News site The Register reports that the Mac mini may be hiding a few features, such as a future built-in iPod dock.
The Apple machine's optical drive connects to the motherboard not by a cable but is attached directly to an Ultra ATA-100 riser card which itself fits into a slot toward the rear of the Mini's mobo. According to Leo Bodnar, the guy who figured out how to overclock the Mini's G4-class CPU, that's not all the riser does.
Apparently, it's got a Firewire bus on there too, though there's no connection beyond the riser card itself. In addition to the ATA-100 lines that feed the optical drive, the riser has a connector pinout that takes the Firewire signal and provides a number of other lines, whose functions remain unknown but are likely to carry extra control signals, Leo believes.
The Mini's Agere FW8028 Firewire controller, mounted on the underside of the motherboard, connects direclty to the riser card slot, itself installed on the top of the mobo.
The linked story within The Register's report shows clear pictures of the riser board in question, and the available connectivity in each of the unpopulated connectors. Before the release of the Mac mini, AppleInsider had suggested that the new "headless Mac" would have a built-in iPod dock.
Chase this week announced new perks for its Sapphire Preferred credit card, and one of them is a complimentary one-year Apple TV streaming subscription.
To get the free year of Apple TV, which typically costs $12.99 per month in the U.S., you must activate the card by December 31, 2026.
If you are already subscribed to Apple TV directly through Apple, the complimentary subscription from...
Yesterday, we reported that Chase's Sapphire Preferred credit card ($95 annual fee) now offers a complimentary one-year Apple TV streaming subscription, or a $7.50/month discount on an active Apple One subscription instead.
It turns out that the Apple One discount now extends to Chase's premium Sapphire Reserve credit card too ($795 annual fee). The Sapphire Reserve has offered free...
Apple's standard iPhone 18 model will launch in early 2027, based on comments from a partner in the company's supply chain that appear to corroborate rumors of a delayed spring release for the base model.
Apple typically works on an annual smartphone launch cycle where it releases the entirety of its latest flagship iPhone series in the fall, usually around mid-September. That appears set to ...
