Mac Mini Receives First Overhaul in Four Years; New iPad Pro With No Home Button Announced (venturebeat.com)

Apple is turning its attention to a range of devices it has not upgraded in recent years. Alongside the new MacBook Air that the company unveiled on Tuesday, it is also upgrading the Mac Mini for the first time in four years, and also has a new iPad Pro in the offering. Regarding the new Mac Mini: It has Intel's 8th generation processors -- in four- and six-core i7, i5, and i3 flavors -- and 60 percent faster graphics. The processor's paired with up to 64GB of RAM (8GB comes on standard) at 2666MHz and up to 2TB of SSD storage -- double the capacity of previous Mac Minis. Overall, it's up to 5 times faster than the previous-gen models, Apple claims, and can drive 4K and 5K Thunderbolt displays and output in three formats. In terms of ports, there's plenty to go around: two USB-A, HDMI 2.0 video, four Thunderbolt USB-C, an audio out port, and a Gigbabit Ethernet port (you can add up to 10 Gigabit Ethernet, if you so choose). Also onboard is Apple's T2 chip. It's a 64-bit ARMv8 chip -- a variant of Apple's A10 -- that runs Apple's custom BridgeOS 2.0 operating system (an Apple watch derivative). The new Mac Mini starts at $799. Regarding the new iPad Pro: After months of rumors, Apple has today announced a completely redesigned iPad Pro with slimmed-down bezels, Face ID, a USB-C port, and far more powerful specs than its predecessor. Just like prior years, the new iPad Pro comes in two screen sizes: 11-inch and 12.9-inch. The 11-inch model has essentially the same proportions as the prior 10.5-inch model. And the 12.9-inch model puts the same-sized display into a much smaller form factor. The new iPad Pro starts at $799 for the 11-inch and $999 for the 12.9-inch. Preorders begin today and it ships November 7th. The new Pro is the company's first iPad not to include a home button, which allowed Apple to extend the screen vertically for a much more immersive experience. The bezels have been downsized on all four sides. [...] But something else has been removed, too: the headphone jack. There's no 3.5mm port visible on any of the device's sides, meaning that buyers will need a USB-C-to-headphone dongle to listen to music through wired headphones. The 11-inch iPad Pro starts at $799. The 12.9-inch version starts at $999. It goes on sale today and ships on November 7.

Comments

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[alvinrod]

Apparently the RAM is user upgradable, so why you'd want to pay Apple's obscene markup to install a few DIMMs for you is beyond me.

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[alvinrod]

Why would they bother making it user upgradable if they were going to lock it down like that?

If they were going to do that, they'd just solder the RAM to the board so they could shave an extra .5 mm off the height of the product.

Non-Removable SSD = Disposable Product

[BrendaEM]

SSDs do go bad. Now, with Moore's law gone, those machines could have lasted longer than they will now. If Apple cared about the environment more than their money, they would make them repairable.

I create content, and 10% of my Samsung 850 SSD life is used up.

They are repairable

[SuperKendall]

SSDs do go bad. Now, with Moore's law gone, those machines could have lasted longer than they will now. If Apple cared about the environment more than their money, they would make them repairable.

What makes you think they are not repairable?

At least by Apple they will be. But on the iMac Pro the SSD chips are removable so I don't see why that would change on the Mac mini.

Also the systems are fully recycled by Apple, no it's meaningless to complain about caring for the environment because the system might die.

I create content, and 10% of my Samsung 850 SSD life is used up.

That's kind of an older SSD drive (I have one as well). At this point I would say lots of other system components are going to go before the SSD chips do.

Consumer vs. producer

[SuperKendall]

Sorry Apple, I've already switched to a Samsung Tab A 10.1, and I'm not going back.

Great idea if you are just going to watch movies.

Not so great if you want to actually do anything serious with a tablet - like run Photoshop. Are you going to be editing a 3GB PSD on that Samsung? I think not.