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Will it be Iris or Iris Pro though...

There is no Iris 5100 Quad Core chips, so they have to be Iris Pro in the Quad Core versions.

I am pretty excited about this update to replace the one I have at work.
 
I have always wondered why the Mac Mini isn't more popular.

People always complain that Mac's are too expensive yet you never hear anyone mention the Mac Mini. Isn't that the basic consumer Mac?


Go to an Apple retail store. The mini is lonely in a corner somewhere while the clerks sell newbies on the POWer of the iMac. Plus Apple doesn't really have a monitor that is budget priced for the mini so iMac does make more sense for Apple retail to push.

I use a mini as a jukebox along w/ the Remote app. Love it. If they offered a decent discrete graphics option again I'd bite in an instant as it's really the last hobbyist Mac left w/ the HD (SSD) and RAM easily upgradable.
 
The New Mac Mini, now in a Coke sized can.
Don't give them ideas...

I know that the iMac makes more sense than the Mac Mini but my build your own PC days just don't let me get past my strong dislike for all in ones as desktops.
 
FINALLY!! Some Macrumors rather than the usual cloud/ios/courtroom nonsense! Shame I bought a new mini 6 months ago though..
 
I'm interested by a new form factor, anything to get my MBA out from under my TV.

Long overdue too!
 
Thanks for taking one for the team, klymr! ;)

Hey, some sucker has to do it right? In all honesty though, my 2007 MacBook Pro wasn't keeping up, and I needed something to get by. I figure within a year or two I'll be upgrading to either an iMac or a Mac Pro.
 
I use my 2011 Mac mini as my main machine.Since I put an ssd in it it flies.There would have to be a big upgrade to get me to spend any money.Plus I have a pc tower which has Mavericks running fine if I need something a bit more powerful.

For someone willing to go to the trouble of disassembling their mini, the Crucial m500 960GB SSD is a perfect match. We'll have to see how the storage options on the new minis will shake out. The recent $100 price drop on the 1TB Fusion Drive upgrade were a good sign.
 
I'm interested by a new form factor, anything to get my MBA out from under my TV.

Long overdue too!

Would love a new form! And more customisable ... but that's just dreams/hopes that are not going to happen I'm afraid
 
Well from the way it reads, they clearly haven't got any of that description from Apple.

There is a small possibility that the date is real but they just guessed the rest from the Macbook spec.
 
I really like the Mac Mini form factor, but price wise it just doesn't make sense. If they stuck a fusion drive starting in the base model then it starts to be competitive with the iMac.

I started buying minis instead of iMacs the day Apple started putting a shiny piece of untreated glass on the front of every iMac. Now that the glass has an anti-glare coating (which I find to be a huge improvement), that's not a concern anymore and I agree that the overall value of the iMac is better (although not for user-upgradability).

And I absolutely agree with you about Fusion Drive. I think Fusion Drive should be the minimum base configuration for every Mac, with higher-priced SSD-only configurations. The performance gains from SSD are just too great to ignore, and it surprises me that anyone would want to buy a new computer these days with nothing but a clunky spinning disk for the OS and data.
 
I think they will leave the form factor as is but do the following:

Get rid of the FW800 port
Maybe add another thunderbolt port and go to Thunderbolt 2
Add 802.11AC
Add PCI-SSD as a BTO
Change over to Haswell architecture with the Iris Pro graphics


I doubt Apple will offer 32GB of memory for BTO but does Haswell support 32GB over two dimms ?
 
Only thing that is surprising is the mention of Firewire.

I would be surprised seeing how it has disappeared from the rest of the Mac lineup.

I would expect to see the FW800 port disappear and be replaced with a second Thunderbolt port, and see them make the move to Thunderbolt2 as well with this.
 
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned PCIe SSD, which most other macs have by now. I'd love to see them have two of those slots (you can do dual SSD on the current model) but they probably won't since that would be more than the nMP has (I guess they'd probably do one of those and one 2.5" HD so they can do fusion). TB2 will happen at some point, it would be nice if it was now.

I'd also like to see more ram slots and desktop CPU but neither of those is likely in the current form factor.
 
Lets see a cylindrical mac mini with quad i5s and i7s, half as many ports and a dedicated gpu on higher end models.

Mmmmmm. Mac Doughnut.

Image

D.

I posted this a couple of weeks ago when rumors of this started to pop up as well. I'll throw it here again.

Shamelessly stolen from Cult of Mac:

First debuted in 2005, the bring-your-own-monitor Mac mini has always been Apple’s entry-level Mac desktop, but at an entry level price starting at $599, the Mac mini isn’t exactly “cheap” compared to competing budget desktops out there.

