M4 Mac mini and more expected for Apple's week of announcements

Apple has announced a week of Mac or Mac-related launches, and now Bloomberg says it will see the company standardizing its entire Mac lineup on the M4 family of chips across late 2024 and early 2025. This is the first time this has happened since the company began using its own Apple Silicon processors.

The reasoning is that Apple wants all of its latest devices to be able to run its Apple Intelligence technology. This is also the reasoning behind the bump to 16GB of RAM, which could be the new base standard across all of the forthcoming models.

These improvements will have numerous benefits for users, outside of Apple Intelligence. The two expected Mac mini models, sporting either the M4 or the M4 Pro chip, will be able to handle ray tracing for the first time, enabling substantially better graphics performance.

The all-new M4 Mac mini

Rumors had previously suggested that while the Mac mini and other Macs will gain significant power and graphics upgrades with the M4 chipsets, only the Mac mini will be getting a substantial redesign — its first since January 2023.

Current reports and speculation suggest that the Mac mini will be substantially smaller than the current model. This could be accomplished either by making the present design thinner, or by adopting a "rounded black box" design similar to the Apple TV hardware box.

USB-A ports are likely to be dropped entirely, providing room for up to five USB-C ports alongside inputs such as Ethernet and HDMI. Recent rumors have suggested a design similar to a smaller Mac Studio, with two of the USB-C ports on the front of the device, and the rest on the back.

Despite the smaller size, the New Mac mini will offer a far more powerful Neural Engine. While the M2 used in the current Mac mini was rated as processing up to 15.8 trillion operations per second (TOPS), the M4 more than doubles that capability, reaching 38 TOPS.

Benefits for all new Mac models

This advance will represent a substantial jump in processing power across all Mac models. The M3 chips, by comparison, reached 18 TOPS.

Apple expects that the substantial gains in RAM, and processing power will motivate customers still on the last Intel-powered Macs, as well as early M1 and M2 adopters, to move to M4-class machines.

The 24-inch iMac will continue with the base M4 chip, while the MacBook Pro lineup will be available with the option of higher-end M4 chips. The MacBook Air with M4 is now expected to arrive in early 2025, while the Mac Studio is expected to get its upgrade in sometime in the spring of 2025.

As for the Mac Pro, Apple is likely to make an announcement about the next version at its WWDC conference in June, but it's unlikely to ship before the fall of 2025.