Rychiar
macrumors 601
The Mac Studio should at least let ya add NVME drives internally
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Next Mac Mini Will Reportedly Have Mismatched M6 and M5 Pro Chips
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Yeah, this started a LOOONG time ago. The switch from desktops to laptops was able to happen so quickly because hte vast majority people were already not touching the insides of their system for ANY reason. For them, moving to a laptop just meant more of the same. Long before any AI factored into it.
Rychiar
macrumors 601
And that’s why the iMac, first Mac released after his return, was the appliance he wanted it to be!
Yet, quickly thereafter, we got the B&W G3. That chassis design (through the PowerMac G4) is probably their best for upgrading and tinkering to this day.
Last edited:
This was also part of the reason Intel took steps to shut out Nvidia. Intel didn’t want to give Nvidia time to get it right.
SFjohn
macrumors 68030
Where did you get those numbers from? It sounds like you made them up, like all of them. Do you have actual facts to back those up? Very curious, thanks! 🤔
EugW
macrumors P6
Ming-chi Kuo forecasted up to 10 million MacBook Neos to be sold in 2026. However, that was before the price increase, so that number is probably going to be lower.
The estimate of 600000 Mac Studios in 2026 actually seems overly generous, since I've seen estimates of half that number for previous years. But then again, maybe it's possible considering now the Mac Studios have been selling out because of the AI craze.
As for the Mac mini, some have estimated that they sell roughly 3 times as much as Mac Studios, but the estimates really vary.
Which ones do you want.
The 10 million MacBook Neos?
Analyst: Apple will ship 10 million MacBook Neo units this year
MacBook Neo shipments have come in better than expected, with the 2026 shipment forecast raised from 5 million to 10 million units, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says in a X post.
appleworld.today
The 600,000 Mac Studios? This one is admittedly dated to 2022, but according to CIRP the number is even lower today.
The Mac mini making up less than 5% of annual Mac shipments?
Actually, I was wrong, the Mac mini and Mac studio both apparently only make up about one percent of annual Mac shipments, at least in 2023, and the numbers in terms of Mac shipments have not changed very much since then.
IDC put the sales of Mac computers in 2025 at an estimated 25.8 million units. Even assuming that the Mac mini and studio have gone up one or two percentage points since the AI boom, we are still talking about the low hundreds of thousands of units.
Apple also themselves are not shy about which computers are their most popular, consider that the Mac mini has been updated only three times in the last six years, November 2020, January 2023, and October 2024.
Meanwhile, the MacBook Pro, reportedly their most popular computer, was updated in November 2020, October 2021, June 2022 and January 2023, October 2023, October 2024, and October 2025/March 2026. Over double the amount of times that the Mac mini has been updated. That’s not because MacBook pros are easier to produce than Mac minis, the opposite actually because the Mac mini isn’t really that complex of a machine. It’s because people purchase MacBook pros in the millions. Not the Mac studio or Mac mini.
have you seen the number of steps to replace the CMOS battery on the (newest) Mac Minis? My priors had screw-top bases - I could do CMOS batteries or memory upgrades. Now I need 11 steps and a 'Spudger' - I'm barely aware of what one is but who has a 'Spudger' lying around?
I'm not kidding about the steps. I check out and would rather give a few bucks to a local store that is licensed by Apple but isn't the Apple store :
Mac mini (2024) CMOS Battery Replacement
Use this guide to replace the CMOS battery in your Mac mini (2024). This CMOS battery is a standard 3V BR1632 coin cell battery.
www.ifixit.com
I love the part 'don't break the cord' - wait - what cord? I haven't delt with hardware cords and associated wires since 3 decades ago - and I own an Atari (I Indiegogo'ed it for a Ubuntu box - at 250 - why not. I'm typing on it right now. (terrible Ryzen core but is works until I get the Mac configured 'juuuuuuust right') which has a cord but it's very secure for the wifi and opening it doesn't cause a hazard-break.
