Looks like Christmas is coming early this year. I just pre-ordered the new Mac Mini with the M4 pro chip. I also ordered Air Pods Pro 2 as a replacement for my 8-year-old Costco hearing aids.
I'm purchasing the base M4 model right now! I'm a little confused why the base Mac Mini comes with a 10-core CPU while the iMac has 8. I wish they also bumped the base storage to 512 GB, but I'd much rather have 16 GB RAM than additional storage. After all, I have tons of space available on external drives, so it's no big deal.
I bought the base Pro model with 24GB RAM and 512GB SSD, which is way more than I need for my more-or-less typical consumer usage. But it should be more than enough to support MacOS AI features to come, and hopefully will remain a viable system until Apple discontinues support for it.
This is the first actual new computer I've purchased in years. Most of my recent machines were bought as refurbs, including the 2018 Intel Mac Mini I'm composing this comment with.
I only have macbook pro currently. Now that I see relatively positive bug patches in sequoia for my usecase, I can maybe imagine myself with a mac tower computer. I always liked the formats of blink or similar so why not a mac mini speced out? Or a studio for that matter but...
For those who have a mini, what's the workaround with having or not having an external monitor or an hdmi emulator? How required or unnecessary is this in terms of functioning of the system and voiceover?
You don't need a monitor or a spoofing dongle either.
the shame about it all, I think, is all this power and so little to do with it. unless we're video editting, unlikely, or working a huge number of tracks for music, it's all kinda pointless. We still don't have any good games for it. Even the sighted don't have good games for it. I think future proofing by getting what you can afford is wise, but I do wonder what that future is actually going to contain. Even with 24 gb ram and an m4 pro, you'll not be running any meaningful LLM locally. I just wish the mac could do more. It's starting to look a lot like the Ipad and it's utterly pointless benchmarks for all but the most specific of use cases.
More ram is good though. That will help voiceover be a little less fussy.
In over 40 years of experience with personal computers, the one constant is that more RAM is the most likely way to boost performance and therefore the best return for the cost. In my Windows days, I used to buy new machines with a base memory config, then, after two or three years, upgrade to max with third-party RAM. Can’t do that with Macs, sadly.
Your advice to buy the best system one can afford is sound. I’m not searching for million-digit prime numbers, or identifying tumors in CT scans, or looking for alien intelligence in SETI data, or computing cryptocurrency hash values. My typical consumer use case will hardly make my new M4 Pro break a sweat. It is the continued, inexorable operating system bloat that will strain the machine’s resources, and it will do so in ways I can neither predict nor control.
AirPods Pro 2 arrive today, and I’m totally excited about that! M4 Mac Mini should arrive November 8.
I still think the AirPods Pro 2 are, or is, one of apple's best products. I can't wait for the next version, next year or 2026, not that getting V2 now isn't a great deal. A brilliant addition to a blind person's watch pocket.
The AirPods arrived yesterday. It was an absolutely awesome out of the box experience. Took me some time and another AppleVis post before I figured out the touch gestures. It is not tapping. That aside, I'm hooked.
Apple wanted me to take a survey about my purchase experience. I marked them down on the difficulty of paying with ApplePay. I placed the order through a desktop web browser. To pay with ApplePay, I had to scan a code with my phone's camera. I found it to be a tedious process of scanning across the monitor, back and forth, with my camera at varying distances. Bar code detection seemed to be very sensitive to camera distance. The bar code timed out and expired not once, but twice, before my camera was able to recognize the code.
I hope Apple takes steps to improve this process. Why can't I just place my phone close to my Mac, like I do every time I use ApplePay at my local coffee shop? This could be so much easier.
Last year I considered buying a Mac Mini but once I beefed up the RAM and the hard disk the cost started to go up and I ended up with a Macbook Pro. If I hadn't caved in then, then I would definitely be up for some of this. The base model looks great. On Double Tap I think they said it's 5 inches square or something. That's insane.
