New Mac Mini with M4

I think this just became the go-to recommendation I'll give to anybody wanting an entry-level desktop computer of any kind. In fact I might buy one for my parents right now to replace the old mac mini they have. I really can't think of any reasonable competition for it at that price.

1. Interesting that they did not have this as part of an event. I think this either means they do not have much else to share around the Mac right now or the opposite, there just won't be room to talk about the iMac or Mac Mini. I am leaning towards the former as a I suspect the other computers in their lineup will just receive a spec bump soon.

2. On the product page (https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/) Apple highlights a number of third party accessories. Notably the PS5 controller and several keyboards and mice from different manufacturers. This seems small, but it would have been almost blasphemy under the jobs era.

3. This is quite the little powerhouse. Honestly it is so good it eliminates the need for most people to even consider the Mac Studio.

My M2 Mac Mini that I got for $499 is my favorite gaming computer I've had in a long time. Runs many games like WoW, Dota, League of Legends, etc great. Anything that it doesn't run due to MacOS I use GeForce Now over ethernet. And this was with 8gb unified memory, now with 16gb it'll be even better value.

Very excited to see how the GPU has improved in the M4, especially the Pro model.

  10 core =  4 P and 6 E
  12 core =  8 P and 4 E    <-- 2.0x P core over base
  14 core = 10 P and 4 E    <-- 2.5x P core over base

Updated with known P and E amounts.

Thanks HN for posting below.

https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/specs/

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/10/apples-new-mac-mini-i...

I’m inclined to trust Apple with this information but the skeptical side of me is questioning, how can we fact check this data? If it’s true it is very cool.

I am thinking it may be better for cooperate to buy this and run Windows on VM than buying a PC.

Considering iPad and iPhone has been replacing 99% of my workflow outside of office I am thinking if my next computer could be a mini rather than a Laptop.

Last time I bought a Mac Mini was before the 2018 model got introduced, and I almost took it back in to get it exchanged (I was within 30 days of purchase when the 2018 model dropped), but it's been plugging away doing everything I have asked of it for 6 years, and it's still going strong. All the upgrades since have left me a little cool, but this genuinely looks like a contender for an upgrade. Only thing stopping me from getting the credit card ready is waiting to see what the M4 MacBook Air - which is inevitably going to be announced in the next 72 hours - looks like in comparison.

As someone who lives in a very dusty 150 year old house, My Mac Studio does not appreciate the air input being directly on the desk. It collects all the dust that lands anywhere near it.

I have a large levoit air filter running 24/7 in my office and still end up with this[1] regularly. I wish I could at least reasonably take the thing apart to clean it out.

1. https://imgur.com/a/GSubONa

If someone didn't know, macOS ignores fsync, so without UPS your data is not safe. Not an issue for laptops, obviously, but issue for battery-less devices.

* Kept HDMI

* New, much smaller form factor

* Front facing USB-C

* Base model has 16 gb of ram

Honestly kind of want one as a desktop, even though my M1 Pro MBP is still insanely powerful for my needs.

"And with the industry-leading reliability of macOS, healthcare systems can count on mini when providing critical care."

A bit out of character, and also – what?!

Hats off! I didn't expect the Mac to be next in line for the carbon neutral goals. But they did it!

Does anybody have a guide or tips on how to make one of these better for hosting a website with cloudflare tunnel and being resilient to power outages?

Is there a solution to log in to the OS GUI over wifi (like from an ipad or mac) if I need to use it as a computer? It won’t have a screen attached.

The published specs call out 3 6k screens but is that a display bandwidth limit or an arbitrary “screen” limit ?

I’d like to drive four displays and 4k is sufficient for me … possible? Perhaps with Number four on the HDMI port?

The first version of OS X I used was Mavericks. In hindsight, that was the last great version of OS X for me — the last version where it seems the priorities of the people deciding the direction of development where somewhat aligned with mine.

Many have written about the decline in usability and attention to detail in OS X since then — I guess Apple Intelligence represents this shift in focus perfectly: a black-box interface that may or may not do something along the lines of what you were intending.

Back ports: 3 Thunderbolt 4 ports (Thunderbolt 5 on the top $1399 tier), HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet

RAM can be upgraded to 32GB on M4, to 64GB on M4 Pro

10 GbE looks selectable on any of these, +$100

They're comparing three generations back now?

Oh, I see that they never updated the Mini for M3. So it's only two generations of Mini. Still, I prefer to see one generation comparisons. And it's kind of weird that Apple doesn't keep their smaller product lines more up to date. They certainly have the resources to do so.

Does this mess up datacenters using Mac Minis in racks now?

(4 got just minor damages, miraculously)

1: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/29/tram-derails-a...

This guy will probably have a lot of clients https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3N-z-Y8cuw.

This is such an Apple stat especially for a game. What does "faster gaming performance" even mean? Every zone and city hub loads 13.3x faster so loading screens are quicker? They don't say anything about FPS and no one would use "faster" as a synonym for higher FPS.

