This is a Mini topic!
Hey! Forget about Mac Pro or other big boxes. This all about the MINI!
Hey! Forget about Mac Pro or other big boxes. This all about the MINI!
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Mac Mini End Of Life?
- Thread starter Dont Hurt Me
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But that's not what he said. What he said was "One computer, one box."
Neither does the Mac Pro. This box has six PCIe slots versus the Mac Pro's four. It supports more graphics cards than the MP does.
That depends on the definition of "regular consumer." The point is that the Mac Pro is not the fastest single computer on the planet.
Then your definition of "actual computer" (or "single computer") is, as I said, extremely restricted.
Sorry, was there something new to say about the mini?
I love the Mac Minis, so I really hope they do update them. I'm not as fussy about it having a good graphics card, a better integrated one perhaps, NVidia and ATI both do better integrated graphics cards don't they? And there was the rumour that Apple may move away from Intel chipsets which could mean different motherboards I think? I'm not 100% in that realm of hardware.
So a thinner one with decent spec is fine for what I'd like to see in it, as the size is the main thing that appealed to me (and which might cause me to get one as my G3 iMac is really showing its age for family use), I would only really want it for light-use such as web-browsing, e-mail, and maybe things like iWork apps (which should be bundled with it instead of iLife since the Mac Minis don't really run iLife that great anyway, iWork is likely more useful for the target audience anyway).
I do however agree that a mid-range tower or some other type of computer would be a better offering, since the low-end MacPro is basically £1,628 (since you really need to get AppleCare just in-case). Not everyone wants an iMac, especially in the PC crowd who already have monitors and other peripherals they need. This was one of the hooks for the mini in the first-place, and is fine for light office/home users, but people on a budget looking to replace their PC for more serious use need a cheap alternative to the MacPro that lets them use existing peripherals. This would be good for large companies which will already have monitors/keyboard/mouse, they just want to swap out the old towers and get set-up.
So a thinner one with decent spec is fine for what I'd like to see in it, as the size is the main thing that appealed to me (and which might cause me to get one as my G3 iMac is really showing its age for family use), I would only really want it for light-use such as web-browsing, e-mail, and maybe things like iWork apps (which should be bundled with it instead of iLife since the Mac Minis don't really run iLife that great anyway, iWork is likely more useful for the target audience anyway).
I do however agree that a mid-range tower or some other type of computer would be a better offering, since the low-end MacPro is basically £1,628 (since you really need to get AppleCare just in-case). Not everyone wants an iMac, especially in the PC crowd who already have monitors and other peripherals they need. This was one of the hooks for the mini in the first-place, and is fine for light office/home users, but people on a budget looking to replace their PC for more serious use need a cheap alternative to the MacPro that lets them use existing peripherals. This would be good for large companies which will already have monitors/keyboard/mouse, they just want to swap out the old towers and get set-up.
I misunderstood his point, but I get it now. So it's not "Mac OS 1-9 was inferior to Windows", but it's "post OS X Apples popularity has grown enough that many people view Mac OS as easy to use, etc." So it's more of 'when' and not 'what'. Is that right?
I don't know how people perceive it, but from a technical point of view, as sucky as Windows 95 was, Mac OS 9 was indeed very "inferior" (except for the pretty interface). And I'm sure that the move to unix-ish OSX has had at least some market effect. I've been using Apple computers since the IIe, but never bothered to do much programming on them until OSX because, well, it sucked big time. And I'm not that desperate, there are other jobs.
You're wrong. Take a look at http://www.123macmini.com/ to convince you.
The sheer number of posts in this thread should otherwise convince you as well of the interest people have in the Mini. There is no doubts that that little machine is arousing passions, in a way or another. That's why we're all waiting eagerly for an update!
He wasn't talking about the mini. We were having a discussion about another computer.
Keeping it alive. I like the mini but would take a consumer version of the desktop computer...
OS 9 was pretty much Plug & Play. Case in point, USB just worked. USB does not work well even on Windows 98. An example: a friend of mine plugged his new 128MB USB Thumb drive into my Blue & White G3 tower and it mounted right away. It would not mount on my Compaq running Windows 98 nor would it mount on his laptop running Windows 98. He was disappointed.
