Apple Announces New iMacs, Mac Minis, AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule

[BettyBad]

Mac Mini now has two ports, Mini display port and Mini DVI video out...
Can I run dual monitor with this?

From Mac mini tech specs:

Extended desktop and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports up to 1920 by 1200 pixels on a DVI or VGA display; up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on a dual-link DVI display using Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (sold separately)

 

[LukeW16]

Jesus, stop with the ' its the £'s fault the prices are high'. Its just Apple being greedy. Other desktops are selling at lower prices WITH better specs. And guess what, those companies would still make profit.

The update was a real kick in the teeth for me :/

 

[Sambo110]

Here's why I think it's worth it. I love Macs, and am going to get a job to save up for one. With these new prices, ti would only be few more weeks of saving. I love having everything in the screen, and not having a tower and blu tooth dongles, wifi stations everywhere. And plus I do some PC gaming (Bliizard games, and occasionally some Windows games), and this new iMac could do that wonderfully. So they are worth it. Oh, and I hate Windows.

 

[Consultant]

From the Apple shop, can a techie here explain what this means? Isn't wifi n de facto on the 2.4 ghz?

N can be 5ghz only. Yes by default it's usually set up with 2.4ghz.

With so many devices on 2.4ghz, such as other wifi, cordless phone, baby monitor, etc, 5ghz reduces intereference.

All I know is that the GT 130, which I've never even heard of until today, has to be better than what's in mine.

And then the option for the Radeon 4850, which is better than both I assume.

Edit: AND OH GOD YOU CAN PUT IN 8GB NOW.

*SAD FACE*

Ah well, I can't be too upset. The G4 I was upgrading from was 6 years old after all.

On nvidia graphics card rebranding
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/7200035/

Yeah, thanks for the reply btw, that's irrelevant if it marketed as such or not when the have apple tv, it's first and foremost a very fitting htpc, in many homes, and as witnessed by internet fora everywhere, so I don't see his point...is it not a good htpc or something?

Yup. Mac Mini is an excellent ALMOST SILENT htpc. BOXEE can be installed

Easy enough to change resolution to 1366x768 for the one who don't know how to make it work.

 

[archer75]

Wow, getting a geforce GT130 will only cost me $2200 and I can still get an aging core 2 duo. Color me impressed.

Just tell me if the mini display port is enabled for multichannel audio and all may not be lost.

 

[Tivoli]

2.0GHz or 2.26GHz Mini ???

Somebody already mentioned it. The tech specs on the Mini page are different from the store page.
So either there are a 2.0GHz and a 2.26GHz version or Apple decided at the last moment they could even squeeze more out of us by leaving them both at 2.0 ghz.......

 

[sgibson]

Jesus, stop with the ' its the £'s fault the prices are high'. Its just Apple being greedy. Other desktops are selling at lower prices WITH better specs. And guess what, those companies would still make profit.

The update was a real kick in the teeth for me :/

Can you point me at a better or equal spec AND lower price computer that has a similar footprint to the Mini?

(I'll even forget for the minute that OSX saves me more in time in two months than the whole machine costs and go purely on hardware specs)

 

[kurosov]

dont try to pull that crap, Im a Brit and idiotic attempts like that only serve to alienate us more from our Yankee-doodle-dandy cousins

seriously, that was rubbish - be ashamed , very ashamed

Yet it was a true example of selective "racism".

Actually, 'Brit' is the correct diminuitive of somebody who is British. 'Pakistani' would be the correct diminutive of somebody who is from Pakistan. Don't be such a hyper-sensitive politically correct wuss. (I am a Brit).

Actually it is "Briton"

 

[Kar98]

Here's why I think it's worth it. I love Macs, and am going to get a job to save up for one.

Typical example of the new crowd of Apple's customers.

 

[jctevere]

Thanks for the reply. Wait a sec, ok, no hdmi, what does that mean, I take an dvi to hdmi cable and I am sorted, and I get the sound to my tv, right? OR wrong? I am wrong but why...

