Alongside Qi2 wireless charging stands, Apple accessory maker Satechi this week unveiled new hubs and charger options for Apple's Mac lineup.
The upgraded Stand & Hub for Mac mini and Mac Studio fits under one of Apple's slim desktop machines, and it includes an NVMe SSD enclosure that supports NVMe and M.2 SATA SSDs. There are USB-C 3.1 and USB-A 3.1 ports for file transfers, with support for speeds up to 10Gb/s.
An SSD added into the hub can be used for Time Machine backups, plus there are also two additional USB-A 3.0 ports, micro/SD card readers, and an audio jack for headphones.
Satechi's Thunderbolt 4 Slim Hub Pro has three Thunderbolt 4 downstream ports that support data transfers at up to 40GB/s, plus it can deliver up to 15W of power to connected peripherals. It supports up to two 4K displays or one 8K display, and it offers 32Gb/s native PCIe support for external GPUs and Thunderbolt-based SSDs.
The 145W USB-C 4-Port GaN Travel Charger has two USB-C 3.1 ports that can provide up to 140W and two USB-C 3.0 ports that can provide up to 45W. The 145W max power is split between devices when more than one device is plugged in, with the charger providing smart power distribution that automatically adjusts wattage for optimal charging.
Monday December 1, 2025 4:37 pm PST by Juli Clover
We're getting closer to the launch of the final major iOS update of the year, with Apple set to release iOS 26.2 in December. We've had three betas so far and are expecting a fourth beta or a release candidate this week, so a launch could follow as soon as next week.
Past Launch Dates
Apple's past iOS x.2 updates from the last few years have all happened right around the middle of the...
Tuesday December 2, 2025 11:09 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple is encouraging iPhone users who are still running iOS 18 to upgrade to iOS 26 by making the iOS 26 software upgrade option more prominent.
Since iOS 26 launched in September, it has been displayed as an optional upgrade at the bottom of the Software Update interface in the Settings app. iOS 18 has been the default operating system option, and users running iOS 18 have seen iOS 18...
Monday December 1, 2025 3:00 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is expected to launch a new foldable iPhone next year, based on multiple rumors and credible sources. The long-awaited device has been rumored for years now, but signs increasingly suggest that 2026 could indeed be the year that Apple releases its first foldable device.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
Below, we've collated an updated set of key details that ...
Wednesday December 3, 2025 10:33 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today seeded the release candidate versions of upcoming iOS 26.2 and iPadOS 26.2 updates to developers and public beta testers, with the software coming two weeks after Apple seeded the third betas. The release candidates represent the final versions of iOS 26.2 and iPadOS 26.2 that will be provided to the public if no further bugs are found during this final week of testing....
Tuesday December 2, 2025 9:44 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple's iPhone 17 lineup is selling well enough that Apple is on track to ship more than 247.4 million total iPhones in 2025, according to a new report from IDC.
Total 2025 shipments are forecast to grow 6.1 percent year over year due to iPhone 17 demand and increased sales in China, a major market for Apple.
Overall worldwide smartphone shipments across Android and iOS are forecast to...
Thursday December 4, 2025 9:30 am PST by Joe Rossignol
In a statement shared with Bloomberg on Wednesday, Apple confirmed that its software design chief Alan Dye will be leaving. Apple said Dye will be succeeded by Stephen Lemay, who has been a software designer at the company since 1999.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Dye will lead a new creative studio within the company's AR/VR division Reality Labs.
On his blog Daring Fireball,...
Monday December 1, 2025 5:00 am PST by Tim Hardwick
2026 could be a bumper year for Apple's Mac lineup, with the company expected to announce as many as four separate MacBook launches. Rumors suggest Apple will court both ends of the consumer spectrum, with more affordable options for students and feature-rich premium lines for users that seek the highest specifications from a laptop.
Below is a breakdown of what we're expecting over the next ...
The iPhone Air has recorded the steepest early resale value drop of any iPhone model in years, with new data showing that several configurations have lost almost 50% of their value within ten weeks of launch.
According to a ten-week analysis published by SellCell, Apple's latest lineup is showing a pronounced split in resale performance between the iPhone 17 models and the iPhone Air....
