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Apple May Be Testing an M3 Mac Mini, Based on Developer Logs
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M3 Mac mini will obviously be released. Expecting it to launch sometime in 2024
Those are certainly two important factors, but at least three others come to mind:
1) Increased frequency (which you mention yourself later on). Indeed, low clocks (which Apple does to keep efficiency high) are one of the key reasons AS underperforms NVIDIA GPU's. While the current microarchitecture might not accommodate higher GPU clocks, the M3 might and, if so, that could really benefit the desktops.
2) More memory (which is of course a strength of Apple's design; Apple's UMA offers so much shared RAM that more of it will only help very unusual tasks).
3) Faster memory. I wonder if Apple will be switching to LPDDR5x with M3, and how much of a performance difference this will make for video processing.
There are probably others I've not thought of.
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86.5% accuracy in 2022.
Source Leaderboard - AppleTrack
Top Apple Sources in 2022 # Name Accuracy 1 🐟 Ross Young 92.9% 2 🏀 Mark Gurman 86.5% 3 📉 Trendforce 84.5% 4 🎧 52audio 83.3% 5 🕘 9to5Mac 82.8% 6 ❓ MacRumors 72.7% 7 🇨🇳 China Times 72.7% 8 👨💻 Ming-Chi Kuo 72.5% 9 🧻 Jon Prosser 69.1% 10 🍍 Max Weinbach 69% 11 […]
appletrack.com
Yeah, mine's arriving this week. Seeing as Apple appears to update the Mini every 2 years as it's generally at the back of their lineup, I'm selfishly hoping that's the case here.
Why ? Not everyone needs the power of the Studio. For most people the base M chip is more than good enough for their usage. The Mac Studio starts at $1999 with an M Max chip which is way overpowered for what normal consumers need.
And sadly, the iMac now comes only in the 24-inch size which might be too small for some people, so they’d rather get a Mac Mini and then buy any monitor size they’d like with it.
The Mac Studio and the Mac Pro have completely different targets as they’re clearly targeted to power users. And to be fair, unless you really need the PCIe slots, there’s literally no reason to go for the Mac Pro. It’s too overpriced and the Mac Studio would definitely be a better value at this point.
On the other hand, if you are a normal consumer who doesn’t need the power of the Mac Studio/Mac Pro, and don’t want to get an iMac, the Mac Mini would be the perfect option.
There’s nothing wrong with having choices.
Don't get me started...I'm still not over when Apple released the iPad three (which was an iPad 2 with a retina display) then about 6 months later they launched the iPad four with lightning. I was super p*ssed they did that.Two new Mac mini in the same year? The current one was released like 6 months ago... It's Apple we're talking about
Nope, that list is not well-maintained anymore. I can see at least four fails that they still mark as pending. https://appletrack.com/mark-gurman/86.5% accuracy in 2022.
Source Leaderboard - AppleTrack
Top Apple Sources in 2022 # Name Accuracy 1 🐟 Ross Young 92.9% 2 🏀 Mark Gurman 86.5% 3 📉 Trendforce 84.5% 4 🎧 52audio 83.3% 5 🕘 9to5Mac 82.8% 6 ❓ MacRumors 72.7% 7 🇨🇳 China Times 72.7% 8 👨💻 Ming-Chi Kuo 72.5% 9 🧻 Jon Prosser 69.1% 10 🍍 Max Weinbach 69% 11 […]
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Seeing who's #6 on that list, with only 72,7% accuracy, makes the Gurman bashing on this particular fourm especially intriguing.
Surely the M3 Mini will not use the same obsolete desktop enclosure as the 90W Intel Minis from 20 years ago. It’s now possible to shrink the Mini down to the size of an iPhone, and still give it a built-in battery and a small display like an iPhone, and also make it more powerful than fastest M2 and running MacOS. For under $1000 too.
EVERYTHING is more complicated than you might think.
What you say sounds good BUT where do you put the ports?
Right now the ports extend across the full length of the back of the mini. So what are the options?
Perhaps you could move the air vent to the front and use two rows of ports (which complicates the circuit board design...) but stacked ports are even more of a pain to plug in and out than close together in a line ports!
You could put some ports in the front (like the Studio) but plenty of people like a mini stacked away with all the wires coming out the back and essentially nothing visible. The same is true for ports on the side (or even weirder options, like ports on the top)!