I can't answer the rest of your questions, but I can answer this one. The DVI connection doesn't output sound, only video. So even if you were to purchase a DVI to HDMI converter cable, only the video would be transmitted. The main purpose of such a converter is to allow DVI outputs to be connected to HDMI inputs. These cables were most commonly used for the early cable boxes and HDTV's... The cable boxes only had a DVI out and most all good HDTV's had only HDMI in and no DVI in... So, in order to get sound out of the computer you need to connect a cable from the audio out of the computer... I hoped I answered your questions well enough.

 

[jackfrost123]

His point is why would they add Blu Ray to the Mac Mini? if it was marketed as a HTPC then they would/should, but as it is not there's no need to add Blu Ray to it before the other Macs. I suppose it makes a decent HTPC except for the price.

I see your point, but I still think the mini is a jack of all trades (btw, did a slim blue ray drive just get released cause that's another thing to bear in mind), some people use it (a lot) as an htpc not caring for blue ray, cause they ll either get it via itunes, or online, or dvd instead. So apple may not specifically target it this way they got tv to sell and their reluctance to include blue ray has got to do with milking the itunes video cow dry as long as they can, no need to add an option that would substract from their profits as we were discussing in an tv thread.

 

[Mal]

The new Mac mini doesn't have HDMI (and therefore no built-in audio. which limits your sound options).

No HDMI because of licensing and because it's not really necessary, but I'm confused by the no built-in audio comment. The Mac mini has built-in optical audio out, which will handle most any situation adequately.

The new Mac mini doesn't support 720p natively (at the funky and much hated 1366x768 resolution, which is unfortunately the most common resolution for 720p LCDs and Plasma's)

In Snow Leopard (or was it 10.5.7?) the 720p resolution will be a default option, but you can still hook it up to a TV with a 720p resolution just fine.

The new Mac mini doesn't support Blu-ray (a deal killer for some, I personally don't care)

Apple doesn't support Blu-ray and probably won't for quite a while. Glad you don't care, but it's really not even worth commenting on, especially on the Mac mini.

No built-in tuners

Never will be, I'd expect. TV is looking less and less likely to be relevant in the future, as most of us get news and entertainment online. Unlike the arguments against Blu-ray being dead (though I personally don't expect physical media to stick around much longer either), there's no particular downsides to the internet as opposed to television, and a lot of advantages. I don't think most people will bother with OTA sets for more than the next 5 years, and cable and satellite services will suffer as well.

Front Row is pretty much dead, hasn't been updated since 2007

You mean since the last time the operating system it's a part of was updated? No big surprise, doesn't mean it's dead (Snow Leopard will likely bring enhancements to Front Row, even though it hasn't been mentioned).

No built-in PVR support

See above comments about OTA reception, it applies I think.

jW

 

[ccuk]

Here's why I think it's worth it. I love Macs, and am going to get a job to save up for one. With these new prices, ti would only be few more weeks of saving. I love having everything in the screen, and not having a tower and blu tooth dongles, wifi stations everywhere. And plus I do some PC gaming (Bliizard games, and occasionally some Windows games), and this new iMac could do that wonderfully. So they are worth it. Oh, and I hate Windows.

You clearly have more money than sense. Buy a refurb of the older models or find a reseller with old stock. The new iMacs are using the same tech as the previous gen just with a re-badged graphics card. The new iMacs are not worth the extra money.

As for the Windows comment, that's fine, but do you hate Windows because it lacks something you need, or do you just hate Windows because you think it looks cool to say so?

 

[bankshot]

Decent update to the low end mini. $200 for the extra hard drive and memory doesn't sound like a terribly great deal on the high end. Pretty sure I could do both myself for less (especially since I'd want 4 GB memory anyway).

Now to see whether this causes the current mini prices to drop like a rock on eBay. If the drop isn't too bad, it may be worthwhile to essentially trade in the 1.83 C2D I have now. Doubly so if I can find one of the new ones on Apple's refurb store sometime.

Definitely interested in whether the Nvidia video improves things like H.264 playback. Will the new one do it without revving up the fans? My original plan was to get a new one, then move my existing 1.83 C2D to the family room as a home theater Mac. But it does get a little noisy playing H.264 movies (TV shows I've ripped from DVDs, etc). Kind of a bummer in the home theater setting. If the new one significantly improves that aspect, it may also be worthwhile to make that leap for the home theater application.

