Apple's DTK Mac mini Repaired and Revealed
TapTechNews May 21st news, in 2020, Apple provided some developers with a custom DTK Mac mini equipped with the A12Z Bionic chip for developing Apps suitable for Apple's self-developed chips. After the official launch of the M1 Mac, Apple required developers to return the DTK Mac mini and carried out destruction processing on these machines. Recently, an electronics expert and collector named dosdude1 successfully repaired a scrapped DTK Mac mini.
dosdude1 showed the motherboard of the DTK Mac mini returned to Apple in the video. According to him, when recycling these machines, Apple would completely damage them by cutting the motherboard to ensure they could no longer be used. These motherboards were then sent to China for recycling, and components such as NAND flash memory would also be removed. However, during the destruction process, someone retained a motherboard and finally flowed into the hands of dosdude1.
From the appearance and internal structure, the DTK Mac mini has almost no difference from the 2018 Mac mini, except that it uses an iPad chip instead of an Intel processor. dosdude1 showed the process of repairing the logic board and soldering new NAND flash memory in the video. After some efforts, this DTK Mac mini successfully started, but there is still one step away from the complete version.
Although the motherboard was repaired, macOS could not complete the activation process. Fortunately, there is a solution. After confirming that all functions are normal, the collector put the repaired motherboard back into the body of the 2018 Mac mini.
According to TapTechNews, due to the signed confidentiality agreement, invited developers must return the DTK after the project is over. In 2021, Apple returned the $500 originally paid for purchasing the DTK to developers and used it as a voucher for exchanging for the M1 Mac series.
Today, the significance of having a DTK Mac mini that can work normally is more of a collector's value rather than daily use. Since developers have returned the DTK, Apple has long stopped providing software updates for it. Currently, the only latest macOS version that the DTK can run is Big Sur 11.2.3.