Right now I run Windows XP on 2 Compaq desktops and one laptop. I just finished building a tower, and I installed Windows XP Professional on it as well as Leopard.
So, I am not a Windows basher. In fact, I like Windows and also OSX.
You mention one specific hardware problem that, yes, some specific configurations of Win 98 on certain hardware did have. I agree that Apple's approach of tightly controlling the hardware makes them more successful at making everything "just work" more often. That's beside the point. Mac OS 9 is far inferior to 95, if for no other reason than the lack of multitasking. And don't pretend it wasn't buggy too.
I had OS9 running on several Mac towers, and I never noticed any bugs, at least for what I was doing. Your statement that OS9 was far inferior to Windows 95 sounds like flame baiting. Could you be more specific?
At that time, neither Win95 or OS 9 were truly multitasking.... That was left to IBM's OS/2. At that time OS/2, IMO, was the superior OS. Object Oriented, multitasking, first to have built in integration with the internet. Ran Windows 3.1 and DOS better than Windows did..... Ahh, the good old days....
But it wouldn't run on a Mini, so it never achieved the global domination it should have....
I love this thread... 1900+ on the mini. Cool.
I know this has been said but my "wants" for the next mini are simple.
When the MacBook is updated, update the mini with exactly the same processor and graphics capability. Add a 3.5" drive instead of the laptop drive, add as many Firewire and USB ports as possible (since it will be taller with the 3.5 drive in there), and a user-removable door for access to the memory banks.
That's all I need... and this thermos...
I know this has been said but my "wants" for the next mini are simple.
When the MacBook is updated, update the mini with exactly the same processor and graphics capability. Add a 3.5" drive instead of the laptop drive, add as many Firewire and USB ports as possible (since it will be taller with the 3.5 drive in there), and a user-removable door for access to the memory banks.
That's all I need... and this thermos...
It's funny that you mention thumb drives not working because it's totally true. I use XP and Linux and all the windows vista fan boys are always bashing Linux because of it's driver and hardware support. I have never had a wireless, thumb drive, or printer problem with Linux but when I tried using an SD photo card on my girlfriends mom's computer with Vista, it didn't work at all.
Just to keep this on topic, I just got a job and have been wanting to get another computer that I can use for music, video and even maybe a web and postgresql server for GIS purposes. The mac mini is what I want but they are taking FOREVER to update it. HURRY THE HELL UP. Otherwise I'm probably going to try the hackintosh route and if it doesn't work then I'll just put xp on it and use it as a work computer.
So Apple's marketing group makes all the decisions on what bugs and feature requests are important to their customers and then rank what needs doing based on their information. I highly doubt Apple's marketing group adds much weight to feature requests in forums (even their own) so how about everyone in this thread suggests features through the feedback process?
Those of you who want a mid desktop (me me me!!!!) could suggest it in both the powermac and mac mini feedback forms etc. If everyone starts requesting very similar features through a monitored feedback process maybe something will happen.
Give it a go: http://www.apple.com/feedback/
Those of you who want a mid desktop (me me me!!!!) could suggest it in both the powermac and mac mini feedback forms etc. If everyone starts requesting very similar features through a monitored feedback process maybe something will happen.
Give it a go: http://www.apple.com/feedback/
And on Apple's end, if they read it, they'll be saying "if we do nothing, maybe he'll buy a MacBook Pro."
This is why the mini has such poor specs...to sell more profitable computers. If the mini is updated this fall, it'll probably have the specs the MacBook had last fall.
That is exactly what I have been expecting to happen.
But, I was just thinking, dangerous, I know. What if Apple finally got it that people really do want a mid tower, and they market one for $999. Then they drop the low end Mini and sell the top end Mini, in it's present configuration, for $499. Wishful thinking, I know, but, as a stockholder, I feel that a move like this will send the stock upwards. As of now, it would not benefit me for hardware since I got tired of waiting for a mid tower, and I built a Hackintosh.
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