Or red and black like the iPhone SE. It looks *so* good in person
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Apple's Next Mac Mini Refresh: Everything We Know
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I was in an Apple store last week and was surprised that the red SE was the best looking phone in the place. It’s like Ferrari made a phone.
Doh! I missed the Intel Mini at the bottom of the page. Apple really went out of their way to demote it from the line-up....
That would be great if true. Perhaps the M1 Pro 8/14 binned version could start that low? $700 less than the MBP14 entry-level is certainly possible.
By extension, based on MBP14 prices, the M1 Pro 10/16 with 16GB would cost $1,599, and the M1 Max (32GB) 10/24 core would cost $2,399
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It is tucked away...
That is what I would expect, same five choices of SoCs as the 2021 ASi MBP laptops...
Add $1100 for a full-die M1 Max SoC & 32GB RAM, and another $400 to bump it up to 64GB RAM...
Spec a 1TB SSD & 10Gb Ethernet, $3099 (before taxes); but maybe Apple cuts a hundred bucks off the new ASi base model, so the above (and below) specs are $2999...?
Can't wait for a version that allows 32GB or 64GB RAM. My current M1 Mini is constantly running out of RAM. I've seriously given though to going back to the i7 machine with 64GB RAM over past few months.
There's various ways of looking at that, though: although the M1 processor is faster than the i3 it replaced, the M1 Mini has fewer ports, supports fewer external displays and maxes out at 16GB RAM rather than 64GB. So it's not an all-round upgrade in the same way. C.f. the M1 Air which had the same I/O (actually better if you count bandwidth rather than ports), RAM and display support as the Intel Air it replaced.
Also, remember that the Mini got a price hike in 2018 when it was turned from a "headless MacBook Air" into something significantly faster with desktop-class processors (despite desktop processors being significantly cheaper than slower mobile ones - but then Mac prices have little to do with bill-of-materials) - whereas now, relative to the rest of the range, it has gone back to being a "headless MacBook Air".
It's actually a bit of a mystery why a M1 Mac Mini was released as one of the first wave of M1 Macs - historically, the Mini has never been first in line for an update. I suspect that it was partly intended as a replacement for the "Developer Transition Kit" (which was always going to be landfill as soon as the first real Apple Silicon Macs came out), and as a cheap "evaluation system" for M1. Although there have been grumbles about the DTK in practice, I get the impression that the initial response from many (including those of dubious developer status) was "shut up and take my money!" which may have woken Apple up to the demand for something like it at that price point.
True and thanks to another poster and Internet archive I actually have the prices:
$1,099.00: 3.0GHz 6‑core 8th‑generation Intel Core i5 (Turbo Boost up to 4.1GHz); 8GB 2666MHz DDR4; Intel UHD Graphics 630; 512GB SSD storage; Gigabit Ethernet
$1,099.00: 3.0GHz 6-core 8th-generation Intel Core i5 processor; Turbo Boost up to 4.1GHz; 8GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory; Intel UHD Graphics 630; 256GB PCIe-based SSD storage
$899.00: Apple M1 chip with 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine; 8GB unified memory 512GB SSD storage; Gigabit Ethernet
$799.00: 3.6GHz quad-core 8th-generation Intel Core i3 processor; 8GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory; Intel UHD Graphics 630; 128GB PCIe-based SSD storage1
$699.00: Apple M1 chip with 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine; 8GB unified memory; 256GB SSD storage; Gigabit Ethernet
So the M1 mini not only is cheaper for the same specs than the Intels it replaced but smacks the remaining Intel Mini around like a red headed stepchild even after Apple gave it a price cut (going up to 512GB PCIe-based SSD storage, IIRC, would add another $200)
Not at all.
Apple needed to offer at least one desktop to make the switch in the 1st wave.
The small iMac was scheduled for a redesign which wasn't ready yet.
Big iMac with a base M1 would have looked kinda stupid.
Mini was the lowest hanging fruit and I'm sure many developers bought one as a secondary device till their prefered desktop gets switch later on.
The M1 Mac mini is the cheapest development machine for application development. Developers needed to return the dev kit if they wanted their
Performance-wise a Big iMac with base M1 is totally fine, but most developers wouldn't want to spend $2000 for a development machine to replace a $500 development machine.