Doubtlessly, Apple doesn’t consider this a problem — they’ve never tried to compete in the race to the bottom — but what if Apple did release a Mac mini that was cheaper? Over at Letemsvetemapplem.eu, they’ve taken a crack at imagining what such a 2014 Mac mini would look like, and they think it would look a lot like a double-stuffed Apple TV, and start at just $399.

If a new Mac Mini looked like that, heat issues aside, I'd be game. Keep in mind, this is just concept only; nothing concrete.

mac-mini-a-thunderbolt.jpg


mac-mini.jpg


Heat factors aside, I think this would be nice.. I don't know what they'd do for video though, unless it was integrated onto the CPU, though I would say that FirePro would be out of the question.

BL.
 
Go to an Apple retail store. The mini is lonely in a corner somewhere while the clerks sell newbies on the POWer of the iMac. Plus Apple doesn't really have a monitor that is budget priced for the mini so iMac does make more sense for Apple retail to push.

I use a mini as a jukebox along w/ the Remote app. Love it. If they offered a decent discrete graphics option again I'd bite in an instant as it's really the last hobbyist Mac left w/ the HD (SSD) and RAM easily upgradable.

Go to somewhere like the JBs over here near me and you wouldn't even know they sell mac minis. You have to ask and they disappear out the back!
 
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned PCIe SSD, which most other macs have by now. I'd love to see them have two of those slots (you can do dual SSD on the current model) but they probably won't since that would be more than the nMP has (I guess they'd probably do one of those and one 2.5" HD so they can do fusion). TB2 will happen at some point, it would be nice if it was now.

I'd also like to see more ram slots and desktop CPU but neither of those is likely in the current form factor.

Getting rid of the HDD/standard-SSD slot would be nice in favor of 4x RAM modules. But it would probably harm iMac/Mac Pro sales as 32GB RAM would put it in a privileged position over 21" iMacs and rMBPs.
 
For someone willing to go to the trouble of disassembling their mini, the Crucial m500 960GB SSD is a perfect match. We'll have to see how the storage options on the new minis will shake out. The recent $100 price drop on the 1TB Fusion Drive upgrade were a good sign.
I have a 256gb ssd in mine, use usb storage for my media.Dont need to be opening up again.Plus right now i'm unable to safely since I just had a wrist and hand operation.
 
Mmmmmm. Mac Doughnut.

Image

D.

That's insanely awesome. But IMHO, the Mini's trademark is the square format and many love that, especial the Aluminum Unibody factor.

I posted this a couple of weeks ago when rumors of this started to pop up as well. I'll throw it here again.

Shamelessly stolen from Cult of Mac:



If a new Mac Mini looked like that, heat issues aside, I'd be game. Keep in mind, this is just concept only; nothing concrete.

mac-mini-a-thunderbolt.jpg


mac-mini.jpg


Heat factors aside, I think this would be nice.. I don't know what they'd do for video though, unless it was integrated onto the CPU, though I would say that FirePro would be out of the question.

BL.

I don't think Apple would want to copy an AppleTV form factor for the desktop. Besides, many of us have been asking for a slightly more powerful AppleTV and add the App store, sort of making it a Mac Nano... ;)
 
Looking forward to it.

I sure hope a new Mac Mini of some kind is coming soon. I've been wanting to upgrade mine for a while.
 
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No Iris Pro, no business. Better keeping my 2010-Mini with its modest, but still pretty usable, 320m.
Actually most of the Haswell variants would be better than the 320M but yeah they need an Iris Pro variant. I don't expect the Iris Pro in the base model either but that shouldn't surprise anybody. Beyond that OpenCL apps work very well on the new Intel GPUs.
 
About time, but

If true its about time they updated the Mac Mini as I have been holding out to replace my 2011 model with one with better CPU.

However I was kind of hoping that since Apple has been holding out on Mac Mini updates maybe the were going to introduce a pop can model to match the style and design of the Mac Pro.
 
I use my 2011 Mac mini as my main machine.Since I put an ssd in it it flies.There would have to be a big upgrade to get me to spend any money.Plus I have a pc tower which has Mavericks running fine if I need something a bit more powerful.

Same here, with my 2011 Mac Mini. Stuck in an SSD and 16gb of ram, and it is like a new machine compared to when I bought it.
Although I am a little jealous of the quad core cpu options now available on the Mac Mini. I sometimes will look at the quad core model and wonder if I should.
 
Saw this on the forum yesterday, not sure it deserved to be front paged.

There's literally no real info (SKUs, processor frequency and hence model, etc.) beyond generic speculation anyone could have done.
 
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