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Apple Acknowledges Mac Mini Update?

jpmittins said:
Okay, I think we can all agree that this thread has gone distinctly off topic. Perhaps we can bring it back to the Mini?

Oh, who am I kidding. An on topic thread? Yeah, that will happen.
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You'd be surprised - mac mini threads can be quite on topic..
Going back to the thread title -
Is there any official confirmation of this confirmation? I.e.
- do we have proof of this from Apple
- Has anyone else confirmed on record
- Have any of the major Mini resellers etc confirmed anything more?
 
jodelli said:
Actually the big difference between Celerons and Pentiums was reduced or non existent on board cache.

The reduced power rating did occur between different Pentium chips. Apple did that with some of the early G4s, dropped some of the new 500 and 450 mhz 7400 chips to 450 and 400 mhz respectively.
Click to expand...

True, the cache was missing but what many found out at the time was that the lack of cache was made up almost 100 fold by the speed of the FSB and how fast it was and could be over clocked -this resulted in huge sales of celerons that surpassed pentiums for graphics, rendering, gaming, and audio use.

:)

am glad the typical mac user is becoming the person who knows so much more than those at the genius bar of which many have no idea about FSB, dip switches, voltage, heck, even a 2.5 10,000rpm hard drive for a laptop.
 
Mac Mini the Machine with the least amount of errors.

HI,

I used to work for Apple and one of the things I learn there was that the Mini may never be discontinued. ;) The reason why is due to the fact that the failure rate of the Mini is the least of anyone of the Apple Computer products.

If I recall correctly I believe it's like less then 10 %, but that was just quoted to me by a Manger type there. I can not say or verify that it came from someone at Steve's level. :confused: But, I can tell you when I worked the phones for almost 3 years I only had a few calls on the Mini and they were all users trying to install RAM incorrectly.

I am really clamoring for an update!!! I really want a Mini, but I won't buy the current one cuz of how bad the graphics chipset is. I want more graphic RAM and dual screen. I am a screen snob, I can't use just one... eww. :D
 
theelysium said:
But, I can tell you when I worked the phones for almost 3 years I only had a few calls on the Mini and they were all users trying to install RAM incorrectly.
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Keep in mind, that's not a statistically valid concept.

However, if someone can bust out some figures on percentage of repairs to all Apple products and figures on sales of all Apple products, then compare the Mac Mini's share of each…

That having been said, an equally useless anecdote is for me to note that in my time as a service technician, I never had to make a single repair on a Mini except for power bricks blowing up… but Apple has never managed to make power adapters that don't suck.
 
MacConvert said:
Methinks they will turn it into a gaming console-quality system...
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So they can get their asses kicked in that market again? Not to mention the MacOS seems to inherently suck for gaming compared to Windows, and nobody wants to bother writing drivers for decent video cards.
 
Better graphics required...

jpmittins said:
It's ridiculous that Apple doesn't offer a real upgradable mid-range tower option.
Click to expand...

Not really when you think about it. A mid-range tower, that allowed you to upgrade graphics and RAM, would simply be a cheaper version of the MacPro and would seriously cut into the sales of the Pro line.

Why would a professional shop buy a Mac Pro for each employee when they could buy Mac Towers for half the price and then use X-Grid to share spare processing cycles (you're not always in the middle of a large render).

<rant>

What I would like to see however is the Mac Mini given a beefed up graphics processor like they used to have. Right now I have an older G4 Mac Mini that came with a Radeon 9200, in upper mid-range at the time, that worked great for whatever I threw at it. Unfortunately it's getting a bit slow for some of the things I want to do, so I've been wanting to get a new Mac. With the dreadful Intel Integrated Graphics, the new Mac Mini wasn't even on my radar. I do like to play the odd game in between editing videos of my four year old niece riding her bike! :) Yet I don't need a kick ass machine like the Mac Pro.

"So why don't you just go buy and iMac?" I find the iMacs to be extremely environmentally unfriendly and needlessly expensive. An iMac is basically a Mac Mini with a built in display. They even use the same laptop components and have similar specs (look at the low end iMac).

When you really think about it, your monitor will last far longer than the computer will. I have 15 year old CRT monitors that still work! Yet because the monitor on the iMac is built in, it forces you to take a piece of perfectly functioning equipment and throw it away because the iMac doesn't let you upgrade the computer without buying a brand new monitor along with it.

I simply don't see why I need to throw out my excellent NEC 200VX 20" 1600 x 1200 LCD display used with my current Mac Mini just to because I want to buy a new computer.

