Unveiling a Mac mini M1 and locking everything inside an old iMac, a YouTube content creator has put together what he calls the world’s first Apple Silicon iMac – with major warnings.
Miani notes that the Mac mini motherboard is so small that it can fit perfectly in the iMac chassis without modifications. Using the HDMI display adapter from the Mac mini motherboard to the Apple iMac custom display connector was the vast majority of project work.
In essence, the Mac mini runs unchanged in the iMac chassis and uses it as a display using the circuits of that adapter. However, this comes with several limitations.
The Mac mini is held in a single screw inside the iMac
First of all, the 2011 iMac has a very low resolution by current standards. Its 27-inch pre-Retina display of 2560 to 1440 is not an ideal way to use macOS. Second, the “computer” part of this configuration is the Mac mini, in the iMac chassis. With the current version, all the ports – and the power button – are inside the chassis and are completely inaccessible from the outside, without removing the screen.
Finally, Bluetooth and Wifi radios were optimized by a three-antenna array used in the Mac mini, but one of these antennas was incorporated into the Mac mini chassis. He overcame this limitation by connecting the additional antenna to the iMac antenna wiring.
Although the project was largely successful, Miani says the setup is not recommended, although it is easy to do. However, he says that turning your iMac into a Mac mini display is worth it, if you happen to have one around.