Apple Had M1 Mac Pro Ready to Ship Months Ago, Mac Mini Redesign Unlikely

[Macative]

Over two years from when Apple announced that they were moving to Apple silicon in the near future. Sure. But since the transition started at the end of Nov 2020 we still have a bit to go before the two year deadline.

No. The two year transition was announced in June 2020. It doesn't start in November just because it took them that long to bring the first one to market.

Regardless, they're not going to have an iMac Pro or a Mac Pro out by November. No matter how you slice it, they missed their self imposed deadline.

 

[sublunar]

I just don't think there is enough pricing headroom for an M2 Pro Mac mini with the port layout of the current Intel Space Grey model and a base Mac Studio.

Realistically, an M2 Pro mini would start at around $1499 with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD. The M2 Max upgrade would be another $200 and going to 32GB would be $400 so you'd be at $2099 for a mini vs. $1999 for a Studio and you would be short two USB-C ports (4 vs. 6).

let’s not assume that the mini could accommodate the M2 max for power and cooling reasons. By the time you add a mythical M2 max to the mini you may as well have got the Mac studio.

keeping the same form factor will suit the co-location guys who will surely have had a quiet chat about keeping the current mini line running.

 

[Joe The Dragon]

I’m genuinely curious if it will even have it. Or will we fully be in the era of apple silicon chips. Maybe you can expand by adding another M1 Ultra module. That might be the only way to have any expansion.

I am genuinely curious and don’t know how this Mac Pro is going to work.

at least the pro can have user slots for storage like the 2019
apple can do something like SFP+ ship with an SFP+ to 10-GIG RJ45 Transceiver

 

[duervo]

I’m waiting for M2 Ludicrous myself.

Hold out for the M2 Plaid. Rumour has it that it’ll contain Liquid Schwartz.

 

[Bobbuilds69]

But didn’t Apple say that the Max and the Pro were the last to the M series ?

 

[SmakFairy]

Waiting for a dual-chip Mac Pro with 2 M2 Furious

 

[jscipione]

i don't care about Mac Pro and i don't care about a Mac Mini redesign. just refresh the current Mac Mini with M2 and 24-32GB RAM and you can have my money Apple.

edit: unless, of course, a M2 Mac Mini runs so hot it thermal throttles even with the current cooling solution. 😁

They already did, it’s called Mac Studio. Give them your money and you can have one today.

 

[SSDGUY]

I'm holding out for the upgraded wheel option with brakes … for $1K.

 

[repoman27]

I’m genuinely curious if it will even have it. Or will we fully be in the era of apple silicon chips. Maybe you can expand by adding another M1 Ultra module. That might be the only way to have any expansion.

I am genuinely curious and don’t know how this Mac Pro is going to work.

Well, PCIe is already there, and works just fine as long as there are available drivers. GPUs are a no-go, but many other things work. Right now, Thunderbolt / USB4 is the only way to add a PCIe device to an Apple Silicon Mac, but the SoCs also have standard PCIe lanes for devices on the motherboard. There's no reason why Apple couldn't route those to a PCIe or M2 slot if they wanted to expose them to end users. The M series SoCs currently have the following PCIe capabilities:

M1: PCIe Gen4 3x1
M1 Pro: PCIe Gen4 4x1
M1 Max: PCIe Gen4 4x1
M1 Ultra: PCIe Gen4 16x1
M2: PCIe Gen4 4x1

Obviously a bunch of x1 slots aren't that useful, so Apple would have to add controllers that support higher lane widths. The current controllers might be capable of x2 or x4, but probably not anything wider than that.

 

[buckwheet]

I'd actually love to upgrade my 16" M1 Pro MBP to the M2 version in Midnight. 🤔
I'm guessing mid-2023...

(And yes, wildly off topic... heh...)

In an effort to be sort of on-topic; I wonder if they held the Mac Pro for supply chain reasons—maybe to give the Studio a better run at available resources (i.e., for manufacturing and getting machines in people's hands)?

 

[SSDGUY]

They already did, it’s called Mac Studio. Give them your money and you can have one today.

Yup. The price gap between a Mac Mini M1 16gb and entry level Mac Studio is something like $900. An in-between "Mini Pro" doesn't make much sense at this point.

 

[Tagbert]

I seriously hope "M2 Extreme" isn't the name they go with.

