Apple's 'transition' Mac mini is a sweet deal for developers, but there's a catch

Among the myriad software announcements at Apple's first-ever virtual WWDC, you may have missed the only piece of hardware Apple announced — a beefed up Mac mini aimed for developers. 

Offered as a part of a Mac Developer Transition Kit (DTK) and aimed to get devs up to speed with the ins and outs of Apple's big transition to its own silicon, the Mac mini has an A12Z Bionic chip, 16GB of memory, a 512GB SSD, and "a variety of Mac I/O ports." 

The program also provides access to beta versions of macOS Big Sur and Xcode 12, as well as access to documentation and forums support. 

Given the price of admittance to the program is $500, this sounds like a great deal, especially considering a regular Mac mini starts at half the RAM and half the storage for $799. Sure, you can beef up the regular mini with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, but then the price jumps up to $1,119, which is more than double the price of the DTK mini. Read more...