One thing I am confused about - the guy in the Apple Store said of the previous model that it didn't include a speaker, whereas on Double Tap they suggested that maybe it does. Out of curiosity, what is the story with that?
My M4 Mac Mini arrived today, base pro configuration. Unfortunately I'm coming down with a cold, and I don't know when I'll be feeling up to unboxing this beauty and running cables under my desk.
Source: It's sitting right in front of me and makes that noise every time it boots, you know the one, and if I pull the headphones, Voiceover starts jabbering through it. It's not a great speaker or anything, which reminds me I should try playing music through it just for fun, but it is there. No idea about the new ones though.
I got my M4 Mini today. I'm very happy to say the stupid mouse bug has been squashed with macOS 15. I initially connected the Mac to only a keyboard, and received a couple voice prompts. The first said something about pressing return for English, and the second said something about pairing a mouse or trackpad, but if I wanted to continue without one, I just had to press enter. I did this and Command or Windows-F5 in my case turned on VoiceOver! Congratulations to Apple for resolving a problem that should have never existed!
I don't think they've always required a display and/or mouse, though I remember in the Leopard and Snow Leopard days when VoiceOver would act a little strangely without a monitor connected. I don't think this is an issue anymore. The first time I heard about the mouse issue was from someone on here with the original Mac Studio running Monterey. Apparently VoiceOver couldn't be enabled unless you connected a mouse to the computer. I wasn't a happy camper and got really angry! I mean seriously livid, not just upset. Fortunately, I've had time to cool down, and it appears Apple is trying to do better with Ventura and newer. I'm done buying iOS and iPadOS devices for many reasons, though the primary ones have to do with how Apple maliciously complied with the EU regulations to open the platform, the fact they're so locked down generally, the removal of Touch ID and the home button in favor of Face ID and strange slide gestures, etc.
I got my M4 Mac Mini yesterday and I can confirm that it does have a built in speaker, which is pretty good for general listening considering the smaller footprint of the new Mini.
You wouldn't want to use it for long periods, but I've used it before connecting to my main sound system and it's been fairly painless.
What wasn't so painless was the horrible Voiceover interaction setting up from scratch.
It defaulted to Daniel, as I'm in the UK and I couldn't use VO Space to select certain buttons, quick nav would jump to random headings every time I'd try and use up and down arrow to select items instead of VO Space.
Other random jumping around and generally unexpected behaviour from Voiceover nearly made me throw the thing out the window.
I don't know if there is an issue with the Daniel voice, or from default the behaviour of Voiceover is different for some reason, but everything calmed down when I changed to Serena and loaded in my portable preferences.
That being said, it was a lenghty and frustrating process to do even that simple task, because of the Voiceover issues in not being able to select buttons etc.
Believe me, I feel your pain. Back in March, I needed a new laptop, because my MacBook Pro was getting a little long in the tooth. My VR counselor purchased an HP laptop for me, with decent specs, so I could complete a 6 month certification program. This PC is running Windows 11, and honestly, I have not touched my MacBook Pro since March. Now I'm torn between my next "iPhone" being another iPhone upgrade, or an Android.
I have enjoyed using Apple products for more than a decade, but personally, I feel like maybe it is time to move away from our beloved fruit…
Who knows? Maybe iOS 19, and macOS 16 will be the "Snow Leopard" of 2025. 🙂✌️
Thanks for confirming - not sure why the guy at the Apple Store told me there weren't any. But that's good if the mini is usable right away without needing anything else.
My cold turned out to be COVID. Yuck. But I'm well on my way to full recovery. I set up my Mac Mini this morning, and I'm pleased with the results.
Two issues so far are Sequoia-related. In the Mail client, with focus in the list of messages, VO+J does nothing. I expect it to jump focus to the list of mailboxes. And for some reason, my Type to SIRI setting didn't migrate, and I have yet to figure out how to enable it.
