Following a report that Apple was working on a major redesign for one of its M4 Macs, Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman now says the M4 Mac mini is the chosen one. People familiar with the matter told the journalist that this device is “essentially an iPad Pro in a small box.”
According to Gurman, Apple has tested at least three Mac mini models with at least three USB-C ports on the back, an HDMI port, and a power cable. Just like the M2 version, Apple is also planning to introduce an M4 Pro version of this machine.
Interestingly, the journalist says the base model will begin shipping from suppliers this month ahead of the release later this year. However, the high-end model won’t be ready until October.
The last time the Mac mini had a major design change was in 2010 when it became Apple’s smallest desktop computer. That said, Gurman believes Apple will choose the approach of an Apple TV look, with the size around 1.4 inches high. The aluminum shell won’t go away, although it’s possible that Apple will announce that this computer is carbon-neutral, as it did with the Apple Watch Series 9 last year.
So far, we only know the details about the M4 chip. According to Apple, the M4 processor has a powerful new CPU with 4 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores, with next-gen ML generators. It is up to 50% faster than M2. With a 10-core GPU, it offers Dynamic Caching and hardware ray tracing, with 4x faster performance than M2 iPad Pro. M4 can deliver the same performance as the M2 with just half the power. The Neural Engine comes with a 16-core design, with up to 38 trillion operations per second—60x faster than Apple’s first Neural Engine.
Besides the new M4 Mac mini, Apple is expected to introduce the new MacBook Pro and an iMac later this year. Other Macs should become available in 2025. Below, you can learn when to expect new M4 Macs.
