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

"32GB Comes Standard"

[willaien]

What? No. 8GB is standard. 32GB is $600 more - almost the full price of the base model.

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:"32GB Comes Standard"

[singularity]

I worked Apple retail before going on to work at two different Apple Specialists (the highest level of AASP - Apple Authorized Service Provider). I now work for a another company and one of my tasks is the occasional job of taking Apple machines in for repair.

At this point, the number of Apple machines I have dealt with that were going through the AppleCare repair process number in the tens of thousands, I would guess. In all of that time, I have not once seen an AppleCare coverage denied because of third-party RAM installed by the end user. Not a single time.

Your statement is verifiably incorrect by the thousands of other people who have had the same experience as mine.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[hawk]

> there's no point at all to pay the Apple tax.

The reason that you *consider* paying apple memory prices is that apple's specs for memory are something like a half a standard deviation higher than other good memory.

I don't find it worth it, but the reality is that meeting apple's specs is more expensive.

Then again, a few years ago when I brought my iMac in the third time for crashes, they returned it with my bank of aftermarket memory in a bag--with the offending stick labeled . . .

hawk

Glad to see Apple is making new things again

[TimMD909]

Sadly, though, I'll be waiting for next year's model due out in 2023.

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.

iPad Pro update is what I hoping for

[SuperKendall]

I really liked the Mac mini refresh, but what I really loved was the iPad Pro update.

I had the first larger 12.9" iPad Pro before, which I liked quite a lot for photo editing.

Now though, the newer one has FaceID - was nicer with a device you can hold in any direction than trying to find the home button. And the power seems really impressive, the demo they gave showing editing a 3GB PSD was the most impressive thing I saw at the Apple event.

The USB-C connection also is great for connection to external monitors and other things I already have accessories for... and the redesign of the pencil to simultaneously clamp onto an edge (I think any edge?) and charge at the same time is a great touch.

Also if you look at it from a pure travel standpoint, the new MacBook Air is 2.75 lbs - but the largest iPad Pro is just 1.25lbs or so!! That is a huge difference in what you have to lug around, as long as what you need to do can be done on the iPad Pro. For photo editing when traveling this device is pretty much perfect now.

Perhaps finally Apple will bring Xcode to the iPad Pro...

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.

Adding RAM does not void warranty

[sjbe]

Because if you don't, then you forgo your extended warranty.

Yeah that's not true. If someone told you that then they were either lying or misinformed.

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.