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The new Mac mini is almost certainly coming

Boyd01 said:
Does this mean that a new space grey Mini won't be coming for awhile? Glad I got my keyboard/mouse while they lasted. :)

www.macrumors.com

Apple Discontinuing Space Gray Mac Accessories Now That iMac Pro is Dead

Following the discontinuation of the iMac Pro, Apple also appears to be discontinuing Space Gray "Magic" accessories that it sold separately alongside the iMac Pro. The iMac Pro was the only Space Gray Mac, and Apple designed special matching accessories for it.
www.macrumors.com www.macrumors.com
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I prefer my Space grey keyboard and mouse as well. Especially as my white ones are for my work MacBook Pro (which is also Space Grey)
 
Moonjumper said:
Apple have kept the old high-end Intel Mac Mini on sale at the high-end price. I am hoping it will be replaced with a higher performance Apple Silicon chip. As Apple seemed to have put (almost, but not quite) the same M1 chip in machines that had different performance levels when using Intel, I think we might see one higher spec chip (perhaps called M1X) to cover a range of devices including the top-end 14" MBP, all 16" MBP, all large iMac, and top-end Mini.
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The fact that they kept the intel mini in the lineup tells me they intend to replace it, and the power supply (as with the iMac 24”) is well capable of dealing with an M1x cpu. it too easy to assume that the space grey mini will house the M1x SoC that goes into the 16” MacBook pro and (presumably) the next iMac Pro and perhaps even a theoretical 14” MacBook Pro As you mention.

As for the discontinuation of the space grey iMac Pro accessories - it’s not a big stretch to assume there’s going to be touch ID coming on new keyboard accessories. The pro lineup may well just come in a sober space grey and silver.
 
sublunar said:
[…]

As for the discontinuation of the space grey iMac Pro accessories - it’s not a big stretch to assume there’s going to be touch ID coming on new keyboard accessories. The pro lineup may well just come in a sober space grey and silver.
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That would make sense for the Magic Keyboard (redesign and addition of TouchID) and Magic Trackpad (redesign), but the Magic Mouse doesn't seem to have changed at all in it's overall design.

So since all three of the accessories seem to have been discontinued, I guess "space grey/black" is a colour scheme we won't see in the near future. Any variation of grey or black is also notably absent from the new line of iMacs.
 
I've given up trying to predict what Apple will do with the Mini. But remember 2014. They discontinued the "pro" 2012 quad-core Mini and replaced it with a much slower dual-core version without upgradeable RAM. And then we had to wait four years until they finally gave us another high-spec Mini.
 
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Nütztjanix said:
That would make sense for the Magic Keyboard (redesign and addition of TouchID) and Magic Trackpad (redesign), but the Magic Mouse doesn't seem to have changed at all in it's overall design.

So since all three of the accessories seem to have been discontinued, I guess "space grey/black" is a colour scheme we won't see in the near future. Any variation of grey or black is also notably absent from the new line of iMacs.
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What if the M1X Macs come in a new shade of dark grey to separate them from Intel Pro Macs? eg Slate Grey? Space Black?

The Magic Mouse was also redesigned with colour for the iMac so it would stand to reason that a redesign - even if just to add the matching colour - would follow
 
Boyd01 said:
I've given up trying to predict what Apple will do with the Mini. But remember 2014. They discontinued the "pro" 2012 quad-core Mini and replaced it with a much slower dual-core version without upgradeable RAM. And then we had to wait four years until they finally gave us another high-spec Mini.
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That was already identified as being because the H series quad core CPUs were on a different motherboard/socket than the U series dual cores when it came round to Haswell and Apple weren't prepared to have 2 different motherboards for a low volume product.

I'm assuming that low sales dissuaded Apple from expending engineering resources for an upgrade between 2014 and 2018 until the Coffee Lake CPU came along with Thunderbolt 3.

There's no such limitation this time around unless Apple are just going to discontinue the remaining Intel Mac mini without releasing an M1X variant at the same time as they launch the rest of the Mac range this year.
 
