20 Years of Mac Mini

On January 22nd, 2005, Steve Jobs, for the first time, introduced Mac Mini to the world. It was the first Macintosh that did not come with a display or any other input device. In fact, during the presentation, you have to BYODKM - Bring Your Own Display, Keyboard, and Mouse. And the rest is history: Mac Mini has been a staple for the Mac lineup since then, offering the cheapest entry point to the world of Mac, and Apple by extension.

20 years on, we celebrate how the Mac Mini has changed over the years and how it will change the world in the future.

Early Beginnings

From the early years of the Mac Mini, Apple always sells the computer as a full unit, complete with displays, a keyboard, and a mouse. Their major product was the Mac, an all-in-one computer that is very easy to use for the average consumer. But because of this, the entry price for the Macintosh was high, several times higher than a PC equivalent. This created a spiral effect where the software ecosystem does not grow because of a lack of users, unlike the PC world.

Because of this, Steve Jobs, the CEO at that time wanted a headless Mac to attract PC users to Apple. And thus, the Mac Mini was born. The good thing is by 2005, a lot of connections had been standardized so Apple does not need to create their standards like in the early days of personal computing. The Mac Mini would come with standard ports like Ethernet, DVI for display signals, and USB for input signals like keyboard and mouse. Firewire was a popular standard for video transfers (which Apple designs and promotes) so it was included at that time, which was common for the Macs in that era.

The first Mac Mini was using the same design language as the first Apple TV. I have a feeling that Apple intended that the Mac Mini could be used as an HTPC, a concept that was popular at the time. The first Mac Mini also has an infrared sensor so you can remotely control your Mac Mini from a TV if desired.

The PowerPC era of the Mac only produces the G4 Mac Mini. It was an open secret at this time that Apple was considering moving OS X (before macOS, it was called OS X) to Intel’s platform. The PowerPC G5 never made to the Mac Mini as it was notoriously power-hungry and required a lot of cooling, something a Mac Mini would not be able to provide.

Intel Years: Getting By

A new generation of Macs powered by Intel allowed Apple to design entirely new Macs that fit their vision of computing in that era. Apple moved away from high-grade polycarbonate plastics Macs to high-grade aluminum to give that high-end feel. The Mac Mini, the cheapest of the Mac line-up is no exception.

Named the Unibody Mac Mini, the chassis is built by machining a single piece of aluminum block into a Mac Mini and adding plastic panels at the back and the feet of the Mac Mini. The result is a Mac Mini that feels solid, thinner, and wider than the previous generation Mac Mini.

The first generation of the unibody Mac Mini has SuperDrive, an optical disk drive when things are shipped via CDs and DVDs. It was quickly abandoned 1 year later as Internet speed exploded and software was transferred directly online instead of physical media.

With Intel powering devices, this generation of Mac Mini exploded in popularity. With the Intel chip, the performance was decent enough. Some enterprising people made an entire business providing access to Mac Mini on the internet, most famously MacStadium who built a cloud solution on Apple hardware.

Apple later expanded the offering to the new higher-end tier of the Mac Mini. This can be identified by the Space Grey finishing on the Mac Mini. These Mac Mini usually come with Intel’s mid-range to upper-mid-range chips like the i5 and the i7 line. They are intended to be used by video editing or developers who require a Mac to do their work but on a limited budget.

Of course, all good things must come to an end. Intel squandered their quantum leap and through a series of missteps, bad luck, and plain old management, Intel chips is no longer cutting it for Apple. With Apple spending billions of dollars in developing their own chips for the iPhone, it was just a matter of time before Apple made the leap from smartphone chips, to iPad chips, and finally to desktop chips.

Apple Silicon: Mac Mini Unleashed

And Apple finally made the leap in 2020 with the introduction of Apple Silicon. While some had skepticism of Apple being able to make a decent desktop chip from their smartphone chips, all the doubts went away when the M1 came. It smashes everything we know about desktop chips and for the first time, Intel is not at the top of the game.

Because Apple Silicon allows Apple to supply more power in a more efficient package, the latest version of Mac Mini is the smallest one yet. Smaller than the palm of your hand, you can have supercomputer power in a very small cube. Furthermore, Apple base spec Mac Mini which starts at $599 ($499 if you’re a student) is the deal of the century. There’s simply no PC equivalent of the base spec Mac Mini. It is that good.

Next Steps

Apple will probably keep the Mac Mini design for at least 10 years since we are just starting in the Apple Silicon era. No one knows what Apple’s plans are, but there is a need to create better base chips for the Vision Pro and iPhones, so you would expect more and more powerful and capable chips on the Mac Mini. It will be amazing what kind of computing power you can get at $599 in the future.

Specs

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Other Ecosystem Items

• Apple TV (Amazon) / Apple TV 4K (Amazon)
• AirTags (Amazon)
• HomePod Mini (Amazon)