Between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro

Won't happen.

Sounds like you should buy a Shuttle PC with 2 3,5 inch 2 TB drives, an 256Mb Samsung 830 SSD, a nice silent video card on 28nm, with 16Gb 1600mhz RAM, a core i7 quad for 1000$, load an EFI bootloader on it and toss in a Snow Leopard Retail Disk.

You're wishing for something the Mac community has been wanting since the dramatic simplification of Apple's product line back in 1998, the Mythical Midrange Macintosh Minitower. Keep hope alive

So the xMac...

Is this going to be the quarterly xMac thread? Fortunately its in the MM forum and not the MP forum.

MultiFinder17 said:

You're wishing for something the Mac community has been wanting since the dramatic simplification of Apple's product line back in 1998, the Mythical Midrange Macintosh Minitower. Keep hope alive

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The last midrange tower from apple was a g4, and its fans sound like the engine on a new model mustang.

That would be nice if the put out a full desk top computer.

I've being pondering this while slumming it with a G4. I'm giving up and getting a Mac Mini off eBay then waiting to see what happens.

When Jobs returned to Apple, the first thing he did was come out with the more affordable G3 desktop range, which I bought because I wasn't priced out any more and the iMac. They seem to have forgotten people who need a little expansion and don't have deep enough pockets to drop £2,000 on a tower. They like selling pretty gadgets to fashion victims these days.

I kind of agree with this - actually, I'd be happy if they just allowed you to "spec-down" the existing Mac Pro a bit, i7 instead of Xeon, etc, to bring the price down - and also the exact same thing with a mid-range laptop.

I've long thought it ridiculous that to purchase an apple laptop with a 15" display, you have to get the high-spec MacBook Pro that starts at £1,500 WITHOUT the retina display.

In the PC world, 15" laptops are ten a penny. Now, of course I'm not asking Apple to lower their build standards for the sake of a "cheap" laptop - that's not what Apple is about, and that's one of the reasons I love Apple products - but I fail to see why a sensibly priced, normal (MacBook Air-esque) specced 15" laptop couldn't fit into the range. People like photographers and coders need the screen real-estate, but not the power.

the current Mac line-up is more than enough, in fact i wait for the day when they combine the Mac Airs with MBPs in one line.

if you want different unnecessary verities with different shapes and forms you might want to switch to windows.

An xMac is what people want (apparently). Apple does not give what people want.

An xMac would overlap between the price/performance of Mac Pros.

I do not think people realise this...I know its unpopular, but the single CPU Mac Pro is the xMac.

Wardenski said:

An xMac is what people want (apparently). Apple does not give what people want.

An xMac would overlap between the price/performance of Mac Pros.

I do not think people realise this...I know its unpopular, but the single CPU Mac Pro is the xMac.

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The single CPU Mac Pro is still a server class computer at a very high price.

What is needed is a tower with iMac grade components (desktop equivalents where the iMac uses mobile). It doesn't need 4 hard drive bays or 4 graphics card slots.

I wouldn't even mind too much if things such as the graphics cards were Apple specific modules so that the limited range would stop compatibility issues. As long as I can replace broken components easily, and upgrade when I want to.

Moonjumper said:

The single CPU Mac Pro is still a server class computer at a very high price.

What is needed is a tower with iMac grade components (desktop equivalents where the iMac uses mobile). It doesn't need 4 hard drive bays or 4 graphics card slots.

I wouldn't even mind too much if things such as the graphics cards were Apple specific modules so that the limited range would stop compatibility issues. As long as I can replace broken components easily, and upgrade when I want to.

Click to expand...

So in otherwords a generic box to compete with the generic boxes of Dell and HP?

I do not think Apple will compete/ or is interested in this market.

Omnius said:

The last midrange tower from apple was a g4, and its fans sound like the engine on a new model mustang.

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That only applied to certain MDD models. My Gigabit and Quicksilver models were very quiet. The MDD was not very midrange as well (dual processor). It was the step up to the Pro series.

Wardenski said:

So in otherwords a generic box to compete with the generic boxes of Dell and HP?

I do not think Apple will compete/ or is interested in this market.

