Mac Mini Released

[rdowns]

Disclaimer: I'm a Linux-user who still has W2K installed for occasional game or two. But Linux is my main OS. Here are my thoughts about the Mac Mini:

Yes, I will buy one. I have been planning to give OS X a shot, and this seems like the best way to do it. FYI: I'm not yet sure that will I keep OS X on this machine in the end. This machine would make a very nice personal server as well! Instead of having a bulky PC-tower, I could have this nice and silent machine sitting on my desk .

There are some downsides to this machine as well. Of course, the amount of RAM is not enough. But more than that: There are simply too few USB-ports! Plug in you mouse and keyboard, and that's it. It would have been ALOT better if they had included a third port (preferrably in the front-panel, so you could plug your iPod in it). My situation could be resolved, since my TFT also acts as a USB-hub (2x USB1 ports, so plugging iPod in there would be painful). But still....

In short: Apple will get a new customer from me (apart from the Mini, I'm planning to buy the 1GB iPod Shuffle). But I'm not planning to switch any time soon. I would merely keep on using the two systems side by side.

There has been a lot of criticism of the Mac mini, much of it, IMO, unfounded. 2 USB ports is a valid criticism of this unit. As for your iPod comment, that's what the Firewire port is for.

Apple doesn't need switchers, they simply need new users. This machine will accomplish that.

 

[BillHarrison]

(I assume of course, you meant to type 256MB)

I see this type of comment so often. There are probaly a hundred variants of it in this site I could find and reply to - so sorry, but yours happened to be the thread I'm reading right now and yours became the "tipping point" in terms of saying something.

There are a lot of uses where this memory works fine. My two kids have a 12" iBook each. They're over a year old, they are the 800MHz models and they have only 256MB.

My kids use these machine ALL the time. They run iChat, Safari (lots of windows and most of them flash sites where they play flash games - e.g. disney, nick jr, barbie, etc.). They run iTunes and they run Mail. They also regularly are running Classic for games (including Starry Night). Oh, and they also use the DVD player a lot.

Their machines run fine. They never crawl.

So, before the barrage of "but those apps are small" or whatever people might say. These apps represent their real world needs. Even though they're kids, I don't think the app mix is rare.

I agree 100%, 256mb of ram is NOT the anchor alot of people are making it out to be. You would be surprised how many people can get by just fine with less, and I know OS X is BETTER on more ram, but come on, how many of your "low end" pc using friends do you know that have 1gb of ram? Give me a break. Most of mine have 128 TOPS, on a 4-5 year old machine.

So this is double the ram, faster processor, etc. Ya, for alot of you its not enough. So open the damn thing up and plug in more!

Bill

 

[fr0ntside]

There has been a lot of criticism of the Mac mini, much of it, IMO, unfounded. 2 USB ports is a valid criticism of this unit. As for your iPod comment, that's what the Firewire port is for.

Agreed on the USB problem. I think he's using an iPod shuffle, however, in which case the extra usb port would be needed (do i stand corrected??)

I still don't understand why Apple doesn't just include PS2 support out of the box. It's not like its a propriatary system or anything.. The protocols are readily accessable. It would make switchers more familiar with the system even if they just included a small adapter.

 

[BakedBeans]

no thats funny

 

[BillHarrison]

There has been a lot of criticism of the Mac mini, much of it, IMO, unfounded. 2 USB ports is a valid criticism of this unit. As for your iPod comment, that's what the Firewire port is for.

Apple doesn't need switchers, they simply need new users. This machine will accomplish that.

Oddly enough, I would have NEVER thought 2 usb ports to be a criticism. Not many "Average PC's" have more than 2 USB ports themselves.

I mean, I would have without thought just purchased a ~ 20$ or less 2.0 hub, and had as many ports as my heart desired. My pc has 2 usb ports, so do the 10 at work.

NEW Pc's may come with a few more, but? I mean, the target market is NOT someone who bought a new pc in the last year!

Get the right mindset people:

Target market = 4-7 year old PC. These suckers have 1-2ghz p4's (or PIII's) at best, 64 to 128mb of ram, 2 usb ports, kb, and mouse, and monitor.

I am tellin ya, I see these in use EVERY day, in the office, people telling me what they have at home, etc and so on. This is NOT an uncommon configuration, and the mac mini kicks the **** out of these as it sits!

 

[3Memos]

How would one go about capturing DV video with the Mac mini? At some point, you'll have to save the DV video to an external firewire drive. Since it has only 1 firewire port, the process seems cumbersome.

You really can't daisy chain a firewire camcorder with a firewire drive and not expect some drop-outs.