Either way, I'm in no hurry. Just too bad they couldn't have done this back in September before I got my refurb 1.83.

 

[avionicsman]

Can't wait till next years iMac release!!!

27" OLED screen (touch screen of course), USB 3.0, 500gig ssd, dual quad core 3.06gHz processor, 16gig Ram and the latest in operating systems Cougar (really hooks the younger guys)!! Cougar comes with an important app: Mind Sweeper (cleans your brain of anything windows).

Have a good Tuesday!!!

 

[Durandal549]

Mac Mini: $200 for an extra Gig of RAM and 200GB more HDD space?

That's a joke, right?

-Clive

I wouldn't buy the high end mini. Spec the lower end $600 unit, add the processor bump $150 and $50 for 4Gig ram from new egg = $800.

Then all your missing is HDD. I have a few firewire drives that I use with my current mini that are just fine, so no issue. For me I only use the internal drive as an OS partition anyway.

 

[Quu]

Here's why I think it's worth it. I love Macs, and am going to get a job to save up for one. With these new prices, ti would only be few more weeks of saving. I love having everything in the screen, and not having a tower and blu tooth dongles, wifi stations everywhere. And plus I do some PC gaming (Bliizard games, and occasionally some Windows games), and this new iMac could do that wonderfully. So they are worth it. Oh, and I hate Windows.

Crazy just crazy. Buy an old version the new ones are priced out of this world for the same performance.

 

[talkingfuture]

Any fellow brits complaining about pricing should read this

http://www.macworld.co.uk/mac/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=25241

Surprising! We are paying less than the Americans on some stuff.

 

[Mal]

Somebody already mentioned it. The tech specs on the Mini page are different from the store page.
So either there are a 2.0GHz and a 2.26GHz version or Apple decided at the last moment they could even squeeze more out of us by leaving them both at 2.0 ghz.......

*groan*

Will people please start actually reading? The 2.26GHz option is a CTO configuration. It exists, it's just not a standard config. That's normal.

jW

 

[MasterNile]

Something that just came to mind, I thought 10.5.7 was supposed to come the same time as the new desktops, with that is it possible they will add Blu Ray support or is something like that not likely to come till Snow Leopard?

And is it possible that these new desktops have a special version of 10.5.6 that has added features like the new notebooks had a different build before 10.5.6 came out?

Just some questions I thought of, although I'm aware no one really knows the answers.

 

[jackfrost123]

@Consultant, great responses, many thanks. Btw that new tc update means in a sense that if you have a a/b/g device in your network it won't downgrade it (airtunes) alltogether but will use 5.0ghz for data transfers between time machine and 2.4 ghz for airtunes, etc. right? So no more the problem if I put a a/b/g machine or access point it will bring the whole network down.

 

[trip1ex]

I think the problem is the UK guys started to think Apple sold cheap computers because the dollar was so weak for so long.

 

[charlesbronsen]

Totally off topic but I thought I would make the point. If I were from Pakistan, would you have referred to me as a Paki? Some might find your use of the word "Brit" offensive...

...Jesus

 

[Sambo110]

I hate Windows because in my experience, it's speed doesn't compare to OS X, it gets slower over time and I prefer OS X's interface. And if Apple do release new iMac's this year, then I will probably get one of them. It would be a while before I got one anyway.

 

[jackfrost123]

I can't answer the rest of your questions, but I can answer this one. The DVI connection doesn't output sound, only video. So even if you were to purchase a DVI to HDMI converter cable, only the video would be transmitted. The main purpose of such a converter is to allow DVI outputs to be connected to HDMI inputs. These cables were most commonly used for the early cable boxes and HDTV's... The cable boxes only had a DVI out and most all good HDTV's had only HDMI in and no DVI in... So, in order to get sound out of the computer you need to connect a cable from the audio out of the computer... I hoped I answered your questions well enough.

Hey buddy, didn't thank you for taking the time to take this up, thanks!!!!!