Mac Mini to Lose Its USB-A Ports Later This Year

[Victor Mortimer]

Throw in a SCSI also!

You're probably attempting sarcasm, but you're actually not wrong, that would be handy. I keep a PowerBook G3 Bronze Keyboard in a bag with a SCSI case and various SCSI cables. I end up using it more than I'd have expected.

 

[anakin44011]

Hah. I hot swapped SCSI for years without issues. I don't recommend it though.

Good Lord, you are reckless. Next you are going to tell me that you run with scissors and assemble IKEA furniture without instructions. You should wear a warning label.😜

 

[Zdigital2015]

We’re at 9 years and counting with USB-C on Macs and crying about USB-A ports going away is hilarious. Go buy a $50 hub and move on with your lives. So much gnashing of teeth over old ports that Apple has telegraphed that they were going to remove as far back as 2015-2016 and the vitriol of the user base here has been just as silly since 2016.

If you need 20 USB-A ports go buy a PC. You’ll still need a couple of PCIe cards.

Supposedly this forum is full of tech enthusiasts and early adopters and once again the clinging to old tech around here is like old men and their ‘76 Mustang.

 

[Victor Mortimer]

Well, heck. Let’s demand an optical drive too! No need should have to buy an external reader!

/s

That, but without the /s.

I've got external optical drives on about half my computers, I keep one in my daily carry laptop bag. It's annoying, there's no reason a desktop shouldn't have an optical drive.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

What purpose indeed …
Retaining a single USB-A port would be the best solution for the consumer

Then again, worrying about what’s best for customers LONG ago took a back seat to:

“Make number go up”

It’s all Tim cares about now
Anyone thinking otherwise is deluding themselves.

My guess is the rumors of a much smaller form factor are probably true and there wasn't "room" for the same mix of ports in the existing Mini. So goodbye USB-A ports. I wonder it it will be goodbye to the 3.5mm audio jack too? Move ethernet to the external power brick like iMac (and pay extra for that option)? For what? A few minutes of "oooooooooh" & "ahhhhhhh" and then putting the new smaller Mini on a desk in place of an old larger mini and filling the freed-up space with a dongle/hub to get back ports one may need that are no longer on board?

In general, ejecting utility in the form of physical ports reduces costs. If they keep the price the same or raise it: more profit for AAPL. Shareholders rejoice. 💰💰💰

Meanwhile, customers can pay up for the new Mac and then pay more for the hub/dongles to buy back what is taken away. And that's good because "ooooooooh, ahhhhhhhh... look at how much smaller they could make Mini"... a device that doesn't need to fit in a pocket... is generally NOT mobile... could weigh 20 LBS and it wouldn't really matter, etc.

 

[code-m]

Taking Apple long enough to migrate everything to USB-C, with iPhone and iPad using USB-C connectors this is a good move.

 

[sw1tcher]

Not that hard to work around this. One usb-c for a dock or adaptor, Bluetooth everything else, 5 is actually a luxury.

I like that the MacBook Pro brought back the HDMI port, but I really don't miss USB-A. Even though I use quite a bit of external gear, all the time. Simply bought a few USB-C → USB-B cables, etc.

Usb-c to Usb-a adapters and hubs are a thing

Forcing Mac users to buy adapters and hubs and such goes against Apple's environmental mission.

Environmental health and safety policy statement

Mission statement

Apple Inc. is committed to protecting the environment, health, and safety of our employees, customers, and the global communities where we operate.

We recognize that by integrating sound environmental, health, and safety management practices into all aspects of our business, we can offer technologically innovative products and services while conserving and enhancing resources for future generations.

Apple strives for continuous improvement in our environmental, health, and safety management systems and in the environmental quality of our products, processes, and services.

Guiding principles

Strive to create products that are safe in their intended use, conserve energy and resources, and prevent pollution throughout the product life cycle including design, manufacture, use, and end-of-life management.

 

[heitoo]

Well, heck. Let’s demand an optical drive too! No need should have to buy an external reader!

/s

You’re engaging is sophistry. USB-A is an order of magnitude more widespread than optical drive, not to mention much cheaper and smaller.

Why not remove all those ports and leave one USB-C port to connect a dock? I mean, Ethernet is clearly redundant in Wi-Fi era and you don‘t need HDMI either. See? I can argue like that too.

 

[deconstruct60]

Looking forward to seeing a redesign. Needs to be something that makes it stand out from its taller twin.

Since it is copying the basic port layout of the 'taller twin' and likely copying the placement strategy of the tall twin's power supply placement, it seems more likely to be just a bit shorter and a bit less wide than the taller twin. For example perhaps half as tall ( shave 1 to 1.85" inches off the height and an 1 to 1.7" inches off the width-depth. ) . However, largely just scaled down from the Studio baseline design. It could likely look a smaller , more affordable, Studio. ( get rid of 'half' of the aluminum and some milling for ports would result in a lower production cost). The height drop largely would be just making the air exit vents area smaller since going to blow less air through the chassis for cooling.

