By taking an M1 Mac mini out of the box and blocking everything inside an old iMac, a YouTube content creator has pieced together what he calls the world’s first Apple Silicon iMac – with big caveats.
Miani notes that the Mac mini motherboard is so small that it fits perfectly into the iMac chassis without any modifications. The bulk of the work on the project was to use an HDMI display adapter from the Mac mini motherboard to the custom Apple iMac display connector.
Essentially, the Mac mini runs unaltered within the iMac’s chassis and uses it as a display using that adapter circuit. However, this has several limitations.
The Mac mini is held in place by one screw in the iMac
First, the 2011 iMac has very low resolution by today’s standards. The pre-Retina 27-inch 2560 x 1440 display isn’t an ideal way to use macOS. Second, the “computer” part of this setup is the Mac mini, in the iMac case. With the current build, all ports – and the power button – are inside the chassis and completely inaccessible from the outside without taking the screen off.
Finally, the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radios were optimized by a three-antenna array used in the Mac mini, but one of those antennas was built into the Mac mini’s chassis. He resolved this limitation by connecting the additional antenna to the iMac’s antenna wire harness.
While the project was largely successful, Miani says the installation is not recommended, despite being easy to accomplish. However, he says it’s worth turning the iMac into a display for the Mac mini if you happen to have one lying around.