Apple announces new Mac Mini, Air + 13" MBP featuring their own M1 chip.

[Markus Krause]

Besides of this the new Macs will bring more profit for Apple, since the do not longer have to pay Intel for the CPUs. Instead they can use their own much cheaper chipsets.
development costs will be also lower for Apple since they merged the ipad OS with OSX now.
The new Macs are a great move for Apple and the shareholders, but not a nice one for the customers and developers

[Etienne1973]

The new Macs are a great move for Apple and the stackholders, but not a nice one for the customers and developers

You and Apple don't get friends, I see. But why it's no nice move for developers? Apart from the new ARM platform.

[Markus Krause]

Unlike Microsoft Apple does not care about downward compatibility at all.
They frequently deprecate SDKs and we devs need to fix stuff with every OS update. We frequently have to rewrite large parts of our software.
Every year we need to pay money to Apple to be an 'Apple developer'. Every 3 years we need to buy a new Mac to be able to test and develop software.
We waste months of work with making the software work on the Mac.
Apple does not fix serious problems with audio. AU validation is broken since 3 years for example.
Xcode crashes frequently.
I could continue with this listing but i do not want to waste more even more time as a developer

[Passing Bye]

Hugely impressed with your discipline there. I've managed to almost fully inflate my 250gb with GAS already.

Thanks, don't use Kontakt and my samples library is cherry picked essentials, mostly drum one shots, also just bare essential 3rd party plugins (mostly freebies), some presets, DAW and projects, my music is synth driven and it's mostly just U-He, really into Diva, so need for faster CPU started to itch, other than that, guess I'm good.

[Passing Bye]

Which old Mac Pro you have?

2x2.66 12-core 5.1 (2010).

That's still quite good machine.

[Etienne1973]

Which old Mac Pro you have?

2x2.66 12-core 5.1 (2010).

That's still quite good machine.

But you can't run macOS Catalina or later on it AFAIK. That's the problem sooner or later I guess.

[Markus Krause]

It is a great CPU with very good floating-point performance (important for audio) .
You should stick with it for at least 2 years

[Passing Bye]

Which old Mac Pro you have?

2x2.66 12-core 5.1 (2010).

That's still quite good machine.

But you can't run macOS Catalina or later on it AFAIK. That's the problem sooner or later I guess.

Just checked, dosdude's Catalina patcher is still viable way for that issue, think he's golden for quite some time with that machine, he can even still upgrade CPU to squeeze little more juice.

http://dosdude1.com/catalina/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ma ... t.1954766/

[dellboy]

I just noticed that they have reduced the thunderbolt ports on the M1 Mac Mini. It used to have four but now its two. Maybe something to do with less capable in\out on the new M1 chip.

For making music a 256 GB SSD is adequate if you have four thunderbolt ports.This allows to move stuff like samples to an outboard SSD.

Cutting it down to just two is still enough if the machine is only used for music, but its going in the wrong direction.

[Markus Krause]

They have also dropped the ethernet.

I also experienced issues with connecting my screen with the previous Mac mini. I had to buy an expensive USB C cable to make it work

There is also no optical or coaxial digital output for audio

[Etienne1973]

Which old Mac Pro you have?

2x2.66 12-core 5.1 (2010).

That's still quite good machine.

But you can't run macOS Catalina or later on it AFAIK. That's the problem sooner or later I guess.

Just checked, dosdude's Catalina patcher is still viable way for that issue, think he's golden for quite some time with that machine, he can even still upgrade CPU to squeeze little more juice.

http://dosdude1.com/catalina/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ma ... t.1954766/

If you are doing professional work with a Mac I would better leave that patching.

[Passing Bye]

If you are doing professional work with a Mac I would better leave that patching.

Did you have bad experience or something with it?

Some colleagues are still using their Pro's without issues with this hack, I heard from them about this, they upgraded their Pro's to the fullest and they make a great living working on them, running latest Logic and all that, so dunno, seems like it's working for them just fine.

[Ploki]

They have also dropped the ethernet.

I also experienced issues with connecting my screen with the previous Mac mini. I had to buy an expensive USB C cable to make it work

There is also no optical or coaxial digital output for audio

it has an ethernet port.
Also the M1 mini is supposed to be an i3 mini replacement.

I just noticed that they have reduced the thunderbolt ports on the M1 Mac Mini. It used to have four but now its two. Maybe something to do with less capable in\out on the new M1 chip.

For making music a 256 GB SSD is adequate if you have four thunderbolt ports.This allows to move stuff like samples to an outboard SSD.

Cutting it down to just two is still enough if the machine is only used for music, but its going in the wrong direction.

I suspect an "M2" (or something) Mac Mini "Pro" with 4 ports and up to 64GB of RAM, in space grey, in year 2021.
They still sell the intel i5/i7 Mini's.
This is an entry level Mini intended as a replacement for the i3. 4 ports is unnecessary on this one.

[agharta]

I think i have read that it ordinary DDR4 Ram what is used for the new Mac.
preventing the users from upgrading it for themselves will bring additional money for Apple, since it forces the users to buy the overpriced 'pro' product.

It appears to be using LPDDR4x-4267 or similar and the RAM is on the package alongside the Apple silicon as an MCM design.
16GB is fine for the majority that are buying an entry level device and the rest wait for the more powerful versions unless they want to buy Intel now.
This is a non issue.

[Etienne1973]

They have also dropped the ethernet.

Mac mini (M1, 2020) has Gigabit Ethernet.

There is also no optical or coaxial digital output for audio

Guess we all have our audio interfaces or analogue headphones.