The setup and migration were flawless. It took about 90 minutes using Migration Assistant from my Time Machine backup. I don't know if I'll ever get used to the new location for the power button(under the back left corner), but I'm impressed overall with the hardware..
Still on my to do list: reset my old Intel Mac Mini and send it in for a credit.
@PaulMartz said, "I set up my Mac Mini this morning, and I'm pleased with the results.
Two issues so far at Sequoia-related."
This was my favorite part of the above post. 😆
Seriously though, I'm glad you got your machine up and running. I am also hopeful that you recover from Covid soon. Remember Paul, for future reference, 6 foot rule! Lol
I'm not sure if this is determined by whether or not you have Apple Intelligence turned on, but the way I use Type to Siri on macOS 15.1 and later is to press the Command key twice quickly. This can be changed if you wish in System Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri.
To talk to Siri, press and hold F5 (or Globe-F5 if you've configured the function keys to override their special features). This, to my knowledge, cannot be changed.
Thanks, Tyler. Indeed, when I checked in settings, the configuration was already properly set to use command-key-twice as the trigger. Still, nothing was happening.
And the solution was ... MacOS had silently opened a system dialog asking me if I really wanted to use command-key-twice as my trigger for type to SIRI. But nothing alerted me to the dialog's presence. I stumbled onto it in the window chooser menu. Once I found it and clicked the okay button, I was back to typing to SIRI. Yay!
But it seems like that should have migrated, and I'm not sure why it didn't.
Permissions to run appleScripts don't migrate either. I'm sure this is some kind of security feature. I have come to expect the dialog after each upgrade and grant permissions without giving too much thought to what I'm doing.
I am not sure if this is possible, but with iOS when we are backing up to a Mac, we are given an option of encrypting our back up, which backs up more data such as Passwords etc. Is something like this possible with macOS backups? Perhaps that is why not everything migrated to your new system, because it required a back up encryption first?
Just curious here. 😃
I'll let others chime in and verify. But, yes, I have opted out of most security options. I'm the only one with access to my Mac. I don't encrypt the hard drive or backups. If I were sighted, I'd keep my passwords on stickies around my monitor.
If you use Time Machine to back up your Mac, there should be an option, on by default in my experience, to encrypt the backup when initially selecting your destination disk. However, I'm not sure if that affects what is or isn't backed up.
That pesky mouse bug is rearing its ugly head in macOS Recovery! Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be nearly as serious as the older one that's thankfully been fixed. If you enter macOS Recovery in 15.1 on presumably any Mac that lacks a mouse, you get a screen that says mouse white and/or trackpad white image, followed by an Apple Support link. This seems to go away on its own after about a minute, and you can continue to use the recovery tools. I'll report this soon.
A couple of years ago, I sold my 2017 MacBook Pro and upgraded to an Alienware laptop and never regretted it. After using it for 5 years, I realized that, although there were a lot of benefits to using Mac OS, Windows was a better fit for me.
Ever since leaving though, I've been tempted in getting a Mac Mini, just so I could keep my toes dipped in the Mac world and this new M4 Mac Mini has me licking my lips in anticipation.
My Alienware laptop is still my primary machine and will remain for many years to come, but there are a few apps that I've been wanting to play with on the Mac side, so after I'm done saving up about $1,000, I think I'll be buying myself the base model Mac Mini.
I can easily plug in a spare 256 Gb thumb drive that could act as extra storage. Plus, for what I'm going to use it for, I think the base model will do nicely. Here in Canada, these prices aren't cheap. Looking at close to $1,000 just for the base model alone.
Now I can't wait until my birthday gets here as I'll be getting myself a rather nice gift for myself. LOL
Comments
this looks like an awesome mac mini
This looks like another wonderful job of Apple hitting it out of the park.
The base model is very…
The base model is very compelling, especially now they've caved and put 16 GB ram in the base models.
Only trouble is... It's still a mac... :)
Awesome!