At some point an option could be something like a single port into which plugs a single (custom Apple designed, very wide high speed -- it has to be custom because nothing standard has the bandwidth needed) cable that plugs into your choice of some sort of docking port, in a variety of sizes and shapes.
That would satisfy people like you who want something smaller -- but of course would infuriate the crowd who complain either
- "it's too complicated! I want a single simple box, easy to move and set up. Not multiple choices and pieces."
- "it's yet another Apple money grab to swap a box everyone loved for something no-one wants but which costs an extra $50 for the cable and $150 for the dock."
The best option, if we insist on going smaller, is perhaps to decrease the area a lot, but increase the height substantially. Something more like the infamous mac cube (though with a substantially smaller volume). Or think something like an Amplifi Alien, but shrunk to half the size in each dimension. Or like four aTV's stacked on each other.
But even that is tricky! It will tend to fall over if too many cables are plugged into the upper, rather than the lower, ports, unless we add artificial weight in the base.
Perhaps the solution is to think outside the box? Time for the Apple Pyramid!
Reading skills? I urge to look closer at that site. It hasn’t been updated in over a year. The scores are completely useless by now.
I looked closer and I discovered that MacRumors, a site where people have come to complain about Gurman's accuracy rate for several years now, had a substantially lower score than Gurman. The more I look at it, and at threads like this one, the more intrigued I get.
MacRumors is an aggregator, and doesn't generally make predictions of its own, so that's a weird comparison to make.
Let's say that is true.
Then the comparison says Gurman has a better accuracy rate than the aggregation. Still, people who adore the aggregator complains about Gurmans accuracy rate. Isn't that the really weird thing?
Continuing that thought: Over and over, there are calls for Mac Rumors to stop reporting Gurman-rumors. So if Mac Rumors did just that, Mac Rumors would even further lower it's own accuracy rate and increase the share of untrue rumors. That is really really weird.
I mean… it is. MR started long ago as an aggregator of various rumor sites, and that's basically still what it does. If there are rumors it reports on its own, that's certainly the minority.
People call for lots of weird things, but they don't run MR. I wouldn't worry about MacRumors to stop reporting on Gurman rumors, unless perhaps the paywall becomes too expensive, or something like that.
Nothing obsolete about the Mini. The Mini is the lowest end Mac desktop computer. It does not go obsolete just because Apple does not change the form factor. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Edit: Maybe reduce the height a small bit if necessary to keep folks like you interested. If there is a market for a Mac AIO with a tiny display (I think not) Apple could build one, but they should not eff with the IMO solid Mini.
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If running an M series iPad is any indication, I don’t think Mac Mini the size of iPhone will be able to handle the heat. It will become another Intel NUC micro form factor pc.
Three days ago (1DEC23), I ordered the M2 Pro mini (32GB Ram, 10Gb ethernet and 2TB SSD) to replace my 2018 model Intel i7 mini (64GB ram, 10Gb ethernet and 2TB SSD) to be used as a file server using SoftRaid software.
If one reads the M3 Pro specs on already released models, the memory bus speed is degraded to 150 from 200. Memory speed controls the transfer of data and is also used as a data cache. The M3 Pro could have 36GB of slower buss speed memory, but even the processor is crippled for my use. I do not need graphics for my applications and the disk array data transfer rate is modest.
Thus ends the presence of Intel processors in my inventory. It has been a long ride on Intel cpus and their lack of thermal control at least helped keep my computer room warm in the winter
If one reads the M3 Pro specs on already released models, the memory bus speed is degraded to 150 from 200. Memory speed controls the transfer of data and is also used as a data cache. The M3 Pro could have 36GB of slower buss speed memory, but even the processor is crippled for my use. I do not need graphics for my applications and the disk array data transfer rate is modest.
Thus ends the presence of Intel processors in my inventory. It has been a long ride on Intel cpus and their lack of thermal control at least helped keep my computer room warm in the winter
A couple of interesting updates could include:
- using USB-C for input power instead of line power
- adding an SD card slot to the front
Maybe, but then you'd need an external power brick, and you'd be limiting how much it can output.
Yeah, not having anything at the front is silly. Same goes for headphone jack, though this is becoming less important as of late.