Apple's new M4 Mac mini announcement video shows off Apple TV-like design

Apple has welcomed the refreshed Mac mini with an Apple Event-style video, the second of three "exciting announcements" set to occur over the week.

Tuesday's video, which runs for just over 12 minutes, is designed to give viewers a quick look at Apple's "tinier, mightier, and even more versatile Mac mini." Like Monday's video, this one is also led by Apple's Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, John Ternus, with CEO Tim Cook nowhere to be found.

And, like Monday's video, a decent portion of the video is spent promoting Apple Intelligence, Apple's "user-first" suite of artificial intelligence tools. Fitting, as Apple Intelligence has just arrived on Mac with the new macOS Sequoia 15.1 update.

The rest of the video discusses the Mac mini's performance gains over its predecessors. It also notes that the M4 Pro Mac mini boasts support for Thunderbolt 5, which coincides with Apple's release of its own Thunderbolt 5 cable.

The Mac mini is available for preorder starting on Tuesday, with first units expected to reach customers by November 8 — though those times could slip should there be enough interest. The Mac mini base model starts at $599, while the M4 Pro Mac mini starts at $1,399.

The Mac mini announcement video marks the second time that Apple would release an Apple Event-style video without fully committing to a full-length event, and likely will release a third video alongside Wednesday's hardware release. It is possible that Apple is testing out a new format for non-iPhone releases, which would be yet another change in how Apple announces products.

In 2020, Apple began pre-recording its Apple Events as the global pandemic prevented the company from holding live, in-person events. Apple has stuck with this format since, and its likely Apple may choose to pare down its events further for smaller hardware releases, opting to promote "announcement weeks" instead of hour-long events.