Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

2014 Mac Mini Teardown Highlights Increased Difficulty For User Upgradability

RockSpider said:
They sit around and say how much can we take out without them knowing, so we can make another 10 billion. Most large corporations are doing it when they are in a good position.
Click to expand...

Yes.

I find it insulting really.

Apple honestly think they are clever and are selling to the dumb masses.
And the sad thing is, it's true :(

I do wish the dumb masses would actually say NO, and not all rush to buy the latest thing as it has the Apple logo on it, but I fear we are still living in this era.

Perhaps it may happen at some point in the future.
Logically EVERY company fails, Apple will fail, but they are locking more and more people into Apple's way of doing things, Trying to push iPads into schools to capture children into their world from a young age.

It's pretty bad really.

At least with the PC / Android and other worlds people are more free to pick and choose what they want and change and alter things to suit their needs.
Of course, Apple will argue it's not as safe.

But then, do you want to be in a safe Zoo, or in the Wild with a little risk ?
 
subsonix said:
That assumption has been made for all price examples here, and according to the doc "Prices are for direct Intel customers, typically represent 1,000-unit purchase quantities". But how do you convince someone that resorts to their own valuation after a real reference i provided, it's probably not possible, if you think that 2 is really 3 then 1 + 2 = 4. All arguments stops working then.
Click to expand...
If they stuck one of these chips in an iPod I could understand it, not in a Mini, they're just making an email machine out of it.
 
RockSpider said:
If they stuck one of these chips in an iPod I could understand it, not in a Mini, they're just making an email machine out of it.
Click to expand...

The mistake you are making is that you pay too much attention to clock rate, especially since it's variable. It's not really as bad a chip as you think for an entry level computer, real work is done on the MacBook Air for example which uses the same chip.
 
fmaxwell said:
There are two very good reasons:
  1. Apple wants to make a profit by selling RAM and hard-drive upgrades on Build-To-Order Mac Minis. They don't want you buying a base mac Mini and then giving OWC, Newegg, etc. all the profits on upgrades.
  2. Apple would rather you replace your Mac Mini with a newer Mac than to be able to upgrade it and extend its useful lifespan.
This isn't about Apple being "nice" or "mean." Nor is it about what you "should" have or what you feel entitled to. It's a business decision by a for-profit, publicly traded company.
Click to expand...

But - right now they are just annoying all the potential buyers, in the hope that the common man will. But he either buys a laptop. They either shot themselves in the foot, or they are just trying to piss people of. Either way, their move suck.
 
KellydenAdel said:
wrong.

The MINI does not fit into Apple DREAM of its future.
Apple does NOT want to keep building the Mini.
85% of Apples GREEN is Phones and Ipads and a bit more.
Apple wants to build---
Macbook Air
Imac
Iphones
Ipads
Apple barely cares about the Mac Pro and it comprises almost NOTHING in its profit margin
NOTHING.
The Mini is not much better in their eyes or future.
The macbook Pro will be ENDED within 2 years.
The Air and macbook Pro are already almost identical.
The MAC PRO has only 2 purposes for Apple Be a portal for HIGH END software app breadth
be a platform for PRO use OSX full spectrum business exposure / use
Click to expand...

To quote you... "wrong"

What do you think Apple create the next generation of iOS devices on? An iPad?

No they use very high end custom software on Mac Pros. You think they are going to use a PC?!!!??

The macbook pro and Air are utterly different. Magnitudes of power above. There is a transition, sure and that's perhaps not what you are seeing. But the lowest air to the highest MBP is a BIG difference.

The Pro machines are for Pros - perhaps thats what you are not getting. They are not Really meant for Home users. Of course you could get one if you want it.

Pros need the speed and power to actually create content for the iPhone etc.

I am a freelancer and have worked in about a dozen VFX houses in London. There are a lot of All sorts of machines - Linux boxes, Windows ( not many - mainly for 3DS max ) or Macs and MANY of those mac are the nMP - I am guessing I have seen about 300 in the past year + hundreds of the silver towers. And the interesting thing is they are being used properly - Daisychained shared thunderbolt storage instead of having loads of shared out internal storage.

Also, you think they don't care about the Pro. They spent hundreds of Millions designing a new form factor, a state of the art US based Factory only to kill it off in 2 years. You are insane in the membrane.
 
This is no surprise whatsoever. Nor is it news. Apple deliberately renamed the company years ago when the decision was made to enter the mass market of consumer electronics. With that plan came the trend of taking away consumer control over the products they buy. Migrating towards the sealed appliance model, this is simply that plan being implemented.
 
Piggie said:
Yes.

I find it insulting really.

Apple honestly think they are clever and are selling to the dumb masses.
And the sad thing is, it's true :(

I do wish the dumb masses would actually say NO, and not all rush to buy the latest thing as it has the Apple logo on it, but I fear we are still living in this era.

