Well I have to say I love my Mac Mini. It's my first mac system and I think it's great (with a few flaws of course). I see no reason it should be discontinued and I'm sure it's got a market. If they dropped the price just a little it'd make it more attractive, market-wise.
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Mac Mini End Of Life?
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CWallace
macrumors G5
Because I don't find Apple's hardware mediocre. 🙂
But the simple fact is that Windows is the platform game publishers and GPU / card manufacturers want to support. I can only assume Apple is actively denying hardware and OS support to the GPU and card manufacturers which is why we have never seen any third-party video cards for the Mac Pro like we did for the Power Macintosh.
And because Apple is denying that support to the hardware folks, it makes it very difficult for the software folks to port to OS X. Or the ports to OS X are in many cases not nearly as satisfying because of the conditions those authors are required to work under.
It also doesn't help that most of Apple's hardware is based on mobile parts to maintain the form-factors that make it desirable. Mobile parts trade performance for heat and power management (even if they never leave "the mains" like the iMac or Mac Mini) and they are not designed to be upgraded (as proposals like MXM and such never caught-on).
So until Apple decides to support video game hardware and software more openly, Windows is where it is going to be at. And since Steve Jobs has evidently said on many occasions he is not a fan of video gaming, I don't think Apple is going to make any serious efforts to be more open in the near-future.
Clive At Five
macrumors 65816
And you don't see a problem with this?
Well Steve is not the end-all-say-all of what real people use their computers for. Video games are a HUGE market... both hardware and software. Looking at seventh-gen consoles, over 40 million have been sold to date... That's 40 million people who consider gaming enough of a hobby/priority in their lives to spend their money on a system to be able to do it. Gaming is in no way a niche. And that number doesn't reflect the number of PC gamers out there, which undoutly shadows all those numbers. World of Warcraft alone has 10 Million subscribers. StarCraft is practically South Korea's national sport (no joke... hardware manufacturers pay huge money for champions to dawn company logos on their boxes). And, of course, the example I've used 20 times already: the kids' game, The Sims 2.
Isn't it embarrassing for Steve that one of his Macs isn't able to run a kids game a full settings? I would be embarrassed!
Steve needs to realize that gaming is a HUGE market, whether he finds it personally relevant or not.
-Clive
emotion
macrumors 68040
...on a console. (Where games should be imo).
It would require Apple to invest too much to get behind gaming in a realistic way. It's understandable why they don't.
gkarris
macrumors G3
According to this guy's post, Taiwan Mini supplies are dwindling and it supposedly means something...
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/4853019/
😕
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/4853019/
😕
Lord Sam
macrumors regular
gkarris
macrumors G3
CWallace
macrumors G5
Would I like to see more options? Yes.
But I also understand I went into this with "eyes wide open". The iMac - in any form - has never had a powerhouse GPU nor has it ever been able to be upgraded. Same with the iBook/PowerBook/MacBook/MacBook Pro and the Mac Mini.
And while the Power Macintosh had better standard GPUs and there were some third-party options, they were never to the level of a Windows PC. And the Mac Pro hasn't had third-party options since it launched years ago.
So I had no illusions that if I bought a Macintosh that it would be a machine that was optimized for gaming, period, much less "high-end gaming" with SLI configurations and 500-watt video cards.
But he seems to feel he wields that power for at least what real people use their Macintoshes for...
Yup. And Steve apparently feels it's a market he'd rather not be involved in. And in a way, I can understand him.
The OS X / Mac / Apple philosophy is "power wrapped in simplicity and elegance".
If Apple was going to be real serious about being a "player" in the gaming market, the product life-cycles need to shrink from 12-24 months to 6. That is going to drive up costs, even if you can continue to leverage the same form factor for 12-24 months. And that form factor needs to become...cruder...to allow for the rise in thermal and power needs to drive those fancier cards. You need larger PSUs that generate more heat. And the GPUs and VRAM generate more heat. So you need more slots with more fans which means more noise.
All that being said, I do understand where you are coming from. And I do think that Apple should offer a more complete line of GPUs for the Power Mac now and support both BTO and third-party upgrades. I believe it would increase the value of the Mac Pro in the eyes of many people and likely would have convinced me to buy it instead of the 24" 2.4GHz iMac.
Does that make sense to you? It makes about as much sense as a new VP of Chevrolet deciding to cancel the Corvette because "I'm not a fan of sports cars". Besides which, we here in the Mini discussion aren't asking for the Mini to have 8800GT-level graphics. We want a good, solid discrete mobile graphics chipset. It doesn't have to be the best available, go ahead and reserve that for the top-end Macbook Pro, but it should be contemporary.
Clive At Five
macrumors 65816
Nay, I disagree. Consoles are too susceptable to franchise buy-outs. As a Wii owner, I will never be able to play GTA 4 or Halo 3. But you can be certain they will appear on PC a year after release.
The PC is the most versatile gaming machine.
The Mac could be too if Apple would encourage developers and support the hardware... This is nearly a 10 billion dollar business... and growing.
