Gurman: M1 Pro Mac Mini 'Now Off the Table' as Apple's Focus Turns to M2 and M2 Pro Options

[JippaLippa]

Pretty obvious, at this point.
Considering it won't come any earlier than late October, releasing the M2 Pro and Max would make more sense.
I can see Apple releasing the M2 Pro and Max this fall and a teaser for the Mac Pro, then release the M2 Ultra and the M2 Extreme (or whatever name it'll have) with the Mac Pro and Perhaps a refresh for the mac studio in March.
This is the only timeline that makes sense; having the M1 Ultra replaced after 7 months only would be ridiculous...

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Like it or not, Mac Studio is the midrange desktop in the Apple lineup and I don't think they are going to change that. If anything, the iMac is more likely to get the M2 Pro option before the mini.

The iMac is an all in one. A lot of people don't want all in ones since they already have a monitor setup that may be bigger and better than the iMac's 24 inch 4K display. Getting the Pro chip in a Mini is better since they would just have to swap the computer and nothing else, especially since the Mac Mini has USB-A and HDMI ports. The iMac does not, it only has USB-C ports.

 

[EdT]

Is there really a place for a Pro Mac Mini? The Studio is essentially that device.

If it costs a significant amount less than $2000.00 and provides a high level of power for mid level photo and video editing capabilities along with the ability to use multiple screens and true-color monitors then yes, there is a place for that product.

The iMac 27 inch used to fill that gap but it’s gone. For a good number of years that iMac was $1,800-$2,000 in cost, not really increasing significantly at least as far as base price, although sometimes they accomplished that by going cheap on hard drives and memory. The Studio is $2,000 with a hard drive that’s probably too small for photo/video editing so you are probably, at a minimum, at $2,200.00 to get a 1TB hard drive plus whatever you spend on a monitor, keyboard and mouse/trackpad. With photography and probably with video you need accurate colors and a pretty bright screen, so $500-600 monitors are questionable. The old LG 5k monitor that Apple used to sell was around $1000.00, so you are looking at around $3300.00 plus for this machine,-if you can find a 5k LG- or more if you buy an Apple Studio Monitor or better.

Keep the total cost for computer/monitor/memory/hard drive close to $2000 and you won’t make everyone happy but you will probably have a machine that will sell pretty well and keep most buyers happy with owning one.

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

RIP Mac Mini with M1 Chip. I know so many people were waiting for M1 Mac Mini. It's too bad it never got to see the light.

 

[opeter]

Because they'd probably be making less money as people would likely just go with the M1 mini instead and find ways to overcome its weaknesses.

But this happens right now. Or not?
If it would be that critical, Apple would've already released a desktop Mac with Mx Pro... Oh, but look! There is none.

 

[opeter]

RIP Mac Mini with M1 Chip. I know so many people were waiting for M1 Mac Mini. It's too bad it never got to see the light.

You forgot some word (like Pro) or whatever. Or if it was meant sarcastic, well, than let you tell this: it didn't work.

 

[erikkfi]

The M1 Pro is already old news. Let's just keep offering that ridiculous space gray Mini with its Coffee Lake Intel chip.

 

[GalileoSeven]

I keep waiting for Apple to simplify/streamline their lineup given their current price points......guess I'll be waiting a while longer

 

[RogerWilco]

The current M1 mini has issues with driving multiple displays. At first I blamed Mac OS and assumed Apple would fix the problems via updates. I’m now convinced it’s a hardware problem and only a new SOC will resolve it.

 

[jlc1978]

Keep the total cost for computer/monitor/memory/hard drive close to $2000 and you won’t make everyone happy but you will probably have a machine that will sell pretty well and keep most buyers happy with owning one.

The question Apple ha to answer is:
"Will the revenue and margin from such a product compensate for the lost sales of the Studio and possibly iMacs?"
If the answer is no, don't release it. If yes, consider making it.

 

[Zaydax333]

Tracks, no sense in releasing a new Mac mini design with an M2 and M1 Pro option at this point.

What bothers me is the pricing for this. It's honestly too messy if you think about it. Everyone is saying oh there's a nice price gap between $699 and $1999 that can be filled, but is that gonna be good value or even feasible with the existing pricing structure?

Remember the Mac Studio is $1999 for M1 MAX, 32GB/512GB & 10 GB ethernet, and has a BUNCH of ports. That means for the same 32GB/512GB config, the M Pro Mac mini has to be cheaper.

Looking at apple's pricing structure on the MacBook Pros, the 32GB option is a $400 increase over the 16 GB of RAM.
The M1 Max 24C GPU is $500 more than the M1 Pro base chip. We also know on the regular Mac mini, and the 10GB ethernet is $100 option. which is standard on the Mac Studio.

