There’s been a Mac mini running in my house for more than a decade now. And it’s great for Apple because the Mac mini can act as a release valve of a sort-it can do all the jobs for which other Macs with more focused designs simply aren’t suited. That’s great for Mac users because if you need a Mac in a particular place (where a laptop would be inappropriate and an iMac won’t fit), it’ll do the job.

I’d argue that the Mac mini is great not because it fills a niche, but because it fills a thousand of them.

That it still exists is a miracle that Apple only bothers updating it every three or four years isn’t really surprising.īut here we are, three years on from the most recent (and unsatisfying!) Mac mini update, and everyone’s concerned that the Mac mini might be a dead product walking.Īpple could survive without the Mac mini in its product line, but it would make a lot of Mac users sad. Objectively, it’s Apple’s least important Mac-the low-end, low-selling desktop in a world that’s three-quarters laptops. It’s tough being the fan of the Mac mini. Phil Schiller introduces the most recent Mac mini in 2014.

Warning: This story has not been updated in several years and may contain out-of-date information.

2017 mac mini