Apple Likely Planning to Skip M3 Mac Mini for M4 Refresh in Late 2024

Apple is likely to skip an M3 version of the Mac mini in favor of a bigger update with M4 chips toward the end of the year, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. In the latest edition of his “Power On” newsletter, Gurman explained that he does not expect Apple to refresh the ‌Mac mini‌ with M3 chips. Apple last updated the ‌Mac mini‌ with the M2 and ‌M2‌ Pro chips in January 2023. Other new features included two extra Thunderbolt 4 ports and an HDMI 2.1 port for ‌M2‌ Pro configurations, Wi-Fi 6E support with a compatible router, and Bluetooth 5.3. Gurman previously said that Apple is planning to release new ‌Mac mini‌ models with M4 and M4 Pro chips “between the end of 2024 and early 2025.” Now, he has clarified that with new Mac minis arriving as soon as the end of the year, there is not sufficient “room for M3 models to come out before then, so it’s probably safe to say that those Mac desktops will skip the M3 generation.” Such a move would not be unprecedented since the iMac skipped the ‌M2‌ chip entirely, holding off until a bigger performance bump with the M3 chip late last year. With the M4 chip series, the ‌Mac mini‌ should get a significant CPU performance improvement compared to the existing models with the ‌M2‌ series. The M4 chips are also rumored to have a faster Neural Engine for artificial intelligence tasks.