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Mac Mini End Of Life?
- Thread starter Dont Hurt Me
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Not coming out until June...
I think for maybe next year's Mini, depends on what the MacBooks have...
How about a Mac Medium in addition to the Mac Mini? It should be easily opened to add or replace lower cost desktop hardware, and it would fill the void in the line-up. I am sick and tired of hearing all those "It will cannibalize iMac sales". So what? Apple still makes a sale, that it might not have made, with a profit margin as high as the iMac. Might be an incentive for more "Switchers".
Let the flaming commence!
Let the flaming commence!
I'm giving the mini to my dad so he can pack it with him up to Maine in the summer. All he needs is to keep a display up there and the mini is portable. That way he isn't trying to travel with his 20" iMac in tow from Florida all the way to way up north!
Of course it will cannibalize iMac sales... would-be xMac buyers have been without an offering that is right for them for more than the average life-cycle of a computer... ergo, we've all been funneled into one of the other product segments, unhappily, I might add. I very quickly outgrew my iMac and will never buy a unit with a screen for a long time. My next computer will be a MacMini which will do what I want for 2 years (three if I'm lucky) before it will have to be replaced.
What will it take for Apple to realize that advanced users and prosumers exist? The iMac (AIO) is not the answer for us, the MacMini is too weak, and the Mac Pro is too much. Apple needs a good solid desktop-class unit, using desktop CPUs, 3.5" HDDs, DDR2/3 RAM (not SODIMMs), and a replacable graphics card. This will satisfy 95% of the whiners out there.
-Clive
i don't even know why they made the mac mini to begin with. the idea was great but if most people want a mac, they want a mac with all the mac products to go with it.
eh..
eh..
i almost got a mac mini but i didn't want to use the old dell screen i had, i also wanted a mac keyboard and mouse.
i know a lot of people that wanted the mac mini but they also wanted a mac screen to go along with it.
i guess it doesn't make sense and the mac mini wasn't meant for that but, i just figured it wouldn't last that long.
When you buy a Mac Pro you still have to buy an Apple Display if you want one... you can use any DVI or VGA monitor (including Apple Displays) with the Mac mini (as long as it does not exceed 1920x1200 resolution) and any usb mouse and keyboard. If you really want to spend the ridiculous price a lacking apple keyboard, that is totally feasible, apple sells them, and the mighty mouse too (scrollball is awesome).
I would never buy an Apple display anyways, Dell UltraSharp monitors are far better pieces of LCD and usually have more features including flash memory card readers and larger USB hubs.
Back "in the day" I was thinking of playing around with some software development. I was looking at buying Visual Studio, but then the Mini came along. A Unix-like OS that I didn't have to faf about trying to get working (unlike Linux) and a full development environment all for much less than Visual Studio would cost.
Oh - and they throw in the computer too.
I'm expecting a lot of people who want to dabble in iPhone development picking up the Mini over the next few months...
Oh - and they throw in the computer too.
I'm expecting a lot of people who want to dabble in iPhone development picking up the Mini over the next few months...
Generally I agree with most of your posts on this issue, but I think this xMac "will cannibalize iMac sales" argument is sometimes blown out of proportion. For eg. I'd definitely buy a so-called xMac. But out of what Apple currently offer, instead of buying an iMac (unless Apple offer me a matt screen option with the Penryn update) I'll be buying a Mini as soon as it's updated &, regrettably enough, a PC for gaming, something that an xMac would've allowed me to pass on. I think a significant number of people may be doing likewise.
Also, we know the PC market is a cut-throat business with very tight profit margins. So when PC manufacturers like HP, Sony, etc, started offering AIOs, presumably they've done the market-research that confirms that, rather than just cannibalizing their other PCs sales (for eg. mid-towers), there's a type of computer user who really wants an AIO & that previously they've been losing sales to the iMac (particularly since Macs now also run Windows).
I think the opposite may apply equally so. If a potential switcher can't buy a Mac that'll make use of existing peripherals & also be powerful enough to run his PC software, he won't necessarily choose an iMac (or the Mini in this case), he'll just buy another PC. So yes, some cannibalization of iMac sales would occur with the release of an xMac, but I think that would be offset by a significant increase in sales from consumers who currently find neither the iMac nor Mini suitable.
Unless, of course, you're planning to hook it up to your LCD TV and run it as a media centre, a capacity in which my Mini operates most capably.
I would never, ever have dreamed of installing a larger box in our living room, and our Mini has delivered fantastic results replacing our stereo, DVD player and VCR, with only the addition of a TV tuner and a pair of Harmon Kardon Soundsticks.
Of course, if Apple really wanted to find some way of spending that $18bn it has lying around, I'd suggest buying out Elgato and integrating EyeTV into Front Row, but Apple doesn't want you to get your media over the air, it wants you to get it from iTunes ...
Cheers!
