Mac Mini Arm Or Intel Coffee Lake ?

[Helpfixit]

The release of the new Intel 8th generation processors, i'm guessing it may be shipping with all Mac's in the next few years or so

Could we eventually see a Mac Mini with (dare I say) minimum Quad Core i3 or will Apple gimp / neuter the Mini with a proprietary Apple ARM based CPU plus more 2500RPM Mechanical Hard Drive and extortionate price label ? Or just render the Mac Mini obsolete and have customers pay through the nose for i5 / i7 iMac's / Macbbooks.

This is going to be fun!

 

[ziggy29]

I really don't think a new product line will feature a pure mechanical HD at all. At the very least we will see a Fusion drive or combo of small SSD for the OS plus a spinner for apps and data. I don't think we'll ever see the OS on traditional spinning HDDs any more for new products.

I don't see Apple continuing the Mini as we knew it, and that makes me sad. About the only way the Mini survives (IMO) is without Thunderbolt, because a TB3 connection on a mini, combined with emerging support for eGPUs, might be seen in Cupertino as cannibalizing iMac sales. (Many of us have longed for a headless, expandable and upgradable Mac for well over a decade now.) You'd get HDMI and/or DisplayPort, but no eGPU potential. And at this point, without eGPU, the Mini might as well be dead for me for my uses, though for other purposes (such as a media server) it may still work very well.

 

[Boyd01]

I just don't think Apple is interested anymore. See the other big thread where people report that Apple stores no longer display them because nobody buys them. And Apple doesn't want you to have a media server, they think the AppleTV fills that role, and it ties you to them for all your content. Look at the new 4k AppleTV for example. Apple is offering free upgrades to your existing HD movies, however you cannot download them to your computer. The only way to watch 4k iTunes movies on an AppleTV is streaming.

It would be nice to see a new Mini that is actually faster than my 2012 quad, but I doubt it. My next computer will probably be an iMac. And I'm not too concerned about having to buy a screen, all of mine are getting old anyway - still using my 23" Apple Cinema Display from 2005 on my 2012 mini!

 

[cynics]

At this point the Mini would be a good test bed for a proprietary CPU.

They clearly don't care about losing its customer base. They wont need to produce a billion of them. It cheap enough for many people to just try out. And devs can play around with it.

Apple did this with the "MacBook". The MacBook Air and MacBook Pro filled the gap for most people but the actual "MacBook" went 5 years without an update and when it was released Apple used it to get the market ready for USB-C, not by having only one but by it being the only port at all.

They could do the same with the Mac Mini and a ARM based only CPU. If the idea flops, well its not like they lose much when compared to not updating it at all.

 

[EightyTwenty]

At this point the Mini would be a good test bed for a proprietary CPU.

They clearly don't care about losing its customer base. They wont need to produce a billion of them. It cheap enough for many people to just try out. And devs can play around with it.

Apple did this with the "MacBook". The MacBook Air and MacBook Pro filled the gap for most people but the actual "MacBook" went 5 years without an update and when it was released Apple used it to get the market ready for USB-C, not by having only one but by it being the only port at all.

They could do the same with the Mac Mini and a ARM based only CPU. If the idea flops, well its not like they lose much when compared to not updating it at all.

Today's "MacBook" isn't really an update of the previous laptop that went by that name. It's a totally different product that was called "MacBook" for marketing purposes. If anything, it's an update to the MacBook Air.

 

[cynics]

Today's "MacBook" isn't really an update of the previous laptop that went by that name. It's a totally different product that was called "MacBook" for marketing purposes. If anything, it's an update to the MacBook Air.

Well clearly its not a update TO the MacBook Air since the MacBook Air was updated in 2017 and still sold today next to the MacBook and MacBook Pro. If anything I would call the MacBook Air an update to the OG MacBook, as in replacement for it.

However my point was they took a product and product name people were familiar with and launched an update for it that seemed more of a "lets see how this works". Yes, marketing purposes....

The Mini could be the perfect test bench for them for an in house CPU (IMO). Throwing an Apple CPU into a mainstream product could be disastrous for the product line. A new product line could easily fail because its something new and people could be fearful of buying it. However the Mini has household name and has been around forever which will make people less fearful of buying it.

This is just my opinion obviously. They aren't doing anything else with the Mini.

 

[Boyd01]

Well they actually discontinued the original MacBook for 3 or 4 years before they launched the new MacBook. If they follow that route, then the new Mac Mini is almost certainly not coming.

 

[dogslobber]

I really don't think a new product line will feature a pure mechanical HD at all.

I agree. There’s no case for spinners in 2018 Macs and I’d doubt even Apple would have the brass neck to take the p!ss with further spinners. I still reckon th 2018 Mini will be ARM based and the size of an Apple TV box.

 

[Crosscreek]

When Xcode gets ported to IOS then you will see Arm Macs.