Why Buy a Mac Mini M1?

Disclaimer: I am a big Apple fan. I converted my small software company to use Macbook Pros, iMacs, and Mac Minis exclusively for web software and iOS app development and operations work a decade ago. We never looked back at PCs ever since.

However, we did have a few employees who needed to use PCs as they failed to "love" macs as much as most of us did, and we "loved" them enough to allow a few PCs in the company.

However, eventually, those "loved" employees left, and we became a 100% PC-free shop again!

Now that said, Macs are costly gear; there is no question about it. But if your creative work life fits nicely inside the Apple ecosystem--computers, smartphones, tablets, TVs, car infotainment systems, etc.--you can and may live with a certain level of peace-and-quiet (very important) that most of our PC friends don't enjoy.

Surely, they have cutting-edge Intel processors, and a huge amount of RAM, and tons of cool cases and fans with all sorts of colored LEDs and water cooling pipes. We don't envy their high degree of configurability, right to repair, and freedom to upgrade with subpar parts from many Chinese and Taiwanese low-end brands like MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte, etc. Let them have all the fun with tweaking a machine to get it just right!

The new Mac Mini M1 is the quietest desktop computer I have ever owned! I edit 4K videos, run Chrome with tons of tabs, write code in Visual Code, and perform many command-like image and video processing tasks. The machine doesn't make a peep! The fan never came on in the few weeks that I have it running! What we have is pin-drop silence! M1 shh!

I literally had to Google it to see if the Mac Mini M1 had a fan built-in or not!

I use Final Cut Pro and ScreenFlow for all my video editing work for many of my YouTube channels. I honestly love the pin-drop silence when working with my new Mac Mini M1 desktop!

I don't care that I am stuck with 16 GB of non-upgradable RAM for another 3-5 years! Frankly, if you're not running games or using memory hog programs like Adobe products, you are not likely to run out of 16GB. But surely 32 GB M1-X or 64GB M2 are on the way if you must wait.

The silence of my Mac Mini M1 coupled with its superb abilities to handle High-Efficiency Video Codec (H.265) with 4K-5K resolution is simply worth the $149/month I pay Apple using the Apple Card with zero interest for a year!

Mac Mini M1 as a Content Creator's Desktop

Honestly, if you are a beginner to an intermediate level content creator who work with videos, this is a great machine. Here are my top reasons for loving my Mac Mini M1.

#1: Absolute Silence is Awesome!

I love the fact that even when I am crunching 4K videos using the built in High-Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC / H.265), my Mac Mini M1 is super quiet! It doesn't make a peep! Seriously, this is important to me. It might seem superficial to you but being able to work on a creative project without hearing a roaring fan all the time is a great pleasure. It let me keep my focus on my work!

#2: Pro-level Video Editing for a Fraction of the Cost!

Don't take my word for it, many professional YouTubers have mentioned that Mac Mini M1 has been a great contender for replacing their $10-$30K professional machines! I personally can tell you that using Final Cut Pro with my Mac Mini M1 is a breeze.

Granted, I am not a professonal YouTuber and most likely there are editing tasks involving LUTs and other plugins that might not yet benefit from M1's newness, but for beginning to intermediate level video editors who like Final Cut Pro, this a dream machine at a fraction of the cost.

I paid $149/month for my Mac Mini M1. You can find out how if you watch my video at:

On top, I love getting 3% cashback on the entire purchase and enjoy a no prepayment penalty!

#3: Ability to Run iPhone Apps is Amazing!

Honestly, at first, I thought of this capability as a toy feature. I couldn't think of a good reason why I would want to run an iPhone app on my desktop. But then it hit me! There are apps that only available on iPhone or iPad and they do not have good or usable Web or desktop versions. They are good candidates for running on the Mac Mini M1.

For example, I love Wyse cameras and have many of them for security around and in my house. Wyse does not make any Web version of their app to remotely access the cameras. So you are stuck with the iPhone or Android version of the app.

So what you can always pick up the phone, unlock it and run the app to see your cameras right? Well, that is such an annoying flow when you are just wanting to quickly check if your 7-year-old is safely playing downstairs or did he manage to go in the backyard where there is a pool or what if you just want to check if the garage door is open or not. Stopping what you are doing and then unlocking the smartphone and running the app seem so much annoying than just pressing CMD+spacebar to type in the word "wyze" and accessing the app on the Mac Mini M1 desktop without significantly pausing my original workflow. Want to see how I installed the Wyze app on my Mac Mini M1? Check out my video on my Mac User Group (MUG) Channel on YouTube at:

Like Wyze, there are many apps that you can such as the Instagram app to make life easy for publishing content on Instagram. For example, we have a staff member who publishes our Instagram content for our company and she needs to run the app on her personal smartphone using our company account to do that on a daily basis. Because we are upgrading the company to M1 soon, we can give her the Instagram app on the Mac Mini M1 desktop and she does not have to have our company account on her personal smartphone! If you want to try running Instagram on your M1 machine, check out my video at:

I am so impressed with my Mac Mini M1 that I started a new YouTube channel for new Mac users called the Mac User Group (MUG) at:

If you are new to Mac and just bought an M1 Mac, subscribe to my channel to learn tricks, tips, and accessories reviews and participate in live sessions for sharing your own ideas and thoughts on the era of the system on chip (SOC) based systems like M1 from Apple Silicon.