The Mac Mini Needs a Redesign

Rumors suggest a “finally” moment, with Apple on the verge of completing the redesign of the newest generation of the Mac mini, this time featuring an M4 chip. This could result in the smallest Mac ever.

The current Mac mini design dates back to 2010, when Apple was still using more power-hungry and larger Intel chips. The only change over the years has been the back portion to accommodate a variety of port offerings. When Apple transitioned to Apple Silicon chips, right after the Apple Silicon Dev Kit was made available, I expected a redesign and saw the Dev Kit as a transitional step, simply because the chip is smaller, more power-efficient, and requires much less cooling. To me, this was the right time to do so. However, they did not.

If you look inside an M1 Mac mini, thanks to this teardown guide from iFixit you can see that there is some empty space. Coupled with what Apple can do with the M4 iPad Pro, and the environmental pressure to be more efficient in resource consumption (power, materials, etc.), it is clear that the Mac mini must be rethought from the ground up. Will Apple go with an external PSU for this? I don’t expect this to be the case.

One more thing: I’ve been a satisfied user of the M1 Mac mini since 2020, but I’m increasingly considering an upgrade, either to the Mac Studio or a more powerful Mac mini. I’ll be sure to pay close attention to my options.

What the “can’t do real work on an iPad” narrative is really about

people like me do want a Mac for getting all of our stuff done, but Apple doesn’t make exactly the Mac we want, so we lust after the iPad and lament how it doesn’t get the job done for us. If the Mac we wanted existed, we’d buy that and not have nearly as much to say about iPadOS.

I think Matt is nailing it. Apple doesn’t want to make an iPad run macOS, fine, but are they as much vocal against making a Mac touch-friendly? I don’t think so. Mike Gurman wrote this past week-end that one Mac will see a major redesign in the next 12 months. Could this be to introduce touch support?

Next Apple Watch SE Could Be Made From Plastic

Apple used to sell a plastic ‌iPhone‌ 5c, for example, and it came in vibrant blue, yellow, pink, and green colors. Plastic would also better differentiate the ‌Apple Watch SE‌ from the standard Apple Watch models as the current ‌Apple Watch SE‌ is basically a modified version of the aluminum Apple Watch without the latest features.

I wonder if Apple could use 3D printing for the SE plastic case. There are rumors that Apple might use 3D printing in building devices. That could be it.

On ARM Laptops, Windows And... The Usual Stuff Needed With Windows...

I always enjoy MKBHD’s videos, and this one about the Microsoft Surface ARM laptop is no exception. His views are well-balanced and feel honest. Now, about this specific lap, supposedly being fast with long battery life, great built quality and… a touch screen, certainly feels like a leap beyond Apple’s offerings, but… it’s running Windows. And that, is the problem. I wouldn’t buy one of these for the simple reason that running Windows required running a bunch of security-related software to keep it secure. How much processing power these apps takes out of the base configuration? Certainly a few percentage points, but for me, it’s ruining the whole thing. And that, MKBHD don’t mention anything about it.

Apple results: big increase in services, big increase in iPad sales, increase in Mac sales, wearables sales in decline (AVP doesn’t move the needle, Watch in need of a reboot), China in decline. That’s pretty much it.

So iOS 18.1 is a thing, after all. Well, as I live in Canada, I’m not going to set the region to English US on my phone1. I rather wait and see other devs and YouTubers delve into this beta of Apple Intelligence and see how it goes. That should be fun and interesting.

Update: changing the region of the device doesn’t do much except for date formatting, temperature metric and dollars amount formatting. Oh, and if you set one device (iPad) to use one region, the other device (iPhone) will also use the same region. Why?

  1. I’m not sure what would be the consequences of doing so, besides the Date, Time and Currency settings being changed. ↩︎

In iOS 18 beta 4, look at user ratings in the App Dtore and the choice Apple made for the star’s gray shades… it’s very hard to spot how many actual stars were given out of the five. Is this on purpose? 👀🧐

Today I made a template. Who knows, it might be useful to some big company.

“We will release {insert product or service name here} over the coming months, but not in the EU due to the unpredictable nature of the European regulatory environment,” {insert company name here} said in a statement to {Insert news agency name here}.

You are welcome.