I'm purchasing the base M4 model right now! I'm a little confused why the base Mac Mini comes with a 10-core CPU while the iMac has 8. I wish they also bumped the base storage to 512 GB, but I'd much rather have 16 GB RAM than additional storage. After all, I have tons of space available on external drives, so it's no big deal.
More machine than I need
I bought the base Pro model with 24GB RAM and 512GB SSD, which is way more than I need for my more-or-less typical consumer usage. But it should be more than enough to support MacOS AI features to come, and hopefully will remain a viable system until Apple discontinues support for it.
This is the first actual new computer I've purchased in years. Most of my recent machines were bought as refurbs, including the 2018 Intel Mac Mini I'm composing this comment with.
I only have macbook pro…
I only have macbook pro currently. Now that I see relatively positive bug patches in sequoia for my usecase, I can maybe imagine myself with a mac tower computer. I always liked the formats of blink or similar so why not a mac mini speced out? Or a studio for that matter but...
For those who have a mini, what's the workaround with having or not having an external monitor or an hdmi emulator? How required or unnecessary is this in terms of functioning of the system and voiceover?
You don't need a monitor or…
You don't need a monitor or a spoofing dongle either.
the shame about it all, I think, is all this power and so little to do with it. unless we're video editting, unlikely, or working a huge number of tracks for music, it's all kinda pointless. We still don't have any good games for it. Even the sighted don't have good games for it. I think future proofing by getting what you can afford is wise, but I do wonder what that future is actually going to contain. Even with 24 gb ram and an m4 pro, you'll not be running any meaningful LLM locally. I just wish the mac could do more. It's starting to look a lot like the Ipad and it's utterly pointless benchmarks for all but the most specific of use cases.
More ram is good though. That will help voiceover be a little less fussy.
Agree with Ollie
In over 40 years of experience with personal computers, the one constant is that more RAM is the most likely way to boost performance and therefore the best return for the cost. In my Windows days, I used to buy new machines with a base memory config, then, after two or three years, upgrade to max with third-party RAM. Can’t do that with Macs, sadly.
Your advice to buy the best system one can afford is sound. I’m not searching for million-digit prime numbers, or identifying tumors in CT scans, or looking for alien intelligence in SETI data, or computing cryptocurrency hash values. My typical consumer use case will hardly make my new M4 Pro break a sweat. It is the continued, inexorable operating system bloat that will strain the machine’s resources, and it will do so in ways I can neither predict nor control.
AirPods Pro 2 arrive today, and I’m totally excited about that! M4 Mac Mini should arrive November 8.
I still think the AirPods…
I still think the AirPods Pro 2 are, or is, one of apple's best products. I can't wait for the next version, next year or 2026, not that getting V2 now isn't a great deal. A brilliant addition to a blind person's watch pocket.
Apple purchase experience survey
The AirPods arrived yesterday. It was an absolutely awesome out of the box experience. Took me some time and another AppleVis post before I figured out the touch gestures. It is not tapping. That aside, I'm hooked.
Apple wanted me to take a survey about my purchase experience. I marked them down on the difficulty of paying with ApplePay. I placed the order through a desktop web browser. To pay with ApplePay, I had to scan a code with my phone's camera. I found it to be a tedious process of scanning across the monitor, back and forth, with my camera at varying distances. Bar code detection seemed to be very sensitive to camera distance. The bar code timed out and expired not once, but twice, before my camera was able to recognize the code.
I hope Apple takes steps to improve this process. Why can't I just place my phone close to my Mac, like I do every time I use ApplePay at my local coffee shop? This could be so much easier.
Like the look of this
Last year I considered buying a Mac Mini but once I beefed up the RAM and the hard disk the cost started to go up and I ended up with a Macbook Pro. If I hadn't caved in then, then I would definitely be up for some of this. The base model looks great. On Double Tap I think they said it's 5 inches square or something. That's insane.
One thing I am confused about - the guy in the Apple Store said of the previous model that it didn't include a speaker, whereas on Double Tap they suggested that maybe it does. Out of curiosity, what is the story with that?
