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Apple's Mac Mini is Now Three Years Old, No Refresh Date in Sight

The way I see it this is just Apple forgetting more and more of the lessons of Steve Jobs as time goes on...

One of the first things that happened when Jobs returned to Apple was that he realized that Apple was completely unfocused with a huge number of products and not anywhere near enough engineers to support them properly. What did he do? He killed just about all of them and focused everyone in the computer division on just four products, two desktops and two laptops, one for consumers and one for pros. Once these were in order he slowly allowed Apple to start expanding it's product range, but would still kill products when they started competing with each other.

Seriously, Apple really needs to start trimming down it's line of products or ramp up it's engineering workforce significantly. If I had to pick the products that they kill, it would be the Macbook Air, Mac Mini and the iPhones between the SE and X.

Sooner or later Apple is going to have burned trough all of the good Jobs set up before his death and need new leadership with an actual vision. Cook is a manager, not a leader, in heart and soul originally brought on to handle supply chain, which he did and continues to do brilliantly. However his non-confrontational management style where no feathers are to be ruffled by either in-company competition or harsh truths being discussed (this is something I've heard from someone who used to work at Apple up until fairly recently) is eventually going to drive the company to ruin.
 
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SarcasticJoe said:
The way I see it this is just Apple forgetting more and more of the lessons of Steve Jobs as time goes on...

Sooner or later Apple is going to have burned trough all of the good Jobs set up before his death and need new leadership with an actual vision. Cook is a manager, not a leader, in heart and soul originally brought on to handle supply chain, which he did and continues to do brilliantly. However his non-confrontational management style where no feathers are to be ruffled by either in-company competition or harsh truths being discussed (this is something I've heard from someone who used to work at Apple up until fairly recently) is eventually going to drive the company to ruin.
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Apple needs someone like Elon Musk at the helm.
 
I was one of the first people to jump into buying the original Mac mini in 2005, and currently own the best Mac mini generation ever (2012, with quad-core i7). So it saddens me to see the line-up languishing for so long.

And this has become really problematic for me because my 5-year old mini recently went belly up for a while. I've since been able to fix it back to working order, but it suddenly dawned on me that I may need a new Mac soon.

Originally, I had planned to move to a new Mac mini when it would come out by this year or next. But seeing that Apple wasn't going to do anything about refreshing it in the near future, I had to opt for an iMac instead.

And I think... this was Apple's plan all along. drag it out so long that people who really need to get a new one at this point would spend a lot more, be it something like a MacBook Pro or an iMac. I should be mad, but I'm too fed up and tired at this point. Oh well. The 4K display should be nice...
 
I'm personally fed up with what Apple sells as computers. I went hackintosh and built a system that's on the level, if not slightly above an iMac, and cost me 600-700 euros, otherwise it would cost me 1600 at least. Sure it's not as elegant, but damn I saved a lot. Also I think I'm not far off saying marketing has influenced Apple too much. They focus on making Macs look pretty and pricey but utter useless, at least the laptop lines are. It's all luxury instead of the customers' needs.
 
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A new Mac Mini with iMac-like specs would be a quick win on the desktop that might well be enough to tide over many people while they wait for the new Mac Pro.
 
Naaaaak said:
They have to play catch-up with almost everything Desktop/Laptop.

Do you think the MacBook Air was their last "market defining" product? Sure, they pushed features like "thin" and Retina displays (sort of, the MacBook Air still doesn't have it, ironically). But the last product that really put them in the driver's seat was the MacBook Air, I think.
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Should read 2005-2012. The 2014 release was an underpowered insult to Mac users.
 
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Marx55 said:
Apple said the Mac mini was in the works on April 2017:

▪ Near the end, John Paczkowski had the presence of mind to ask about the Mac Mini, which hadn’t been mentioned at all until that point. Schiller: “On that I’ll say the Mac Mini is an important product in our lineup and we weren’t bringing it up because it’s more of a mix of consumer with some pro use. … The Mac Mini remains a product in our lineup, but nothing more to say about it today.”

Source:
The Mac Pro Lives
https://daringfireball.net/2017/04/the_mac_pro_lives
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That does not say anything about a Mac mini being "in the works". All it says is that Apple isn't currently ready to publicly state their plans. Those plans can be anything from discontinuing the mini to just keeping it as is for the foreseeable future. The ".. remains a product in our line-up, but nothing more to say.." says it all.
 
I’ve seen Apple do this many times before. They don’t update a product for years, wait until sales fall to a negligible level then quietly discontinue it.
 
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Already moved from Mac Pro's to ThinkCentre P910's for the processing side of things, so may as well go from Mini's to something else for the front of house stuff.
 
playtech1 said:
A new Mac Mini with iMac-like specs would be a quick win on the desktop that might well be enough to tide over many people while they wait for the new Mac Pro.
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Apple don't want to tide you over. They want to screw you over, and make you buy an iMac and part with more cash.
 