Apple can, at the very least, cut a piece of the pie by licensing hardware and building a more gamer-friendly mac.
-Clive
TheScavenger
macrumors 6502
Well said! This is exactly the reason why I just sold my Apple notebook to build a Windows based PC.
Josh
Clive At Five
macrumors 65816
Which isn't a computer? 😕😕😕
If it wasn't for Windows suckage, I'd use a PC...
Honestly, there is no good reason anyone should have to pick either a great OS or great hardware.
None of that has to change...
No. Not true. CPU, except in the most extreme cases, has little to do with gaming performance when you have a decent video card. For my friend who has dual 8800GTs in SLI, his Athalon 6400 is the bottleneck. For even heavy gamers, just a decent video card will do the trick for a year... which is where the 3rd party card-makers come into play.
And as for "cruder designs," tell me what, exactly, your opinion is of the Mac Pro. Is it crude as you say? I happen to disagree. Actually, I find the inside of the Mac Pro to be just as clean and neat as the outside. I would expect no less of a "Mac Pro Mini." Everything would have its place, and there would be a slot for a GPU, and a drive bay for an extra HDD. Who ever said an xMac would be an ugly beast? I think the Cube is Apple's most beautiful computer to date, and it had an upgradable GPU. So where's the disconnect here?
If you believe in promoting 3rd party developers and hardware-makers, then why not do so vocally. Apple knows they wouldn't be here without them... yet they often like to shun them. Why? I don't know.
I have a feeling Apple is going to learn the hard way that they can't turn their backs on their developers...
-Clive
Intel Discontinuing Merom Chips
Unless I'm mistaken, it looks like Intel won't be shipping the processors from the Mini as of late July.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/intel-Merom-processors,news-27330.html
Hopefully we won't be forced to wait that long for an update to the Mini and hopefully Apple wasn't stockpiling those chips in some warehouse so they could sell the same Mini for years to come.
Unless I'm mistaken, it looks like Intel won't be shipping the processors from the Mini as of late July.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/intel-Merom-processors,news-27330.html
Hopefully we won't be forced to wait that long for an update to the Mini and hopefully Apple wasn't stockpiling those chips in some warehouse so they could sell the same Mini for years to come.
Clive At Five
macrumors 65816
Here's my stab at a Jeff Foxworthy...
"If your computer so old, it has a processor that's being discontinued, you *might* want to think about upgrading it."
Hmm... Not funny. And neither is the situation. APPLE, WHY DO YOU HATE THE MINI?!?!?!
-Clive
I like them 🙂
Assuming the smallest is like a SFF ( Shuttle XPC for instance ), allows a decent dual core setup, 4Gb and a fast graphics card and I'd buy one instantly.
What makes you think that games "should be on a console"? Fact of the matter is that consoles are not suitable for all types of gaming. And fact of the matter is that gaming on computers is still HUGE.
Not really. Decent vid-cards combined with proper dialogue with the developers is more or less the only things that are needed.
Um, no. this might come as a shock, but most people who game on their computers do not constantly upgrade their machines. Maybe the top 5% does, but that still leaves about 95% of gamers who are reasonable on their upgrade-cycles.
Back when I still spent lots of time gaming, I upgraded my computer maybe once in 2 years.
We are not talking about designing a "gamer-mac", we are talking about a machine that is not more or less hostile to gaming. That means something like decent vid-card and developer-connections.
Clive At Five
macrumors 65816
Ding ding ding ding ding ding, we have a winner, Frank!
I don't think I've read a single pro-xMac argument that has suggested (or requested) that it be a gaming machine, just something that will game when asked to... without breaking the bank, as per the $2799 Mac Pro.
Right on about the other stuff too. Out of all of my friends who are still gamers, only one goes crazy with the upgrades. The rest of us "moderate-core" gamers only upgrade every couple years.
Well said, friend, well said.
-Clive
part of that may have to do with the lack of EFI on pc's.
With vista sp1 adding that we may see a lot more pc systems with efi and that may end up have efi being on a lot more video cards.
I am really indecided on whether to get a mini. This would be my first mac, I really like them. Should I get one or hang on for a few months? Thanks in advance!
Check out MacRumors Buyer's Guide for some good advice. Currently 177 days since last upgrade, the average being 188. I think buy now only if you need to.
I think that the day the mini dies couldn't come sooner. Apple can do much better than that in the cheap home entertainment field. Maybe merge the mini and theTV. That might work. Well, maybe.
I know this gets redundant, but why do so many want the Mini to die? Many of us like the form factor and use it as their main computer, not home entertainment. In my scenario it's half the price of an iMac, period. I have my own keyboard, display and mouse...could it be better? sure. Am I waiting because I believe they will upgrade the graphics to at least the x3100 and a setup that will accept up to 4gb ram? yes. I'd love it to have a BTO with the same card as the iMac, but I won't hold my breath.
stop wishing for it to be killed already!
saltyzoo
macrumors 65816
I think a lot of people wish it would die to make room for it's replacement. I think.
Lord Sam
macrumors regular
That's why I want it to be discontinued. Hopefully, it is replaced by something fantastic.
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