[rbanffy]

> Mac mini and the iMacs be made a little more user-modifiable: user-upgradable RAM and storage drives across all of them, for instance

The new Mini and 27" iMacs can have their RAM upgraded. I believe in the case of the iMac it's possible (although terrifying) to upgrade storage as well.

I'd too love to see a MacPro that's not a luxury item but, with the massive precision milled shell and exquisite structure, that is unlikely to happen. I'm guessing a substantial part of the BoM is in that chassis.

OTOH, you can get a lot of workstation for a lot less with the Mini and iMac/iMac Pro. 18-core and 256 GB of RAM is a lot of workstation.

[chipotle_coyote]

I didn't know the new Mini still could have its RAM upgraded -- that's good. I'd still like to see the 21" iMacs have upgradable RAM, too, and to have the storage upgradable without the "although terrifying" qualifier. :)

You're probably right about the Mac Pro and its chassis; to go cheaper they'd have to be willing to go a little exotic. I suspect the Mac mini is supposed to be in that space. I suspect that rather than a cheaper Mac Pro, we'd be more likely[1] to see the Mini divided into "Mini" and "Mini Pro" lines -- I know the current model is more "Pro" than the previous generations, but they could be split in a way that lets them go down a bit more on the lower end and adds a few more options on the high end.

[1] More likely than a cheaper Mac Pro, but still not actually likely to happen. I know it's a bit of dreamcasting. :)

[rbanffy]

But then we'd again be in the model hell Jobs dug Apple out. Apple has low and high-end laptops, all-in-ones and modular desktops. Some of those groups already have some confusing attributes.

Even with the prodigious resources Apple has, the lines are a bit out of sync with some odd limitations (such as the inexpandable everything on the 21 inch iMac or the different keyboards in the MacBook Pro line)

[beervirus]

Pre-2020 iMacs could have their internal storage upgraded, although it’s not for the faint of heart. From what I’ve read though, it’s no longer possible for the 2020 model with the T2 chip.