The point of the Mini is or was to exist as a low end desktop machine. That market is quickly drying up due tablet use. Many of the customers that would have purchased the Mini in the past are frankly better off with a tablet. Now admittedly there are other market segments the Mini sells into, but they aren't huge relative to the lost consumer business.
Due to the rapid changes in the industry I really believe they have to change the focus of the Mini. It really needs to be a platform for a wider array of users. The low end machine needs to exist that is for sure but we also need performance that fills the gap between the Mac Pro and Mini. So I can see a redesigned Mini coming.
I'm not to sure about that! Much could be accomplished by changing the focus of the current Mini. For example drop magnetic drive support for SSD. This would lower power wasted by the drives to allow a performance bump from the CPU. It would also allow for better cooling. Adding TB 2 ports, at least four, would help hugely too. Of course adding TB2 ports impacts the power budget which may be a problem as we really want to bump the CPU clock significantly in the high end model. It is a balancing act for sure but the goal should be an entry level machine similar to today's and an up sell model that are really worth the money being asked. For example a base line Mini might have a 2.6 GHz CPU while the high end model might have a 3.4 GHz model with Iris graphics. It all depends upon what can be fitted into the machine power wise. The idea being to have at least one desktop machine that fills the gap between the Mini and Mac Pro.