So lets work backwards using those numbers:

Mac Studio base price - 10 GB Ethernet - drop to M Pro chip - 16 GB of RAM = ?
1999 - 100 - 500 - 400 = $999

That's less than the $1099 the Mac mini ships with for M1/16GB/512GB today. That also doesn't account for the change in raw materials/chassis cost between the mini and the studio.

Sure apple could release this product, but they'd either have to drop the base price on the Mac mini, or accept that it's going to cannibalize sales of the studio. Or they'll increase the price on the Mac studio with the M2 Max Chip release. The last one being more likely TBH.

 

[EdT]

The M1 Pro is already old news. Let's just keep offering that ridiculous space gray Mini with its Coffee Lake Intel chip.

I know people that really really don’t want to leave the Mac Intel world behind, most of them because they want to be able to run a Windows VM, and they are thinking about either the Intel Mac Mini as a stopgap or dropping Apple and going over to a Windows system.

 

[jlc1978]

I know people that really really don’t want to leave the Mac Intel world behind, most of them because they want to be able to run a Windows VM, and they are thinking about either the Intel Mac Mini as a stopgap or dropping Apple and going over to a Windows system.

Depending on what they need to run you can run Windows on AS with a VM. I am doing that with W11/ARM and it runs programs like the Office365 suite just fine. Some things like games or that don't work with WiARM may be problematic.

 

[Spock]

The iMac is an all in one. A lot of people don't want all in ones since they already have a monitor setup that may be bigger and better than the iMac's 24 inch 4K display. Getting the Pro chip in a Mini is better since they would just have to swap the computer and nothing else, especially since the Mac Mini has USB-A and HDMI ports. The iMac does not, it only has USB-C ports.

This is nothing new, for a long time the iMac was the only consumer desktop. If you wanted a Mac with an external display, you had to go with a PowerMac and they were about the same price as the studio is now. I think with to many BTO options on the mini, it will start to eat into sales of the Studio.

 

[Attirex]

Safari on my 2014 Mini gets a Speedometer score of.....77. M2 Mini, pls, very soon.

 

[CarAnalogy]

The standard Mac mini is $799.
The Mac Studio starts at $1999.
There is a massive gap right in the middle there that can be filled.

But Apple likes those gaps. So now your choice is either spec up that Mac Mini or spend more than twice as much as the base model to go to the base model Studio.

I’ve noticed their consistent strategy, especially with storage space and RAM, is to make the base option not quite enough. They can advertise a lower starting price, knowing that most people will take the expensive upgrade options or be swayed to the more expensive option in the first place.

 

[EdT]

The question Apple ha to answer is:
"Will the revenue and margin from such a product compensate for the lost sales of the Studio and possibly iMacs?"
If the answer is no, don't release it. If yes, consider making it.

You are probably correct about what Apple is balancing but their profit concerns aren’t mine. My 2015 27” iMac is getting slower and slower using LightRoom and Affinity photo editing. My photography is a bit more than a hobby but not a real money making side job, I can’t justify a $3000 machine. I’ve watched a lot of reviews and everyone says that a Mac Mini would/wouldn’t be a good pro-sumer editing machine but that if that is the level you need then you need/don’t need to move up to a base Studio—-only if you do buy a Studio get a larger hard drive. In other words the advice is all over the place. I’ve seen video reviews that say you can use a MacBook Air, and others that say the Studio is what you need if you do more than occasional photo or video work. And both sides of this argument throw a lot of tech spec numbers to back up their positions.

I could probably buy whatever Mac Mini Pro eventually gets released because it will be faster than my older iMac is now. But it’s not the pixel density of my photographs that are increasing but the processor requirements of the editing software that is making my current system slow. If what I buy means that in 2 years I need to upgrade again to get back to sort of ok levels I definitely won’t be happy.

In the past I justified buying an iMac by trading a portable laptop with battery limitations for a more powerful processor and hi-res screen of an iMac, but not having an editing device that I could take with me easily. In the current situation the Studio Max does not offer a price discount based upon giving up portability.

 

[loby]

I think I need this guy's job.
Even I could have predicted this as soon as the Mac Studio arrived.
In other 'news', this year or next year or some time I dare not be specific, we are going to see the release of the iPhone 14 range, the M1-equipped base iPad, and M2-equipped iPad Pros and 14" and 16" M2 MBPs.
Follow me for more 'shocking' revelations you'd never have guessed for yourself.

