They didn’t, they just discontinued the D300 and changed the prices.
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Apple's Latest Mac Mini Turns Four Years Old Ahead of 'Pro-Focused' Refresh Expected Later This Month
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Thank you!
Just put in a $250 offer on one with a 1TB HD but only 4gig ram. Hoping to off-load a ton of movies and shows onto one so I can eventually upgrade my MBP and wont need a crazy expensive upgraded hard drive.
Why does it matter to you how or where I spend my money? If you think 4 years is an acceptable refresh model (possibly, no guarantee just yet), then by all means, continue to wait. I don’t think that is reasonable so I purchased something else. Simple as that. I like apple products, but I surely don’t worship them.
The Plex server I purchased ended up being half the cost of a currently available “new” Mac mini, and has expandable everything. We’ll see what happens in 10 days, but I have a feeling I still won’t feel any regret.
I said the same thing. But our team waited a year+ for MacPro updates, nada. AMD? We can't do complex 3D animation with AMD like we can NVIDIA. So the 6 of us just ordered fully decked out custom built PC's for about half the cost of our maxed out 2014 trash cans. Sorry Apple, you lost us.
I did run a Hackintosh with NVIDIA for years and yes, I know what you mean!!
My basic premise is the same as my arguments, which you didn’t follow:
1. Most casual computer users (shopping, browsing, photos, music, Facebook) don’t know, don’t care, and/or aren’t affected by technology that’s 4 years old. A dual-core i5 does those things perfectly fine. Try to understand that. Your outrage doesn’t apply to those users.
2. Since this is true, those users are getting a perfectly fine computer for $499. You obviously care about the most current CPUs etc, so you think this is a bad deal. But unlike you, I think $499 for a Mini is fine. That’s about the same price as a Dell tower, also with an i5 in it, btw. And if that Dell comes with a little more RAM, or a faster-spinning hard drive, fine. Grandma will never know it, just as she’s never going to know how fast a sports car can go if she drove one.
So I think the flawed premise is yours: “real” people like to spend their hard earned money on a computer that suits their needs, not necessarily on the sexiest components. They. Don’t. Care. For casual users looking for an entry level desktop, the Mini fits the bill just fine. You really believe grandma is thinking, “If only that Mac Mini had a darn quad core processor! And a faster platter speed!” ??
Don’t get me wrong; an update is overdue. I personally do care about faster CPUs because my use case needs lots of brute force math. I think the users who should be annoyed are the pros who have been left behind by the aging Mac Pro. Those people do tend to need the latest, most powerful tech, and they’re not getting it in that device. As of today, they must either buy an iMac Pro (serious kit, btw) or leave the macOS ecosystem. And that’s a shame.
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Must be an all time record for the longest Apple has sold something an major update
Looking forward to an SSD based Mac mini. Since you have USB ports and most likely most will extend their storage anyway, it makes it better to have it all in one place, to an external drive like Macbooks have today. (excluding apps).
I reckon Apple picking at products.. trying to determine which one will be a 'pro' market... They tried that with the iMac 5k,, They've tried that with the old Mac Pro 2013,, and now they may be trying that with the Mac mini... instead whichever Mac you get you'll always be professional
Pick one, and focus on it as the 'pro' market.
But to keep the price down, it can't BE a 'pro' ...Apple's burning the candle at both ends.
Looking forward to an SSD based Mac mini. Since you have USB ports and most likely most will extend their storage anyway, it makes it better to have it all in one place, to an external drive like Macbooks have today. (excluding apps).
I reckon Apple picking at products.. trying to determine which one will be a 'pro' market... They tried that with the iMac 5k,, They've tried that with the old Mac Pro 2013,, and now they may be trying that with the Mac mini... instead whichever Mac you get you'll always be professional
Pick one, and focus on it as the 'pro' market.
But to keep the price down, it can't BE a 'pro' ...Apple's burning the candle at both ends.
I'll just add my .02 on what I'd like.
I used the Mini (current base one) as a HTPC and loved it because MacOS just shames windows in scaling. However the 4GB system became very sluggish and there wasn't any point in upgrading it as regardless of how much horsepower it had it was still obsolete. The video out specs just went behind the times. Here's what I'd like to see that I think would greatly increase usability.
1. Support for HDR 12bit
2. Support for 4k 4096x2160@120fps (I'd accept 60 but it'd be nice if it could put it out for future proofing)
3. Bluetooth 5.0 (HUGE!!! I don't think people understand how huge of an upgrade that is for throughput and range. Would make mouse and keyboards awesome from the couch).
4. RX Vega M graphics
5. Support for the latest audio codecs.
6. Support for the AppleTV remote. I really wouldn't need the AppleTV anymore. I just used it for streaming cable.
This would make the machine exactly what I'm looking for. I don't need crazy amounts of memory or HD space just something like this would last me for a LONG time.
I used the Mini (current base one) as a HTPC and loved it because MacOS just shames windows in scaling. However the 4GB system became very sluggish and there wasn't any point in upgrading it as regardless of how much horsepower it had it was still obsolete. The video out specs just went behind the times. Here's what I'd like to see that I think would greatly increase usability.
