Received my Mac Mini 2012 today

Defend Tacoma said:

My first post here, just checking in to share that I got my mini today- a day earlier than expected. She's a stock mid-level 2012, and is working just as expected. Really I couldn't be happier. No need for an i7 really for now, but I tend to lean towards overkill when given the choice.

For the moment, it'll be grabbing entertainment off of my NAS and serving up Plex to the house, acting as a Plex client, and managing my downloads for me. Also some browsing, gaming, looking pretty, etc.

Anyone have thoughts about a good ios universal remote to run my home theater and mini? I was thinking about a harmony, but some of the offerings in the Aple store look interesting- Roomie, iRule, etc.

Thanks!
Jay

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I'm using a low end Harmony, and it works great in my house. Controls Plex, my TV, DVR, BluRay player and receiver. Love how the actions can be customised to turn on my components and set them to the needed inputs.

Another vote for Harmony remotes.

Defend Tacoma said:

Thanks, dvdchance and Kryptic! Was leaning toward Harmony as well, in fact UPS is dropping one off tonight, however I was just talking to my wife about it. She is interested in an iOS solution. Her reasoning is that her phone is never more than 2 feet from her anyway. We tend to misplace remotes/ lose em in the bed etc. Of course, what the wife says goes... She didn't roll her eyes too much when I sprung a new mini on her, so gotta keep her happy!

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Whatever works for you is always the best solution.

I tried using my iphone as a remote, and didn't like it.

To me it's so much easier to navigate menu's, change channels, FF or RW with a physical remote. After a while you get used to where the buttons are and just by feel you can do most functions without having to always look down at a touchscreen to be sure your pressing the right place. And it gives you no feedback when you touch it like a button does.

Does the AppleTV remote work out-of-the-box to control Plex on a Mac? It's a beautifully simple remote but the lack of volume controls is unforgivable.

I have several Harmony remotes, but I find them to be way too busy nowadays. Way more buttons than I need.

For iOS solutions there's a Plex remote, and there is also a Logitech Harmony IR repeater / app solution (under $100 I think - still a bit pricey). My main problem with the iOS options is the lack of hard buttons for navigating without looking and especially for volume control.

Acoustic Research makes (made?) the ARRI03G which is a small, simple, black remote that was styled similarly to the Apple TV remote but was backlit and had volume controls. It got some mixed reviews, but I was thinking about trying one out. Unfortunately, it seems to be hard to find online, so I suspect they may have discontinued it.

Congrats! Can't wait for mine tomorrow. And 16GB on the way. ;-)

I've had problems configuring my Harmony remote with OS X. Read the LogiTech forums and you'll see all sorts of complaints about their software's compatibility with OS X. I actually bought a copy of Windows to run on my Mac just to be able to re-configure my remotes.

Defend Tacoma said:

My first post here, just checking in to share that I got my mini today- a day earlier than expected. She's a stock mid-level 2012, and is working just as expected. Really I couldn't be happier.

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Congrads on new Mini. Did you get 2.3GHz or 2.6GHz CPU?

My main gripe about my 2011 i7 Mini is the noise when CPU is at 100% - it revs us the fans to 4500rpm, and you can't be in the same room as the machine. Any idea if 2012 Mini solves that? If you have done any Handbrake encodes yet - what's the noise level like?