If I had to choose just one pointer device, I’d choose a mouse—I just find it faster and more precise. But why choose? My favourite setup (on a desktop) is to use both at the same time—right hand mouse, left hand trackpad. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else with that setup, but it works for me. 🙂
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Apple Leaks New Mac Mini With 5 USB-C Ports
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If I had to choose just one pointer device, I’d choose a mouse—I just find it faster and more precise. But why choose? My favourite setup (on a desktop) is to use both at the same time—right hand mouse, left hand trackpad. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else with that setup, but it works for me. 🙂
I wouldn't hold your breath. Apple hasn't made an ergonomically comfortable mouse since the Desktop Bus Mouse II, which was discontinued in 1999.
I've been using Logitech and Microsoft mice ever since.
I actually think the early 00's Pro Mouse and $29 Mouse were good from an ergonomics standpoint. I had no issue with the Mighty Mouse either, other than the unreliable scroll ball. I've been using Logitech trackballs and mice for decades as well.
I use my Mini M2 Pro exclusively for Office Work (Teams, Outlook, etc.) and probably hardly ever the GPU.
Wouldnt the M4 (non-Pro) be even quicker than the M2 Pro as many times Single Core operations are used?
I am asking as I can probably sell my M2 Pro now for a higher price than a M4 512/16 might cost
Or at least I will not pay a big premium.
Wouldnt the M4 (non-Pro) be even quicker than the M2 Pro as many times Single Core operations are used?
I am asking as I can probably sell my M2 Pro now for a higher price than a M4 512/16 might cost
Or at least I will not pay a big premium.
They weren’t the worst Apple mice, that’s true. Still, I didn’t enjoy the curved shiny edges that seemed to want to slip out of your hand. At least that’s how I remember them.
I use my Mini M2 Pro exclusively for Office Work (Teams, Outlook, etc.) and probably hardly ever the GPU.
Wouldnt the M4 (non-Pro) be even quicker than the M2 Pro as many times Single Core operations are used?
I am asking as I can probably sell my M2 Pro now for a higher price than a M4 512/16 might cost
Or at least I will not pay a big premium.
You should have bought the base model M2 for office apps. You don't need the M2 Pro, and certainly not the M4, for that.
The M4 ist much faster than the M2 (Pro). 3700 vs. 2600 Geekbench single core. I’m running Logic on the Mini M2 Pro, it doesn’t even utilize the performance cores most of the time.I use my Mini M2 Pro exclusively for Office Work (Teams, Outlook, etc.) and probably hardly ever the GPU.
Wouldnt the M4 (non-Pro) be even quicker than the M2 Pro as many times Single Core operations are used?
I am asking as I can probably sell my M2 Pro now for a higher price than a M4 512/16 might cost
Or at least I will not pay a big premium.
If it has a fan inside, be ready to look for ways to keep the dust out, because it will be as user-hostile as possible to open it up just to dust it off.
That mouse has tricks on it’s sleeve and now it’s playing dead 😂I'm all in for the USB-C version of the Mouse!
Are you talking about the cable? Because the power cord won’t be included.
Well, the use case for a proper desktop computer is quite different, like using Logic Pro or image/video software. And doesn't the M4 iPads only have 3 performance cores?
Fingers crossed...
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Ah haha ha. People have been waiting 30 years for apple to produce a good mouse. It will never happen. They infamously cant make a half decent mouse.
This is one possible avenue for the future that'd make sense, though prospects for it are low; what if they conceptualized the Mac Mini as sort of a 'Mac Brain' for your system. In other words, it would be viewed the processing/RAM unit that you plug into a larger body (Thunderbolt 5 should have enough bandwidth for this to work well) that has the ports, drive bays, etc..., that you want, creating the 'one box' look (whether that's a mini-tower, tower, clipped onto the back of a Thunderbolt display like the ASD, etc...).
Satechi has a hub option with an internal bay for an SSD, albeit it's a USB-C hub so cheaper but lacks Thunderbolt speeds. That said, what if they made a Thunderbolt 5 version with one or two internal SSD M.2 bays and the Mini (or Studio, for that matter) attached securely? Be a nice option.
I think it's a corporate pride thing. The Windows PC world has 2 button mice, which was very handy, but on the Mac, if you wanted 'right button' function on an Apple mouse, you had to hold down a particular key on the keyboard to get the resulting menu. That was inconvenient; for usability, we needed that 2nd button. But there was one major obstacle (in my estimation) to doing the obvious needed thing...that would involve Apple imitating what the Windows PC world was doing, admitting their way (in that thing) was superior.
