Apple is prepping an all-new Mac mini featuring a significant redesign in 2022 that borrows heavily from the first-generation Apple TV, a classic design unveiled by Apple CEO Steve Jobs in September 2006.
Hartley Charlton for MacRumors:
Apple updated the entry-level Mac mini with the M1 chip in November 2020, but the high-end offering is still the Space Gray model with an Intel processor from 2018. It is this high-end model that is expected to be replaced this year with an Apple silicon model that features the first redesign since 2010.
According to leaker Jon Prosser, who shared renders of the new Mac mini’s alleged design last year, the new Mac mini will retain a similar form factor to the current Mac mini, but with an overall reduction in size. The rear of the device is said to feature the same ports that are currently available with the high-end Intel-based Mac mini, including four Thunderbolt ports, two USB-A ports, one Ethernet port, and one HDMI port.
The design itself is said to be moving away from the unibody aluminum enclosure that Apple has offered with the third, fourth, and fifth-generation Mac mini. The new design is purported to feature a “plexiglass-like” top, sitting above an aluminum frame.
This new design appears to be strongly evocative of the first-generation Apple TV…
MacDailyNews Take: We’ve always loved the look of that first Apple TV hardware.
Here’s Prosser’s video from last May in which he showed off renders of what he believes will be the new Mac mini (starts at 4:36):
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Industrial design is not a major concern although it looks great. PORTS, PERFORMANCE and PRICE. Nuff said…
That first TV had an Intel processor and a hard drive. The new Mac mini can be more mini. Maybe it looks like that old TV, but scaled down.
The redesign will be more about radio signals – The aluminium Mac minis have terrible bluetooth performance. A plexiglass top will help the antennae!
They won’t touch the Mac mini for years. This is complete fiction.
Does it really need to be a square? The current internals of the M1 version only take up half of the space. So 7.7″x7.7″ could be 7.7″ wide by 4″ deep or maybe 5″x5″.
19” with rack ears?
The “ideal” form factor would be whatever’s required to use the same motherboard from whichever laptop is the parts donor.
This way, the two products can use the same motherboard part# and get manufacturing economies.