Jim
best summed up in " it's better to have an apple product cannibalized by an other apple product than to have it cannibalized by a non-apple product"
Amen, brother. You have got your head on straight. Apple is missing out on a big market by not making an XMac. I will never buy an AIO, nor will I buy a Mini in it's present configuration. Have been waiting a long time for Apple, but so far, no dice. I kind of decided I would just buy the Mac Pro, but then I told myself, NO way. At this rate, I will continue using my old Mac towers part-time and my shiny new Windows computers full time until Apple makes what I want.
People have been waiting for a "Mac middle" for a while (better part of a decade), whatever you wanna call it headless mac desktop with expandability but not quite a Mac Pro... I don't think its going to happen. Apple might penetrate a larger share of the PC market, but only if they get the price point much lower, which isn't going to happen, it's Apple. I will probably shell out for a Mac Pro pretty soon, as will most other people who really need the expandability.
the problem is that with the entry-expandable mac being so expensive it totally kills the expansion hardware market for the mac pro as well
and being at the total mercy of apple in regards to drivers ... ask the mac pro/imac users with their ati cards if they are happy with their drivers
just recently i throw together a new PC for my brother and *grasp* everything worked flawlessly despite pretty much every part was from another supplier
edit: and the gt8800 not working in old mac pro was pretty much ridiculous ...
Yeah - Steve Jobs doesn't like or agree with user serviceable parts and large amounts of cables. That's why they've been doing all in one computers for so long and keeping only the very upper end of their product line(s) user upgradeable.
The Mac Mini is a good introductory computer for people new to macs, but i think that so many more people will go for a MacBook if they have the money - looking back on it i probably should have gotten a MacBook.
I really would not say (better part of a decade) because I feel that the Mac G5 tower was the last of the progression of consumer towers starting with the Blue and White G3, the G4 towers and finally G5 towers. In reality, I would call the G5 quad core tower more of a professional line. Back in the day, some of those towers were priced just a little more than $1000.
A mini could be just a little larger with easy access to it's desktop components, and a decent GPU, and it would sell like crazy.
Time Capsule uses the "new form factor" already used by the 
TV, and TC has a 3.5" drive.
MacBook Air doesn't have an optical drive, you can either use an external USB drive or use the drive from another computer, wirelessly.
Wanna bet the next "Mac mini" will be the same form-factor asTV/Time Capsule? Probably even without an optical drive? That would lower the price by 100$ (price of the "MacBook Air" drive, which would work on the new Mac mini) and it would also lower the price/increase the hard drive size since 3.5" drives are bigger/cheaper than 2.5" drives.
Put a real GPU in it (nothing fancy, let's say "able to run Spore and Starcraft 2" at decent/middle settings), make it four memory slots instead of two (and desktop memory too, if possible, SO-DIMMs are too expensive) and Apple would sell thousands of these.
TV, and TC has a 3.5" drive.MacBook Air doesn't have an optical drive, you can either use an external USB drive or use the drive from another computer, wirelessly.
Wanna bet the next "Mac mini" will be the same form-factor as
TV/Time Capsule? Probably even without an optical drive? That would lower the price by 100$ (price of the "MacBook Air" drive, which would work on the new Mac mini) and it would also lower the price/increase the hard drive size since 3.5" drives are bigger/cheaper than 2.5" drives.Put a real GPU in it (nothing fancy, let's say "able to run Spore and Starcraft 2" at decent/middle settings), make it four memory slots instead of two (and desktop memory too, if possible, SO-DIMMs are too expensive) and Apple would sell thousands of these.
Time Capsule uses the "new form factor" already used by the
MacBook Air doesn't have an optical drive, you can either use an external USB drive or use the drive from another computer, wirelessly.
Wanna bet the next "Mac mini" will be the same form-factor as
Put a real GPU in it (nothing fancy, let's say "able to run Spore and Starcraft 2" at decent/middle settings), make it four memory slots instead of two (and desktop memory too, if possible, SO-DIMMs are too expensive) and Apple would sell thousands of these.
The $100 for that external drive includes all the external plastic, the USB to IDE/SATA conversion hardware and USB power stepdowns (for lack of a better term)
If a new Mini came out without an optical drive, it should only shave about $30.00 off for the super drive.
You can't have a thinner PC with a better (i.e. hotter GPU) and keep it silent. So, I think we're going to see a normal integrated Intel GPU.
They could move to SODIMMs like are used in notebooks to save some room, but I think if we get another Mini, it will stay the same height. MAYBE a little shorter, but not AEBS/Time Capsule sized.
I care a lot more about ability to render HD movies than game performance. I bet part of the reason Apple doesn't want to give the Mini reasonable graphics power is that it implies the Mini would be good at being an HTPC, since modern graphics chips have hardware support for VC-1 and H.264. Apple, however, wants to you buy an
TV instead.- Status