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The new Mac mini is almost certainly coming

I have to assume that whatever else they do they have to make sure they're ready for back-to-school orders. The fact that almost all the desktops are sold out suggests to me they're trying to have at least something M5 desktop-related during the summer, but note they're significantly backordered even on higher memory laptops at this point with the 128GB CTO models now backed up about three weeks or more and not a silver in stock anywhere. I would be astonished if M6 devices show up before next spring, especially the Pro or Max ones. And, if the AI agent pivot is primarily responsible for the shortage of minis rather than simply equally responsible with EOLing the M4, and their yield of M5 chips is anywhere short of ideal, then yes, they'll miss back-to-school on M5 minis.

They're also going to need to pivot the Neo to the next generation of iPhone processor and bump the price a bit accordingly; I think they're running out of those faster than they'd expected and as it's a binned chip the supply is somewhat finite.

So I think this back-to-school cycle will be laptops.
 
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I’ve read rumors/leaks that say TSMC is increasing the price of its 3nm process for the second half of the year. Starting in June, I guess. The price increase is said to be of 15%.

This means that all current products using the 3nm process could experience a price increase. The Neo would be the first to suffer this due to it’s low margin but probably other products will follow.

The M5 Mac mini, when released, is probably going to be more expensive… I think I’ll order a full specced M5 MacBook Air before it is too late. I’d wait for the bank to school promo but, honestly, I fear it will be too late and Apple raises the prices of both the product and the NAND and RAM upgrades.
 
Populus said:
The M5 Mac mini, when released, is probably going to be more expensive… I think I’ll order a full specced M5 MacBook Air before it is too late. I’d wait for the bank to school promo but, honestly, I fear it will be too late and Apple raises the prices of both the product and the NAND and RAM upgrades.
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Apple have strict fixed contracts for years ahead. So, no worry – wait with confidence.
 
Populus said:
I’ve read rumors/leaks that say TSMC is increasing the price of its 3nm process for the second half of the year. Starting in June, I guess. The price increase is said to be of 15%.

This means that all current products using the 3nm process could experience a price increase. The Neo would be the first to suffer this due to it’s low margin but probably other products will follow.

The M5 Mac mini, when released, is probably going to be more expensive… I think I’ll order a full specced M5 MacBook Air before it is too late. I’d wait for the bank to school promo but, honestly, I fear it will be too late and Apple raises the prices of both the product and the NAND and RAM upgrades.
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The price of the SoC will dictated in larger part by future prices of ram and storage but transport costs may increase later this year.

The direction of travel of pc costs is only ever going to go up in the short term and to hide price increases you do fear that Apple will do more spec bumps to standard skus but it would be a major move to reprice the cost of custom ram and storage upgrades. Based on recent moves by Apple they’re more likely to remove upgrade tiers altogether.

I’d agree with the advice to buy now in that event but to try and find an off the shelf device that contains the spec needed.

At what point does the iMac become worth buying as those seem to be in less short supply despite being still on m4 like the mini.

Back to school promos may simply exclude non laptops from their deals now the Neo is here.
 
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JPack said:
No, Apple sold out at $599. Even at $799, the Mac mini isn't in stock.

There's no reason for Apple to do a Neo.
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If Apple had been out of stock of all MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs last year, would you have advised them to never release the MacBook Neo?

Just because they're out of stock of Mac mini doesn't mean there's no market for a lower-priced Mac Neo. Imagine the same hardware specifications as the MacBook Neo but without a display, battery, keyboard, trackpad or camera. IMHO they really should release such a Mac to lower the barrier of entry even more.

Macs are expensive, even more so in other countries where people don't earn as much as Americans and where their currency is even weaker on top of it.

More Mac users equals potentially more people subscribing to monthly/yearly Apple services which have a much higher profit margin.
 
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batman75 said:
Well we are post wwDC and as predicted no new Mac Mini.
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I guess they didn't want to steal the software's thunder. They don't do a "one more thing" since Steve Jobs died.

They'll likely have a smaller event with just new hardware, and probably not with the sexy items like iPhones. The question is, before or after the iPhones.
 
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I was dissapointed that M5 mac mini wasn't announced. Eitherway not a big deal. My m4 mini pro 20 core gpu 64gb is due deliver at he end of this month.

Better to have one on order then not being able to order one.
😎
 
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It might be good if the M5 Mini came out AFTER macOS Golden Gate in the fall, because that could result in it ultimately getting 1 additional supported macOS release at the tail end of its life 🙂
 
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frou said:
It might be good if the M5 Mini came out AFTER macOS Golden Gate in the fall, because that could result in it ultimately getting 1 additional supported macOS release at the tail end of its life 🙂
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Always look on the bright side 🙂
 
Since John is a hardware guy, I wonder if they are gonna try to move back to the old release schedules. iPhones in September, Macs in Octoberish. According to the Macrumors buyers guide, it seems like the Mac mini has a track record of being released in the fall. of course the new component shortages/price hikes may change all that. we'll see.
 
ry-guy said:
Since John is a hardware guy, I wonder if they are gonna try to move back to the old release schedules. iPhones in September, Macs in Octoberish. According to the Macrumors buyers guide, it seems like the Mac mini has a track record of being released in the fall. of course the new component shortages/price hikes may change all that. we'll see.
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Release schedules is surely more down to marketing, if John was a 'hardware guy' like the old school Mercedes engineers they'd release when they were 'ready' 🙂

Apple accountants may decide that the best way to insulate Apple from component shortages and price hikes is to raise the average selling price by dropping the lowest model SKU from sale - they have already done with the existing M4 models. I'm not expecting the 599 16/256 Mini to return on that basis but was expecting a general storage bump like they did with the M5 laptops (A 699 16/512 mini for example, but the discount may not happen next time). That could be how Apple prices up an M5 (or m6!) Mini without making any expensive wholesale changes to the a finished spec.

