I hope so but I'm not counting on that. It'd be nice to see both the Mac Pro and high end Mac mini (and iMac Pro?) at WWDC, but if just one Mac is announced there, I'd bet more on the Mac Pro.
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Kuo: New High-End Mac Mini Won't Arrive Until Next Year
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Even Luke Miani killed it wth iPhone 13 in Green, Mac Studio and Studio Display!
I’ve always felt like Kuo comes up with every possible scenario so later he (and Macrumors, etc) can say “look, I said that would happen!”
If you consider the "Mini" line to include the Studio (headless desktops), then there are no SKUs with the M1 Pro. I believe this is where the "high-end" Mini fits and why it seems to make sense to, at some point, replace the high-end Intel mini with a M1 Pro Mac mini.
My personal opinion is the reason we haven't seen this yet is because historically the Mac Mini has always been upgraded as an after thought. The fact that it was done early in the ASi transition was likely purely out of convenience.
Amen. Seems like an obvious gaping hole in the line up.
Agree...Not only not having sufficient Apple polishing cloths, but also still waiting for a Mac mini other than space grey or silver!...Go Purple Go!...LOL
Apple is using the tried-and-true strategy of milking the high end, which is to target the first adopters wanting a Pro machine with the Studio.
Those wanting a value-priced Prosumer machine (higher end Mini) will have to wait. It's too bad the iMac isn't more interesting. The 24" Barbie/Hot Wheels M1 iMac is a non-starter and there's nothing bigger (for now.)
Those wanting a value-priced Prosumer machine (higher end Mini) will have to wait. It's too bad the iMac isn't more interesting. The 24" Barbie/Hot Wheels M1 iMac is a non-starter and there's nothing bigger (for now.)
I thought wanted to get away from Intel in part because their upgrade schedule meant apple needed to wait for Intel chips. But it turns out maybe apple just likes releasing computers slowly … every other year or so. But if phones come out every year…why shouldn’t every computer model come out every year? Looks like Intel wasn’t the only limiting step.
We knew this years ago, because Intel released chips appropriate for their respective Macs much more often than Apple updated those Macs.
It makes sense though from a business perspective when comparing to the iPhone, since people upgrade those high-dollar things much, much more often. Furthermore, historically phones arguably needed much more frequent updates because the early ones were so limited. However, now that iPhones have become so powerful, the average upgrade cycle is getting longer. People used to upgrade every 2-3 years on average, and now the average is something like 4 years. However 4 years is still much faster than for Macs on average. Enthusiasts often love to upgrade upgrade their computers every few years, but there are a heluvalot of people out there who keep their computers for 5 or even 10 years.
On a personal level, For Xmas 2021, I bought my wife a used 2017 MacBook Air, a machine introduced 4.5 years earlier. For Xmas 2022 I will get her an iPhone, but it will be brand new, probably an iPhone 14 Pro Max at almost 4X the price. I don't think she'd be happy if I got her a used 4 year-old iPhone.
In fact, her current iPhone to be upgraded is an iPhone XR which will be 4 years old come fall.
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The justification to market annual iPhone models is to drum up justification to increase users swapping the older iPhones to make signing up for new phone contracts work. Would Apple release iPhones annually if they didn't need to, very likely. Fancy ultra compact camera improvements, much faster ARM processors, mm5G support. What else do you need after buying the lastest iPhones. I think all the smartphone vendors are painting themselves into a corner on how consumers value this constant sales pitch to upgrade quickly rather then hold on to the phone longer.
Mac computers are very different, you normally buy one and hang onto it for several years. Its only when the Mac hardware is limiting you with using your software in a manner that seems a burden that you need to upgrade to a new Mac.
My money is on this tracking with whatever goes into the MBA's - this is now the MacBook Air of the desktop lineup. Nothing Pro/Max will go into these.
"Everything"? You mean a bunch of rumors? Yeah, I don't think I need to weigh that signal very strongly.
Apple's non-iPhone product line has frequently only changed every two years or more.
Even when there is a change after a year, it tends to be a minor speedbump.
An M2 based on the A15 was possible but the arguments against it still hold.
More sensible is an M2 that's based on ARMv9/SVE, the real basis for the Mac line going forward, the Penryn/Brigham Young/Joshua to M1's Yonah/Joseph Smith/Moses.
It makes sense (ie is plausible...) that
- we learn about such a chip at WWDC. That would be a logical place for Apple to announce SVE and to get developers ready for it.
- even that such a chip ship at, even slightly before the A16? Perhaps announce M2 at WWDC, with an expectation that the first round of devices can be bought at around the same time as the new iPhones?
