Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

M4 Mac Mini to Become Apple's Smallest Ever Computer With Complete Redesign

I just had an awesome design thought... what if the M4 Mac Mini had internal battery backup? If the power goes out, the battery will kick in and macOS will give you 15 min. to save your data and shut everything down (or it will automatically shut down a couple minutes before the battery is completely drained). Obviously, you can't USE the system like this, but it's there as a safety cushion. That would be so cool! 15 minutes of battery life (at max. wattage use, so longer, if you're not pushing it hard) should fit in the Mac Mini case easily. A countdown timer appears and shows you how much time you have remaining. No need for a bulky UPS on the floor. I'd gladly pay extra for that! Make it an optional upgrade. I'd get it!
 
  • Haha
  • Disagree
  • Like
Reactions: ProbablyDylan, Jumpthesnark, jouster and 4 others
Luposian said:
I just had an awesome design thought... what if the M4 Mac Mini had internal battery backup? If the power goes out, the battery will kick in and macOS will give you 15 min. to save your data and shut everything down (or it will automatically shut down a couple minutes before the battery is completely drained). Obviously, you can't USE the system like this, but it's there as a safety cushion. That would be so cool! 15 minutes of battery life (at max. wattage use, so longer, if you're not pushing it hard) should fit in the Mac Mini case easily. A countdown timer appears and shows you how much time you have remaining. No need for a bulky UPS on the floor. I'd gladly pay extra for that! Make it an optional upgrade. I'd get it!
Click to expand...
that's not "genius" - it will create another service part and the battery will likely break down over a few years - and how often do you have a blackout? Just hook up a UPS and be done - I have 3 of those at home, even though we never have black outs, it's the safest and can support multiple devices/servers/infrastructure.
 
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: _Mitchan1999, Jumpthesnark, artifex and 3 others
Populus said:
Hey Chuckeee, by the way, do you think Apple will let us buy a spare power brick, in order to have one in the places we wish to connect our M4 Mac mini? Because I’m not sure if they sell spare iMac power bricks…
Click to expand...
For some reason, I thought you could get them through Apple’s repair program. Might not be cheap but installation would be trival
 
  • Like
Reactions: _Mitchan1999
b.la said:
If I had to guess, the mini M4 will be the same price and the mini m4 pro will have a price bump.
Click to expand...
The current Mac mini pro pricing is closely coordinated with Mac Studio. Where an upgraded [RAM/SSD] Mac mini M2Pro is cost competitive with the lowest end Mac Studio M2Max. With Apple trying to encourage buy up to a Mac Studio. With transitioning to the M4, I don’t see Apple wanting to radically change this tier pricing. So I would expect any price increases for M4pro Mac mini would need to be coordinated with corresponding price changes for the M4 Mac Studio [whenever it eventual get released].
 
  • Like
Reactions: _Mitchan1999
With Apple, products with smaller footprints are nearly always positioned as less premium than their bigger counterparts.

Think about it: A smaller desktop Mac, would, because of its size, have to have less ports, less or no active cooling, draw less power, less of nearly everything compared to the current Mac Studio, Mac mini, and Mac mini Pro. Same or lower price than the current $599.

Apple doesn't just perpetually make the premium more premium. It also loves widening the gap between premium, mid-tier, and budget.

The current $599 mini and the $1299 mini Pro were too similar optically and spec wise. So this new line-up with an even smaller and cheaper mini fixes this.

This really won't be a whole lot more than an M4 iPhone/iPad inside an Apple TV-sized chassis, a few USB-C ports, no ethernet port(just Wifi), no speakers, minimal or no active cooling.

Selling at less than $599, it would be a smash hit.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: _Mitchan1999 and coricelesti
As a current Mac mini owner (M1), I have no real need for my device to be smaller. If anything, I’d prefer we go the other way and get proper multi-display support and some of the ports from the front of the Mac Studio.

I can see there could be an audience (particularly server farm or corporate applications) this could appeal to. For consumers a lite version with integrated Apple TV functionality might work as an occasional computer mounted to and powered directly from a television.
 
  • Like
Reactions: _Mitchan1999
Please just give us a 26", 28" or 30" iMac.. this Mac mini thing is getting out of hand. Now even I will probably be able to hold a Mac mini in one of my little toddler size hands. When is this going to stop?!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back