How about “M2 eXtreme!!!” ? 😉

 

[DavidSchaub]

I’m genuinely curious if it will even have it. Or will we fully be in the era of apple silicon chips. Maybe you can expand by adding another M1 Ultra module. That might be the only way to have any expansion.

I am genuinely curious and don’t know how this Mac Pro is going to work.

That is such a good question.

The M1 Ultra package really is I/O limited with ~8 Thunderbolt controllers (i.e. 32 equivalent lanes of PCIe, and maybe another 16 lanes).

Can those TB controller lines just run as bare PCIe? Maybe?

Is there more secrets in the M1/M2 design that have yet to drop?

Whether RAM will expandable or just lock to max of about 384 GB (maybe that's enough)?

GPU expansion is shockingly unlikely, but is approx. 3090 TI performance good enough?

 

[Pezimak]

Think I'll wait for the M2 Mac Studio. also not sure I believe Gurman anyway, wasn't he one of the Apple Watch flat side redesign crew?

 

[AlumaMac]

Be nice if they could at least fix the BT interference issues in the Mini if no redesign.

 

[jdb8167]

No. The two year transition was announced in June 2020. It doesn't start in November just because it took them that long to bring the first one to market.

Regardless, they're not going to have an iMac Pro or a Mac Pro out by November. No matter how you slice it, they missed their self imposed deadline.

Says who? Not Apple. They've said pretty clearly that in their minds, they started the clock in November.

I'm willing to concede they still might miss the November 2022 deadline. Of course Apple said it would take "about" 2 years.

 

[buckwheet]

How about “M2 eXtreme!!!” ? 😉

M2 ErrMahGerd

 

[August West]

Waiting patiently for M2 Mini goodness. Not holding my breath though.

Me too. I'm wanting to replace my late 2012 mini since it is stuck on Calalina and will stop getting security updates very soon. But since I keep my machines a long time I'm hoping if I can wait out the M2 mini it will get another year or two of updates before they stop supporting it.

 

[Billrey]

At the spring event, after the M1 Ultra was shown, didn't they mention they have 1 more product left? At the time it felt like they were referring to an updated Mac Pro with a 2xM1 Ultra setup or something.

No. At the spring event, they said there was one last product line waiting to switch to Apple Silicon - the Mac Pro. They did not say that this product would use an M1 - in fact they said more the opposite. They mentioned that the M1 Ultra would be the last chip in the M1 family, which instantly made an M1-based Mac Pro unlikely, since we then knew there would be no 4 die version of the M1.

This piece if 'news' by Gurman is 100% obvious to anyone who was paying attention to what Apple itself said many months ago.

 

[jdb8167]

But didn’t Apple say that the Max and the Pro were the last to the M series ?

They said that the M1 Ultra was the last of the M1 line. They also said that they had one model to still move from Intel to Apple silicon. So, either that is using 1 or more M1 Ultras or it is going to use a new SoC/CPU.

 

[DanteHicks79]

"Guys, look: I know we said we'd wait for the M2 Extreme, but hear me out. What if... are you ready? We delay the MacPro until the M14 ProExtreme Max. Eh, eh?" - Tim Cook

 

[NeoSe7en]

Interesting, I figured the Stuido was a stop gap product to fill the void until the Apple Silicon Mac Pro was ready.

 

[visualseed]

Other than possibly rearranging the ports on the back or adding one to the front, I don't see Apple redesigning the Mini as they have committed to carrying on the design language with the Mac Studio.

 

[Billrey]

I think in terms of value for money, the Mac Pro has had a good run, launch in 2019, by 2023, thats 5 years. Yeah, it sucks if you buy one this year, but I can bet by 2025, it will be the only Intel Mac still getting macOS releases.

That computer was never good value, even at launch. The base model was slower than the ageing iMac Pro, yet way more expensive and without a monitor. To get a well specced version, one would have to pay 2x the price of the base model, making it obscenely expensive.

 

[DavidSchaub]

Says who? Not Apple. They've said pretty clearly that in their minds, they started the clock in November.

I'm willing to concede they still might miss the November 2022 deadline. Of course Apple said it would take "about" 2 years.

The plan is the plan until its not the plan.

Holding Apple to its arbitrary 2 year timeline (which was mostly pre pandemic, chip shortage, mess) is just silly. Apple will release its products when it wants to.