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Do Apple produce generic laptops to compete with the generic laptops of Dell and HP?

animatedude said:

the current Mac line-up is more than enough, in fact i wait for the day when they combine the Mac Airs with MBPs in one line.

if you want different unnecessary verities with different shapes and forms you might want to switch to windows.

Click to expand...

They weren't "unnecessary" until Apple decided they were and fanboys agreed (as they ALWAYS do no matter what complete with tedius quips about switching to Windows).

They were integral to their line up for the entirety of the G3 to G5 era. Once Apple switched to Intel, they seemed to have forgotten the entry level tower/desktop market entirely in favour of server class towers with a huge mark up and an entire range of laptops and laptop-class components in inventive desktop enclosures.

Moonjumper said:

Do Apple produce generic laptops to compete with the generic laptops of Dell and HP?

Click to expand...

I don't think so, Apples laptops are "premium". For example there is no comptetitor to Dells Latop Inspiron range that starts from £299.

to those who say there is no need for xMac

you are probably dumb, saying that no one needs xmac... how the heck you know all other people needs? I would really love sthing between mini and mac pro, I really love Apple thunderbolt display, but I want devent machine with decent GPU (event those in iMacs will be fine) - I have no option with current mac portfolio

Blackberryroid said:

Apple once offered an 8 Inch cube with the same power as the Mac Pro equivalent back then. I'm sure they can do it again, without that mind blowing price tag.

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You know, they could do that no problem. Same connections and CPU options as the iMac with several extra thunderbolt ports for additional PCIe expansion using 3rd party solutions. A 3.5" bay, a couple of 2.5" bays and an optional optical drive/2nd 3.5" bay and they'd please a lot of people.

It would make a much better budget server than the Mac Mini does too because they could ship it with dual 3.5" drives to up the capacity.

It would make a decent alternative to a full tower.

Something else that wont happen... but sounds cool in theory...

Imagine being able to buy a cheaper Mac Mini... that you can then basically snap another Mac Mini onto, offering expansion abilities... The processors could be linked... effectively giving you multiple cores... And another, if you so desired... and another... etc.

Blackberryroid said:

It could also serve as the replacement for the most-likely-to-be-discontinued Mac Pro. A Mac Pro, for consumers and gamers.

What do you think?

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Tim Cook made it known after the last "refresh" a few months back that we will be seeing redesigned mac pros in the future, so they are very unlukely to be discontinued. I do not think we will be seeing a mini update, since we have had zero rumors about it up to this point.

Apple users have waited for a desktop like you mentioned forever, they simply cannot cannabilize the whole mac lineup buy doing so.

lilsoccakid74 said:

Tim Cook made it known after the last "refresh" a few months back that we will be seeing redesigned mac pros in the future, so they are very unlukely to be discontinued. I do not think we will be seeing a mini update, since we have had zero rumors about it up to this point.

Apple users have waited for a desktop like you mentioned forever, they simply cannot cannabilize the whole mac lineup buy doing so.

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They're not cannablising anything. They're offering a product they USED TO offer, that was key to their new range of Macs since Jobs returned to Apple.

They used to have a very random range of Macs, then they slashed it down to several models including:-

Desktop G3s/Entry level G4s/G5s
Tower G3s/multi CPU G4s/G5s
Mac Cube/Mac Mini
iMac
iBook/Macbook
Powerbook/Macbook Pro

Now they have:-

NO entry level mac with ANY level of PCIe or internal drive expansion AT ALL
Mac Pro (At a starting price double that of their previous entry level PowerPC Macs)
Mac Mini
iMac
Macbook Air
Macbook Pro

There's something missing there that a LOT of people are crying out for. An entry level, expanable Mac.

A Mac Mini in something like the xMac enclosure with dual internal SSDs and a large external RAID 5 setup via Thunderbolt still comes in at around the cost of an entry level Mac Pro so suggesting 3rd parties have filled the void with Thunderbolt solutions isn't just naive, it's a completely worthless statement.

Also, expanding more than the RAM in a Mac Mini involves warranty voiding user-installed upgrades.

barkmonster said:

Also, expanding more than the RAM in a Mac Mini involves warranty voiding user-installed upgrades.

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Isn't that the case with the iMac too?

Indeed, since Jobs' return, it's been the norm.