Ultimately M2 will ship in smaller volumes, and there's no longer any real surprise/PR factor to be gained by forcing it to ship after iPhone?
It can support up to 64GB of RAM. There are probably customers who consider this essential.
Of course flip side of this is that Apple will surely have a solution with the M2 for this particular issue.
This is the way. It was actually worse with the release of the MBPs at the end of this past year. There was no option for desktop alternatives in Apple Silicon with any bit of GPU capability.
People who wanted to drive lots of pixels or wanted local GPU compute either needed Intel machines using eGPUs, or had to buy those new MBPs.
Except MBPs are way too expensive to keep in clamshell all the time. People are working from home now, they are going to get way more value from a Mac Mini or the Mac Studio. But Apple sent people on a buying cycle with those Pro's anyway.
The last time Apple chased a buying cycle this hard was when they forced the flawed 2015 MBP out the door with the wasted space for the non-custom shaped battery.
I suspect they even held back the Apple Studio Display to get that last line of MBPs out to consume budgets. The only reason that had to be linked to Mac Studio was the brand name. They don't really go together in a meaningful way, at all.
FWIW, customers will be in a much better position by the end of this year. There are reasonable options in various states of upgrade across portable and desktop. With configurations from the low-end to the high end. (Studio, and the serious high end in the coming Mac Book Pro.
I just bought a used 2015 MBP four months ago. It's great and basically looks brand new, with a perfect screen. Mind you, it looks so brand new that I suspect everything was swapped out before they sold it. The top case, keyboard, and track pad have zero wear, and the battery had less than 30 cycles.
Well, if the original point of this thread is accurate, then customers will not be in a much better position by the end of this year.
Well, they just released the M1 Max mini (or the closest thing you're goin got get to it).
As far as an M1 Pro mini? Probably when the M2 mini is released.
Really good points. All of this sort of does point to a chip shortage combined with Apple's need to complete their 2-year apple silicon transition. I do wonder if they had to put a freeze on the "high-end" M2 or M1 Pro Mini version because they need to focus production on the Max and Ultra out the door to hit their commitments.
Maxing out an M1 Mini with storage/ram is not the same as updating a CPU/GPU. The price difference might not be big but the performance gap is. Take GPU for example:
Mac Mini: M1 (7/8-Core GPU)
Mac Studio: M1 Max: (24/64-Core GPU)
There for sure is a place for a 'high-end' mac mini without overlap.
Mac Mini 'high-end': M1 Pro (14/16-Core GPU)
I don't see the Mac Studio as a Prosumer product. Apple might be positioning it that way, but its closer to a Mac Pro in my eyes. They even compared it the Mac Pro during the presentation and it beats it in performance. I think there's still a sweet spot they need to fill and are trying to push an upsell of the Mac Studio.
Consumer: M1
iMac
Mac Mini
Prosumer: M1 Pro
(Gap that needs to be filled with M1 Pro Mini or iMac)
Professional: M1 Max/Ultra
Mac Studio
Overpriced super computer for video editors and those who want the best of the best: M1 Ultra/Future 4x Max Chip
Mac Pro
Popular with server farms.... still selling to people who need Intel compatibility.
The high end iMacs have been discontinued... I would expect the same for the high end mini.
The Studio is a closed, non-upgradable box, it is a more of a Prosumer system with workstation-like performance (M1 Ultra).
High end professionals, the very people Apple designed (and priced) the Mac Pro for, need more memory and expandability and workstation grade performance. It was designed when they knew they were going to move to their own silicon, so I don't see it changing in any way other than having an Apple Silicon option. (Yes, I think they will continue to offer it with Intel XEON.) What that ASi looks like, I don't know? Maybe it's an Ultra (or two), but without on package memory? Maybe it's a discrete CPU, an "X1", with up to 64 cores that absolutely kills everything on the market? Will be interesting to find out though.
1. We can all hope!!!
2. Both the Air and mini made the transition, but they have not yet seen a redesign. I would guess they are both probably selling really well as-is and Apple will just wait until the M2. Who knows... maybe both the mini and iMac will get a M1 Pro option then?
Fair points. At this point all we can do is speculate, but I agree a hallmark of a Mac Pro is the modular ability to add different CPUs, GPU, and RAM modules rather than a fully soldered unit that can't be upgraded. Very curious to see what ASi looks like for Mac Pro.
Still the lower-middle prosumer end is being gutted out (M1 Pro) even if we label the Mac Studio as a middle-high end prosumer product given it's soldered non-upgradable nature. Whether we will see a desktop computer for the M1 Pro tier is still unknown, but I think it would be foolish for them not to fill it eventually.