 

[Evangelion]

Oddly enough, I would have NEVER thought 2 usb ports to be a criticism. Not many "Average PC's" have more than 2 USB ports themselves.

But on PC's it's not a problem, since keyboards and mouses are quite often PS/2. On the Mini you have to use USB (or use Bluetooth), and the Mini jas just enough ports for keyboard and mouse, no more, no less.

That said, I have a total of... 7 USB-ports on my PC (if I include the ones on my TFT) .

 

[Evangelion]

Agreed on the USB problem. I think he's using an iPod shuffle, however, in which case the extra usb port would be needed (do i stand corrected??)

Exactly. I would use the extra USB-port with iPod Shuffle. And that is not possible, out-of-the-box. Third USB-port would not have incresaed the price in the end, and it would have made the machine SO much more versatile, without having to resort to third-party USB-hubs and the like. By default, the USB-hubs on the Mini are taken by the keyboard and the mouse. A third port would have given the user one free USB-port to use as he sees fit.

 

[fr0ntside]

Exactly. I would use the extra USB-port with iPod Shuffle. And that is not possible, out-of-the-box. Third USB-port would not have incresaed the price in the end, and it would have made the machine SO much more versatile, without having to resort to third-party USB-hubs and the like. By default, the USB-hubs on the Mini are taken by the keyboard and the mouse. A third port would have given the user one free USB-port to use as he sees fit.

I think Apple was over-optimistically hoping you'd buy their keyboard, too, giving you two low-power ports for mice and such (and the Apple TFTs also include a few ports). Many PC keyboards and screens have built-in hubs, however being dependent on this just to plug in your printer/usb router/disk drive/etc etc is a little silly. Apple obviously did this for a reason, but it could be very confusing for some people.

 

[gekko513]

Finally, Griffin demo'd FireWave, a Firewire-connected add-on 5.1 surround sound module, that allows any modern Mac to host a home theatre system.

This would be a nice add-on to the Mac mini if they make the next version of the module the same width and depth as the Mac mini. (They could add a couple of usb ports on it, too.)

 

[dicklacara]

Disclaimer: I'm a Linux-user who still has W2K installed for occasional game or two. But Linux is my main OS. Here are my thoughts about the Mac Mini:

Yes, I will buy one. I have been planning to give OS X a shot, and this seems like the best way to do it. FYI: I'm not yet sure that will I keep OS X on this machine in the end. This machine would make a very nice personal server as well! Instead of having a bulky PC-tower, I could have this nice and silent machine sitting on my desk .

I am very interested in your opinions of OS X from the perspective of a Linux user.

Several years ago I installed Red Hat under VirtualPC on a 333 MHz 512 MB RAM iMac -- pretty slow. Prior to that, I installed YDL on the same iMac. It ran well, but there were no apps. I was not conversent enough in 'Nix, so I did not go further.

I have talked to several "Linux people" that use Macs (G4 Powerbooks) as development machines. They say that:

1) everything is pretty much as expected from a 'Nix standpoint.
2) they really like the availability of desktop apps (and drivers) for OS X
3) they really like the fact that plug-N-play apps/devices work as advertised
4)they really like the fact that most popular development languages & system applications are pre-installed on OS X (Apache, Java, Perl, etc)

In short: Apple will get a new customer from me (apart from the Mini, I'm planning to buy the 1GB iPod Shuffle). But I'm not planning to switch any time soon. I would merely keep on using the two systems side by side.

I expect that both you and Apple will be happy with that decision.

 

[gekko513]

I also vote for adding a third usb port. It would be nice to have it in the front or perhaps close to the front on one of the sides or would that destroy the nice symmetric design?

 

[Platform]

The eMac is still a better deal. For $300 more one gets a 17' monitor, keyboard and mouse.

But only 1.25 and not 1.42Ghz version

 

[Platform]

1. What can it be used for? Anything. I do high-end graphics and sound editing on my 1.25 Ghz G4, and play UT2004. The performance of the Radeon 9200 is a mystery to me, though--people say it's quite good for a PC in this price range, but I can't compare it to what you're used to. Try a game in a store before you buy?

2. Will it run Tiger? Absolutely, in all its glory. Specific Core Image features of high-end video apps are just that: high-end, for high-end machines. You probably won't get those, and won't ever want them either. Tiger supports high-end hardware--but it does not require it. It even runs on a G3 last I heard!

3. It's a different machine from your PC on every level from CPU to OS. So so some things will be--or feel--faster, while others will be slower. And each Mhz on a Mac is faster than each MHz on a PC--because a PowerPC processor gets more DONE in each cycle. Plus the G4 has Velocity Engine (excellent vector processor) which really speeds up certain things. But regardless, you're in for a treat--the OS gets our of your way and lets you do your thing. The learning curve is short, and the rewards are great! And it will get along well with your old PC, so hang onto that for a while and have the best of both worlds: the familiar and the new. One of which will be virus-free

Thank you very much for the reply it helped me a lot and now I will maby get a second computer.