Arrived
My M4 Mac Mini arrived today, base pro configuration. Unfortunately I'm coming down with a cold, and I don't know when I'll be feeling up to unboxing this beauty and running cables under my desk.
The 2023 Mac Mini has aspeaker yes.
Source: It's sitting right in front of me and makes that noise every time it boots, you know the one, and if I pull the headphones, Voiceover starts jabbering through it. It's not a great speaker or anything, which reminds me I should try playing music through it just for fun, but it is there. No idea about the new ones though.
Mouse bug squashed!
I got my M4 Mini today. I'm very happy to say the stupid mouse bug has been squashed with macOS 15. I initially connected the Mac to only a keyboard, and received a couple voice prompts. The first said something about pressing return for English, and the second said something about pairing a mouse or trackpad, but if I wanted to continue without one, I just had to press enter. I did this and Command or Windows-F5 in my case turned on VoiceOver! Congratulations to Apple for resolving a problem that should have never existed!
Mac Mini
Didn't these models used to work with just a keyboard, back in the day? When did they start needing a display and/or a mouse?
display/mouse
I don't think they've always required a display and/or mouse, though I remember in the Leopard and Snow Leopard days when VoiceOver would act a little strangely without a monitor connected. I don't think this is an issue anymore. The first time I heard about the mouse issue was from someone on here with the original Mac Studio running Monterey. Apparently VoiceOver couldn't be enabled unless you connected a mouse to the computer. I wasn't a happy camper and got really angry! I mean seriously livid, not just upset. Fortunately, I've had time to cool down, and it appears Apple is trying to do better with Ventura and newer. I'm done buying iOS and iPadOS devices for many reasons, though the primary ones have to do with how Apple maliciously complied with the EU regulations to open the platform, the fact they're so locked down generally, the removal of Touch ID and the home button in favor of Face ID and strange slide gestures, etc.
Speaker and setting up new M4
I got my M4 Mac Mini yesterday and I can confirm that it does have a built in speaker, which is pretty good for general listening considering the smaller footprint of the new Mini.
You wouldn't want to use it for long periods, but I've used it before connecting to my main sound system and it's been fairly painless.
What wasn't so painless was the horrible Voiceover interaction setting up from scratch.
It defaulted to Daniel, as I'm in the UK and I couldn't use VO Space to select certain buttons, quick nav would jump to random headings every time I'd try and use up and down arrow to select items instead of VO Space.
Other random jumping around and generally unexpected behaviour from Voiceover nearly made me throw the thing out the window.
I don't know if there is an issue with the Daniel voice, or from default the behaviour of Voiceover is different for some reason, but everything calmed down when I changed to Serena and loaded in my portable preferences.
That being said, it was a lenghty and frustrating process to do even that simple task, because of the Voiceover issues in not being able to select buttons etc.
Re: display/mouse
Believe me, I feel your pain. Back in March, I needed a new laptop, because my MacBook Pro was getting a little long in the tooth. My VR counselor purchased an HP laptop for me, with decent specs, so I could complete a 6 month certification program. This PC is running Windows 11, and honestly, I have not touched my MacBook Pro since March. Now I'm torn between my next "iPhone" being another iPhone upgrade, or an Android.
I have enjoyed using Apple products for more than a decade, but personally, I feel like maybe it is time to move away from our beloved fruit…
Who knows? Maybe iOS 19, and macOS 16 will be the "Snow Leopard" of 2025. 🙂✌️
Speakers
Thanks for confirming - not sure why the guy at the Apple Store told me there weren't any. But that's good if the mini is usable right away without needing anything else.
Up and running
My cold turned out to be COVID. Yuck. But I'm well on my way to full recovery. I set up my Mac Mini this morning, and I'm pleased with the results.
Two issues so far are Sequoia-related. In the Mail client, with focus in the list of messages, VO+J does nothing. I expect it to jump focus to the list of mailboxes. And for some reason, my Type to SIRI setting didn't migrate, and I have yet to figure out how to enable it.
