Yeah price hike seems very likely. Oof, guess we'll get a better sense in a few days when the new prices for the iPhone are confirmed.
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When to Expect the Next MacBook Pro, iMac, and Other Macs to Launch
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My hope is that the whole Mac Mini line gets internally refreshed, i.e. use the M2 chip for the models replacing the M1 Minis and the M2 Pro to replace that last Intel Mini. It doesn't matter if it still looks the same, but I wouldn't be surprised (and I'd definitely like it) if the supposed M2 Pro Mini still comes in Space Grey and offers four Thunderbolt/USB-C ports, compared to the M1/M2 models only giving you two of them.
> Apple still sells a higher-priced Mac mini configuration with Intel processors, but rumors suggest it will be replaced with a model with an M2 Pro chip soon.
Not replaced, supplanted… that Mac Mini is going to linger around for at least another year-and-a-half, it will take educational institutions and slow-moving enterprises a long time to deal with the transition.
Not replaced, supplanted… that Mac Mini is going to linger around for at least another year-and-a-half, it will take educational institutions and slow-moving enterprises a long time to deal with the transition.
this is the question is t it… a silicon mac pro with a M2 Ultra has to offer more than a Mac Studio with the same chipset…
but can the M series System On a Chip work with external third party GPUs etc… is so how well?
Is it possible we will see a completely different style of silicon chipset go into the Mac Pro…? I think so, and I don’t mean a quad chip set. The Pro Chip might have to be something different to work along side third party RAM, GPUs and other cards folks want to use…
dont forget there are plenty of intel mac pro users out there that have lots invested in GPUs and Afterburner cards etc… Wouldn’t Apple be cleaver if they offered the new silicon Mac Pro so it worked with all that stuff? then that would offer those people a very clear upgrade path without having to buy everything from scratch…. heck they might be able to replace the Intel chip board with a Silicon board… I might be just dreaming now…
Curious to see what happens with the Studio, if it really just continues to lag 4-6 months behind the MBPs (time to get Ultras produced? Time to give the more popular MBP priority on Max chips?) Of course… it could be the MBPs are updated later. I will be glad when this fall Mac event happens so we can narrow the speculation down 😂
Disagree. I have a late 2015 iMac 5k that I want to replace, and my computer needs have changed since then. The lowest tier Studio is WAY more processor than I need; but buying a 2.5 year old Mini seems foolish.
An updated, mid-tier mini would be great for a lot of users.
Personally I think that the upper tier Mini should go away, replaced by the Studio. Update the M1 Mini to M2 and have that be the only Mini, but in standard and Pro versions. Obviously users would like full features (like 4 TB ports) for cheap, but IMO the next step up should be a Studio with a "Pro" chip. I.e. extend the Studio product down to include a 3rd version if necessary rather than extending the Mini up. The Studio is a very sweet design.
I'm holding out until Oct. to replace my 2012 mini. Hope to be able to get an updated M2 model to extend its life as much as possible.
September 2021 - I realised I needed to replace my 2015 27” iMac, despite it being an i7 with 32Gb ram and Radeon R9… it was showing its age…
I almost bought an Intel Mac Pro… but decided to buy a 2020 27” iMac instead, i9, 128GB ram and 5700XT… this is a stop gap machine that is getting me by until the Silicon Mac Pro is released…
The temptation to buy a 64 core Mac Studio with M1 Ultra etc has been very hard to resist to be honest… I’ve almost hit the buy now button on several occasions, especially as the 2020 iMac is beginning to not be fit for purpose on certain jobs… but I’ve held off… it might be the Mac Pro is going to be too expensive or is going to be not suitable in some other way and I’ll end up with a Mac Studio… maybe not… maybe I’ll wait for an M2 Mac Studio refresh or maybe I’ll get a Mac Pro…
One things for damn sure…. I do not want another iMac…
I almost bought an Intel Mac Pro… but decided to buy a 2020 27” iMac instead, i9, 128GB ram and 5700XT… this is a stop gap machine that is getting me by until the Silicon Mac Pro is released…
The temptation to buy a 64 core Mac Studio with M1 Ultra etc has been very hard to resist to be honest… I’ve almost hit the buy now button on several occasions, especially as the 2020 iMac is beginning to not be fit for purpose on certain jobs… but I’ve held off… it might be the Mac Pro is going to be too expensive or is going to be not suitable in some other way and I’ll end up with a Mac Studio… maybe not… maybe I’ll wait for an M2 Mac Studio refresh or maybe I’ll get a Mac Pro…
One things for damn sure…. I do not want another iMac…
Looking forward to a larger 15" MacBook Air. Also hope Apple continues with the various colours for the iMac in their next refresh.
Probably we will need to wait for two "this fall Mac event happens so we can narrow the speculation down." iPhones, etc. next week then a second event in October with MBPs and whatever else. My expectation is that Apple has a lot to tell us about this fall.
They often give me neither. I know exactly what I want. I also want a thin and light with ports, like the 2017 MBA was. The new one for its day is a worse machine in terms of shape/design and ports. The tapered design is infinitely nicer and ports make every computer more practical and livable. Contrary to your assessment, Apple is not omnipotent and often does the wrong thing.
My comment regarding Apple was not meant to be positive, I don’t agree with much that Apple has been doing lately to be honest.
It has been almost 2 years since the M1 Mini arrived. Apple has already given folks lots of runway to get started.
For example:
Amazon AWS was previewing in Dec 2021
Use New Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances to Build & Test Apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV | Amazon Web Services
14 November 2022: This blog has been updated to remove the link to the preview form. Last year at AWS re:Invent, Jeff Barr wrote about the exciting availability of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) Mac instances. Today, we’re announcing the preview of a new EC2 M1 Mac instance. The...
