Mac Week Day 2: It’s Mac mini’s turn with its third-ever redesign! Now it looks even more like Mac Studio’s little brother, with some serious performance to match. 🧵
@jarrod Thunderbolt 5(double the speed of TB4!) and the first Carbon Neutral Mac also make their debut with this new mini. You love to see it.
@jarrod Marco's already hearing it in the comments, but while I think the time for Intel comparisons is waning, it's not quite done yet. There are still a lot of Intel Macs out there.
And @ismh86 points out that you could buy an Intel Mac mini as late as January 2023.
@jarrod This is a bit strange. The Mac Studio kept the audio jack on the back. I guess permanently plugged-in speakers are a niche enough feature that they figure you won't mind routing through a dock.
Dang. Audio line out on the front is a big bummer for those of us with permanently plugged in speakers. Otherwise, a near perfect update to the Mac mini.
— Jason Becker
@jarrod I'm also pretty psyched to see how the M4 Max/Ultra/Extreme(!?) turn out with M4 Pro really holding its own now.
I think the sheer power of the M4 Pro is a fascinating thing. Multiple displays, 64GB RAM... a lot of folks will have moved up to a Max chip in the past, but the Pro may be sufficient for a whole bunch more people.
— Josh Ginter
@jarrod I honestly get it: They could either cater to those who want it in the back (more permanent use) or to those who want it in the front (probably more for those who just want to stick in a pair of headphones from time to time — less permanent stuff). Not to both.
I dont know the numbers in each group: But there is more room for ports in the front, and, as you say, there’s lots of solutions for the back. Even this little bugger!
So I guess I don’t find it strange. But I get that some would prefer it be otherwise. 🙂
@Havn I was actually thinking basically the same thing. Perhaps not strange, but interesting. Although I could see Apple going with the justification that people should just use wireless headphones for temporary listening and leave the port in the back for permanent speakers but 🤷♂️
@jarrod I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere yet, but we're invited back to Apple's Observatory in another short video introducing the new Mac mini: www.youtube.com/watch
@jarrod Hehe, yeah — I could see them thinking that. But honestly, I don’t think catering to those who want it in the front is the main reason. I think it’s as simple as: «We want the Mac to have a small footprint, but also it having a decent port selection. Guess we gotta out some of them in the front. 🤷🏻♂️» And I think they put the right ones in the front. 🙂
@jarrod P.S. I continue to love my shortcut for auto-generating accessible text descriptions for all the photos I post. I edit as needed, but it does such a good job on its own. I take a screenshot and drop it onto my shortcut or use the share sheet and voilá, the photo is uploaded with its alt-text infused Markdown right there in my clipboard. Here's how the last photos were described:
@jarrod I hadn't even noticed the lack of a power button on the back. It's hiding on the bottom! Hope you can get your finger not just around to the back of the Mini, but now under its lip too.
@jarrod Pretty fun mini intro video too, with lots of character: www.youtube.com/watch
Looking forward to the final Mac(Book Pro) announcements tomorrow!
@jarrod 👍🏽 I use it with every photo I upload to Micro.blog via Drafts. I haven't been able to make it part of my workflow otherwise.