I think most Apple fans knew the Mac mini, several times completely re-engineered on the inside to last it the next few years, was due for an external overhaul as well. I'd been visualizing it for some time. The new M4 model is allegedly about five inches square by two inches tall.

I read last month that it was the Mac mini's 20th anniversary. I suppose it has been that long. Steve Jobs, still far from his mortal terminus, framed it as the answer to requests for a "stripped-down Mac that is more affordable," sold without a mouse, keyboard or display. Miniature desktop computers, even beneath that eight-inch-square surface, were unfamiliar then. But I suspect the Mac mini's roots lie even deeper, perhaps in the less long-lived G4 Cube, or even the original twelve-by-twelve-by-twelve NeXTcube.

The M4 Mac mini's announcement genuinely moved me. Something about the feeling of looking back from the vantage of this particular iteration: the provenness, the perseverance, the cumulative elegance; the triumphant efficiency of Apple's chips to be housable in such a small, quiet thing, which for many is an equal-or-better replacement to the higher-end computing towers of yester-decade.

The retail entry price is 600 USD, compared to the original Mac mini's 500 USD (and 500 is a typical sale price now). This has also pushed down the prices of predecessors. Even the still-awesome M1 and M2 Mac minis, like the one I'm using to type this, are findable for less. And it's now possible to find some of last decade's Intel Mac minis, like the one I'm using to host and serve this site, for less than a hundred. This is nothing like a KitKat bar that once cost 49 cents and today costs $1.29 with no particular improvement. This is the namesake of the original that defies inflation with no significant numerical price increase, a way smaller form, and a way more powerful and efficient engine.

While I know I'm destined to be united with one, I'm fully content just to know it's there. To me, it's a symbol of modern computing, and a pinnacle of something Apple has always aimed to do: bring great creative tools to everyday people.