Apple’s next official event is now rumored to be coming on March 8th
which is less than a month away and that is EXTREMELY excited since we’ve been basically
going through a little tech drought over the holidays and into the new year!
And as far as what we can expect to be revealed at the event next month,
we’re definitely gonna get a couple of very boring updates to the iPad Air and the iPhone SE.
But other than that, Mark Gurman did say that Apple plans to launch at least
one new Mac this spring, and if you’re wondering if it could be the new redesigned
M2 Macbook Air that we recently showed off in these beautiful renders,
don’t get excited because Mark said that those M2 macs will likely launch later in the year.
So with that said, I actually believe that we are now 100% guaranteed to get a new
redesigned Mac Mini at Apple’s event next month, and before I dig deep into
all of the leaks and rumors and my thoughts on the design and how it’s all gonna work,
let me first go through all of the evidence that points to a launch next month.
First of all, within Mark Gurman’s report, he said that an Apple silicon replacement for the 27” iMac
is not expected to launch until as late as August or September, which is really unfortunate.
And with the iMac out of the way, the only other option is the new Mac Pro,
which everyone is expecting to get released later in the year,
like DylanDKT who said he expects it to launch in the 4th quarter, which makes perfect sense to me.
So that simply leaves the high-end Mac mini that’s next up for a redesign and update, and
we know this for sure because it’s one of the only Macs that is still relying on an Intel CPU, so it
100% needs to get replaced before Apple’s 2-year timeline for the Apple Silicon transition is over.
And on top of that, Apple has already released their M1 Pro and M1 Max chips which are the
ones that are expected to go into this new Mac Mini, so there’s no holdup on the hardware side.
But going even deeper, Jon Prosser from front page tech was the one who first revealed the
renders for the Mac mini last year, and he said it could come as early as the end of 2021.
And that’s actually what a bunch of other analysts believed,
like DylanDKT who was pretty sure the Mac mini would be released alongside the new 14
and 16” MacBook Pros, but unfortunately it didn’t happen because Apple wanted the
absolute most attention on the MacBooks instead of sharing it with the Mac mini.
And if this is true, then it’s very likely that the Mac Mini could’ve been ready to launch late
last year, but it’s just been sitting on a shelf waiting for another Apple event so
they could launch it, because whenever Apple gives a product a major redesign,
they almost always choose to show it off at an event to get the maximum amount of press coverage.
And if any product redesign deserves a slot in a dedicated Apple event, it’s hands-down the Mac
Mini because believe it or not, the general shape and design has stayed almost identical since 2010.
Yes, that means it kept the same chassis for almost 12 full years which is
mind-blowing and I don’t think this has ever happened to any other Apple product,
so it obviously deserves to be shown off at an event, and I’m gonna go ahead and
say it.. It’s gonna happen at the March event 100% guaranteed, no doubt about it!
And the reason this makes sense is because Apple still has A LOT of Macs to release this year,
and only a handful of potential events to show off their new designs,
which include a FULL redesign for the high-end iMac,
a new Mac Pro, a new redesigned MacBook Air and of course, the Mac mini.
So without further ado, let’s jump into all of the
nitty-gritty details about the Mac mini redesign and what we can expect from it.
Jon Prosser’s original renders created by Ian Zelbo
showed off a much thinner Mac Mini with rounded-off edges at the top,
but the most curious part of the design is that Apple is choosing to give it a plexiglass top.
Now this detail is important because having a plastic top
will instantly make it easier for the bluetooth and WiFi antennas to get a stronger signal,
because if you didn’t already know, people have been having connectivity issues
because of the full metal redesign that we got many years ago.
And if you think the whole plexiglass thing is wild, it’s actually not because that’s exactly
what the original Mac Mini came with, so it seems like Apple is bringing the old design back!
And just to confirm this detail, LeaksApplePro on Twitter shared some leaked CAD files
that showed off a metal chassis with a completely separate top piece that matches Jon’s renders..
And this detail is gonna be very important to the cooling aspect,
which I’ll get back to in a moment.
Now moving around to the ports, these seem to be directly from the leaked CAD files,
and it’s definitely an awesome and exciting sign because it looks like we’ll be getting
four Thunderbolt 4 ports which is a very nice addition on the Mac Mini.
However, some of this doesn’t make much sense, like how those ports are way too
close to eachother compared to Apple’s usual spacing on their recent 24” iMac.
And the weirdest thing of all is how this render is missing the headphone jack,
which is present on every single new Mac model out there, and it’s even more important on
the Mac mini since it’s a desktop machine that you can hook up to external speakers.
So Appleinsider decided to make their own render of the new redesigned mac mini
which I’ve gotta say look REALLY clean, and they even made a new render that
adds that headphone jack back in to see what that would look like,
and I think the Thunderbolt port spacing makes much more sense here.
Now I do expect this model to come with the option of a 10gigabit ethernet just
like the current M1 Mac Mini, and it looks like it’s getting the new magnetic power connector
which I absolutely love on the new M1 iMac.
And this detail is extremely important because when Apple added that new magnetic port to the
M1 iMac, they also removed the internal power supply and gave it a bulky external power brick.
And the point I’m trying to make is that if Apple was willing to remove the internal power supply
on the much larger iMac, then why wouldn’t they do the same thing with the Mac Mini
since they probably already produced a ton of those external bricks?
And if they do end up doing this,
it would save a massive amount of internal space on the inside of the Mac mini.
For example, if you look at a teardown of the current M1 Mac mini, the actual logic board
that houses the M1 chip and cooling system is TINY compared to the size of the chassis itself,
and a pretty big chunk of the design is taken up by the power supply alone.
So if the newly redesigned mac mini ditches the internal power supply, then there will be a lot
of room on the inside for a bigger logic board and more importantly, a bigger cooling system.
Now moving over to the bottom side, Jon showed off a completely flat bottom with
these nice-looking rubber pads and I think this totally makes sense!
But the interesting detail is that the exhaust vent that’s currently
on the back of the M1 Mac Mini has now been moved over to the bottom,
and this also makes sense because the new Mac Mini is so much thinner than before.
But the big question this leads us to is how in the world is the cooling system going to work
because with the previous design, the Mac Mini sat on a rubber circular pad, and air would
literally flow in through the crack around the edges of that pad, which is genius engineering.
But looking at the new design renders, the bottom looks like it’s sealed apart from the exhaust
vent, and even if there was an intake vent, it would be a bad idea for it to be on the bottom
because it could end up pulling hot air from that exhaust vent..
But if you really put some thought into it and take a close look at these renders,
you’ll see that there is a perfect opportunity to add a thin crack
around the edge of the plexiglass top and that can act as the intake,
similar to how the current intake works, but on the top and located in the front.
And this would actually work incredibly well because the air would flow through the entire
chassis from the front to the back and through the exhaust vents for optimal cooling of the chips.
And speaking of those chips, I don’t expect it to get anything more than the current M1 Pro
and M1 Max chips that we already have on the MacBook Pros,
so the performance should be identical to those laptops.
And in terms of the pricing, I personally expect it to come in at $1299 for the base
model with the M1 Pro chip, which will likely be binned just like the base 14” MacBook Pro.
And to be honest, that’s still a very good deal
considering the amount of power and optimization you’re getting.
Now if you disagree with my idea of the redesigned mac mini getting revealed at
next month’s apple event, then let me know your thoughts down in the comment section below,
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