Apple Releases New Sandy Bridge Mac Minis and Thunderbolt Display

[vito]

You cannot rip CDs without pulling out a $70 box out of your drawer and connect it. Nobody forces you to put a box on it 24/7 if you only use it once or twice per month.

^ This. Why do you want an optical drive as a permanent fixture, Apple have obviously given this decision some thought, they just didn't decide one day they're going to completely remove the optical drive and be done with it.

How often do you and everyone posted so far burn to disc?

 

[soubriquet]

ACD and TBD?!

I'll ask this question again, since it got lost in the thread. Is it possible to daisy chain the previous generation Apple Cinema Display to the new Thunderbolt Display?

 

[iSee]

Quote from the Mac Mini's product page:

"Mac mini is designed without an optical disc drive. Because these days, you don’t need one. It’s easier than ever to download music and films from the iTunes Store. And you can download apps from the Mac App Store with a click."

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL... Yeah, right Apple. The Mac Mini is a 'hub' with HDMI, yet it can't even play DVD's? Rip CD's? And whats the point of having Boot Camp when you can't use a Windows disc?

Epic. Fail.

I use a mac mini as my media hub/server/player -- and I can't remember the last time I used the optical disk.

Anyway, if you wanted your media box to have an optical drive, it would be a bluray player, not just a DVD player. So the mini isn't failing as a media box now any more than it did before.

I initially tried using my mini as a DVD player, but it wasn't that great... it was easier to simply use the didicated bluray/dvd player.

 

[manu chao]

Apple doesn't know what I'm going to be using my computer for, so the best thing they can do is give me all the tools I could possibly need

They still give it to you, they just changed the packing for these tools (and the price if you will).

 

[alent1234]

It's nice to have the 6630M in the high end Mac Mini, but where is the quad core CPU option?? They should not make the quad core exclusive to the Server version.

why is there no 250HP engine in a honda civic?

sure some people buy a fully loaded Civic EX-L but most people don't. same with the mini, most people buy the cheaper models and probably not enough will upgrade for apple to spend the money to buy the motherboards and CPU's

even dell and HP changed their model lineups where the better graphics cards and CPU's are only on the higher priced models

 

[shaolindave]

no optical drive

we want blu-ray! they should be updating the optical drive, not completely removing it!

hopefully they don't pull this same crap with the iMac, I've been holding out on upgrading my iMac for years, waiting on blu-ray.

 

[ECUpirate44]

No optical drive in the 2012 Mbp is a sure bet now.

 

[WvB22]

Where can a clearance 2010 Mac Mini be found?

As a media center connected to TV, not sure the 2011 Mac Mini is worth an extra $500 more than the AppleTV2 jailbroken with XBMC/Plex/Boxee loaded...

No absolutely not. The Mac Mini is no longer a serious media center option. Just go for Apple TV2 jailbroken.

Off topic: if you have an iPad 2 you don't need an Apple TV at all. Jailbreak your iPad, buy the app AirServer from Cydia. Buy the app Air Video from the official App Store and buy the HDMI kit for the iPad from Apple.

You now have a full working Apple TV2 which can do everything the Apple TV can do, including showing photo's from your Mac/iPhone, stream any music from your Mac/NAS and stream any video from your Mac including any format you can think off.

 

[toddybody]

Looks good, with exception the the death of ODD. How are folks supposed to rip music/movies, play their DVDs/Games?



Oh that's right, iTunes and Lion App Store can solve all those worries. FAIL

 

[haze]

Apple doesn't know what I'm going to be using my computer for, so the best thing they can do is give me all the tools I could possibly need.

I know, right? Where is the 5 1/4 floppy drive? The Zip disc? My modem? Serial port for my dot matrix printer?

Apple doesn't know what I am going to be using my computer for, so the best thing they can do is give me all the tools I could possibly need . . .

 

[MattG]

You're not going to be burning to disc all the time, plug it in when you have to copy something to disc media which cannot be written for sharing to a USB pen drive, when you're done with the Superdrive pack it away,

...right, because you know my DVD ripping/reading habits well enough to know how often I'll be using it.

I know, right? Where is the 5 1/4 floppy drive? The Zip disc? My modem? Serial port for my dot matrix printer?

None of the things you listed are things people still use, or that you could buy at a store. Optical discs are. Completely ignorant argument -- just a cop out.

 

[toddybody]

I know, right? Where is the 5 1/4 floppy drive? The Zip disc? My modem? Serial port for my dot matrix printer?

Apple doesn't know what I am going to be using my computer for, so the best thing they can do is give me all the tools I could possibly need . . .

Your comparison of DVD to floppy is totally on point. No

 

[vito]

...right, because you know my DVD ripping/reading habits well enough to know how often I'll be using it.

well in which case tough, buy the previous gen because Apple have decided not to include it and you don't want a SuperDrive

 

[Westyfield2]

Just been playing around on the configurator.

The high-end Mac Mini (2.5GHz i5 with 6630M) upgraded to 2.7GHz i7 comes out at £700.80 on the HE store. I think that'll be what I'll get. A quad-core would be nice, but as it's a choice between graphics and processor I'm gonna go for graphics.

Apple's memory upgrade price from 4GB to 8GB of £150 is a bit stupid though.. when crucial will sell you an 8GB kit (2x4GB) of 204-pin SODIMM DDR3 PC3-8500 for £55.19 .

With regards to hard-drive, I'd like an SSD, but Apple's upgrade price of £400 is too much for me, and TBH 256GB would be a bit overkill. I'll probably get an Intel 510 120GB (£200)... but we need to see what the iFixit boys reckon of the insides of these new 2011 Minis. If worse comes to the worse I'll pay an Apple Premium Reseller/Authorised Repairer to put it in (I doubt the Apple retail store would!)

I was gonna be all afraid of Lion's download only... how do we burn it to a DVD and Mac Mini has no DVD drive... how do I install an OS from disc but http://www.apple.com/macosx/recovery/ says

"If your Mac problem is a little less common — your hard drive has failed or you’ve installed a hard drive without OS X, for example — Internet Recovery takes over automatically. It downloads and starts Lion Recovery directly from Apple servers over a broadband Internet connection. And your Mac has access to the same Lion Recovery features online. Internet Recovery is built into every newly-released Mac starting with the Mac mini and MacBook Air."​

My reading of that is that something clever in the BIOS of the Mac will notice that the hard drive installed does not have the recovery partition that Lion makes and will automatically make the recovery partition and download the relevant files to it, and then hitting Command-R will get you into the recovery partition from which you can run Disk Utility or start the Lion download and install.

 

[Shanpdx]

Why remove optical drive?

in a desktop? makes no sense ... MBA yes, not on a desktop.

especially the external optical drive apple sells for $79 ...

way to go apple, take more money from customer.

Sure Steve jobs will be richest person than Bill gates...

 

[MattG]

well in which case tough, buy the previous gen because Apple have decided not to include it and you don't want a SuperDrive

"Tough, buy the previous gen"

Once again...Cop-out.

 

[Shanpdx]

any alternative

external DVD drive which works with all the Mac Systems?

cheaper? $79 lot of money for Super Drive.

 

[nagromme]

Not in the next ten years it isn't. As long as broadband is underpowered, limited in reach, overpriced and constrained by providers owning physical media is going to be around a long time.

I'm still waiting for MP3 to kill the CD. What's it been? 15 years now?

No, not 15. MP4s killed CDs for me only about 5-10 years ago

DVDs and CDs are still essential... for some people. Sounds like a good choice to make something optional!

As for compactness... the Mini is not compact for the sake of travel (although that’s great, and adding a tiny DVD externally doesn’t destroy that). It’s compact for style, cost, and because it simply doesn’t need to be huge. It’s compact compared to a traditional tower, and that did not change today even if you add the DVD.

And for style alone, it just got smaller: hide the whole Mini along with the cables behind your display or desk or entertainment console. All you need to expose now is the DVD drive itself! It’s as though the Mini just got even smaller...

So we now have more options, not less, more compactness in ways that matter, and a lower entry cost on a machine with boosted specs. Not bad

(And the Thunderbolt display is awesome. Suddenly Thunderbolt’s value is reality and not promise! Compare to Dell’s $999 display with no docking station! It could even add Firewire to my next Air, if I felt so inclined.)

 

[haze]

...right, because you know my DVD ripping/reading habits well enough to know how often I'll be using it.



None of the things you listed are things people still use, or that you could buy at a store. Optical discs are. Completely ignorant argument -- just a cop out.

But some were when Apple dropped them. Remember when they dropped the floppy? People were running around like a chicken with their head cut off. "How could they? Everybody needs a floppy drive!"

 

[manu chao]

It's not the money, it's the principle. It's another device. Another box taking up room on my desk, another USB port being used by something else, another cable. There's no reason this thing shouldn't have an optical drive built in.

Of course there is a reason, the tangible one of saving Apple money (maybe helping a bit internal space management as the second 2.5" drive is smaller than the optical drive) and the intangible one of pushing everybody towards media-less distribution (software, music, movies). The latter might mainly benefit Apple again, but to some extent customers will also prefer media-less offers.

 

[drifter088]

Fastest setup

I am thinking of getting the faster configuration.
What would be the fastest Mac mini for 3d rendering/model work?

2.7GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7 with AMD Radeon HD 6630M

or

2.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 with Intel HD Graphics 3000

 

[bretm]

Why not? What does an optical drive have to do with a media center? Everything's streamed now.

The best thing about DVDs is the options and extras. Not to mention the better quality than streamed. Even Netflix's mailed DVDs are removing the extras. So the store DVDs still have value. I buy them for my favorite movies, but stream or rent the others.

 

[kdimitt]

...right, because you know my DVD ripping/reading habits well enough to know how often I'll be using it.



None of the things you listed are things people still use, or that you could buy at a store. Optical discs are. Completely ignorant argument -- just a cop out.

They are on point because those technologies were phased out as is optical media. Those types of media were still used back when people started abandoning support for them. I would say the phasing out of optical media is a bit premature as their isn't really a fastly approaching replacement media as there was when floppy was phased out.

 

[vito]

"Tough, buy the previous gen"

Once again...Cop-out.

Not a cop-out Matt, the boys in Cupertino have decided to omit an optical drive, they probably didn't make the decision without reason, and without conducting some form of research.

How often are you burning to disc if you don't mind me asking? And what do you usually burn?

I personally haven't for a while, I usually use USB pen drives or now we have AirDrop too.

 

[JohnGalt81]

It will work just fine. Hook it up to the MiniDisplayPort.

All Thunderbolt monitors should work fine with MiniDisplayPort ports AS MONITORS. You won't be able to use the USB, Firewire, Ethernet or Thunderbolt ports on the monitor, of course.

I'm not so sure about that. The product specs page explicitly lists: "Thunderbolt-enabled Mac computer, including MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac" as a requirement. No mention of previous mini-displayport Macs would seem to indicate they are not compatible whatsoever.