It seems to me that any New Mac Mini will be based on M2. And here’s the thing nobody seems to have talked about (anywhere): I reckon M2 will be A16 based, not A15. The timing suggests some level of unification between Mac and iPaf chip design. It’s late for A15. On time for A16.
But I’m still glad I didn’t wait - and went for the Studio. It’s more than enough for me - for many years.
(If I were to guess A16 would be 10% faster than A15 which is about 10% faster than A14 (M1) - so that’s a worthwhile single core speed bump of 20 - 25%. Throw in some more cores and we might get 50% M1 → M2. And the 16GB M1 (not Pro or Max or Ultra) memory limit removed, plus the other limits raised by Pro / Max / Ultra.
I honestly don’t know why Apple would do this. The M1 is a spectacular chip without even going to the Pro and above. Increasing the available memory options for the plain M1 would increase the number of SKUs/configuration options and potentially cannibalise the pro and above.
Note, I’m not saying that they shouldn’t do it, just I don’t see why they would.
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I also can’t see this happening, or why it would. Currently there is a gap in the desktops, but to me having vanilla M# chips being 8/16 GB, M# Pro being 16/32 GB, M# Max at 32/64 GB and M# Ultra at 64/128 GB seems perfectly sensible. One day every step will go up, but there’s no need for that now.
I’m assuming that Apple knows their chips and they feel that these values balance things out and minimise bottlenecks. At every step, RAM increases along with many other elements of the SOC.
Now, some users may have a genuine need for something different, but I don’t think that’s ever been Apple’s target market. They seem to aim to provide the best computing experience, and whether they get it right is up for debate.
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