But is there some sort of a USB switch so that the keyboard and mouse can be conected to both the PC and the MAC and it will respond to the machine that is ON or both (my dispaly has both VGA and DVI so i will use the VGA for the PC and the DVI for the MAC)

 

[Platform]

Actually my biggest concern about the mini is the amount of RAM in the thing. People are going to simply purchase the default 256MB, open up the box when it arrives on their doorstep, start up the system, and complain about the speed.
Sorry, but every Mac user I've ever known has told me 512MB as minimum. Whether this is overstating the specs I don't know but they are my Apple geek friends and I am the PC geek (The yang to my yin .) and I trust them when they say 512. Consequently I'm somewhat concerned that Apple and OS X might get a bad rep because the anemic amount of RAM. And its not as if an average user can crack the case and easily upgrade the memory later...hmm

512 I would say that is good but you are saying that your friend say that as a minimum: the ram at apple costs almost the same as the computer it self 1GB that is

 

[Evangelion]

I am very interested in your opinions of OS X from the perspective of a Linux user.

OK, you shall have them .

I have talked to several "Linux people" that use Macs (G4 Powerbooks) as development machines. They say that:

1) everything is pretty much as expected from a 'Nix standpoint.
2) they really like the availability of desktop apps (and drivers) for OS X
3) they really like the fact that plug-N-play apps/devices work as advertised
4)they really like the fact that most popular development languages & system applications are pre-installed on OS X (Apache, Java, Perl, etc)

All of those are more or less true. Let me explain in a bit more detail:

1) Yep. And the fact that X is available on OS X is schweet. Although Apple should switch to X.org instead of relying on Xfree .

2) Perhaps. I haven't had any problems with drivers on Linux (and FYI: I'm using 64bit Gentoo Linux on AMD64. It's not really mainstream architecture, like x86 is). All my devices work flawlessly.

As to desktop-apps.... I have all the apps I need, and they are all free (both as in price and in freedom). And I would miss quite many of them on OS X (Konqueror among others).

3) Plug 'n play.... Linux still has some work to do there. But if there's one thing I have noticed, it's that flaws in Linux are fixed quite fast. First people complained that Linux is hard to install. That has been taken care of. Then they complained that it doesn't have anough eye-candy. That's being taken care of. Then they complained that stuff should just work. And that is being taken care of. True, 100% transparent plug 'n play is on it's way to Linux

4) That doesn't really matter to me, since I'm not a coder. But those are in Linux'es as well.

Now, as to OS X in general. I have used it a bit. Nothing major though. Occasional test in stores, and I tried it on my friends PowerBook. And while I can see why some people think it's the best thing since sliced bread (and alot better than Windows!), it simply didn't hit me with that "wow"-factor. Yes, the eye-candy is nice, but I think 90% of it would end up annoying me in the long run. That said, once I get my Mini, I will try it for a longer period of time. Then we'll really see what I think about it. But right now I just can't see it replacing my Linux/KDE-combo.

And another thing: I like free (as in freedom) software. I like it as an user and as an ideology. I like the idea that instead of having software that is designed to boost some company's bottom line, it's written as the end-user in mind. I like the fact that I cannot be controlled (like Microsoft does) through the software I use. I like the feeling that I get when using free software. It's a feeling of knowing that I'm in control. I don't have to worry about being screwed over by some corporation. And I can modify and distribute the software freely.

Now, Apple isn't as bad as Microsoft. Apple is not a monopoly. All in all, Apple plays nicely along with others (KDE is a good example. KDE-guys wrote KHTML, Apple created Safari around KHTML. Apple got a kick-ass browser, and KDE got tons of improvements to KHTML from Apple. Everyone benefitted). But still, that could change in the future. If someone tried something of the sort with free software, it wouldn't work (Xfree tried it. Users and developers forked their codebase, created a new project, and Xfree practically withered away, while X.org (the new project) flourished).

So, my reasons for using Linux are not just practical, technical or monetary. It's ideological as well. And (unfortunately), that aspect can't really change on the Mac, unless Apple does a 180-degrees reversal on their software-policies (and I don't see it happening). Yes, Apple gives alot back to free/open source projects (KDE, GCC etc. etc.), and for that I salute them.

It seems to me (this is an outside-observation when it comes to Mac-users, it could be 100% wrong ) that Mac-users and Linux-users like me have some things in common. Many of us use the system we use because of ideological reasons. Apple adheres to completely different set of ideology than Microsoft does. How many users use Windows because of ideology instead of mass-mentality or convenience (everything works with Windows, it's already installed on the computer etc. etc.)? Not many. Besides having technological reasons to use Mac or Linux, many of the users have ideological reasons behind it as well. Linux-users like the freedom, Apple-users like the elegance and individuality.

OK, I'm strarting to ramble here, my apologies if my text is getting incoherent .

I expect that both you and Apple will be happy with that decision.

I expect to be quite happy as well .

 

[Platform]

It will definitely NOT handle Doom 3 at its highest settings, but then again, which PC does?

I hear Doom 3 scales well to lower specced HW (with some eye-candy turned off of course). If this is what you wanna buy the Mini for, don't, get a ful spec G5 with a decent Gfx card. You'll only be disappointed in the mini otherwise. The 9200 has only 32Mb Ram which is way too little for any decent games that were recently released...

It says that the minimum spec for DOOM 3 is a G5

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

And 256k of RAM? Come ONNNN!!!! We all know that isnt even enough to run OSX. So right there is ANOTHER an automatic upgrade charge.

The RAM is the only point I agree with. Given the consumer that this is aimed at - Apple should have tried to put in 512mb. For one of the goals is to make this a stepping stone for these new Apple customers make the step to the higher profit margin systems. High cost to upgrade the RAM to 512mb will sour them maybe.

 

[Platform]

If you were to buy one of these would you have Tiger as a free update such as iLife 05 for iMac's since apple has anounced that it will be released within the first half of 2005(that would be nice )

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

...I am not sure what the consequences are for not being able to run CoreImage.

Sort of OT, but Core Images will help applications that are written for it to increase performance on many graphic intensive "filters" for video and images. So that when Adobe finally puts the code into PS, Tiger users will have a faster performance if the video card is Core Image compatible, and using a Core Image filter.

 

[Platform]

Sort of OT, but Core Images will help applications that are written for it to increase performance on many graphic intensive "filters" for video and images. So that when Adobe finally puts the code into PS, Tiger users will have a faster performance if the video card is Core Image compatible, and using a Core Image filter.

So for normal users that don't do really heavy PS and HD video editing (wich i bet that you would not use a Mac mini for anyway) then it has not such a big deal or

 

[Maxiseller]

You windows users...*growls*

You know what, I have used a PC now since I was like, 7. My first machine was a 25Mhz monster running Windows 3.somthing, but PC's all have one thing in common right from that first day I purchased it : They're damn ugly things.

Can you seriously tell me that the new Mac Mini is ugly? No of course not - it's gorgeous, functional extremely cheap...I could go on and on. But the reason to buy one shouldnt be based on how many USB ports it has (Who CANT buy a hub for gods sakes) and it shouldn't be based on the lonely firewire port it has. It SHOULD be based on the fact that it has a fantastic OS. Anyone who watched the Keynote demonstrating spotlight and widgets etc will know that this OS is going places, fast. Windows XP doesn't come close, and what with the continual changes to th Longhorn schedual, who knows if it will even reach the elagance, all in one style, stability, security and ease of use that Mac OSX has. For £320 (Edu discount) you get a decent mac OS machine, and you know what - it looks good.

The amount of times Ive received "ooooohhsss" from a crowd as I whip out my Powerbook G4 is amazing. I've switched from a die hard "I hate Apple" windows fan to "Oh my god, why didn't I switch earlier" apple obsessive! You tell me that any Wintel machine (i.e. Sony laptop) has the same effect...I can see it now "Ohh that blue plastic really goes with your eyes" - please.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

The mini uses 2.5" laptop drives, so currently you can only max it out to 80GB. It would be wonderful had the case been just slightly larger to accommodate 400GB Raptor drives.

Actually OWC shows a Seagate 100GB 5200rpm HDD.

 

[topofthawoz]

Does anybody know how one of these babies would go with 512Memory running garage band? also this might sound strange but could you use iMovie to edit mpeg 4 videos?
Cheers

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

I agree 100%, 256mb of ram is NOT the anchor alot of people are making it out to be. You would be surprised how many people can get by just fine with less, and I know OS X is BETTER on more ram, but come on, how many of your "low end" pc using friends do you know that have 1gb of ram? Give me a break. Most of mine have 128 TOPS, on a 4-5 year old machine.

So this is double the ram, faster processor, etc. Ya, for alot of you its not enough. So open the damn thing up and plug in more!

Bill

Good points. And if you look at the BTO cost of 512mb, the cost is lower than buying the memory from OWC. Hopefully Apple will do special SKU's with at least 512mb and AE.