Any 'delays' to the schedule might be to synchronise with Mac Studio but it could also be because M6 Pro or Max isn't going to be ready for release yet. In Pro laptops they would generally want to synchronise Pro and Max level chips for simultaneous release.

Perhaps with the precedent of M5 laptops dropping last year and preceding the Pro/Max iterations by months along with the dropping of the Mac Pro from the lineup Apple may feel the need to boost the Mac Studio and push Apple Store standard SKUs up by putting using a Pro level CPU as a new entry level.

I'd have suggested the next Mini drops the Pro CPUs so the Mini isn't tied to release readiness for the M6 Max which go into the Studio - that lineup then has beefed up specs allowing sale of Pro/Max/Ultra CPUs allowing Apple to boost Cores and RAM allocations and amend off the shelf prices accordingly.

The Mini can then have its own release schedule disconnected from anything the Studio is doing and off the shelf units at the old 'Pro' price point could max out all the available cores while having additional RAM or storage as standard (eg 32/1Tb). This would then be a nice off the shelf SKU for the AI LLM guys.


This would leave a significant gap at the bottom of the Mini range - at the new 'low end' I'd be interested to know what the plans for a refreshed Apple TV were - the rumour is it's been ready for months now.

There may be a warehouse full of them or the assembly lines are ready to roll at some point so it's now a clear marketing decision that there's been no launch date yet.

Sadly, there's been no headlines from WWDC suggesting that tvOS could be made ready to boot on older M-class Macs or a future Mac Neo (disguised as an Apple TV 4K 4th Gen with an A17 Pro cpu).

With tvOS ending support for AppleTV 4k 1st gen and HD models it's yet more evidence of a new model coming, although if they are launching with an A17Pro CPU (from the M3 generation), you do wonder if in the future the A15 CPU from the 3rd Gen 4k could become a baseline for an expansion of tvOS to load on any old M series hardware going forward. Would people be happy with a 299 8/256 Mac Neo that did double duty as Apple TV 4K 5th gen?

I do fear for the future of the 2nd gen with A12 CPU, a relative of the A12x/A12z that won't be getting iPadOS 27. Maybe it can survive with limited features as it was only discontinued in November 2022 after a relatively shortlived run from 2021. It does imply that support could end in as little as 12-24 months with tvOS 28/29.
 
ry-guy said:
Since John is a hardware guy,
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He's not a hardware guy anymore. He's becoming a CEO.
I hear the operation is quite painless and leaves no scars.

sublunar said:
Apple accountants may decide that the best way to insulate Apple from component shortages and price hikes is to raise the average selling price by dropping the lowest model SKU from sale - they have already done with the existing M4 models.
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Well what they did with the MacBook Air was effectively drop the $999 256GB SSD option but drop the price of the 512GB model to $1099 (previously $1199). That wouldn't be terrible for the Mini - 256GB was becoming a joke. Apple were previously charging 3x any reasonable estimate for the retail price of RAM and Flash upgrades so they can afford to eat some of the price rises to stay competitive.

However, if the industry-wide shortages/price rises continue I suspect we'll eventually just see regular price rises across the range.

Meanwhile, I see no reason to doubt Apple's official explanation for the Mini/Studio shortages - unexpected demand and limited production capacity for 3nm silicon - or that (other than dropping outdated 256GB configs) the discontinued Mini/Studio models won't be replaced once the M5/M6 Minis and Studios finally launch.

The uncomfortable truth is that MacBooks are the big breadwinners for Apple, the M5 MacBook Pro is their flagship Mac, the M5 Air is their mainstream big seller and these are always going to be prioritised over desktops. This may be the longest pause since 2018... but the gap before that was four years!
 
theluggage said:
That wouldn't be terrible for the Mini - 256GB was becoming a joke.
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For desktop it's not that important, not for additional $100 for extra 256GB for sure (ie even if they reduced the price). I bought M4 for 500 and added a slightly used external 1TB M2 with enclosure for 70 I think. I would always prefer 256GB model over 512GB for that price, and 512GB is still not enough IMO anyway.
 
yellowhelicopter said:
For desktop it's not that important, not for additional $100 for extra 256GB for sure (ie even if they reduced the price). I bought M4 for 500 and added a slightly used external 1TB M2 with enclosure for 70 I think. I would always prefer 256GB model over 512GB for that price, and 512GB is still not enough IMO anyway.
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A year ago, maybe - good luck getting a decent 1TB M.2 for $70 now.

Of course, 512GB isn't big enough for everything - the point is that you ideally want the frequently-accessed OS, apps, temporary files and frequently used library materials on the super-fast internal drive that is always there, even if you're going to use externals for documents/project/media collections etc. Plus, you don't want your system drive to become anything like full or that will really hammer performance (even more on n SSD than it did on mechanical drives). Install a couple of pro apps and/or XCode, a linux VM for containers... and 256GB doesn't give you much headroom.

IMHO the only reason to skimp and get 256GB was that Apple's previous price for a 256 to 512GB upgrade was a usurious (esp. a year or so back) $200. Now it's a $100 upgrade for the MB Neo and that Air starts at 512GB (with a $100 price bump) omitting it (even if Apple gave you the option) seems like false economy. $100 is still hardly a bargain for 256GB of extra Flash - even at today's prices - but its closer to reality than $200.
 
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