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A more powerful Mac Mini has long been rumored, and according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, it could even feature the upcoming M2 Pro chip.
Gurman said Apple is readying the launch of an M2 Mac Mini and an M2 Pro Mac Mini, which we assume Apple will call the Mac Mini Pro. The compact PC will keep its iconic boxy design as well.
“Expect a Mac Mini refresh to include both M2 and M2 Pro options,” Gurman wrote in the Power On newsletter. “I also don’t believe the machine will be getting any major redesign in the near term.”
Apple’s new M2 chip will power the updated Mac Mini, while the Pro version will include an as-yet unreleased M2 Pro chip with eight performance cores and four efficiency cores. This M2 Pro will, we assume, have significantly improved graphics over the M2 with extra GPU cores.
Apple had been working on an M1 Pro Mac Mini since 2020, according to Gurman. It was due to launch last year or early this year, but Gurman’s sources told him an M1 Pro-powered Mac Mini “is now off the table.” That makes sense as the sequel chip is already out in the wild in both the M2 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13-inch.
9to5Mac corroborated Gurman’s sources and added the codenames for the new minis: J473 refers to the M2 Mac Mini, while J474 refers to the upgraded Mac Mini with an M2 Pro chip. Apple will not be releasing a Mac Mini with M2 Max or Ultra chips, the website added.
The M2 Pro Mini would compete directly with Apple’s own Mac Studio, just released last year. 9to5Mac even added that Gurman thinks Apple will discontinue the M1-powered Studio altogether.
An M2 Pro Mac Mini is one more rumored release that may be announced later at Apple’s fall event, usually in October or November. There will most likely be refreshed 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros with M2 Pro and M2 Max chips, as well as a refreshed M2-powered iPad Pro 11-inch.
If you believe the rumor mill, Apple is hard at work on a new large-format iMac, just a few years after both the iMac Pro and the 27-inch iMac were unceremoniously dropped from the company’s roster.
I love the iMac, and it would be great to see a fresh, scaled-up version hit the shelves. Yet I can’t help feeling that it could also be a terrible mistake on Apple’s part. At the end of the day, there are plenty of reasons why Apple probably shouldn’t resurrect the iMac Pro.
Apple’s 12-inch MacBook was a highly advanced laptop, but one where its fatal compromises eventually led to its abandonment. Yet there are rumors Apple is planning to resurrect the tiny device, and a Korean source has seemingly confirmed that — yet there are questions over the report’s trustworthiness.
The claim was made on Korean website Naver by yeux1122 (translated version), an account that has something of a mixed track record for Apple rumors. According to the Naver post, Apple is preparing laptop parts and “major activities” relating to the 12-inch MacBook.
This spring could be a momentous one for Apple fans, with a top-secret mixed-reality headset and new Apple silicon Mac Pro lined up for release. We’ve also heard whispers that Apple is planning to launch a 15.5-inch MacBook Air, and that idea just received a major boost from a well-known industry expert.
That’s because display industry analyst Ross Young has just claimed in a post to his Twitter subscribers that screen panel production for the larger MacBook Air has already begun, with Apple lining up an early April release date for the device. If he’s correct, that means there are just a couple of months to wait. It follows previous reporting from Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman and Young himself pointing toward a spring release.
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