Last edited:
Bout' right. Although what do I know. I got suckered into a heavy metal G5 (which found a home at a media school in CA that needed the bus for custom hardware interfaces. The one you convert into a charcoal grill. I went to a BBQ in Silicon Valley. It was a very good grill. Handles and everything and flame proof parts locking the panel.
Plus if lucky your burger got an Apple logo on it.
How did you manage that? Apple shows a 10 week wait for any M4Pro MacMini configuration except the lowest one, which is a 6 week wait.
That refers to storage, not memory. Two different beasts, no?No. There are plenty like this
FloatingBones
macrumors 68000
All you need to do to understand impedance is have a sense of imagination.
Because you used to be able to. I remember buying RAM from Crucial and just popping in additional RAM chips. I think it's more about more profit for Apple than anything else. You're forced to make a decision before you buy how much you need or might need, and then pay Apple's exorbitant prices for more RAM.
Max, Pro, Ultra, I don't even know what the difference is.
And what is the order those terms go in? Is it Max, Pro, Ultra or Pro, Max, Ultra?
And what is the order those terms go in? Is it Max, Pro, Ultra or Pro, Max, Ultra?
If you're talking about a desktop Mac, they all should have the same name: unobtainium.
I get you're making a joke, but I don't get it, because I don't understand or know what those terms mean and the order they go in from "least" to "best".
His sourcing on what’s in the pipeline is usually good, but that’s just part of his stories, usually. He falls flat on his face when he he fills in the blanks on when something that’s still just engineering samples might actually ship or why they do things a certain way.
He might be right about the M6 not getting a pro or max version, but his explanation about why they were skipped has all the hallmarks of an explanation he guessed at and didn’t hear directly from someone, or at least someone who actually would know. My equally uninformed guess is that the M6 has most of the significant improvements to the efficiency cores, which the Pro and Max chips no longer use.
Ironically their desktop is less tinkerable than their laptops due to using an AMD SoC with soldered RAM.
Be that as it may, even in 2007, according to Steve Jobs, over 70% of the computers Apple shipped were portables.
And if you look at the trajectory of Apple, even in the 2000s, they were releasing significantly more desktops in 2001 than they were in 2009.
There is just absolutely no way around it, desktops from Apple are, and have been for at least the last 30 years, a continually shrinking niche.
Because of this, the consumers who purchase desktops are going to be significantly more tech savvy, and are very unlikely to not be able to understand the difference between an M6 and an M5 Pro, and not know which one is right for them.
I bought a Mac Mini, because A) I hate laptops, but also because B) It's the most affordable option in the long run, especially since when the machine needs replacing, you just buy a new CPU and keep the the same monitor. With the iMac, the whole things goes out the door, including the monitor, and iMacs are much more expensive than the Mac Mini. For portability, I use an iPad. As you can tell, I am NOT a "Power User".
My guess is that TSMC is extremely limited on their first Gen 2 nanometer capacity, and both the M6 and A20 chips will be built on them.
Also consider : Apple is only putting a new chip in the pro iPhones this fall, they aren’t even releasing a new regular, and the only products rumored to get the base M6 or A20 are the MacBook Proand folding iPhone.
It feels very similar, if not even more limited, to when the M3 was the first 5 NM chip.
The M4 was released only 7 months after the M3, on a significantly more stable, much more circulated, much less expensive second generation three nanometer process.
The M7 will be the version released on a significantly more architecturally stable, much more widely available second generation two nanometer process.
Same thing happened with the first generation three nanometer process for the A17Pro, which to this day, outside of the iPhone 15 Pro, has only ever been released in one product, the iPad mini. And only so Apple could brand the thing “Apple Intelligence compatible”.
What does this have to do with anything? The iMac is also shrinking in marketshare. The last reported data says it’s less than 5% of annual Mac shipments, a completely different story from 1999 or even 2009.
And it is reflected in the product line, a thing has barely been updated in five years other than the chip, and they have completely abandoned the 27 inch more pro focused model, likely because it was probably A lower profit margin item that still likely sold in the less than 5% region by the time it was discontinued.