Quote
imho if apple wanted to slay the pc market...
offer a 250 buck m1 or m2 mini pc barebones...user adds their own memory etc etc..

Ain't never coming back.

ARM has already come to PCs and as it becomes more popular, expect modular do go the way of the dodo. Why? A unified chip offers far greater power and efficiency at a much lower cost.

Apple's last modular Mac was the 28 core 2019 Pro. Fully tricked out with the complete AV package, it cost over $56,000. Since it was designed to take on 56 core Win10 Maya Rendering boxes costing $150,000 at their own game and did it better, it was quite successful with the film and animation studios that were the target market (not needing to crunch animation for Hollywood, I had no need).. The version for us mortals was the iMac Pro 8–18 core @ $5,000 – $11,000 with 2TB storage—I had a 14 core, then 18 core and both were impressive.

The 2023 Mac Studio M2 Ultra runs circles around both of those machines and cost me $6,000 with 8TB — yes, I have one so I don't have to speculate.

A tricked out Mini M4 Pro is $2,800 with 2 TB storage. Absolutely overkill for anything that one wants to do with audio. A standard M4 Mini with 1TB onboard runs $1,000 and handles most needs. No monitor included but a 24" iMac with a 5K screen costs $1, 700. No one makes a modular PC that can touch those+ anywhere near the price. Oh, the Mac runs cool to the touch.

BIAB 2025 Audiophile Mac
24Core/60CoreGPU M2 MacStudioUltra/8TB/192GB Sequoia, M1 MBAir, 2012 MBP
Digital Performer11, LogicPro, Finale27/Dorico/Encore/SmartScorePro64/Notion6 /Overture5