This year has been quite weird for the Mac lineup because many of the Macs we were
originally expecting to get haven’t shown up at all and are reportedly being delayed,
with sources like Ming-Chi Kuo saying that we shouldn’t expect
the Mac Pro, the iMac Pro and the Mac mini to get updated until next year!
And out of nowhere, Apple gave us the Mac Studio which was almost a complete surprise since we were
expecting to get the new high-end Mac mini, and that’s exactly what this video is gonna be about
because we recently got some bombshell leaks regarding proof that a new Mac mini has
likely already been created by Apple and is waiting for release.
So before I get into that leak, I’ve gotta go through all of the previous
pieces of evidence for why a new Mac mini should be coming soon!
First of all, the Mac Mini is now the only Mac for sale
other than the Mac Pro that still comes with an Intel chip.
Now that’s a problem because Apple gave us a 2-year timeline for the transition
to their own Apple Silicon chips, which means that basically, every Intel Mac
should be getting an Apple Silicon replacement.
And according to Mark Gurman, who is by far the most reliable Apple analyst and leaker,
the two-year timeline should be completed by Apple’s WWDC keynote in
June, basically, two years after Apple announced the transition.
Now that doesn’t mean that the Macs will be shipping by then,
but they’ll at least be announced by then, according to Mark.
So what this basically means is that Apple either needs to replace the Intel Mac mini
with a new Apple Silicon-based model, or they can simply discontinue it
just like they did with the 27” iMac.
And thankfully, we actually have some evidence for there being a brand new Mac mini out there
somewhere in the world, but let’s go all the way back to the beginning of the leaks
for the new Mac Mini to prove that we’ve been expecting it for a while!
In the summer of last year, DylanDKT tweeted out that he was expecting a new
M1X Mac mini to release alongside the new MacBook Pros.
And even before that, Jon Prosser released renders of the leaked Mac mini design,
also mentioning that it could potentially come as soon as the end of the year, but of course,
it got delayed because Apple wanted all of the attention on the MacBook Pros instead.
On top of that, Mark Gurman has been expecting a new Mac Mini
ever since May of last year, with details pointing to it coming with an
M1 Pro and M1 Max chip, just like we got with the MacBook Pros later that year.
He ended up mentioning the high-end
Mac mini again in August, saying that it’s coming in the next several months.
And then in October, right after Apple’s MacBook Pro event,
he once again confirmed that it should be coming sometime in 2022.
He continued to mention it in December and January,
reporting that Apple is likely to bring the M1 Pro chip to another Mac
in the first half of the year, which could be a higher-end Mac mini or iMac.
And then over the next couple of months, he made another three reports concerning the Mac mini,
even going as far as to say that he’s expecting one high-end Mac mini
with an M1 Pro chip and one with an M2 chip coming in the first half of the year.
But then.. Apple’s March event came around, and while it seemed basically 100%
likely that Apple was gonna release a new M1 Pro and M1 Max high-end Mac mini,
we of course got the Mac Studio instead, which was a huge surprise.
And since that machine is basically a larger and more expensive Mac Mini that starts with
the M1 Max chip, it could totally make sense for Apple to release a high-end Mac mini
to replace the Intel model, but maybe with just the M1 Pro chip
as the sole option instead of the M1 Max since that’s what the Mac Studio comes with.
But moving on to the latest leaks that came after the March event, 9to5mac had an exclusive leak
where they found internal code referring to two new Mac Mini models, one being codenamed J473
which is the new M2 Mac mini expected to be announced sometime later this year,
and then the J474 which is the M2 Pro Mac mini coming later down the road, possibly next year.
And perhaps the most interesting part was when 9to5mac
said that Apple had plans to introduce high-end versions of the current Mac mini
with the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips, but they were scrapped to make way for the Mac Studio.
So with that said, it makes it seem like Apple never even planned to release the M1 Pro Mac mini
since they have been working on the Mac Studio for a while,
which would mean that we’d have to wait for the M2 Mac mini to come later this year.
But wait, we’ve actually got some new proof that the high-end
M1 Pro and M1 Max mac mini actually exists!