( if cut out the aluminum top and replaced with "recycled, save-the-oceans" plastic that would save even more aluminum and could move Wifi antenna from the bottom to the top of the system. Colored plastic would be a more noticeable different, but not really deviated from the baseline approach of the Studio's design. )

Decent chance the notion of "Apple TV" is just as deeply flawed as the M-series Mac Pro being "half sized" from the Intel version. [ Even if insider was trying to spin the Studio as the Mac Pro replacement at one point... it still wasn't half sized. ]

Perhaps the 'plain' Mini is getting its own "bit bigger than a AppleTV" chassis, but I suspect not.

The Studio has 6 ports ... this will only have 5. So far sounds like don't get a SD card slot either ( so easily distinguishable from the front. ) . Studio has 10GbE... pretty likely this gets year 2000 era 1GbE in the standard configuration (when some WinPC are moving to 2.5GbE as a baseline). Lower RAM memory capacity.

 

[Edgecrusherr]

USB-C --> multi USB-A multi-port hubs are as simple as plugging it in. No power. Not sure how "non-tech people" would struggle with plugging in a cable in the back (or front).

SETMSPACE USB C Hub

USB C Hub, SETMSPACE USB C Multiport with 4 Port USB 3.2 10Gbps Transfer, USB Port Hub with 2 in 1 Cable 19.6in [32° Bevel Design], USB Hub for Laptop, PC, MacBook, Keyboard, Mouse, Dell, HP, Lenovo

a.co

You’d be surprised how much they struggle with this. There’s people who don’t know the difference between their computer ann their monitor. Also, most hubs get hot. So waste of energy on top of everything.

 

[code-m]

Hope the new MacMini is a cube in dimensions like the floating G4 cube without the levitation illusion. Imagine these in a server or render farm, a wall of cube computers.

 

[brentawilson]

With the smaller form factor, will it still have a cooling fan?

 

[StellarVixen]

Comparisons with serial ports and floppy drives are dishonest and mockery is not an argument.

By the time Apple removed floppy, barely anyone was using it any more. USB-A devices are still commonality and are still being made. It’s premature decision.

 

[citysnaps]

Excellent news!

For people needing to interface to USB-A devices, you can purchase a pair of USB-C - USB-A very highly rated Anker cables on Amazon for $8.

 

[klasma]

Pffft...USB A.

Real men use DB9. Now get off my blue fescue.

To compete with USB-C, I’d go for DB25.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

We’re at 9 years and counting with USB-C on Macs and crying about USB-A ports going away is hilarious. Go buy a $50 hub and move on with your lives. So much gnashing of teeth over old ports that Apple has telegraphed that they were going to remove as far back as 2015-2016 and the vitriol of the user base here has been just as silly since 2016.

It's never how long Apple has had things... it's how long it takes for the OTHER stuff to connect to such ports to adopt the new standard. How long were we at Lightning and counting? 30 pin? Firewire 800? Rhetorical: Lighting was introduced in 2012, so it's had 3 more years than USB-C. Apple didn't even put it on their own Macs. Who owns a Lightning-based printer? Who ever owned a Firewire 1600 printer?

USB-A is still THE fundamental standard. It's cheap to use and "just works" for all kinds of things people want to connect to a computer. New PCs are rolling off the lines every day with USB-A ports. It's not "of the past" or "antiquated" at all. It's many years from being SCSI and similar.

Yes, I'd rather the world immediately jump to USB-C everything as it is superior in many ways to the old "A." But the world hasn't jumped yet and likely won't jump any faster because Apple kills some USB-A ports on a new format Mini. Instead- as you say- add $50 to the purchase to buy back utility being dumped. Put that hub next to that new smaller Mini on the desktop to likely take up at least as much physical space as the existing form factor with the "hub" baked INSIDE it. And feel like you accomplished something beyond only further emptying a wallet... paying as much (if not more) for the Mini PLUS even more for the hub.

 

[P-DogNC]

Oh my, shades of the rage when Apple first removed the SCSI port,the floppy disk and then the CD/DVD drives. The peanut gallery went berserk when Apple held out adding USB-C to the iPhone. Now it’s objecting to USB-C only devices.

One truism concerning Apple over the decades is that they have introduced industry-leading new formats and ways of integrating with computers, and have subsequently never been afraid to chuck out the old. The rest of the industry (and many users in general) then whinge and complain incessantly about "what Apple has taken away!". Apple pretty much drags the whiners, kicking and screaming like a small child who doesn't want to take a bath that the dirty child desperately needs, into a much better future.

