Not many of us own a Mac Studio, iPad mini and a 3D printer – but even if you don't, it's hard not to admire the gloriously nerdy combination of all three in a new 'MacIntosh Studio' project.
The concept, dreamed up by designer and YouTuber Scott Yu-Jan, is effectively an iPad mini dock in the shape of the original MacIntosh, with room in the base for a Mac Studio and a rear drawer for your external SSDs.
It may not be functionally anything more than a dock and an elaborate desk tidy, but the 'MacIntosh Studio' is full of neat little touches. On the side, there's a pull-out handle to hold headphones (it's the right size for the AirPods Max, of course), while on the top there's a groove for an Apple pencil.
Yu-Jan says the two main reasons he wanted to make the MacIntosh Studio was to move his bulky Mac Studio from under his screen and also create a dock for an iPad mini. Slide the latter into the 3D-printed project, and you can use the iPad mini as a second screen using screen mirroring, while keeping it fully charged.
The project also highlights some intriguing design consistency in Apple's products, notably that the Mac Studio is exactly the same width as the iPad mini. In other words, those two products were seemingly destined to be brought together in an enthusiast 3D printing project.
How much are 3D printers again?
If you want to print your own MacIntosh Studio, or tweak the design, you'll naturally need one of the best 3D printers – and the project's creator actually used a Bambu Lab P1 model, a series that currently sits top of our guide.
As for the STL files, you'll need to subscribe to one of Scott Yu-Jan's membership tiers (from £4.99 a month, around $6 / AU$10 per month), although this will get you files for his other projects including 3D-printed drawer organizers and more.
The video also gives you a peek at the brainstorming process for the MacIntosh Studio's design, which takes place in the Shapr3D app for iPad. And Yu-Jan says he's working on a tweaked design to make it work of Mac mini.
It's inspiring stuff and one of the better iPad mini docks we've seen – theoretically, it should also work with iPad mini 7, which is expected to land sometime in 2024 with a similar design to the current model. The project has also got us a little misty-eyed about the original Macintosh, which turned 40 this year.
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