New Mac Mini Reportedly Set to Launch Before iPhone 18 Pro Event

[arc of the universe]

wrong to think of this new Mini's target user as anything like the current Mini user.
the new one is aimed squarely at networking scores, if not hundreds, of them, to run open weight AI frontier models.

i would also venture to say that once this is announced, availability will be given primarily to models that have minimum 64GB+ RAM and upper configurations.
people with a need for a Mini for here-to-fore use patterns will wait probably a year or more.

 

[Deliro]

Not going with the M6 would probably be a mistake. Except for the final cost maybe.

M4 users will be slow to jump to M5 but would be more prone to jump to a M6. Anyone with a mini prior to M4 might as well wait for the M6, unless they really need a new machine now.

Why? What can an earlier version of the Mac mini cannot do exceptionally well with its intended use cases now? I guess I'll never understand the upgrade every 1-2 years crowd.

 

[sublunar]

as mentioned by others in this thread I think this early of a release means m5 and m5 pro press release update. It would already be disappointing given the m6 on the horizon would then appear to be reserved for the iMac which has been in relatively plentiful supply for m4 models.

I suppose it means fewer iMac users would be buying them up for AI workflows vs people who want to put minis and studios in data centres.

Makes you wonder if the Mac Studio will be going the same way so that the m6 chips will be reserved for laptops and iMacs this time around.

Might also be because Apple would need to buy faster ram for m6 machines at a higher price than m5 series.

And if Apple were launching a Mac Neo they could consider a scenario where where a polycarbonate case and some internal SATA ports could be offered while limiting the IO commensurately with the A19 pro cpu.

 

[deconstruct60]

I ordered a Mac mini in June and still haven't received it... might as well cancel it and get the M5 or 6...

In some cases in the past, Apple has contacted folks waiting in the queue with an 'expired' system to see if they'll accept the newer replacement. If Apple was doing the 'right thing' they would put folks who moved all the way to the front of the queue onto the front of the queue for the new system. There is presumptoin that the prices haven't shifted much ( presuming this order was post pricing changes in June. If a much delayed order that predates price increase, then wouldn't be surprised if Apple dropped the order (system discontinued) or minimally contact and ask if want to pay more. )

If punch out and then restart ... could end up at the back of the line again. Even if it comes with an M5 instead of an M6 ... demand probably is going to outstrip the RAM supply.

 

[saberfi]

If this is true then I hope they also launch the M6 MacBook Pro at the same time, seeing as reports have stated it's been ready for months.

For the later part of the year they could then focus on the supposed MacBook Ultra.

Oh, and releasing base M5 Mac mini would be a major fail. I highly doubt they do that. M5 cycle is pretty much at its sunset already.

 

[deconstruct60]

That bothers me. If so, it is likely to be US only sales.

Could be USA , Canada , and Mexico ( if the USMCA treaty isn't evaporated by a trade war in next 1-4 months ).
If the USA factory is sized to barely keep up with US demand levels then no. Or if there was a shift in demand levels in Canada and/or Mexico since they initially designed the factory.

 

[abatabia]

At $599 I scooped up an M4 on launch day. At $799, and I’m sure the wait times will be insane….even with 512 likely to be the base even if I did need this, which I don’t, I’m going to pass. My M4 will serve me well for years to come.

Timing is weird, and if it’s M5, even weirder.

 

[deconstruct60]

as mentioned by others in this thread I think this early of a release means m5 and m5 pro press release update. It would already be disappointing given the m6 on the horizon would then appear to be reserved for the iMac which has been in relatively plentiful supply for m4 models.

Reserved for the iMac? Very probably not. The MBP 14" M6 will probably be the dominate volume consumer of the M6 chip. The mini sticking with the M5 options would be the domino effect of the MBP 14" getting off of M5 consumption and freeing up M5 SoC packages for the Mini. The MBP 14/16" Pro models might get even more expensive with OLED so Mini M5 Pro could eat up demand drops there.

