The Mac mini
From its launch in 2005 to being one of the first devices to feature the M1 chip, Charlotte Henry looks at the Mac mini
Over the years, the Mac mini has undergone something of a quiet evolution. Launched in January 2005 at the Macworld Conference and Expo with a PowerPC G4 processor, two models – a 1.25GHz or 1.42GHz version – were originally available, both with ATI Radeon 9200 graphics and 32MB of dedicated DDR memory.
At the time, Steve Jobs declared the new Mac mini as “an incredibly compact Mac for a price that almost anyone can afford,” and that original pitch remains, opening up the Apple ecosystem to users who may have otherwise been priced out of it.
While it can sometimes feel a bit forgotten, the gap between significant updates too wide, the Mac mini’s history nicely outlines the development of Mac processors. Just over a year after the original G4 models were launched, the Mac mini got Intel inside. Two more generations arrived in the intervening years and then, in 2020, the fifth generation Mac mini was one of the first Apple devices to get the new M1 chip.
The Mac mini has always been ‘headless’ – there has never been a display, keyboard, trackpad or mouse bundled with it – and while the original certainly had a boxier, less compact, design compared to later generations, the device’s fundamental design principles have held up well over time. The most significant change came in the third generation device, launched in June 2010. The computer got a thinner, unibody design. Even with this change, today’s mini is still recognisably the ‘same’ device as its predecessors, certainly more so than many other Macs. You could also argue the mini’s design paved the way for the Apple TV, too…
An affordable Apple desktop machine, combining power and flexibility at a price point that is accessible to more potential users, the Mac mini holds an important spot in the Apple product line-up and company history.
ABOUT CHARLOTTE HENRY
Charlotte Henry is a journalist and author covering media and technology. Based in London, she is the UK Associate of The Mac Observer, hosts its Media+ podcast, and has written for various other outlets. Her first book, Not Buying It, was published in 2019.