Category: Hardware

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The new Mac mini is a big chip in a small package

Apple Mac mini front facing ports.

A new Mac mini was announced sporting new M4 and M4 Pro chips packed into a tiny form factor of only 5 by 5 inches. The new M4 chips give the new mini a CPU performance bump of 18x and GPU increase of 2.2 over the M1 model.

Mac mini with M4 Pro

Thunderbolt 5 is the new way of moving data in and out of the new Mac mini. The Mac mini with M4 Pro ships with three of them on the back. Running at up to 120Gb/s they support up to three 6K displays. On the front are two USB-C ports at USB 3 speed. And a first ever on a Mac, a forward facing headphone jack.

Inside is where the M4 Pro shines. With availability of up to 14 cores you should see a marked improvement in multithreaded performance. And with the M4 Pro GPU offering up to 20 cores, you will see a 2x improvement over the M4 chip.

Apple Mac mini front facing ports.
Apple Mac mini front facing ports.
Apple Mac mini rear facing ports.
Apple Mac mini rear facing ports.

Mac mini wth M4

Three Thunderbolt 4 ports arrive on the Mac mini with M4. These support up to three also displays–two running at up to 6K and one running at up to 5K. Like the M4 Pro, you get two USB-C ports on the front offering USB 3 speeds and the same front facing headphone jack.

There’s a lot more to these new machines. Follow this link to read Apple’s Press Release for the nitty gritty details.

Pricing

The new Mac mini with M4 starts at $599 with 16GB of memory while the Mac mini with M4 Pro starts at $1399.

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iMac gets a refresh with new M4 processors

M4 iMac in home setting

The iMac, a perennial favorite all-in-one computer, has just been refreshed with the latest M4 processor, 12MP Center Stage camera, and Thunderbolt 4 ports in a thinner design and an updated color pallet and ready for Apple Intelligence.

  • iMac with macOS Sequoia running Safari and Excel
    iMac with macOS Sequoia running Safari and Excel
  • iMac with macOS Sequoia running Photoshop
    iMac with macOS Sequoia running Photoshop
  • iMac with macOS Sequoia running Civilization 7
    iMac with macOS Sequoia running Civilization 7

The M4 processor is the star

The new M4 processor brings a generous performance boost to the new iMac with improved up to 1.7x speed bump over the M1 chip. Graphics speeds improve up to 2.1x faster than the original M1. Best of all, the new iMacs now start with 16GB of memory. This can be maxed out to 32GB.

A rainbow of colors

M4 iMac colors
M4 iMac colors

The newly enhanced performance of the iMac is wrapped in a new case that is slightly thinner than previous designs in refreshed shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and silver. The latest colors are a little more muted than the previous pallet.

Fewer ports, more speed

Back Green 8-Core M4 iMac with 2 Thunderblot/USB-4 ports
Back Green 8-Core M4 iMac with 2 Thunderblot/USB-4 ports

Possibly the most significant change on the latest iMacs is the I/O connectivity. Gone are all legacy ports, analog audio i/o, legacy Thunderblot, USB-A, Thunderbolt/USB-3, and Ethernet. In their place is either 2 or 4 Thunderblot/USB-4 ports, depending on configuration. If you’re setup requires any legacy ports, there’s a dongle for that.

You also receive WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 radios for fast, secure, cable free connections.

New Keyboards and Mice

Green Thunderbolt/USB-4 Magic Mouse
Green Thunderbolt/USB-4 Magic Mouse
Green Thunderbolt/USB-4 Magic Keyboard with Touch-ID
Green Thunderbolt/USB-4 Magic Keyboard with Touch-ID

Shipping with the new iMacs are new keyboards and mice in hue matching colors. These new peripherals arrive with USB-C ports for charging. The new keyboards also include Touch-ID that allow you to lock/unlock your computer, make online purchases with ApplePay, and they support Fast User Switching making it easier to change profiles for those who share a computer.

Be the center of the stage

Also arriving with the latest iMac is a new 12MP Center Stage camera which is capable of automatically adjusting pan and zoom as more faces appear in the frame.

Configurations and Pricing

The new iMacs can be ordered in 8 and 10-core configurations:

8 Core $1,299

16GB of RAM (24GB max)
256GB SSD (1TB max)
2-Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports
Magic Keyboard
Magic Mouse

10 Core $1,499

16GB of RAM (32GB max)
256GB SSD (2TB max)
4-Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports
Magic Keyboard
Magic Mouse

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The new iPad Mini lands with an A17 Pro processor

Apple iPad Mini with A17 processor

Apple’s announced the new iPad Mini with the A17 Processor to be available as of today.

The new Mini offers a boost in performance and comes ready for Apple Intelligence. It will ship with iOS 18, WiFi 6E and USB-C supporting data transfer speeds of up to 10Gbps.

It also gets a 12MP back camera supporting Smart HDR4. The new Mini also gets a base storage capacity of 128GB and can be optioned with up to 512GB. But the USB-C port allows for unlimited storage with SSD drives.

Starting at $499 for the WiFi model and $649 for WiFi + Cellular.