We"ve seen a slew of rumors come out over the past few days that suggest Apple is working on a visual refresh to many of its products. Following the official launch of the 24-inch iMac, a redesigned MacBook Air was leaked, and then a purported Apple Watch series 7 showed up, too. Now, the Mac mini is also the subject of one of these leaks, and once again, it comes courtesy of prominent leakster Jon Prosser on YouTube.
Apple refreshed the Mac mini at the end of last year, making it one of the first devices to ship with the Apple M1 chipset inside. However, Apple just reused the same shell from the Intel version of the Mac mini, and it left a lot of empty space on the inside of the device, so there was clearly legroom to make a thinner design. That"s exactly what we"re getting, based on the leak, but the images also show that the new Mac mini will have even more ports despite being smaller.
The new design showcased keeps the HDMI, Ethernet, and USB Type-A ports of the current model, but it doubles the number of USB Type-C/Thunderbolt ports to four, and it also changes the power connector, which is the same as what"s being used for the new 24-inch iMac. The vent on the back of the Mac mini is also no longer on the back, but there is one on the bottom.
Other design changes include two rubber strips that replace the existing stand design, and a plexiglass-type material being used for the top surface of the case. The current design is all-metal and the entire body is the same color, but this new approach opens up the possibility of a two-tone look, with Prosser saying that Apple has experimented with different colors - though nothing indicates that this will be the case necessarily. Based on the design trend set with the iMac and the purported MacBook Air that leaked a couple of weeks ago, the idea of a colored Mac mini seems believable, though.
Another big change is on the inside, as the new Mac mini is said to potentially ship with a more powerful chipset with 10 CPU cores and up to 32 GPU cores, in addition to a maximum of 64GB of RAM, whereas current Apple M1 devices max out at 16GB.
The new chip has been rumored to be called Apple M1X, and the Mac mini isn"t the only device it"s said to be in. Prosser has previously mentioned that a MacBook Pro announcement might be coming at WWDC on June 7, with it packing similar spec configurations as the Mac mini. Not much else is known, but so far, only the 13-inch MacBook Pro has been refreshed, and it would make sense for the 16-inch model to get a more powerful processor.