People keep telling me 8GB is enough and I knew that wasn’t the case! 16GB is even really not enough for me
...except the price cut disappears in a puff of logic as soon as you buy 32GB of generic DDR4 RAM and stick it in the Intel Mini for half the price of the 8 to 16GB BTO upgrade on the M1 (which is the highest it will go). Or try to connect 3 displays to it... It's not all about GeekBench scores.
The price makes more sense if you forget direct new M1 vs old Intel comparisons and look at how each version performs relative to its contemporaries. The Intel i3 Mini was substantially more powerful and more expandable than the 2018 Intel MacBook Air, and more into MacBook Pro or iMac territory.
The current M1 Mini, however, only has a marginal speed difference over the M1 Air (thanks to better cooling) and shares the same restrictions on RAM, number of displays, number of TB ports etc.
C.f. 2014, when the Mini also had the same I5-4260U processor as the 2014 Air - at which point the Air started at $999 (same as today!) and the Mini started at only $500.
Mac mini "Core i5" 1.4 (Late 2014) Specs (Late 2014, MGEM2LL/A, Macmini7,1, A1347, 2840): EveryMac.com
Technical specifications for the Mac mini "Core i5" 1.4 (Late 2014). Dates sold, processor type, memory info, hard drive details, price and more.
everymac.com
MacBook Air "Core i5" 1.4 13" (Early 2014) Specs (Early 2014, MD760LL/B*, MacBookAir6,2, A1466, 2632): EveryMac.com
Technical specifications for the MacBook Air "Core i5" 1.4 13" (Early 2014). Dates sold, processor type, memory info, hard drive details, price and more.
everymac.com
I seems Apple's SOC design, at least for the mini, allows for a lower price point. It would have been nice to see the same % drops across the iMac and MB line.
The Air stayed the same, although in 2020 they dropped the price $100 to $999
The 16" base Pro went up $100 when the M1 was introduced.
The 13', IIRC, was priced the same as its Intel predecessor when introduced.
It appears Apple feels the most competitive pressure at the low end, and thus tries o hold the line on pricing. The Air is probably a popular back to school item, and a sub $1K price is important to that market. The others, not so much.
I would love to know Apple's reasons for the large mini price drop. Weak mini sales? Better positioned to get switchers from Windows desktops by being price competitive? Typo that Tim will soon correct?
I wish they’d have released the old 4K iMac design with an M1, like they did for the Mac Mini and MacBook Air.
I’d much rather buy that machine than the one they released with the white bezels and pastel colours.
I just can't see them speccing this thing out - unless they do a Mini Pro or something as they will want to sell the iMac Pro as the high end with the Pro/Max. I view this as the desktop version of the MacBook Air or something.
Because if they put the Pro/Max into a MacMini its going to sell like hot cakes!
Because if they put the Pro/Max into a MacMini its going to sell like hot cakes!
That version already exists for a year.
As for "cannibalising" the big iMac, sure but not offering something worthwhile in this category will hurt them in overall sales or just as bad make people settle with the base Mini (aka lower margins).
If they do an iMacPro (wether it is named that or not) it will still have plenty over the Mini. MiniLED screen that sleek design and most likely something beyond the M1Max.
Is that Apple's fault or that of some third part program that doesn't release its RAM like it is supposed to when you quit it?
The flaw with that comparison is the M1 is a SoC and the RAM is considered part of the chip:
Considering the M1 kicking contemporary Intel butt in performance per watt at a given price point that compassion falls flat on its face with two broken kneecaps.
Also there are work arounds around the monitor issue as shown in Run Six Displays on M1 Macs Apple Silicon (Mac Mini, Macbook Air, Macbook Pro) (Nov 18, 2020) and similar videos.
There’s already a Mac Mini and an iMac with the same M1 chip. Both products seem to coexist just fine. Don’t see why a Mac Mini Pro and an iMac Pro couldn’t coexist too.
Of course they will. They just wanted to wait a bit to make the Macbook Pro the exclusive option for those wanting Pro/Max chips... Why offer the cheaper alternative at launch? I'm sure Apple would rather sell a $2500 laptop over a $1500 mini
Posting a block diagram of the M1 doesn't change the fact that the M1 Mini maxes out at 16GB RAM, a $200 BTO-only upgrade from 8GB, whereas the Intel Mac Mini could be upgraded from 8GB to 64GB and that could be done by a user for little more than $200.