What the Mini needs is a beefier graphics card so I can throw some of the latest games at it without having to pay 3,000+, or throw away a perfectly good monitor, to get there. The funny thing is that better graphics in the Mini still wouldn't impact the Mac Pro line because the specs on a Mac Mini, even with the beefier graphics, wouldn't be anywhere close to the Mac Pro.

Hell, they could have three SKUs if they wanted to. The cheap one, using the Intel Graphics, the mid range using the new Nvidia 9400M, and a high end one using the new Nvidia 9600M. Make the FW400 a BTO option, in case they're thinking of removing it (stupid idea if they do, the Mini is a desktop without lots of storage, I don't know anyone who owns one that doesn't have at least one FW400 external drive hooked up to it).

If Apple gave me a Mini with a beefed up graphics card, even if none of the other specs don't change, I'd go into debt to get one opening day!

</rant>
 
Surely Apple can just do a minor upgrade, or something, lower the price, anything? The Mini just needs some attention. MWSF '09.
 
Tallest Skil said:
Google "Apple Pippin". Then come back so we can all have a good laugh at your idea.
Click to expand...

To be fair things should have been done very very different on the Pippin it could have been better.


I'm not saying Apple should try to get into the gaming market, but isn't because the pippin was bad.
 
zap2 said:
To be fair things should have been done very very different on the Pippin it could have been better.


I'm not saying Apple should try to get into the gaming market, but isn't because the pippin was bad.
Click to expand...

Maybe the iPhone is a better model for them to see - give the Mac the resources, and let the market recreate/form?
The needs of a Mac gamer might be slightly more aligning with the potential upcoming Mac configurations.

What would people say the basics were? - Primarily CPU & graphics card used?
 
I hope the mini gets updated, and soon. I have been really satisfied with mine (first generation 1.42 G4), and would like to get another.

A few comments:

1) Firewire is not for just pros. I am a pro, but I have a PowerMac G5 for my Pro stuff, the Mini is for my office. I use firewire drives with my Mini just to have a 7200 RPM drive to boot from and run everything, since the internal drives are slow laptop drives. USB2 drives are not a good option.I also occasionally use it to transfer video from my Sony Mini DV camcorder to email clips.

2) Most of the appeal of a Mac Mini is that it is the least expensive Mac, so for established Mac users, removing FireWire and adopting proprietary monitor formats like mini display port can cause the real cost of getting one go way up. Having to buy a new monitor (especially an overpriced Apple one) or expensive convertor, new drives, and a new camcorder really diminishes the cost benefit of the Mini.

3) I don't care how small the Mini is. If you have to charge more for it to fit in more expensive small laptop parts, make it bigger and cheaper. If you have to make it slower so that you can use slower and smaller laptop parts, make it bigger and faster. Too much form over function IMO.

4) I don't need or want much upgradeability, but they should at least make it
easier to add/change RAM and upgrade the hard drive.
 
ctone said:
3) I don't care how small the Mini is. If you have to charge more for it to fit in more expensive small laptop parts, make it bigger and cheaper. If you have to make it slower so that you can use slower and smaller laptop parts, make it bigger and faster. Too much form over function IMO.
Click to expand...

It's called the Mini for a reason.... It's made for "average consumers" who just want a cute computer that does whatever they need it to do. It's for people who don't need it to be "bigger and faster."

4) I don't need or want much upgradeability, but they should at least make it
easier to add/change RAM and upgrade the hard drive.
Click to expand...

What else is there to upgrade? Or were you talking about expansion?
 
I simply want the lower power consumption of a new mac mini.
I intend it to run headless as a webserver, serving the website and gallery of a small club. We dont get that many hits, its mainly to server ourselves photos.

I don't need the screen, if I need to buy a 30$ converter to hook it up to the wife's machine when its configured for the first time, so be it.

2 gig of memory would be fine, approx 300 gig HD, and a modern dual core (but hopefully low power consumption) cpu.

It can't be that hard to keep the design up to date, or even modernise it a little.

If one doesn't come out in January then we just throw money at a web hosting company for another year.
 
lifeinhd said:
It's called the Mini for a reason.... It's made for "average consumers" who just want a cute computer that does whatever they need it to do. It's for people who don't need it to be "bigger and faster."
Click to expand...

The average consumer that might buy a Mac Mini wants a cheap Mac that has decent specs for the money, and doesn't really care if it is two inches bigger, especially if that makes it cheaper and/or faster.

lifeinhd said:
What else is there to upgrade? Or were you talking about expansion?
Click to expand...

The video card, which seems to concern a lot of people here, but I never cared about at all.
 
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