Yes, thought the same. Gulliblity does make money.

The Mac Mini is an entry level offering that comes out with an upgrade at (minimal) average 3 - 3.5 years. Highly unlikely Apple will (or need) to change that cycle.

Once Mac Studio came out, all bets were canceled: No mini Pro or high end mini…No need. The M1 Mac mini serves it purpose as the low end entry into the Mac “M” silicone world. If you need any more power, the Mac Studio is the Apple’s strategic option.

The M1 Mini is still a powerful option for general and “a little” more needed power user at a lower cost. Don’t see Apple updating for another year. Cuts into Mac Studio sales if upgraded.

 

[compwiz1202]

How are they behind the times? That’s pretty much industry standard.
The latest surface which starts at around $1000, also has 8 GB of Ram and 256 GB of storage as its base.
Not really that uncommon.

I think 256 is good if you don't use a lot of storage, but 8GB can be low especially with basic things like browsers chomping the RAM. Just wish all the laptop makers wouldn't make it such a pain to upgrade anymore. Used to be a simple 5m job with a panel; now you have to take the whole bottom off and sometimes more.

 

[jlc1978]

You are probably correct about what Apple is balancing but their profit concerns aren’t mine.

I agree but Apple is a for profit company and that is what drives product decisions.

My 2015 27” iMac is getting slower and slower using LightRoom and Affinity photo editing. My photography is a bit more than a hobby but not a real money making side job, I can’t justify a $3000 machine. I’ve watched a lot of reviews and everyone says that a Mac Mini would/wouldn’t be a good pro-sumer editing machine but that if that is the level you need then you need/don’t need to move up to a base Studio—-only if you do buy a Studio get a larger hard drive. In other words the advice is all over the place. I’ve seen video reviews that say you can use a MacBook Air, and others that say the Studio is what you need if you do more than occasional photo or video work. And both sides of this argument throw a lot of tech spec numbers to back up their positions.

Reviews tend to be all over the place. Have you asked on some of the photo boards what their experiences are? Or a local photography club? That might yield some real world advice; although you'll get a number of opinions in my experience.

Just looking at Geekbench numbers the M1 mini single or multi core score is about 2x as fast as the 2015 iMac's scores. My guess is it will do the job if your iMac still works but is just slower than you like.

 

[hagar]

Obviously. Why would they release a new M1 product when the M2 is out. I could have predicted that.

 

[Macative]

Is there really a place for a Pro Mac Mini? The Studio is essentially that device.

Yes, there is a lot of room for an M1 Pro that doesn't start at $2000.

 

[Tagbert]

I'd be okay with that too, more ports is always nice on a desktop. Though I suspect that the cooling on the Studio would be overkill for an M1 Pro and that the Mini's cooling would be sufficient, but I could be wrong.

The Mini's cooling was designed for Intel i5/7 chips so an M2 Pro would be no problem.

 

[EdT]

I agree but Apple is a for profit company and that is what drives product decisions.



Reviews tend to be all over the place. Have you asked on some of the photo boards what their experiences are? Or a local photography club? That might yield some real world advice; although you'll get a number of opinions in my experience.

Just looking at Geekbench numbers the M1 mini single or multi core score is about 2x as fast as the 2015 iMac's scores. My guess is it will do the job if your iMac still works but is just slower than you like.

If I do a batch conversion of large format RAW photos to JPG’s and there are more than 7-10 pictures then I end up getting a program error in both LightRoom and Affinity. No damage to the RAW files but no outputted JPG’s either. Drop it down to 3 to 5 pictures at a time and it works, but it’s definitely not just a few seconds and I can have 50+ pictures on a XQD memory card. The Nikon Z6 did not use a standard SD memory cards for storage.

I have been to a couple of photography sites but the people that are professionals and Mac users tend to absolutely love MacBook Pro laptops, because they are portable and the batteries still last for very long time even running LightRoom/Photoshop and doing tasks that in the past were battery draining.

 

[jezbd1997]

I don't understand, but Apple already offers a Mac mini with both an M1 Pro and M1 Max. It is called the Mac Studio. The M1 Pro and M1 Max get considerably hotter and as a result this model Mac mini needed a bigger heatsink to more efficiently cool it. Thus the taller case. I don't see any reason to sacrifice cooling and install a half sized heatsink / fan to make it half height like the M1 Mac mini. I also can't imagine a single person's desktop that had enough space for a half height M1 mini but didn't have enough space for the full heigh M1 Pro / Max Mac mini (Studio).

no they don’t? the studio starts with max chip. overkill for most people including the price…
the m1 pro is waiting to fill a gap between