Which has nothing to do with the relative prices of M1 Macs. In the pre M1 line-up, the Mini was significantly faster and more expandable than the Air ($999). The M1 mini is effectively a headless version of the M1 Air, which is still $999 - so the Mini has shifted position in the range.
...only by using USB DisplayLink adapters that send compressed video over USB3 and can introduce lag, artefacts and extra CPU load - they're a great solution for some people but are really not equivalent to extra DisplayPprt or HDMI connections.
Sever with SSD? Why? The data will have to be severed over a single 1 gigabit Ethernet cable. This limits you to about 100 mB/second. A hard drive is good enough
You do not need SSD in a server unless you have 10 gigabit Ethernet.
This is not true. The problem often isn't the peak bandwidth. The problem is the access time. Thus, even on a Gigabit Ethernet setup, an SSD can make data transfers much, much faster.
That said, buying a Mac mini with 4-8 TB at Apple SSD prices usually doesn't make much sense for a server, as it's far, far too expensive. A NAS would be more appropriate. A lot of data can be housed on hard drives, but for stuff where access time is important (eg. large collections of smaller files), SSD can also be used in the NAS.
There are few other things to consider. A magnetic hard drive may well be able to max out the bandwidth of a 1 GbE network for a single user who is downloading large files sequentially.
However the situation changes dramatically when the same machine is being accessed by multiple users (possibly thousands) and downloading large numbers of smaller, randomly-sized files, typical for a web-server for example
1) SSDs have much lower latency (response time) than HDDs - the best HDDs might have 2-4ms latencies, but the best SSDs can have latencies as low as 0.03ms - 100 times faster. HDDs have to rotate the disk and seek to new sectors which all takes appreciable time on a mechanical device. SSDs are like RAM - there are no moving parts, and they are accessed electronically. When you are accessing hundreds of files a second, this makes a big differences.
2) I/O operations per second (IOPS). Again SSDs can perform orders of magnitude more IOPS than HDDs (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOPS) - The best HDDs (15,000rpm SAS or Fiber Channel) only get 150-200 IOPS, but the best enterprise SSD have 10 *million* IOPS, and even consumer grade SSDs like the Samsung 980 Pro gets up to a million IOPS - but this reduces depending of file size and SSD size.
In a server, you could get thousands of hits a second each requesting dozens or hundreds of files. This is why you need high IOPS.
3) Throughput of SSDs is much higher, but does vary with file size and size of data blocks. Real-world speeds with randomly sized files will be much slower the quoted maximum transfer speeds, so having the headroom of a very fast drive will keep average speeds high. e.g. a 1000MBps SSD might read some files at only 100MBps effective speeds. The 100MB/s HDD by the same measure would be down to 10MB/s....not very impressive
4) Caching - web-servers will typically use some kind of in-memory caching to speed up response time. If there are lot of cache-misses that require storage reads, then you want fast storage to keep the cache "fed" with current data.
In practice, large servers often have tiered storage, with fast but relatively small SSDs for caches, which in turn are fed from slower Enterprise HDDs. If you recall Apple Fusion drives, the concept is similar. If you only have small data sets to serve, then maybe storage can economically be done with only SSDs.
Of course, you can also combine HDDs in RAID arrays which can greatly increase their throughput and IOPS but will do little to reduce latency.
Notwithstanding all the above, choosing Apple internal storage is likely to be overkill for most small servers like a Mac Mini that may just be handling a few dozen or so users at most. External Thunderbolt or USB SSDs are almost certainly fast enough, and a lot cheaper. However, the main issue with such systems in servers is the lack of redundancy. If you can handle downtime and minor data loss (assuming you also have near real-time backups), then a non-redundant system might be OK. If you can't, then you need some kind of redundant storage via RAID, NAS or SAN.
NEVER MIND 'Mac mini'! I'd have a BIG MAC with upgradable parts. These machines are miniaturised and become obsolete too quick... Im still running an old 2009 Tower 4 replaceable SSDs, 64 GB RAM, 6CORE CPU which is upgradable to 12...! This would be impossible with these mac minis, same for macbooks... Thats a lot of landfill!