Perhaps it may happen at some point in the future.
Logically EVERY company fails, Apple will fail, but they are locking more and more people into Apple's way of doing things, Trying to push iPads into schools to capture children into their world from a young age.

It's pretty bad really.

At least with the PC / Android and other worlds people are more free to pick and choose what they want and change and alter things to suit their needs.
Of course, Apple will argue it's not as safe.

But then, do you want to be in a safe Zoo, or in the Wild with a little risk ?
Click to expand...
I've been using PCs and Android tablets and phones for years, I've never had any major dramas, I've had more dramas with my iPads than most other tech. I'm glad Apple has taken this road so that people can see them for what they are, just a greedy large corporation waiting to take your money.

I bought some Apple stuff when they were ahead of the curve, that no longer holds true.

----------
subsonix said:
The mistake you are making is that you pay too much attention to clock rate, especially since it's variable. It's not really as bad a chip as you think for an entry level computer, real work is done on the MacBook Air for example which uses the same chip.
Click to expand...
I've seen those Airs in action, man they are slow, I asked a genius one time if it was broken down, he said no they're all like that.

I've got a Core i7 Mac Mini, even that's not real fast, so anything slower no thanks.
 
monty77 said:
I was outraged when I saw the overall spec had been altered like this but now I've taken a step back I get it.

For £375 I can get a compact Mac. It comes with an OS and IR port and everything will just work without mucking about. It's the PERFECT media PC or machine for the light user. With HD 5000 GPU it'll even do some casual gaming.

At £500 I was loathed to put one in the living room. At the new price it's very tempting indeed.
Click to expand...
My 2009 Mini is setup to do that, connected to TV most of the time and I ditched my MacBook when I got an iPad. Given your setup based on your signature I am not sure I would add a Mini given you have the MacBook and the iPad/ATV's - you can stream anything you want that way and without paying for a Mini plus keyboard and mouse
 
The main problems is not Apple. It is the neurotics that are disappointed they cannot tear down their Mac mini.

Come on guys if it is that important to you get yourself a Meccano set or a Leggo.
 
Col4bin said:
Agreed, but welcome to Tim's new $$$ driven Apple here. You will either settle for the base $500 Mac Mini, or due to its locked down nature, be coerced into making a much more expensive Mac model purchase than intended. To me at least, this is a little sleazy on Apple's part to drive more sales. I guess many companies in different industries do this, it's just Apple comes from a more 'open' history, and it's hard for many of us to accept this type of sales practice going forward. It's the new Apple, and I'm afraid that it'll only get worse.
Click to expand...

It is this trend that got me into toying with running various hackintosh boxes for a while. Never 'truly' perfect, but also never locked down and stuck. The new iMac is another great example, at least you can add ram, but the screen is taped to the body with heavy double sided tape! I wrote one of the first hard drive swap how-to's here (also posted on my old site octomac.com) for the 2007 Aluminum iMac 24". Granted, swapping a drive on that machine is certainly more involved than the previous gen Mac Pro or a PC. However, it was still quite possible by someone with reasonable mechanical skills and motivation. I get change, it's inevitable and business is business. The problem is while the rest of the industry embraces Moore's Law, Apple seems to want to buck it and not give better, faster and less expensive to the consumer. Indicates a sea change in what is important to the company. But then, I could just be reading way to much into this little set-top-box of a Mac. ;)
 
Last edited:
prowlmedia said:
The Pro machines are for Pros

Also, you think they don't care about the Pro..
Click to expand...


You dont read either, i said macBOOK PRO.



Financially, NO, Apple does not care about the MAC PRO


The Mac Pro comprises less than 1/2 of 1% of its revenue.

the APPS however its built for is another matter, .....however that still is not a great deal


its a hardware portal for EXPENSIVE APPSTORE applications (the REAL MONEY).


also its a OSX fulfillment portal for their warez.


Ive owned at least 20X as many Macs as youve had pass thrur your hands, and repaired 100X that many to boot.


ok. understood? good.




you said...............
a state of the art US based Factory



the new US Factory is a TOUCHSTONE facility .......it can be RETOOLED to build ANYTHING in a very short period of time.


In case you didnt know this fact, FACTORIES retool for new production ALL THE TIME.


learn this fact
 
Last edited:
GizmoDVD said:
Here comes the "Pro's" complaining how stupid it is that Apple soldered the RAM so the .01% of people who open up and upgrade their components can't.

How dare this $500 box not be comparable to a $2,500 Mac Pro!
Click to expand...

And now you have to buy a new computer if the ram fails out of warranty because apple moved away from standard ram modules.
 
Piggie said:
What stuns me more than anything is that Apple would waste their own design and engineers time making something worse than before.

You can imagine sitting round a table with a term you want to spend weeks/months on making it worse, saying, ok, people, we need to redesign all the parts that are perfectly fine now, and pay you to make them worse for the customer.

Simply amazing this is the best Apple can think to do with their staff.
Click to expand...