The setup and migration were flawless. It took about 90 minutes using Migration Assistant from my Time Machine backup. I don't know if I'll ever get used to the new location for the power button(under the back left corner), but I'm impressed overall with the hardware..
Still on my to do list: reset my old Intel Mac Mini and send it in for a credit.
Re: Up and running
@PaulMartz said, "I set up my Mac Mini this morning, and I'm pleased with the results.
Two issues so far at Sequoia-related."
This was my favorite part of the above post. 😆
Seriously though, I'm glad you got your machine up and running. I am also hopeful that you recover from Covid soon. Remember Paul, for future reference, 6 foot rule! Lol
Type to Siri on macOS 15.1 and later
I'm not sure if this is determined by whether or not you have Apple Intelligence turned on, but the way I use Type to Siri on macOS 15.1 and later is to press the Command key twice quickly. This can be changed if you wish in System Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri.
To talk to Siri, press and hold F5 (or Globe-F5 if you've configured the function keys to override their special features). This, to my knowledge, cannot be changed.
Type to SIRI
Thanks, Tyler. Indeed, when I checked in settings, the configuration was already properly set to use command-key-twice as the trigger. Still, nothing was happening.
And the solution was ... MacOS had silently opened a system dialog asking me if I really wanted to use command-key-twice as my trigger for type to SIRI. But nothing alerted me to the dialog's presence. I stumbled onto it in the window chooser menu. Once I found it and clicked the okay button, I was back to typing to SIRI. Yay!
But it seems like that should have migrated, and I'm not sure why it didn't.
Permissions to run appleScripts don't migrate either. I'm sure this is some kind of security feature. I have come to expect the dialog after each upgrade and grant permissions without giving too much thought to what I'm doing.
is backup encryption possible with macOS?
Hi Paul,
I am not sure if this is possible, but with iOS when we are backing up to a Mac, we are given an option of encrypting our back up, which backs up more data such as Passwords etc. Is something like this possible with macOS backups? Perhaps that is why not everything migrated to your new system, because it required a back up encryption first?
Just curious here. 😃
Hm. Maybe.
I'll let others chime in and verify. But, yes, I have opted out of most security options. I'm the only one with access to my Mac. I don't encrypt the hard drive or backups. If I were sighted, I'd keep my passwords on stickies around my monitor.
Backup encryption
If you use Time Machine to back up your Mac, there should be an option, on by default in my experience, to encrypt the backup when initially selecting your destination disk. However, I'm not sure if that affects what is or isn't backed up.
Mouse bug in macOS Recovery
That pesky mouse bug is rearing its ugly head in macOS Recovery! Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be nearly as serious as the older one that's thankfully been fixed. If you enter macOS Recovery in 15.1 on presumably any Mac that lacks a mouse, you get a screen that says mouse white and/or trackpad white image, followed by an Apple Support link. This seems to go away on its own after about a minute, and you can continue to use the recovery tools. I'll report this soon.
I'm So Tempted!
A couple of years ago, I sold my 2017 MacBook Pro and upgraded to an Alienware laptop and never regretted it. After using it for 5 years, I realized that, although there were a lot of benefits to using Mac OS, Windows was a better fit for me.
Ever since leaving though, I've been tempted in getting a Mac Mini, just so I could keep my toes dipped in the Mac world and this new M4 Mac Mini has me licking my lips in anticipation.
My Alienware laptop is still my primary machine and will remain for many years to come, but there are a few apps that I've been wanting to play with on the Mac side, so after I'm done saving up about $1,000, I think I'll be buying myself the base model Mac Mini.
I can easily plug in a spare 256 Gb thumb drive that could act as extra storage. Plus, for what I'm going to use it for, I think the base model will do nicely. Here in Canada, these prices aren't cheap. Looking at close to $1,000 just for the base model alone.
Now I can't wait until my birthday gets here as I'll be getting myself a rather nice gift for myself. LOL