good specs and will be better than old one for sure. I have the M1 mini which is not working well, never did from new. If I turn on wifi, the bluetooth becomes unusable, like the Magic Trackpad becomes laggy and unresponsive. Apple told me it would be fixed with an update, but it never happened... hopefully the new mini design alleviates the interferences between wifi and bluetooth...
 
it is fine. Compared to what happened a night before Jobs unveiled iPad, a publishing company spilled all confidential things about new device. Compared to that Mini leak is nothing. Such thing happen all the time, not onlly with Apple. They should work better of course, but nothing earth shuttering
 
My prediction is that the base Mac mini M4 will have only two USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 ports at the front. However, it will support three display connections. One 8K 120Hz display can be connected via HDMI or DisplayPort.
The Mac mini M4 Pro will support TWO 8K 120Hz displays. As a writer, you can imagine having your entire book in front of you. As a developer, you can imagine working with millions of lines of code. Your DAW will display 512 channels. As a banker, you can imagine managing all of your clients.
 
Mhh ... Anyone running here a combo of:
- Mac mini pro at home as desktop
- 11/13 inch iPad (air or pro) as (1) media device (2) with magic keyboard as laptop to remote Desktop into your Mac mini at home?

I travel a lot and already have a MacBook for work and carry along an iPad as personal device.. I don't want to bring along another MacBook but like the idea of being able to easily remote into my Mac mini desktop to make full use of macOS.

Wonder about personal experiences from other people who might actually use such a setup.
 
New mini looks awesome, first intel mac mini was my first mac, so I will always be big fan of it, like that little computer much. Hope new one will sell well!
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.