4jasontv said:
The death of my 27" iMac GPU convinced me that I want nothing to do with all-in-ones anymore. I was going to buy a Mac mini until I noticed my old iMac was much faster than a "new" mini. Instead I built a PC. That led me to getting a Surface Pro to replace my MacBook Pro when it died and I couldn't get a magsafe Mac. When my iPhone bent I was told it was my fault, and at that point there was really no reason to stay with Apple.

For productivity I don't like windows, but Apple forced my hand. I had to buy when I did and they had no products that competed on performance or price. I want to switch back to Apple. I want to get an iPhone X, but right now I am in the market for a 7" tablet and well...

I want to switch back. Apple has a much better system, but it's like Steve said. It's easy to add features, but it's really hard to take them away. Forcing me to Android/Windows has made me rely on features that Apple just doesn't offer. I would buy it today if they did. Forget my current hardware investments. Take my money. Apple just doesn't have any products right now that do what I need.
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Very similar to my route. White iMac with upgraded GPU self-destructs. A widespread problem and one would think it was a mistake they'd learn from, but Apple's response is instead to build more machines with overheating issues and soldered components that makes them impossible to mend or upgrade.
 
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The Mini X
[doublepost=1508240176][/doublepost]While I want to finally get a mini. People should be careful what they wish for, Apple has been pretty crummy with Hardware releases of late, I either wouldn't expect much or expect them to do something or remove needed ports that will "break" the things people love about the mini.

With that said, I think a new mini will quietly come out at the end of the year when the MacPro and HomePod is released.
 
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This is the part of Apple that is just disgusting. Most computer makers will refresh the specs each year, even if they make no other changes. Apple prefers to just keep milking their customers for higher profits rather than phoning in a minimal effort to keep their products current. They spend more energy on Carpool Karaoke and the latest Hip Hop release than just upgrading a processor in their product line. Because no other companies can sell MacOS hardware, their customers get screwed. Sadly, the Mac Mini will probably be my last Mac for the foreseeable future. Its been reduced now to just being a place to backup my wife's iPhone and iPad, as I'm moved all my real workload to a Surface Pro. You want to know why my signature line has gone from all Apple to nearly no Apple? Its this lack of attention to products. But wait, they have a really cool headquarters spaceship building now. I hope they enjoy it, as they have definitely not made their Mac customers a priority for many years.
 
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The Mac Mini had been dead and buried a long time ago, just like the Mac Pro.

What's criminal is that Apple have the cheek to continue charging those ridiculous prices for 3 year-old hardware.

Who in their right mind is buying the Mac Mini at those prices?
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jim_at_macrumors said:
FWIW, about a month ago, Apple sent me a link to a marketing survey that was all about the Mac Mini (presumably driven by my ownership of one). So they haven’t *completely* forgotten about it...
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What did they ask about the Mac Mini?

Did you tell them it's been placed in the local museum? I kid :p
 
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Mr. Luigi said:
2012 Mac Mini owner here. I bought a Samsung 1TB T3 External SSD and use it as my boot drive.
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I am doing the same thing on a 2012 quad i7 2.6ghz 16gb Mini and it works really well. I still have Mountain Lion on the internal 256gb SSD for my expensive legacy software. But I primarily boot into Sierra from the Samsung T3 external drive. This machine is dedicated to video/audio editing with Final Cut Pro X and Logic Pro X. The main weakness is the HD4000 graphics chip though.

I considered getting the top spec 2014 Mini but the top 2012 quad is about 50% faster, and that makes a big difference rendering video.
 
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bgraham said:
Apple needs to kill off these relics and simplify its product lines.

Kill of the Mac Mini, iPad Mini, MacBook Air, iPhone 6s, Apple TV (non-4K) and the iPod touch along with a bunch of cables and accessories no one ever buys (in-ear Apple earphones that have existed for donkeys, 30-pin cables etc.)
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Yes kill off options so us consumers have less to choose from.

Not everyone has a 4k tv nor wants one. Just because you don't purchase these items, doesn't mean they should be discontinued.

Sounds like you should run your own company.
 
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Really a shame that Apple is allowing these great products and the MacPro to wither on the vine so long. Hope they get their act together.
 
I see a couple of scenarios:

1) Generally when an Apple product goes neglected this long, it's for the chop. It's a reasonably priced, low volume and probably low margin Mac so they're not going to be particularly interested in investing R&D into it.

2) However sometimes they do have a long gap when they're trying something new. Perhaps the first ARM based Mac, with a more locked-down system (e.g. Mac App Store only, no downloaded applications) so that the money they don't make from the tight margin is replaced with app store revenue.
 
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