Mac Mini 2018 (re)design: what you would have done differently?

[russell_314]

Obsolete? Power supplies are obsolete? Upgradeable memory is obsolete? USB ports are obsolete?


How is having an external PSU obsolete?

OP mentioned SATA SSD so it's not a matter of spinning drives.

Which is why the OP specifically called out "easy".

Don't care. This medium continues to enjoy wide spread use. Nothing simpler than pulling the card and inserting it into a slot. You may not want it but the fact is the Mini had it and I cannot see any technical reason for removing it.

Which is why I said:

I assume the OP meant more Type-A ports as the TB3 ports can function as USB 3.0 ports.​

Was there a reason you basically said what I said?

To your first questions "Obsolete? Power supplies are obsolete? Upgradeable memory is obsolete? USB ports are obsolete?
I said "I find much of your "mini had that" was removed because it's obsolete.." The key parts you missed here were "much of" and "removed". The power supply wasn't removed, upgradable memory is still present, and some USB Type A ports were replaced with USB Type-C ports. If you want to count the replaced USB Type A ports as removed then yes they are obsolete.

My remark "It's 2019, spinning drives are becoming obsolete. You can get a 2 TB SSD now"was a direct reply to "Two intenal SATA HDs". HD not SSD. You even quoted this in your reply

As to you cannot see any technical reason for removing the SD card slot, you are correct there is no technical reason if you mean the capability didn't exist due to some type of manufacturing limitation. There's no technical reason Apple couldn't have put in a DVD or Blu Ray drive either but it doesn't have one. There's no technical reason that the iPhone doesn't have a headphone jack either. I'm not saying you can't want or wish for these things because it's a "what you would have done differently" thread. I'm just saying from my perspective this is why Apple didn't do it. Apple pisses people off every day when they jump ahead of the tech curve and perhaps do things too soon for some.

The last thing I said "The 2018 mini has six USB ports, four USB C and two older USB A type. To be honest I'm surprised Apple gave it any USB A ports."

You replied

"I assume the OP meant more Type-A ports as the TB3 ports can function as USB 3.0 ports. Was there a reason you basically said what I said?


This is not basically saying the same thing. Perhaps my formatting in the reply confused you. I was posting your statements and replying in parenthesis. Perhaps I should have formatted it better.




Edit on this post: I didn't mean to post the reply from my phone so I corrected it now
[doublepost=1550715858][/doublepost]

Your agreement, or not, is irrelevant to the validity of my argument. If you've got a point state it, otherwise don't make us guess.

I think his post was in reply to your comment "Or they're asking for the return of things that existed on previous Mini's"

I'm pretty sure he's saying that many things on the previous minis like "DVD-ROMs, Core 2 Duo processors, FireWire ports" are obsolete thus why they're not featured on the 2018 model. Perhaps if he quoted that it would have made more sense to you.

 

[pl1984]

To your first questions "Obsolete? Power supplies are obsolete? Upgradeable memory is obsolete? USB ports are obsolete?
I said "I find much of your "mini had that" was removed because it's obsolete.." The key parts you missed here were "much of" and "removed". The power supply wasn't removed, upgradable memory is still present, and some USB Type A ports were replaced with USB Type-C ports. If you want to count the replaced USB Type A ports as removed then yes they are obsolete.

My remark "It's 2019, spinning drives are becoming obsolete. You can get a 2 TB SSD now"was a direct reply to "Two intenal SATA HDs". HD not SSD. You even quoted this in your reply

As to you cannot see any technical reason for removing the SD card slot, you are correct there is no technical reason if you mean the capability didn't exist due to some type of manufacturing limitation. There's no technical reason Apple couldn't have put in a DVD or Blu Ray drive either but it doesn't have one. There's no technical reason that the iPhone doesn't have a headphone jack either. I'm not saying you can't want or wish for these things because it's a "what you would have done differently" thread. I'm just saying from my perspective this is why Apple didn't do it. Apple pisses people off every day when they jump ahead of the tech curve and perhaps do things too soon for some.

The last thing I said "The 2018 mini has six USB ports, four USB C and two older USB A type. To be honest I'm surprised Apple gave it any USB A ports."

You replied

"I assume the OP meant more Type-A ports as the TB3 ports can function as USB 3.0 ports. Was there a reason you basically said what I said?


This is not basically saying the same thing. Perhaps my formatting in the reply confused you. I was posting your statements and replying in parenthesis. Perhaps I should have formatted it better.

This entire reply of your confuses me. It's difficult to follow what it is you're trying to say as you've mixed in comments of mine with yours making it difficult to follow.

Regardless my comments in post #66, were to address this statement of yours:

I think people are wanting something from the mini that it's not.​

I then listed the items requested to show that the Mini has already had each of them thus the statement "...wanting something from the mini that it's not" is clearly incorrect.

Edit on this post: I didn't mean to post the reply from my phone so I corrected it now
[doublepost=1550715858][/doublepost]
I think his post was in reply to your comment "Or they're asking for the return of things that existed on previous Mini's"

I'm pretty sure he's saying that many things on the previous minis like "DVD-ROMs, Core 2 Duo processors, FireWire ports" are obsolete thus why they're not featured on the 2018 model. Perhaps if he quoted that it would have made more sense to you.

I am not going to comment on speculation about his intent.

 

[bigfatipod]

I think the only thing I'd opt to change would be adding back the SD slot. Of course, other features mentioned would be nice, too, but that SD slot is really the bummer to me. I visited the apple store this week and tried the machine and it is quite nice.

 

[Febs]

I wouldn't have removed the SD card slot. Seems like a pretty bone-headed move to me!

 

[Cape Dave]

Then it is not a Mac anymore. Who wants all these extra black boxes hanging around?

I do. The mini tends to run too hot. And the insides are insanely stupidly hard to access for the simplest of things.

 

[pl1984]

I do.

Then it's not a mini use of space is it?

The mini tends to run too hot. And the insides are insanely stupidly hard to access for the simplest of things.

It doesn't have to. They could make it a little bit larger to accommodate additional cooling. Or redesign it so that the parts are easy to access (as they were in the past).

All of these issues are self inflicted by Apple because they'd rather offer form over function. I can't say I blame them because buyers are eating it up.