If Apple had not made USB-C the sole port on MacBooks starting in 2015, android phones would still be using micro USB or something proprietary and awful to charge their devices, and it would be more difficult and more expensive to find the USB-C & thunderbolt accessories we currently have. Most Android users, in fact, think that Apple is "just joining the party" concerning USB-C, and that it was an android technology introduction. Most of my high school students, even the iPhone-using students, believe this...until I show them my daughter's 2017 MacBook Pro, replete exclusively with thunderbolt USB-C ports.

USB-A needs to have a fork stuck into it. One can buy small female USB-A to male USB-C adapters for old legacy crap, some of which dates back to the 1990s. We need to embrace the future.

 

[mannyvel]

I’d rather have usb-c ports on my mini. I have a bunch of usb-c docks with usb-a ports anyway. I think one A on the front might be good, just for flash drives. But yeah not a big deal.

 

[Jamie0003]

All I want from this device is:

Able to power using type C, IE I would like to be able to plug it in to my battery pack

Much smaller

A way to have my iPad Pro be the main monitor for the Mac mini using sidecar so I can use it on the go if needed

Cheaper price

16 gigs memory as standard

It would be an incredible raspberry pi type machine that you could chuck in a bag and use for all types of things, even the base M4 will be an absolute beast of a machine. Day 1 purchase if so.

 

[mudflap]

Good riddance USB-A. Give me more Thunderbolt ports. We can all buy a 4 or 8 port USB-C to USB-A hub for next to nothing. I don't want Mac to turn into Windows where we have to accommodate outdated tech for generations.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Why does the Mini need to get any smaller?

I agree with Siracusa … at some point the device starts getting too easily yanked around by things plugged into it

 

[Jamie0003]

Great decision
Who wants useful ports on a desktop computer!?

/s

Better question: who needs outdated ports on a desktop computer when hubs are a thing?

 

[Victor Mortimer]

Yeah exactly, I’m not getting the cadence of rage and complaints here on MR.
During the whole conundrum on lightning ports (which I find still great, easier to plug/unplug and lighter than the considerably bulkier by comparison USB-C) was that they were an old thing and people wanted to get rid of lightning things.

Well, USB-A is way older, so now’s the chance to get rid of all that once and for all. And by the way, USB-C specifications are already a decade old for that matter, people should have pushed for full on thunderbolt compliance instead! Now we are stuck by law to the lesser denominator.

Thunderbolts (USB-C) are an EVERYTHING port, it can become card reader, screen output, dvd player, storage expansion, the beloved USB-A for some here, etc.
Heck even HDMI, a $5 dongle can make it be an HDMI output or even also an HDMI capture input for $10 for those that need it.
For example, nothing I have even uses HDMI anymore just straight up thunderbolt that happens to display 5K+ resolution, daisy chain to many more thunderbolts, charge the devices, etc ALL AT THE SAME TIME… something other ports can’t dream on doing.

And again, those using the exact same lightning rationalizations, HDMI is also a many decades old port too.

Now, I get it, I’m not convincing anyone here, this is not about congruency or rational thinking, this is about “I got a many years old wired mouse that I love to use so I want to impose decades old ports on everyone else’s computers”.
At least it’s a good thing that just a few things here and there have been carried on… or our computers would still have floppy, Zip/CD/DVD drives and who knows what else.

So, a middle ground, kudos to HDMI, audio jack, SD card… but maybe let’s treat USB-A the way lightning did. Time to let go?

My .00002 opinionated cents

USB-A is a STANDARD. Lightning was an idiotic proprietary connector that had no reason to EVER exist. I'd rather Apple had used Micro-USB connectors instead of coming up with a new and pointless proprietary connector, and then moved to USB-C on phones and mice immediately when it came out instead of letting the proprietary garbage stick around for a freaking decade.

One of my favorite desktop Macs of all time was actually a Hackintosh. It had ALL the ports, a bunch of USB, serial, parallel, SCSI, internal Blu-Ray drive AND DVD-RW drive, 10TB internal storage, VGA, DVI, and a bunch of PCIe slots in case I wanted to add more stuff. I want Apple to build THAT kind of machine.

 

[klasma]

For a 2025 machcine, it makes sense.
The only accessories that stubbornly remain usb-a are keyboards and mice.

I own a dozen or so other peripherals with USB-A, from audio interfaces to colorimeters to USB microscopes. Well, I guess half of them don’t work with a Mac anyway.

 

[Victor Mortimer]

Better question: who needs outdated ports on a desktop computer when hubs are a thing?

Me.

Hubs are ridiculous and unnecessary for well-designed desktop computers.

Who needs a small computer when the hub hooked up to it has to be bigger than the computer?