Apple fanboy said:
I prefer my Space grey keyboard and mouse as well. Especially as my white ones are for my work MacBook Pro (which is also Space Grey)
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What color options are the keyboards for the new iMacs (with the TouchID)? Maybe it's time for me to go to Best Buy to purchase a space gray keyboard. My keyboard drawer makes a trackpad and full-size keyboard a little tight though.
 
sublunar said:
There's no such limitation this time around unless Apple are just going to discontinue the remaining Intel Mac mini without releasing an M1X variant at the same time as they launch the rest of the Mac range this year.
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And that will probably happen. The Mac mini and Macbook Air will stay in a 2-year refersh cycle. I think we will see an upgraded Mac mini in 2022. Maybe.
 
southerndoc said:
What color options are the keyboards for the new iMacs (with the TouchID)? Maybe it's time for me to go to Best Buy to purchase a space gray keyboard. My keyboard drawer makes a trackpad and full-size keyboard a little tight though.
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I’m guessing all the colours the iMacs come in. However aren’t they the small one without the number pad? I need the numbers.
 
I prefer a keyboard with the numeric keypad with the frequency at which I have to enter numbers, but the numeric keyboard with the trackpad side by side is tight in my keyboard drawer. Maybe I should just suck it up and get used to it. Functionality would be better with the numeric keypad.
 
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The space grey keyboard had that damn numeric keypad (other than accountants, who wants that?) - besides, they have the new keyboards with Touch ID for Apple Pay / Unlocking.

I'm really hoping that the M2 comes along with the "Pro" monicker and a bunch of black...yes....black not space grey BLACK Mac's, MacBook Pro's and Minis. :) Still holding out for that damn HDMI 2.1 port so I can replicate my old HTPC setup....*grumble*
 
sublunar said:
What if the M1X Macs come in a new shade of dark grey to separate them from Intel Pro Macs? eg Slate Grey? Space Black?

The Magic Mouse was also redesigned with colour for the iMac so it would stand to reason that a redesign - even if just to add the matching colour - would follow
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By "redesign" I meant the shape and tech. The colors are just a matter of anodization. Not really another product.
If you were right with another shade of grey/black for future "pro" Macs, I wouldn't complain. I'm just not sure it'll happen …

Apple fanboy said:
Also like having it and not an accountant!
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+1
 
opeter said:
And that will probably happen. The Mac mini and Macbook Air will stay in a 2-year refersh cycle. I think we will see an upgraded Mac mini in 2022. Maybe.
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But the evidence points towards an M1X SKU upgrade for the mini - just like the PSU for the iMac the PSU and cooling solution for the Mini is now overspecified and over engineered for the M1 alone.

There may well a good argument for a 2 year refresh cycle, I have mooted a situation where we might see X CPUs on the M1 architecture with additional cores and graphics on odd years (including this one) while the low end CPUs (with process shrinks?) get even years.

On a 2 year basis the M1 is based on the A14 while the A15 would be the basis of the M1X. Marketingwise, the question for Apple is whether or not to call it the M1X or the M2.

If it was an annual upgrade we'd be seeing a late appearance for M1X based on the A14 - meaning the most of the Mac range (apart from maybe the Mac Pro) could be fully transitioned to ARM this year.

It would mean a very busy annual upgrade cycle that stretches over many months. I would say a more relaxed upgrade cycle would be more meaningful - perhaps at the expense of dragging out Mac CPU refreshes over 2 years rather than the annual upgrade cycle that phone users are used to.

It would also mean we might see Mac and iPad Pro models change every other year unless the Apple were committed to bringing in low end updates annually, only doing high performance products every 2 years.

But if we see the high end Mac hardware get refreshes between October 2021 and March 2022 that would fulfil the ARM transition.
 
I may upgrade from M1 to M2, but definitely will pass on M1X (if the next upgrade is the M1X, if it's the M2 then I'll wait for the M3).
 
Maybe Apple will keep the 2018 i7 Mini for awhile, as a nod to people who still want an Intel CPU for Windows and legacy 32-bit MacOS apps? As the owner of such a machine, that would suit me fine - longer support! :cool:
 
Boyd01 said:
Maybe Apple will keep the 2018 i7 Mini for awhile, as a nod to people who still want an Intel CPU for Windows and legacy 32-bit MacOS apps? As the owner of such a machine, that would suit me fine - longer support! :cool:
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Sounds fine apart from the bit where they said the transition would be over by 2022. Unfortunately, I think Apple will want out of Intel Coffee Lake CPUs because Intel have discontinued CFL desktop CPUs and won't want to prolong support longer than they have to.
 
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