Thursday December 4, 2025 5:18 am PST by Tim Hardwick
iPhone 17 Pro models, it turns out, can't take photos in Night mode when Portrait mode is selected in the Camera app – a capability that's been available on Apple's Pro devices since the iPhone 12 Pro in 2020.
If you're an iPhone 17 Pro or iPhone 17 Pro Max owner, try it for yourself: Open the Camera app with Photo selected in the carousel, then cover the rear lenses with your hand to...
Tuesday December 2, 2025 3:30 pm PST by Juli Clover
OpenAI is deprioritizing work on advertising as it focuses on improving the quality of ChatGPT, reports The Information. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declared a "code red" on Monday, and told employees that the company needs to improve ChatGPT so it doesn't fall behind competitors like Google and Anthropic.
Altman said that OpenAI needs to work on personalization for each user, image generation,...
Ok now... this is a very compelling for those who don't want to pay the Apple premium for upgraded storage. You can get 4TB of excellent speed for 1/5th of Apple's price now.
Why is the stand & hub not Thunderbolt? What's the first thing you want to add to your new mac mini or studio? Well, a studio display, but the *second* thing is fast storage at less than apple's abusive prices, and wouldn't it be nice if it wasn't dangling out of the back in an untidy mess. Like, why would you have an nvme enclosure and cap it at 10GB/s?
In looking at reviews for the previous mini hub, it seemed like people had problems with the hub just not turning on. Anyone here dealt with that? I’m interested in buying one, but want it to work correctly most of the time.
I have the current hub on my Studio M2 and both the SSD and attached USB keys drop off the bus on a regular basis. Pretty annoying, especially since I was using the SSD for media storage during editing. If I knew the issues had been fixed on this version I’d get one to replace it.
Ok now... this is a very compelling for those who don't want to pay the Apple premium for upgraded storage. You can get 4TB of excellent speed for 1/5th of Apple's price now.
That would be better, but would probably double the price - there are stackable thunderbolt options available, eg: (I don't have one, so not a personal recommendation):
https://www.owc.com/solutions/ministack-stx
Thing is, although TB can be much faster in some situations, not every use-case will actually take advantage of that.
Like, why would you have an nvme enclosure and cap it at 10GB/s?
(That would be 10Gb/s - small 'b' or 1.25 GB/s)
Because many people are happy with a cheap, relatively slow (by modern standards) SSD for backup, media library or document storage, and even if you ignore the speed, NVMe is taking over from SATA and offering more bytes-per-buck.
Anyway, most general workloads don't get close to the "peak sustained transfer speed" - and if you're looking to stream raw high-def video or are constantly copying multi-gigabyte datasets then this is not the product for you (and you probably should have got a M2 Pro or a Mac Studio with more TB ports). Even the slowest SSD is night and day c.f. the good old spinning rust hard drives that people are upgrading from.
I think the main "gotcha" with this is not the 10 Gb/s cap on the drive itself, but that everything connected to this hub is sharing the same 5-10Gbps USB 3 stream so if the drive is in constant use and you hang high-bandwidth USB peripherals off it you'll probably see a performance drop. If that's a problem for you then you need an all-thunderbolt solution. Many people won't notice.
That's the problem that Thunderbolt/USB 4 faces - USB 3.1 is "good enough" for the majority of users, so there isn't the critical mass of sales needed to bring down Thunderbolt prices.
The support of NVMe is awesome, but why don't we get extra USB-C ports?! Yes, I know there is one, but we use one to connect it, so there is no gain. Three USB-A ports? I honestly can't recall the last device I bought that uses that and as this is "new", I am very surprised. And I agree with others, for a new product the lack of Thunderbolt is also surprising.
People suggesting "it's a slow 10Gps" (see above, but their website actually states: "Our Stand and Hub for Mac Mini/Studio with NVMe Enclosure also supports M.2 SATA drives across sizes 2242/2260/2280. With transfer speeds of up to 6Gbps, this setup facilitates storage expansion, system upgrades, file backups, data retrieval, and seamless data transfers. It's a plug-and-play solution requiring no additional drivers."
This has just been released and I am already looking forward to the next version so it can get with the current times.