The iMac getting the M6 is to consume any slack that the MBP 14" M6 might have. Extra M6's then it eats the slack. If both sell well then the wait times are higher for both. iMac being not as popular as the Mini means that extended wait times are lower for the iMac/MBP 14" pairing than they would be for a Mini/MBP 14" pairing.

Depending upon how consumption goes wouldn't be surprising if the Mini got an M6 on next update (an Pro might stay M5 Pro). The iPad Air extends out the consumption of the Mn series after the iPad Pro (and MBP/MBA) are done with them.

Pretty good chance the iMac gets M6 and goes comatose again until the M8. The iPad Pro could be the potential slack filler for the M7 roll out.

I suppose it means fewer iMac users would be buying them up for AI workflows vs people who want to put minis and studios in data centres.

Makes you wonder if the Mac Studio will be going the same way so that the m6 chips will be reserved for laptops and iMacs this time around.

There is no M6 Pro , Max ( and Ultra ) so either Apple is going to wait until after the Mini and MBP rebalance M5 Pro supply. Or squat on what they got for a couple quarters and perhaps roll out M7 top down instead of 'bottom up'. (i.e., M7 Ultra and Max first and then get to the rest late in 2027 ).

Might also be because Apple would need to buy faster ram for m6 machines at a higher price than m5 series.

Probably do need faster LPDDR but the stuff in the M5 packages isn't going to suddenly be super plentiful in the next 8-14 months. The Mini Pro and Studio would likely be decoupled from one another to smooth out initial demand bubbles.

And if Apple were launching a Mac Neo they could consider a scenario where where a polycarbonate case and some internal SATA ports could be offered while limiting the IO commensurately with the A19 pro cpu.

SATA ? You are smoking something. That isn't coming. No polycaronate either. I wouldn't expect Apple to change the exterior chassis at all in order to ramp even longer economies of scale on it. Spec bump the SoC to A18 Pro and done.

 

[deconstruct60]

iPhone are still made in China. So, it was a deal done with Trump to indicate that Apple is serious about bringing some manufacturing back to the USA. So, start with the unpopular low-volume items like the mac mini.

Apple accelerates U.S. manufacturing with Mac mini production

Apple today announced a significant expansion of factory operations in Houston, bringing the future production of Mac mini to the U.S. for the first time.

www.apple.com

a significant expansion of factory operations ...

First, very substantively large number of iPhones are made in India now. They all don't come China anymore. The bulk of the iPhones coming into the USA at this point are India assembled.

Second, the article you linked was that Apple was extending their factories operations; not initializing them. The private cloud compute server models were already being made at this Houston site. The Mini factory was rolled out as an expansion of that. With the cancellation of the Mac Pro it is closer to treading water ( That Austin site is either shutdown or being converted. )

Third, 'unpopular' Mini is la huge chuckle. There is another post in this thread of someone waiting since June to get a Mini order. If nobody wanted these why can you simply just order it and it comes from the warehouse on the lsland of 'mistfit toys' ?

If this 'unpopular' is derived from those reoccuring stories with CIRP study numbers that said the Mini was barely scratching 1% and the Mac Pro was whipping it at 3% .... The Mac Pro is no dead and the Mini is backlogged. Those numbers never were right for desktops. Whatever hocus pocus methodology they used to collection them was flawed. At this point that should be relatively obvious.

Mini sells in lower volume than the MBA and plain MBP 14". That just means lower volume; not unpoplar (in its category).

 

[ry-guy]

That seems…weird if an m5. So every other mac is gonna move to the m6 except the mini, the device which Apple has sold so many of? Do they have an overabundance of m5 chips they need to get rid of haha

 

[abatabia]

That seems…weird if an m5. So every other mac is gonna move to the m6 except the mini, the device which Apple has sold so many of? Do they have an overabundance of m5 chips they need to get rid of haha

This whole thing is weird. We’ve been hearing no new mini for months now, and suddenly a new mini is about to launch? Did they do what you suggest and suddenly just decide to add an M5 in it and call it a day? Very strange, or just gurman doing his usual throw everything at the wall to see what sticks routine.