1. Support for HDR 12bit
2. Support for 4k 4096x2160@120fps (I'd accept 60 but it'd be nice if it could put it out for future proofing)
3. Bluetooth 5.0 (HUGE!!! I don't think people understand how huge of an upgrade that is for throughput and range. Would make mouse and keyboards awesome from the couch).
4. RX Vega M graphics
5. Support for the latest audio codecs.
6. Support for the AppleTV remote. I really wouldn't need the AppleTV anymore. I just used it for streaming cable.
This would make the machine exactly what I'm looking for. I don't need crazy amounts of memory or HD space just something like this would last me for a LONG time.
I'm so glad I was wrong. All I have to do is hope that they don't hike the prices of the new iPads like they've done with the iPhones.
Haha man agreed, the new iPhones are so ridiculously overpriced. Honestly a joke.
I was lucky to get a deal on my iPhone 7 for $60 and no contract through a friend who works for a carrier. So seeing the latest iPhones starting at $1000 is absolute madness.
If everyone could just boycott buying brand new iPhones for 3 measly months we could take the power back and force them sell for a fair market price.
But I sense these prices will bite them in the ass in the long run. You have new customers everyday, kids are always being born, so the teenagers getting their first phone will be hesitant with these dumb prices from Apple. So they buy something else and never get into the Apple ecosystem, thus setting themselves up as a lifelong customer with another brand.
I do like apple products but their prices aren't competitive enough for me to be loyal, iPhone is the only apple product I own. And that's on thin ice with the dumb **** they're doing with the iPhone. I don't like face ID, I want my home button. Headphone jack was annoying but not a huge deal (still annoying though) and the costs are just laughable.
Even more of an issue for Apple is that while "we" on this forum only represent a tiny proportion of Apple users, we are more likely to be the guys and girls that our friends and family come to for computing advice. My first computer was an Apple Plus. All my family bought PCs at first. Then slowly they all transitioned to Apple on my recommendation. And what do I recommend today? Well, now I have no idea what to recommend. I don't feel like Apple gives Macs the love it used to. Apple has to be careful that it doesn't begin a 10-year transition away from macOS to Windows simply because the nerds have been alienated.
Totally agree with this. Started using Windows 10 heavily for work using boot camp on my MBP and enjoy it a lot! With an egpu I’m playing games again and can still boost FCP. I’m not leaving the ecosystem but give me a Mac Mini with TB3 and some decent specs in line with a MBP and I will have a great PC/Mac solution.
Well, repeating unfounded arguments doesn't make them more valid, does it ?
There always seems to be one tireless, mass-posting defender of all things Apple in every main page discussion thread - are you guys taking turns to spread the workload, and do you have a party line toeing award or something ?
On the other hand, is $1000 an insane price for a device almost half of people use for more than five hours every day? And if the lifecycle for a smartphone is three years, that’s less than a dollar a day for the most used item in people’s lives except for a house and clothes (and you don’t wear the same clothes every day). Your phone bill probably costs at least twice that with far less outrage, in spite of the fact that cellular usage is a fraction of what one does with a smartphone. I really wouldn’t use your lucky $60 expenditure as a standard against which to judge prices.
And on the other hand, people born today will grow up in a world where mobile tech is even more integral to their lives, and will be accustomed to the cost of essentials. Sometimes prices creep up with additional goodies over time, like car models, and sometimes they creep down as component prices drop, like VCRs or BluRay players. If prices to come down, it’ll be as a category, not as a brand.
And on the other hand, this oft repeated idea than Apple is outlandishly more expensive than others is a yawn. You’re maybe paying a $200-$300 premium (30¢/day) for iOS, the best integration into a computing ecosystem there is, the most supported mobile OS there is, and the only tech company to which the idea of your data privacy isn’t a joke. That’s one of the easier tech decisions I’ve ever made regardless of FaceID, which I also don’t care about one way or another.
Just some different perspectives. Your opinion is just an opinion too.
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It is Apple, unfortunately they will hike the prices on the new iPad Pros and Macs. They raised the price of the 2017 iPPs by $50 a few months in.
I have the money for new Apple tech, but for iDevices, not paying full price again after my experiences.
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Well, repeating unfounded arguments doesn't make them more valid, does it ?
There always seems to be one tireless, mass-posting defender of all things Apple in every main page discussion thread - are you guys taking turns to spread the workload, and do you have a party line toeing award or something ?
They must get paid by the word . . .
Out of sheer curiosity, I priced out a Dell XPS tower and for around $2300, you can get a VERY well equipped computer, with 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD, AND 4 expansion slots. Dell charges $750 for a 2TB SSD, Apple charges $1,400... WHY?? It's the same thing! For 32GB of RAM Dell charges $200... Apple charges $600; is the more and more degraded MacOS ecosphere worth triple? NO.
A minor jump in price I can live with but I have visions of them raising the Pro models to $1200 - $1300 minimum. If they did something like that, I'd be out. It would be the last reason I need to ditch the Apple ecosystem all together.
I understand. If they did that, I’d wait until retailers mark them down drastically, which is something I will do anyway since I spent that much on the 2017 and sadly no longer have it.
If Procreate was cross platform, I’d try a Surface Pro.