So they spent a year to get beta system up and running.
And went production live in July 2022
Announcing general availability of Amazon EC2 M1 Mac instances for macOS - AWS
Discover more about what's new at AWS with Announcing general availability of Amazon EC2 M1 Mac instances for macOS
Given the energy performance and upsides of running the M1's , Amazon is not likely interested in lots more new Intel instances.
The Intel Mini's date from 2018. It is just about four years old. ( the 2014 -> 2018 was the last Intel Mini iteration). Those upper end Intel models have been lingering for years already. They'll likely get new macOS upgrades for years (and hardware support for years), but a pretty good chance Apple is done by end of 2022. (or at best amount of extension by April 2023).
Decent chance Apple pushes a decent sized block of those out into the channel ( or some channel vendors pull what they think they'll need). Likewise shops that are not completely asleep at the wheel , who think they might need will push through some purchase orders in advance of a change (i.e., now ). If there was a "wind down" period then it is more likely a 1-2 quarters. ( like phase out on Xserve or Mac Pro "sneak peak" window. ).
Apple killed off the "educational" , non-Retina iMac several months ago.
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/10/30/apple-discontinues-intel-based-21-5-inch-imac/
Educational shops usually are budget limited so the 'higher priced' Mini's probably would have presented an issue all along.
There are some large MacOS web services companies that have thousands of Minis. If they rotate/migrate users from Intel Minis to M1/M2 Minis then they would have 'extra' Intel Mini's (no , or little, need to buy them). [ Amazon charges about 30% less for the M1 Minis so there is less incentive not to rotative/migrate for shops on a budget. ] This group was the major buyers of these. When they quit buying, Apple is highly unlikely going to be interested in selling to any other subset group that is left over.
In theory they could just say the Studio is the high-end Mini replacement and the Mac Pro replacement (à la TrashCan). Not that anyone would be happy, but hey, it is kind of occupying both niches. Just the large iMac to go then.
"released" by end of 2022 seems like a stretch if that is supposed to mean shipping and received by customers. Apple doing a "sneak peak" of a new Mac Pro by end of 2022? Yes. Actually getting it to customers? I wouldn't be the farm on that.
Last two Mac Pro introductions were six month gap between when Apple showed it and the pragmatic actual release/ship. Not much to indicate that it is going to be any different this time. The Gurman rumors is that it is a "half sized" Mac Pro . So that would means they are chopping something off to dump that much volume. Perhaps keeping the Intel model around after a shift so skipping a transition period. ( King is dead , Long Live the King)
However, if the new Mac Pro update is so radical that Apple pragmatically has to keep the Intel Mac Pro around to quell the uproar ... have they really released a new Mac Pro????
The more it overlaps with the current Mac Pro , then seems more likely to need a transition period. Which pragmatically will probably push it out of 2022 for a ship date.
To get a M2 Ultra in 2022 with N5P fab tech would perhaps means going to new packaging technology. Need something new for the Extreme version also. But there are several upsides of doing Ultra/Extreme with N3. It is possible to ship in 2022 , but "very likely" seems a stretch.
Apple said the Mac Studio replaced the iMac 27". It has already covered one Mac. Killing off two is a stretch.
The Studio is 3x bigger than the Mini. For the web services / colocation racked Intel Minis the studio is not a replacement. it is 3x bigger but doesn't deliver 3x the performance ( on CPU core loads). So no. There is zero good reason to pass up the computational rack density.
What is needed is a M2 Pro Mini that can cover the 32-48GB RAM zone with a better price and volume usage value than a Max based Studio. ( don't need the extra GPU to run a web server ).
The Thermal system of the Studio is largely a waste for a Mx Pro chip. A M2 Pro in a Mini would not be "cheap". Its price probably would come in above where the remaining "upper end" , Intel Mini comes in at.
M2 covering just up to 24GB is still the same huge max RAM coverage gap that it has with the current Intel Model 64GB ( 40 GB short ! ). A M2 Pro that topped out at 48GB would only have a 16GB deficient which is far more tractable ( e.g., Amazon offers 32GB Intel Mini instances . the M2 model would still be short on the second generation. If had a M2 Pro option it would be covered. ) .
Don't have to "extend" the Mini. Just replace the Intel option can't cover with the plain M1/M2.
The iMac has 2 port and 4 port model without having to change products chassis. Apple could keep plain colored Mini for M2 and the "Pro" Space Grey for the 4 port version with a M2 Pro.
The classic Mini case is a bit big for the M2/M1. If keeping it around putting a M2 Pro in there is a more effective use of the space. The 2018 thermals would work for the M2 Pro.
The Studio's case is primarily build around thermal cooling of the Ultra ( not the Max). Iterating down to a even more lower thermal use case is just diverging even more from what the case was designed for.
And yet Apple explicitly stated the opposite. They said the Studio was the transitional replacement for the large screen iMac. The high end Mini continued to be sold after the Studio was released. And that they would be transitioning the Mac Pro with yet another system to be shown later.
That is not so much as "in theory" as much as "in an alternative universe Apple is doing something different".
In rack density deployments , the Studio in no way replaces the Mini ( 3x times bigger and not 3x the CPU performances ). The Studio does follow up on moving folks who were mostly happy with the Mac Pro 2013 over to Apple Silicon. MP 2013 was superseded by iMac Pro and MP 2019. So yes they also would be picking up some of the iMac Pro folks also (since it is the replacement for the large screen iMac).
Pretty good chance the large screen iMac is waiting on a better screen than Apple can be happy on they pay for the display subsystem. Pretty good chance they will want to apply the "iPad thinness" constraints to it so probably constrain it to a Mx Pro. ( quieter than a Mx Pro Mini and cheaper than a Mx (Pro) Mini + Studio Display combo. )