 

[deconstruct60]

If this is true then I hope they also launch the M6 MacBook Pro at the same time, seeing as reports have stated it's been ready for months.

The design has likely been ready. The supply of RAM it needs extremely likely has not been. Shipping RAM-less versions would not have make anyone happy.

If the MBP 14" M5 version is winding down while the MBP 14" M6 production builds up some decent inventory then that is likely a major contributor to where the Mini is getting the limited M5 SoC packages (with RAM) from.

The M6 wasn't already in high production for more than several months.

For the later part of the year they could then focus on the supposed MacBook Ultra.

That is on M5 generation also . There are no M6 Pro/Max so the Ultra upgrade is not SoC specific.

Oh, and releasing base M5 Mac mini would be a major fail. I highly doubt they do that. M5 cycle is pretty much at its sunset already.

Completely tossing a chip that is 12 months old into the trash can isn't economical. The chip in an plain iPhone continues on the multiple years the model is sold. The An Pro chips now have hand-me-down products to unload to (iPad Mini , Apple TV , Neo ).

The Mini is highly backlogged with a M4. An M5 would get more work done for the high enough demand uses it is being deployed into. Which PC chip (with same target class) from AMD/Intel/Nvdia/Qualcomm is betting the M4 Pro, let alone the M5 Pro? What non-Apple system is shipping in next 10 months that is going to be faster? If answer to that is nothing then 'sunset already' is very much a misnomer. Apple can't get complacent, but the notion that they don't have a substantive lead doesn't have much data to back that up.


P,S. The mini has already jump from $499 to $799. If the M6 meant even higher prices. That is 'wrong direction' to the mini to keep going in. The Mini (and Neo) need to work harder to stay back where there were originally priced as much as possible.

 

[krell100]

Made in the USA? Hard pass.

 

[abatabia]

Made in the USA? Hard pass.

And all for a starting price of $899.

 

[Avenged110]

Would've really loved to have purchased a U.S.-assembled mini, but it needed to be able to run macOS 15. It's too bad they weren't assembling the M4 models here.

 

[ResPublica]

wrong to think of this new Mini's target user as anything like the current Mini user.
the new one is aimed squarely at networking scores, if not hundreds, of them, to run open weight AI frontier models.

i would also venture to say that once this is announced, availability will be given primarily to models that have minimum 64GB+ RAM and upper configurations.
people with a need for a Mini for here-to-fore use patterns will wait probably a year or more.

Even though the Mini is popular in the AI-world, Apple has never given priority to high-RAM versions of the Mac mini. It actually removed the 32 and 64GB options of the Mini when supply became tight. They clearly prefer to sell more units with less RAM.

 

[chars1ub0w]

First, very substantively large number of iPhones are made in India now. They all don't come China anymore. The bulk of the iPhones coming into the USA at this point are India assembled.

iPhone 18 Pro production in India is supposed to be about 25%. 75% roughly comes from Nanshan, Shenzhen and Zhengzhou. Both Foxconn places in China currently hiring like mad and offering about 28元/hour and 8000元 bonus after 90 days. Since it's a limited iPhone 18 Pro + folding launch, only abut 450,000 Chinese workers total. The recent iPhone 18 Pro motherboard pictures and videos were leaked from Tata in India. Foxconn and Tata operate in India. Not sure what salaries they're offering in India, but substantially less than in China.

"Apple’s first foldable phone, rumoured to be called the iPhone Ultra, is unlikely to be manufactured in India in its initial cycle, sources said. ... The decision is understood to be driven primarily by the technical expertise required to manufacture the new form factor rather than uncertainty over demand."

Better quality, fewer defects with respect to iPhone production is supposed to be from China (nearly zero %) due to Chinese production engineers. India has lower productivity. Apple now has a zero tariff exemption from Trump, so it can import from China without worry.