Edible Apple

And the rumor’s keep on coming, but this one is at least believable.  Wired is reporting that Apple is set to unveil an updated MacMini at Macworld this January.  Though there were no details about what the update entails, the news should nevertheless be encouraging for MacMini fans.  Earlier this fall, another rumor that made the rounds on the web had to do with a MacMini Pro that Apple was supposedly working on.  At that time, Macminicolo, a colocation service that works exclusively with Mac mini’s, noted that the next iteration of the MacMini would most likely have the following specs, whenever it happeed to be released.

The Mac mini will use the new Mini DisplayPort that was recently showcased on the Macbook line. This will save considerable port real estate on the back of the Mac mini.

The Mac mini will join all other Macs in being able to address 4GB of RAM. Currently, they are officially sold with up to 2GB of RAM, but can also support 3GB of RAM. (Though the latter configuration loses the minor dual channel benefits.)

Like the new Macbook, the Mac mini optical drive will be changed to a SATA connection. (It is currently a standard ATA/IDE cable.) This will obviously increase performance. But this change offers even more benefit for those who use the Mac mini as a server. (I have hundreds of Mac mini servers in here that have never once used their optical drive.) In ordering a Mac mini from Apple, there will be an option to have two SATA HDDs and eliminating the optical all together. With the new Remote Disc introduced with the Macbook Air, this option will be tempting for many.

The Mac mini will likely join the rest of the line with the black and aluminum. I wouldn’t expect the desktop Mac to use the new unibody aluminum casing as that would surely push it out of the Mac mini price range. (And probably isn’t as useful for desktop computers anyway.)

Without the higher cost of unibody casing, and more space with the switch to Mini DisplayPort, we’d expect FireWire to stay on the Mac mini.

Our hopeful nature would point to a move from integrated graphics to NVIDIA GPUs though I’m not sure how close they’ll want to bridge the performance with the iMac and Macbooks