First of all, if we got back to May of 2021 when Mark Gurman discussed a new more powerful Mac mini
with the codename J374, and the most interesting thing is that the new M2 and M2 Pro Mac Minis that
9to5mac leaked have codenames of J473 and J474, so J374 is still out there.
And just in case you think J374 turned out to be the
Mac Studio that we now have, the REvil Quanta leak found references to both J374 and J375,
and 9to5mac was able to confirm that J375 is the actual codename for the Mac Studio.
So with that said, J374 is still out there somewhere and there’s
a chance that this could actually be the high-end M1 Pro Mac mini.
And finally, with all of that out of the way,
we just got a BOMBSHELL leak from Apple developer Steve Troughton-Smith.
He was able to find a reference to a brand new unreleased Mac Mini within
the new Studio Display’s firmware that it shipped with, titled the Macmini10,1,
which means that Apple could’ve been originally planning to release
the M1 Pro Mac mini alongside the Studio Display, but ended up releasing the Mac Studio instead.
Now Steve originally guessed that it would be the M2 Mac mini,
but later the next day, he revised his guess and he now believes that
the unreleased Mac Mini is actually one that comes with both the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips.
And while it might seem weird to have an M1 Max option because that’s the chip the Mac
Studio starts with, Steve argues that it might even push people to bump up to the Mac Studio
if there’s not a lot between them, but I personally think a model with
just the M1 Pro chip makes sense because that’ll force you to pay more for the Mac Studio.
Now with that said, if Steve is right and we actually get an
M1 Pro Mac mini later this year, this means that it could technically be released at
any time since that chip has been around since last year.
But wait, the evidence gets even better because way back in February,
Apple registered three new Macs in the Eurasian database, two desktop Macs and one laptop.
One of those turned out to be the Mac Studio,
and I strongly believe that the other registered Mac model is the upcoming Mac mini.
And this leaves just one laptop, which I think has a chance to be
the redesigned MacBook Air because of some recent major leaks and reports.
Just days ago, Mark Gurman released his latest PowerOn newsletter
where he mentioned that Apple is gearing up to launch some new Macs
in the next few months, and what better place to do so than WWDC?
Specifically, he said that there are two new Macs coming around the middle of the year or
early next year, which perfectly lines up with
the two unreleased Macs that Apple registered with the Eurasian database.
However, for the first time in months,
he completely changed his predictions to say that one of those is likely to be the new MacBook Air,
with another model being potentially an updated Mac mini.
And the crazy thing is that Ming-chi Kuo believes that the 2022 MacBook Air
is coming as soon as the end of the 2nd quarter which is in June with a new design,
more color options AND the M1 chip. Yes, the same M1 chip that we already have!
So if this comes out to be true,
it would mean that both the new M1 MacBook Air and the M1 Pro Mac Mini can technically be released
at any point because they’re using older chips that we already have on other Macs.
And this would mean that Apple can release these two Macs in the summer just like Mark
Gurman was predicting, and then they can wait until the Fall to reveal the
new M2 chip within the MacBook Pro and likely the low-end base M2 Mac mini.
And this actually makes sense because there have been some reports pointing to
the M2 chip arriving in the second half of 2022, including the site Commerical Times,
as well as Mark Gurman who believes the M2 MacBook Pro will come by the end of the year.
So with that said, the M1 Pro Mac mini and redesigned M1 MacBook Air
could end up coming sometime this Summer.
However, a couple of sources disagree with this idea,
including 9to5mac who believe Apple completely canceled the M1 Pro Mac mini in favor of simply
releasing the M2 mac mini this year and waiting for the M2 Pro version next year.
They also believe that the redesigned MacBook Air will in fact come with the M2 chip
instead of the M1 like ming-chi kuo predicted.
On top of that, LeaksApplePro from iDropNews believes that Apple is actually gonna be
releasing two M2 Macs at their WWDC event, with one of them for sure being a Mac mini,
with the other one potentially a 24” iMac or a 13” base MacBook Pro.
But either way, whatever ends up happening, I think it’s pretty
clear that we are in fact getting either an M1 Pro or M2 Mac mini later this year,
potentially as soon as WWDC in the Summer, and I think that’s some pretty awesome news!
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