In early August, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that the upcoming M4 Mac mini will have a new, smaller design and said it will have at least three USB-C ports, a power connector, and an HDMI port. In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Gurman gave more details on the M4 Mac mini’s ports, and a big change is on the horizon.
Gurman reports that the new Mac mini M4 will have five USB-C ports, three on the back and, for the first time, two on the front. However, most people will be more interested in the reason: According to Gurman, there will be no USB-A ports, a change from the current Mac mini, which has two. So if you have USB-A peripherals, you’ll need adapters.
Of course, this isn’t the first time Apple has ditched a popular port in the name of thinness and progress. In 1998, the iMac ditched the floppy drive in favor of CD burning. The 2015 MacBook Air had just a single USB-C port. And of course, Apple removed the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 in 2017.
Apple removed USB-A ports from the iMac when the M1 model arrived in 2021, and hasn’t made a laptop with USB-A in many years.
The Mac mini will also have a similar set of ports, including Ethernet and HDMI. Gurman doesn’t specify whether these will be Gigabit or 10Gb. The current Mac mini has a Gigabit Ethernet port with a user option for 10Gb for $100 more, and that’s an option Apple may keep. Apple will likely continue to offer 10Gb Ethernet as a standard port on its high-end Macs, the Mac Studio and Mac Pro.
Gurman also didn’t specify whether the HDMI port will be an HDMI 2.1 port. The current M2 Mac mini has HDMI 2.1, which was an upgrade from the M1 Mac mini’s HDMI 2.0, so it seems likely that the M4 Mac mini will have HDMI 2.1. The only other port Gurman mentioned is the headphone jack, which is expected to continue for another generation. With the M2 Mac mini, Apple introduced support for high-impedance headphones, and that should continue with the M4 Mac mini.
The Mac mini M4 will reportedly drop USB-A ports.
The Mac mini M4 will reportedly drop USB-A ports.
Foundry
The Mac mini M4 will reportedly drop USB-A ports.
Foundry
Foundry
Gurman didn’t mention wireless connectivity, but the Mac mini will likely feature Bluetooth 5.3. There are rumors that the upcoming iPhone 16 could support the new Wi-Fi 7 standard, and if that’s the case, that seems like a good indicator that the M4 Macs will also feature the current Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax) standard.
As always, the Mac mini will have a power jack, but the power supply will be built into the Mac itself. It won’t have an external power supply.
When will the Mac mini M4 ship?
According to Gurman, the Mac mini M4 could arrive in Apple warehouses in early September, while the Mac mini M4 Pro won’t ship until October. “That probably means neither of them will be announced until about a month after the iPhone launches,” Gurman said, referring to a Mac event in October.
In a previous report, Gurman said that Apple plans to release the M4 Mac mini, MacBook Pro, and iMac before the end of this year. The MacBook Air, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro will follow in 2025. You can read more about the M4 Mac timeline here.
Keep up with what’s happening with the Mac mini in our Mac mini M4 superguide.