This is just a Transition device. Because Broadwell is not ready. They could either spend a lot of money to make 2 different motherboards for 6 months with dual and quad chips as they are different or wait and realise a unified broadwell which i suspect will come with a new design and possibly be built in the US.

The other thing of course is they could easily release a Quad core in a month or 2. Perhaps it's just not ready as they had to create a stopgap because Intel delayed broadwell 8 months!
 
Dougie83 said:
The main problems is not Apple. It is the neurotics that are disappointed they cannot tear down their Mac mini.

Come on guys if it is that important to you get yourself a Meccano set or a Leggo.
Click to expand...
I know this sounds funny, but people don't really like going backwards in technology, the whole idea is to go forwards.

If people want to buy a cheap email machine for about $200 then maybe you would expect that.
 
scotsrule08 said:
The original Mac mini (core solo) (yes core solo, not duo, not core 2 duo) was the first (modern) Mac that I had. We went through countless upgrades including hard drive, RAM, and even a processor swap. I went from the core solo all the way up to the core 2 duo. I learned a lot from those experiences, and now electronics repair is my job.

If I ever wanted to cry, it would be now
Click to expand...

My first Mac Mini was the original G4 with SuperDrive. I had to use two putty knives to open the case and upgrade the RAM when I could afford it all the way up to a whopping 1 GB! That mini is still in use by my sister along with the 17 inch Apple display.

I'm eating crow on this one. I held out hope that the ram was upgradable. I guess that I will skip this generation.
 
dilbert99 said:
And now you have to buy a new computer if the ram fails out of warranty because apple moved away from standard ram modules.
Click to expand...

Ram ALWAYS fails at the Connectors and blows out. Inconsistent gold coverage Dust/moisture and heat etc. Soldered ram is and has always been much more reliable. Had many ram errors on your tablets or phones recently? Or how about that 4K tv with 8gb ram... Soldered.
 
Dougie83 said:
The main problems is not Apple. It is the neurotics that are disappointed they cannot tear down their Mac mini.

Come on guys if it is that important to you get yourself a Meccano set or a Leggo.
Click to expand...

Of course it can be torn down, iFixit just showed us how.
 
I think the real issue here is the ridiculous price Apple charge for upgrading RAM.

It is the same problem with storage on iDevices. The cost of these components to Apple is virtually nothing. They just use them as a sneaky tactic to push everyone up to higher-end models or simply to squeeze more money out of the people who are able to afford it.

Previously people could buy RAM from third parties at a reasonable price. Soldering it in, means you have no choice but to accept Apple ripping you off.

It's a shame Apple choose to behave like this, they would still make plenty of money (they might even make more, due to higher sales), if they charged a more reasonable price for upgrades.

I'll happily accept Apple hardware costs more overall than PC hardware due to the general quality of construction, but there is no reason for generic components to cost more. If anything, they should be cheaper due to Apple's buying power.
 
vagos said:
I last met a person who upgraded his computer four years ago. Upgradability on computers, removable battery on phones & memory cards on tablets are interesting perhaps to less than 1% of the market.

Some people really need to stop trying to conserve technology products for ages and get a new device when the time comes, just like the rest of us. In 2014 tech products are designed to be easy to manufacture & be thrown away when their time comes. Deal with it :cool:
Click to expand...

And some of use "upgrade" out of necessity: failed hard drive, need more RAM for work purposes, etc. Perhaps I don't feel like paying exorbitant prices for repair because I can do it myself. Actually, I think all of the "simplicity" Apple and others are going for, shooting for the lowest common denominator, may actually be making us (people) less tech savvy than we were / could be. Knowing how to post your photos to Facebook, gain followers on Twitter, or unlock your Starwood door with your watch does not mean you've got this whole technology thing under your belt.
 
Apple Kills the Mini

After scratching my head about how stunningly lame these new 2014 Minis are, I think I've found the answer: Apple is no longer interested in making them.

This is the only plausible answer considering they've had two full years to make them more powerful and more versatile. Instead, they've done the exact opposite, downgrading performance and accessibility dramatically. It would be cynical to say they're crippling the new Minis to drive sales to the iMac, MacBooks or the iPad (?!), but, if this is true, woe be to Apple. That's not what we've come to expect, nor appreciate.

Phil Schiller needs to wake up and take some of that Mac Pro innovation and trickle it down to the Mini. And he needs to do it soon. Very soon.

Despite waiting more than a year for the new Mini, I'm boycotting this version-- and encouraging others to do the same.
 
OllyW said:
Why doesn't Apple's flagship MacPro have soldered RAM if it's that much better? ;)

They haven't gone to soldered RAM for better reliability, it's all down to cutting costs and making bigger profits.
Click to expand...



The new Mini really only has 4 parts, and only 2 of which you can EXPECT (over time) to fail.




the HD

and/or the logic board.



fast cheap easy fixes, low production costs, cutting corners at its finest.

j1.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back