Apple is likely to refuse to release a version of the Mac mini with an M3 chip in favor of a more substantial update that will receive M4 chips and be released by the end of the year. Mark Gurman of Bloomberg reports.
He explained that he does not expect Apple to update the Mac mini with M3 chips. The last time Apple upgraded Mac mini with M2 and M2 Pro chips in January 2013. Other new features include two additional Thunderbolt 4 ports and an HDMI 2.1 port for M2 Pro configurations, Wi-Fi 6E support with a compatible router, and Bluetooth 5.3.
Earlier, Gurman said that Apple plans to release new Mac mini models with M4 and M4 Pro «chips between late 2024 and early 2025». Now he has clarified that with the new Mac minis coming at the end of the year, there is not enough «space to release M3 models before then, so it’s safe to say that these Macs will miss the M3» generation.
Such a move wouldn’t be anything new for Apple, as the company completely abandoned the M2 chip for the iMac, delaying the upgrade until the bigger performance boost with the M3 chip late last year. With the M4 series of chips, the new Mac mini should get a significant boost in CPU performance over existing M2-based models. The M4 chips are also rumored to have a faster neural engine for artificial intelligence tasks.
Source: macrumors