The Mac mini and Mac Studio occupy two distinct points in Apple’s lineup of desktops, but lately, they’ve had something in common: They’re popular for local AI inference and software development thanks to the advantages of their unified memory architecture and the fast CPUs and GPUs on their systems-on-a-chip.

The AI angle is particularly important. Apple said the M6 Neural Engine can deliver up to twice the peak compute of previous generations, while the chip's GPU provides nearly 30% more peak AI compute than M5 and more than eight times that of the original M1.

Apple is rumored to be developing a budget-friendly desktop Mac, informally referred to as the “Mac Neo.” This potential device could serve as an accessible entry point into the macOS ecosystem, targeting cost-conscious users and addressing a notable ...