Popular YouTuber, artist, and designer Scott Yu-Jan has combined two unlikely Apple products to create one of the most impressive DIY Apple docks we've ever seen.
Dubbed the 'Macintosh Studio', Yu-Jan's project is a Mac Studio iPad dock inspired by the design of Apple's original Macintosh. In a recent video, he explains how his need for an iPad dock and time spent at his desk had led him to create a 3D printed stand that houses both his tablet and Mac Studio desktop machine. Sealing the deal, he realized that Apple's best iPad for reading, the iPad mini 6, and one of the best Macs, the Mac Studio, are identical in width, a match made in heaven.
The stunning final product reveals the 3D-printed shell of a Macintosh sat atop the Mac Studio, with cable management built in to keep the iPad fully charged.
Meet the Macintosh Studio
Thanks to the power of macOS Sonoma and iPadOS 17, screen mirroring allows the iPad mini 6 to serve as a wireless external monitor for the Mac Studio, perfect as a viewing window for YouTube videos or a music player. Of course, it can also be used with an Apple Pencil for sketching or writing ideas down, too.
Yu-Jan reveals the ingenious design of the shell, which includes a button to safely eject the iPad, a retractable hanger for his AirPods Max, and a rear storage tray for storing his Mac's external hard drives. He even created a colorful version to pay homage to the old iMac G3.
Naturally, because the Mac Studio and the Mac mini are also the same size, the design can also be tweaked to fit Apple's more diminutive desktop model. Yu-Jan's design is right up there with a 3D-printed Macintosh Plus we reported on last week. That home project involved a $13 computer running a Mini vMAC emulator on Linux.
