Apple’s 2024 M4 Mac Mini: What We Know

Apple is working to refresh the complete Mac lineup with chips within the M4 collection, and the Mac mini may get an replace as quickly as late 2024. Apple is anticipated to skip the M3 chip, going straight from M2 to M4.

This information highlights every part that we all know concerning the ‌Mac mini‌ refresh thus far.

Design

Apple hasn’t modified the ‌Mac mini‌ design in a few years, and there are not any rumors of a design replace coming in 2024. Apple did make the ‌Mac mini‌ just a little bit thicker and lighter when it was refreshed in 2023, and that very same design will doubtless be used for the 2024 mannequin.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo mentioned in January that the “subsequent new ‌Mac mini‌” may have the identical “kind issue design.” Again in 2021, there have been rumors that Apple was engaged on a ‌Mac mini‌ with a plexiglass high and different design modifications, however that machine by no means materialized.

The ‌Mac mini‌ is Apple’s smallest, most transportable desktop machine, measuring in at 7.75 inches sq. and 1.41 inches thick. The ‌Mac mini‌ is supposed to be related to a standalone show, keyboard, and mouse, and it doesn’t ship with these equipment.

M4 Chip

The ‌Mac mini‌ will likely be outfitted with Apple’s M4 and M4 Professional chips, with Apple skipping the M3 line fully and going from ‌M2‌ to M4.

Apple launched the M4 chip within the iPad Professional, and the chip is constructed on a second-generation 3-nanometer expertise. In comparison with the ‌M2‌ chip, the M4 chip presents 50 p.c quicker CPU efficiency and as much as 4x quicker rendering efficiency.

The M4 chip incorporates a 10-core CPU and a 10-core GPU. There’s a variant of the M4 with a 9-core CPU, however Apple is unlikely to make use of it within the ‌Mac mini‌, as an alternative reserving it for the ‌iPad Professional‌ and a future MacBook Air.

There may be additionally a extra superior 16-core Neural Engine and the GPU helps hardware-accelerated ray tracing, a function not out there with the ‌M2‌. In line with Apple, the Neural Engine within the M4 chip is an “absolute powerhouse for AI.”

We do not but know particulars on the M4 Professional as a result of that chip shouldn’t be anticipated to come back out till later this 12 months.

Launch Date

In line with Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, the ‌Mac mini‌ will likely be refreshed alongside the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Professional fashions in late 2024.

The ‌Mac mini‌ was final refreshed in January 2023, so will probably be shut to 2 years outdated when it’s up to date. Apple usually does Mac refreshes in October or November, so we may see the M4 ‌Mac mini‌ someday in that timeframe.