No. No matter how blatantly obvious, no. Apple would not do it. For years Mac users who chose to stick with Apple gear (or at work didn't have a choice) were stuck with one button mice. Later the infamous hockey puck was disdained for years. Finally with the Magic Mouse they could sort of argue they'd engineered a functional equivalent (though less intuitive for me) many years after the fact, but at least they did it the Apple way.
I recall MS-DOS, then Windows 3.0, and moving back and forth between Windows and Mac before settling on Mac. Those of us who dealt with MS-DOS (e.g.: C:\Windows\System style directory tree typed commands to find and launch files) learned to think in terms of the directory tree (we had to in order to get anything done). Windows 3.0 was basically a GUE shell on top of DOS; Windows 95, IIRC, was the version of Windows that was not a shell, but it still had what I call the 'fingerprints of MS-DOS' on it (I think you could still find C:\ type stuff).
People who are advanced GUI-native, who grew up in a culture where everybody uses computers quite a bit (not just the nerds/geeks/future engineers), and for whom the computer is 'plug and play, ready to go,' yes, I imagine for many internal expansion bays are not much concern.
Should not have to have a hub or a dock to use a desktop computer. Lets say they have 5 USB ports and that's it, now I need C to HDMI, two monitors? that's another one. Ethernet? Yup, another adapter that's 3. And most likely another one to charge my magic keyboard and mouse. Now I only have 1 port on my desktop machine and the only solution is a bulky hub cluttering up my desk so I can have the basic functionality that the Mac mini had before.
Never liked the Apple mice. Even the current one has the charging port in a most asinine place. Try to use that while it's charging.
I love my Magic Trackpad 2 though, especially when using it with my M1 iPad Pro 11. Very intuitive to control a touch based device with a touch based device.
You ever see dumber usb placement than this? SOL if you run out of charge in the middle of something.
Although, this looks kinda cool...
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See: the current iMac, and the lower-end 2019 13" MBP which are distinguished by the number of ports. In the (more recent) case of the iMac that's about the only distinction (the Ethernet controller is built in to both models - the power brick is just a "break out" for it - you can choose the power brick with Ethernet with the base model).
It could mean there's another model with more ports but somehow I'm inclined towards the "glass half empty" probability...
Just speculating - my guess is that there would be a 3-port (2xTB4, 1xUSB-C/3.2-only) and 5-port (4xTB4, 1xUSB-C/3.2 only). If the M4 (as rumoured) has 4 TB4 controllers then Timmy could trouser a few more pennies by leaving off the TB re-timer chips for two of the ports on the base version.
Most power users with laptops. There's really no need to scrimp on ports on a desktop machine.
I do have an Element hub on my Studio but that was very much an option - I could live without it. Take away the Ethernet, HDMI and USB-A ports from the studio and it becomes a ncecessity.
^^^ This. It's not about the terrible first-world problem of having to buy a $5 USB-A adapter or six - as long as you physically have enough USB ports (of any flavour) without being forced to buy a hub. The majority of "USB-C" peripherals still only use USB 2 or 3 protocols and minimum power delivery - they don't run any faster in a USB-C socket, and connecting them to most TB4 hubs has the same bandwidth/latency issues as connecting them via an old school USB 2 or 3 hub. 4 USB 2.0 devices on a "40Gbps" TB4 hub still have to share the same, single 480Mbps bandwidth.
Sure, but I don't think it makes sense to talk about "5 ports" unless they're all USB-C. In the only other current example of Apple using the number of ports to discriminate - the "2 port" and "4 port" iMacs - we're talking about an all-USB-C machine as the "Apple paradigm".
I know that the Gurman rumours say HDMI, Ethernet and mains power remain, but that doesn't sound very "Apple paradigm" to me (plus, 3xUSB-C, IEC power, HDMI and Ethernet is a lot to fit on an Apple-TV sized rear panel). If I learned to stop worrying and embrace "form over function" and "smaller is always better" then I'd see "5 ports" as "5 USB-C ports to do everything" and have the thing running from a USB-C power brick. Hope not, but I wouldn't be surprised...
That's one less USB port (of any kind) than the current M2 Pro Mini and a lot less hub-free connectivity if the HDMI or Ethernet ports go to, or if it needs a USB-C power brick. Plus the implication from having "5 ports" in the product name that the base model will have even fewer ports.
On what planet is a range of headless desktops that will likely cost $600 - $2000 "low end"?
I guess its the planet where only Apple computers exist and anybody who somehow manages to get work done on a Windows or Linux machine costing half the price is a figment of the imagination.
...and lets be clear what "half the price" means. We're not talking Raspberry Pis here: $650 will get you a Ryzen 9 mini-PC with 32GB of (upgradeable) DDR5 RAM, 1TB of (internally upgradeable) PCIe 4 storage, and pretty good connectivity including 2xUSB4, a bunch of USB-A plus dedicated Ethernet, HDMI and DisplayPort so you can keep those USB4 ports for stuff that actually needs them. A Mac Mini with 24GB RAM and 1TB storage is $1400. Is the MiniPC as good as a Mac Mini...? maybe not but it is half the price and that upgradeable RAM and storage counts for a lot.
Start chipping away at the Mac Mini with the excuse "but it's a low-end device" and you're chipping away at the whole justification for paying Apple prices for non-upgradeable hardware.
Sigh - I think I had that case (or one very much like it). Probably space for about 6 3.5" hard drives so with modern drives 50TB of spinning rust would be no problem - stick a couple of removable caddys in those optical bays for cycling backups. A modern motherboard would probably have a couple of M.2 slots so that would be as well as about 8TB of fast SSD. Probably had a shedload of USB, ethernet and video ports on the back (DVI and VGA back in the day, but with modern motherboard & GPU that would be DisplayPort, HDMI and - but not only - USB-C). Anything else you needed could be added via a PCIe card... All neatly tucked inside one box without a nest of wires and dongles. Took up zero desk space because it sat under the desk.I guess some people would prefer the good ol' days.
Of course... it is thoroughly outdated (and far too beige) now that we have systems-on-a-chip with most of the functions that once went on expansion cards, tiny solid-state drives, 40Gbps serial cables etc. and could be made a lot smaller while retaining the expandability... but Apple really have thrown all of the babies out with the bathwater. Why make the existing Mini smaller when they could have used the space for... an additional M.2 slot or two? Modular ports (see the Framework laptop) so we could stop arguing about dongles? Fanless cooling? Instead, we get the really unimaginative "make it smaller and throw away whatever doesn't fit" cycle.
Making stuff smaller just because you can, without considering functionality or ergonomics, is not "innovation".
The one truly expandable system that Apple does make - the Mac Pro - really amounts to the beige beauty above re-skinned in aluminium steampunk-looking bling, far larger than it needs to be (a system-on-a-chip, integrated GPU system shoved in a case designed for a Xeon tower with 2-4 PCIe GPUs the size of Manhattan) - plus some brilliant unforced howlers (a system likely to be placed under a desk with USB and power buttons on top...? Hard drive expansion sitting in the cooling exhaust from the CPU...?)
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Yes said this before many times. And the crucial part is you need to be able to stack actual mac minis. Need more power? Add a mac… or this would be killer.
Jpack wrote:
"A bit strange to use "5 Port" as a descriptor. Hopefully, this doesn't mean there will be models with fewer ports."
My prediction:
m4 (non pro) models will have only 3 USBc ports, on the back.
m4pro models will have 5 USBc ports -- 3 on the back, with 2 more on the front ("studio style"...).
"A bit strange to use "5 Port" as a descriptor. Hopefully, this doesn't mean there will be models with fewer ports."
My prediction:
m4 (non pro) models will have only 3 USBc ports, on the back.
m4pro models will have 5 USBc ports -- 3 on the back, with 2 more on the front ("studio style"...).
You choosing not to use a dock is a you issue. I plug one cable into my MacBook, which is connected to a dock with every connection I need
Yes, watching Apple stubbornly stick with a one-button mouse for all those years left me thinking it must be a pride thing. Did you know that the Xerox Alto computer, which was the inspiration for the Apple Lisa and then the Mac, actually had a three button mouse?
At the time (early to mid 80s), Jobs and his team probably made the right call by simplifying it, given that the larger world had never seen a mouse before, but that argument started to wear very thin after 10 years, by which time people were becoming quite familiar with the GUI and mouse.
If maintaining simplicity was the goal, I find it ironic that Apple later introduced things like Force Touch and 3D Touch. I know some people liked it, but not me. I thought Force Touch on the Mac was an absolute disaster, where trying to do a simple thing like selecting and dragging some files would do unexpected stuff if you just happened to press a bit too hard. It's the first thing I will disable on a Mac laptop.