An MMO is really not the best benchmark tbh

Edit: notes has the compared spec "Results are compared to previous-generation 3.2GHz 6-core Intel Core i7-based Mac mini systems with Intel Iris UHD Graphics 630, 64GB of RAM, and 2TB SSD."

So they compared the 2024 M4 to a 2018 8th gen Intel i7 (i7-8700B). Take that as you will

  Up to three displays: Two displays with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt and one display with up to 5K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt or 4K resolution at 60Hz over HDMI

  Up to two displays: One display with up to 5K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt and one display with up to 8K resolution at 60Hz or 4K resolution at 240Hz over Thunderbolt or HDMI

I'm trying to decide if I should get the Pro or the base model mini. I've been learning Swift and Metal using an old work Macbook and I want to get my own hardware. The only games I play recently at Factorio and Baldur's Gate 3, so I was thinking perhaps I should get the Pro and not bother upgrading my desktop (an i7 6700k from 2015).

Okay so how many displays can the base model Mac mini m4 support? Is it one 5K over HDMI and then 2 6K over 2 separate Thunderbolt 4 connections, for a total of 3 displays?

https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/mac/

Amazon will have to accommodate the new form factor. They've already had to accommodate the previous mini and the Studio.

And if this is cross connected with TB4 networking and using exolab, might be good for a nice local setup.

Anyone up to try this out?

https://press.asus.com/news/press-releases/asus-proart-5k-pa...

...to be looking really appealing to pair with one of these new Mac Minis.

$899 MSRP in the US, 5120 x 2880, same dimensions as an Apple Studio Display but a lot cheaper... And B&H just got them in stock.

Just ordered one myself, now I need to pick which variant of the Mac Mini M4 to pair it with. (My goal here is replacing a 27" Intel iMac for map making / CAD / DTP type stuff.)

I really want to see what they're going to do with the Studio this/next year. M4 Ultra could be insane.

C'monnnn. Give us custom colors, like you already do for the iMac.

Otherwise seems like a fine machine for those who want UNIX and energy efficiency.

+ form factor

+ ARM/Apple silicon/SoC

Negatives:

- Apple tax on memory, storage

- non-upgradeable

- Apple tax on 1GbE to 10 GbE ($100 surcharge lol)

- maxes out at 64G of configurable memory w/ m4 pro

Got to give it to Apple. The traunches between different configuration levels is “small” enough to convince buyers to enter the next level.

It’s like “hey, you are already at $4000 for m4 pro with 64g. Just spend an extra $400-$600 for that bump in storage. It’s no biggy. We losing money at this point”.

I wonder how many consumers fall into this sunk cost fallacy scenario that Apple has designed.

Otherwise I'm unimpressed.

Even the iKeyboard I bought from them last year was lightning to USB-A and needed a dongle to connect to my Apple laptop.

At least it has an HDMI port.

New iMac with M4 (apple.com) 509 points by tosh 1 day ago | flag | hide | past | favorite | 1058 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41971726

Almost nobody asked for this. I personally would have wanted one program to not stop starting with a cryptic message after upgrading to macOS 15.1 earlier today. But hey, crazies like me who want a decently working software are apparently not welcome in the customer base.

The only reason I am still staying with Apple for my desktop needs is that I paid $8000 for my iMac Pro and that was just some short 5 years ago.

But as time goes by, buying 1-2 specialized text rendering displays and going full Linux looks more and more attractive, especially with Fedora and Manjaro now offering the "immutable" distros i.e. you can frak around with your environment but then revert everything if you don't like it (or the contrary, do a DB commit of sorts i.e. have your changes persist after reboot) -- those features make backing up entire workstations even easier.

Sprinkle an external ZFS server and the ability to just zfs send/recv entire disks with encryption and compression and I think just some 2-3 short years into the future I'll be laughing at Macs.

Apple keeps dropping the ball. iOS 18 lost all my tab groups in Safari as well. And Photos randomly chooses not to show pictures in the big Photos feed; you have to know which day they were saved to be able to see them.

/facepalm

Apple is now in decline, it can't be more obvious by these fairly outrageous bugs + the fact that they are now regular followers like everyone else and are jumping on the "AI" bandwagon.

edit to clarify: I don’t think reducing out carbon emissions is nonsense, that should be our top priority as a society, that’s also (part of) why AI is quite shit honestly, I couldn’t care less if they were just burning money by developing nothing burgers but they’re also burning through all our natural resources at insane rates.

However I do think the term “carbon neutral” is quite nonsensical and just seems like a term to make the consumer feel less guilty about themselves, hell sometimes it’s even used to make the company execs feel better about themselvss. I didn’t forget about that HORRIBLE, TERRIBLE “mother earth” commercial apple ran. DISGUSTING.

It's basically an Intel NUC, 12 years later.

The mini seems like the perfect thing to have a mini version and a ... creative design, bring back the trash can!

I wish Apple would invest in gaming, so that we won't have such a capable hardware allocating puny market-share of only 2% according to Steam survey. [2]

[1] https://gamesbymason.com/2023/08/21/way-of-rhea-linux/#way-o...

[2] https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey