Given that they can solder those onto the logic board with a significant space savings and control access through the T2 chip, I think the Fusion Drive is going the way of the AirPort family.
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Apple to Debut Low-Cost MacBook Air With Retina Display, Revamped Pro-Focused Mac Mini in 2018
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Given that they can solder those onto the logic board with a significant space savings and control access through the T2 chip, I think the Fusion Drive is going the way of the AirPort family.
I can see Kaby Lake-G much more easily than I can see Apple putting 45w H-Series in the Mac mini. The CPU runs quite quickly, finally gives the mini 4c/8t and a dGPU that can manage a VR workflow in a pretty small package...just look at Intel's Hades Canyon NUCs. If the price for the KL-G is on par with the price for an H-Series CPU, I know which way Apple is going. I believe the 21.5" iMac will be the recipient of any 6-core CPUs at this point (Coffee Lake 8th Gen), while the 27" iMac receives 6- and 8-core 9th Gen CPUs. This creates pretty clear delineation in the product lines.
10Gb Ethernet in anything other than the iMac Pro and MacPro is at least another 3-4 years away. There simply isn't a large enough user base clamoring for it in any meaningful way. If you have a FiOS connection, and you are hardwired, the current 1Gbps Ethernet works just fine. For the iMac Pro and the Mac Pro, it makes perfect sense, they are Pro machines that will need to be in a Pro workflow, which means 10Gbps Ethernet for a lot of folks. Also, if you own any other Thunderbolt 3 equipped Mac and really need 10Gbps Ethernet, there are fairly economical options to add it to your setup (standalone or in a Dock).
I think Apple will leave the port configuration pretty much the way it is, as Kaby Lake-G has x8 PCIe lanes left, so at 2x4, this allows for one Titan Ridge Thunderbolt 3 controller and the PCIe storage to connect directly with the CPU and the rest of the computer (Serial ATA, USB-A, SDXC, HDMI, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, et al.) to communicate with the CPU via the PCH. For ports, I predict one Gigabit Ethernet port, HDMI (50/50, needs an LSPCON for HDMI 2.0, may get dumped), two TB3 ports, four USB 3.1 Type-A ports, one SDXC, and two audio jacks.
If Apple chooses the Core i7-8809G, cools it properly and gives it a semi attractive price, it could be a real hit. The clock is ticking.
It's positioned for the education market, so a lower price point is key; possibly at the expense of some of the features in the rMB. Maybe a slower processor that is less power hungry to allow for long battery life in school, less memory or smaller / slower SSD. Price is key in the education market, and this would let Apple slide in a model, just below the rMB, to compete with PCs in that market. That would give them 3 markets - education, consumer, bussinessa cross the lines.
Yeah, like the iMac Pro and Mac Pro - you can only go as far as flash storage concerns, then it’s up to USB and/or TB and external drives
Well something is taking a long time to figure out. Either they're working on a radical new redesign, Thunderbolt 4, ARM desktop chips, or a combination of these things. The trashcan was supposed to be the Thunderbolt spider and it didn't seem to work out well for them. When I hear modular I think either snap together or a cheese grater, and the cheese grater surely would have already been done by now if that were the case.
Nope...not for quite a while. While QLC NAND is just now getting production ramped up, until Apple deems it to be performant enough for their needs, I just do not see flash storage as anything other than a BTO item in Apple's consumer desktop lines.
Remember, Apple is using Samsung TLC or MLC V-NAND in the 2017 iMac Pro and 2016-2018 MacBook Pro, 2015-2017 MacBook (i.e not cheap stuff). They still have not moved the SSD portion of the Fusion Drive over to NVMe (still AHCI), but I suspect that will be changing for the iMac and Mac mini this year, if there are updates. I still have trouble seeing the T2 going into the anything else other than the MacBook Pro and iMac Pro this year. The iMac Pro was designed to only use flash storage and the MacBook Pros have had flash storage standard for 5 years. As much as we all want to move to pure flash, Apple enjoys their fat profits from those BTO upgrades too much to simply give them up yet.
We "need" water, food, and shelter. Everything else is subjective. Personally, for reading text, working with vector designs, etc., the smooth paper-crisp rendering of a retina-level display is something I thoroughly enjoy and would never go back to "HD". When friends who own lower rez displays see my iMac, they're blown away. My $0.02.
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If we are spending $2800 a new Macbook "Pro" the last thing we want to do is be spending (and carrying over on the road) cables, dongles or hubs. You as well as many others here, just like to offer links to Amazon cables, hubs and cables, which are lame excuses for Apple poor design. Just do a little research and tell me how many USB-C ready external periferals are out there...I can count them with one hand.
Again, such a poor design, that you cannot connect your own ipad/iphone... beyond ridiculous.
Get a Lenovo Thinkpad P Series model with Linux and call it a day?
The T2 handles so many subsystems it would greatly simplify the design of the Mac Mini. Unless there are severe cost or supply constraints, the T2 is probably going into all future Macs.
The rumor suggests that this Mac Mini could be "Pro"-ish. Every other "Pro" Mac is SSD only.
If the T2 can manage AHCI, it could handle Fusion Drive. A better implementation of Fusion Drive would use Optane for the SSD portion. But I doubt Apple would implement that.
Another plus in going T2 and soldered on storage is that it forces BTO upgrades since there is no other option. That's a big win for Apple.
A "Pro-focused Mac Mini" will finally prove to any doubters that Apple has no clue what its pro customers want.
Apple only wants to use the most expensive, fastest flash memory for SSD storage yet have no problem using slow 5400RPM mechanical hard drives even though regular not-top-of-the-line SATA SSDs are actually cheaper while still being much faster than hard drives. Their logic is completely flawed.
I cannot argue that using the T2 might streamline things with the design of the Mac mini, but if Apple does do that and switches to pure flash storage, I cannot see the starting price below $999, which I envisage would be for an i7-8705G/8GB DDR4/256GB Flash and in a taller chassis than they currently have.
I doubt Apple would embrace Optane, unless Intel made them a hella deal on the 16GB or the 32GB. I guess anything is possible.
Soldered storage is almost a given, even though we may still get a SATA III "bay" to use and there's a 50/50 on user upgradeable SO-DIMMs.
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So subtract cost of retina screen and keyboard and hinge and thin design, maybe $1,499?
Flawed or not, Apple still uses HDDs and I expect to see them in the Mac mini, depending on what form it takes (mini=yes, mini Pro=not so likely) and in the 21.5" iMac and 27" iMac.
Yes, start by firing the engineers that build such crappy notebooks. They had plenty of time to fix things and they keep making mistake after mistake.
Secondly, they could have included at least a single USB-A to make the transition much easier and be compatible with their own products such as iPad and iPhones.
But hey, why make it easy...?
Let's skreu all our users and have them buy many adaptors...
Why would I buy the same old config of a do-it-yourself upgraded Mac mini (2012) in 2018 again? And that was 750€ back then, at most. Today a 16GB/512SSD config is minimum for an upgrade.
Actually I wouldn’t buy a desktop with this little storage.
Original MSRP for CPU listed, not anywhere near what Apple can get them in bulk.
So a $500 swing for 4 more gigs of ram, $16 more CPU, and 10-15 Gigs of SSD + 485-490Gigs of spinner storage, from base to 3rd tier? Or $300 for $0 more in component cost, from 2nd to 3rd tier?
Even Tim would blush at gouging the customers THAT much, and he is used to holding Mac users hostage.
Without being snippy, have you even priced out the current Mac mini on Apple's website?
All I did was insert the most logical 8th Gen choice to replace the current 4th Gen CPU that Apple uses. The $500 swing going from Tier 1 to Tier 3 is Apple's doing, not mine.
However, the $1299 model should actually be $1199 and then $1499 should be $1399 as I would expect that if Apple even offered the Core i7-8705G that they would only charge another $200 to go up from the i7-8559U. Go check Apple's BTO options for the Mac mini. You can spec it out all the way up to $1999 for Core i7/16GB RAM/1TB SSD and that a DUAL-CORE 4th Gen Core i7
Attached is screenshots from Apple's website. Do you still think Tim is blushing?
It’s not really about component cost, it’s about giving people enough reason (i.e. value) to move up to the next step. Margins are below average on the entry level offerings and Apple needs a certain percentage of buyers—most of them—at the middle and upper tiers to offset the low-margin base model. The same reasoning holds for upgrading to Fusion or SSD, or 16/32GB RAM.
A good example is the $1,099 iMac 1080p. It’s there only for those who absolutely can’t afford to spend more or have no need to move up to a higher performance machine.
iMac 1080p, $1,099:
- 2.3GHz dual-core 15W mobile CPU
- iGPU—Iris graphics
- 1920x1080 display
But for just $200 more, you can get a far superior machine:
iMac 4K, $1,299:
- 3.0GHz quad-core 65W desktop CPU
- dGPU—Radeon Pro 555
- 4096x2304 Retina P3 display
There’s a huge difference in performance between those two configs. There’s a ton of added value for that $200. Some say Apple shouldn’t even sell the 1080p. Others prone to hyperbole claim it’s “criminal”. But it’s there to meet a price point, and it’s a perfectly acceptable machine.
Sure, if you’re used to a Retina display and the speed of Apple’s SSD drives, the iMac 1080p is a step back. But you’re spoiled!
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The engineers deserve to be fired? Really? Are you serious? Do you think they are solely responsible for the decision to eliminate the existing ports and replace them all with Thunderbolt 3? Do you really think that this design was NOT personally signed off on by Johny Srouji, Dan Riccio, Craig Federighi, Jeff Williams, Phil Schiller, Jony Ive and Tim Cook before production started.
We are three iterations into this chassis, it is not getting changed until the next re-design, end period, end paragraph.
A single USB-A port? Or a USB-A to USB-C dongle? If port, re-read first paragraph. If dongle...again, re-read first paragraph.
For the 50 millionth time, I did not have to buy any adapters, just a handful or USB-C to USB-"Something else on the other end." cables to hook up my hard drives, a Transcend Card reader and my Scarlett 2i4 USB audio interface. The USB-C connector is not from some distant alien civilization.
That’s a decent guess. With 28W quads a similar lineup could start at $999.
I think Apple goes with the 28W quads, even though I’d personally prefer (and would pay for) hexacore + Radeon dGPU. But no one knows except Apple, at this point; as usual, there are few leaks of any substance for Macs.
