Every Intel Mac mini is now obsolete or vintage, and will be missed
It's the end of an era as the much-loved 2018 Intel Mac mini has been added to Apple's list of vintage products. It's yet another step heralding the end of support of Intel on Mac.
The 2018 Mac mini was the last to use an Intel processor, and it's now officially a vintage product
With some exceptions under international law, Apple has long had a specific process for when it deems devices to be first vintage, and then obsolete. What's significant now is that every Intel-based Mac mini has entered the vintage stage, the first time since the move from Intel to Apple Silicon back in 2020.
"Products are considered vintage when Apple stopped distributing them for sale more than 5 and less than 7 years ago," says Apple on its support page. "[And] obsolete when Apple stopped distributing them for sale more than 7 years ago."
The last Intel Mac mini
The last Mac mini to use an Intel processor was launched with extreme fanfare in 2018. Following the launch of a revised MacBook Air, Tim Cook started to say that "Now, there's another small but mighty Mac our users have been waiting for..."
It had been four years since the previous generation and the audience at Cook's presentation actually began to give a little roar of excitement as they guessed what was coming.
They guessed that it was a revised Mac mini, but they possibly didn't guess how it would follow Cook's "and here it comes." He looked around as if searching the skies, then a full-on "Close Encounters" video presented the device as a UFO coming through space to land on a user's desk.
After that, it was a slightly odd launch as Tom Boger, head of Mac product marketing, began a hyped-up presentation -- that began by raving about the New Mac mini's color. "I'm sure you've noticed that we've given it an awesome space gray finish," he said. "For one, we know our pro customers are going to love that."
But then he was into the details of what was described as "the biggest update ever," where "the performance boost is incredible." It won't seem that big a boost compared to the move to Apple Silicon, but at the time, this last Intel Mac mini was five times faster than its predecessor.
There was a 3.6GHz four-core Intel Core i3 version, configurable to 3.2GHz six-core editions with the Intel Core i5 or i7 processors.
It was also the first to have all-flash storage in every configuration. That storage started with 128GB SSD but could be upgraded at time of purchase to 2TB.
This last Mac mini could go up to 64GB RAM, compared to its predecessor's maximum of 16GB RAM. Plus, users could upgrade that RAM after purchase.
A return to form
That audience had reason to be excited, and not just because it had been four years since Apple last launched a Mac mini. For one thing, it had seemed as if Apple had abandoned the popular form, and enough so that Tim Cook responded publicly when asked about it.
Tim Cook responds to Mac mini criticism in 2017
But there was also the fact that the 2014 Mac mini had been poorly received. While it had certain updates and was returned to the model's former $499 price, it was for the most part slower and less flexible than its predecessor.
So this 2018 model coming out at all was big news. It coming out with a fanfare and a considerable performance boost was enough to get applause -- even with the price now starting at $799.
Applauded and now missed
There really was applause, even after that price announcement, and it was true that this was the best Mac mini ever. To that date.
Two years later in June 2020, Apple would even use the Mac mini form factor as its first Developer Transition Kit for Apple Silicon. Then later in 2020, it was the first Apple Silicon Mac mini to go on sale.
The two machines can't be very easily compared, but the Apple Silicon Mac mini was better than the 2018 Intel model in every way measurable. And not just by a little.
"The new Mac mini is far faster than the old Intel model. Unusually for Apple, it's also actually cheaper," we said at the time. "That combination, especially the extremely improved performance, is enough to show just why Apple has made the move to Apple Silicon."
Yet 2018 Intel Mac mini was such an improvement over its predecessor that its very existence earned it applause at the time, and fans to this day. And even though it is now vintage and eclipsed by its successors, it was still so good that it will be missed.
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Comments
Long way to say that I will not miss the Intel Mac mini…
I’ve upgraded it to 64 GiB. This is the model that brought back user-upgradable RAM, which I think was for that one revision until the M1 came out in 2020. Admittedly my 64 GiB is excessive but the price compared to 32 GiB at the time wasn’t much different so I just went for it.
I wonder… how much would it cost me to buy a good or excellent condition MacBook Air 11-inch (the final model that Apple made)? Wikipedia indicates that the last one was in March 2015. Seems it officially supports up to Monterey and seemingly it is still getting security patches (If I understand correctly the chart on the Wikipedia MacBook Air article page).
Laters...