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Mac Mini to be Discontinued?
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I doubt that Apple would source motherboards from Nvidia. Anyway, nobody is denying that Apple can deliver a new mini, in one form or another. The question is whether they will. I think it's likely that Apple has concluded there isn't sufficient profit margin for that kind of product.
nVidia don't make motherboards or graphics boards just the chipset or GPU to go on them.
Apple already source from nVidia - did you miss the unibody MacBook/MacBook Pro launch the other week?
Minimal product line worked fine a decade ago, but now it seems that Apple is behaving as greedy and monopolistic as microsoft has.
And that will lead to same fate.
In the short term they can make that 30%, but eventually loose it, when customers grow tired to pay double price for reduced features.
Apple is now selling ten times than decade ago, so if they would settle for 25%, they could double their product line and keep all their customers happy for now and in the future.
That way they could keep that 25% or grow it in the long run.
This is the funniest part; there is of course a plastic display panel behind the glass, so how does it get greener when you add glass in front of it?
Useless bulk to recycle, when macbooks could be lighter and non-glaring without it. Surely the ingenius unibody would be strong enough without glass?
You can easily etch glass to have a matte finish that doesn't hurt resolution a bit. Check out the glass in any picture frame at Wal-mart.
Apple will get around to it, eventually. They want to drive everyone crazy with reflections first, so they'll be forced to "upgrade" to more sensible matte finishes later.
Why sell a product once when you can make double by selling it twice?
Apple didn't always think this way; they used to rely on true innovation and taking pride in being cutting edge.
No longer.
Sorry, I misspoke. It's a MB design, not the MB itself. It doesn't change the point though: it seems pretty clear that Apple doesn't see sufficient profit margin in the sub-$1000 market.
Fair enough
Suspect you are correct. Looks like a return to the (conceited) high right strategy that got Apple into trouble in the early 90s. With the current economic problems it's verging on suicidal.
I'd be at the front of the queue for a Mini of similar spec to the Unibody MacBook. My existing MBP is fine for on the road stuff, but fancy something a bit quicker for use on a desk with my existing monitor, keyb and mouse.
Right I'm sure you know more than the folks at Apple who have 25 billion in the bank.
I just think it's a darn shame. I started my whole Mac experience a few years back when someone gave me a tangerine Ibook, they just knew nothing about Mac's and didn't want to, and at the time neither did I. So you know, I did give the guy a case of beer in trade. Any ways, after self teaching myself about Mac's, and this was not hard to do, I bought a Mini for work. It's connected to a KVM, and I use it to test applications that I work with to be sure they run on a Mac and on a PC.
I liked the Mini so much, I bought another one for home. It's also hooked up to a KVM, and when I'm in the mood to use the Mac, I do, and other times I use the PC.
Bottom line, what a great little machine, it was priced right for me, its a shame Apple may discontinue it and I'm sure for others it is/was a great way to get involved with Mac's. And that's all I have to say about that.
I liked the Mini so much, I bought another one for home. It's also hooked up to a KVM, and when I'm in the mood to use the Mac, I do, and other times I use the PC.
Bottom line, what a great little machine, it was priced right for me, its a shame Apple may discontinue it and I'm sure for others it is/was a great way to get involved with Mac's. And that's all I have to say about that.
Folks these are just rumours, somebody else said it's not discontinued, which one should we believe?
Yep, I worked in a place couple of years ago, where we had a dozen of iMacs, which I used for qmaster cluster for video compression. Displays were on 24-7. Not very green. First time I saw image was burned to lcd display, like they were used to do with crt's...
Yep, mini is great for HTPC. It only lacks blu-ray, hdcp, 1080p playback & esata. Sadly, you can build windows machine with those with price of mini, but the OS sucks...
To please stock holders you can only watch the next quarter, not longer.Right I'm sure you know more than the folks at Apple who have 25 billion in the bank.
Surely they know more in microsoft also...
if it hasnt been selling too well its because apple havent been listening to their customers, its expensive and way outdated. Dont blame the concept, its sound it just needs the latest stuff in it, its a few years behind and the price range is at a level as if its all new stuff.
Perhaps if apple bothered to give it a little more TLC, and put some more reasonable specs in there and reduced the price a little people might consider it as a serious option.
Perhaps if apple bothered to give it a little more TLC, and put some more reasonable specs in there and reduced the price a little people might consider it as a serious option.
I can see a streamlined aluminum cube that looks kind of like the macbook aluminum. one inch thick. superdrive. macbookish specs. ooh ya!
Fair enough
Suspect you are correct. Looks like a return to the (conceited) high right strategy that got Apple into trouble in the early 90s. With the current economic problems it's verging on suicidal.
Pricepoints were not really the problem. They had entry level systems back then, but try to spot them if you are not familiar with their naming at the time.
This.....
Apple-history.com said:
....Was the problem.
Too many models that overlapped each other with confusing names, and confusing marketing directed at an increasingly less interested marketshare.
I miss some of the products of that era (Newton and eMate), but it was still a tough time for Apple as they were spread too thin.
i don't think anybody in this thread is expecting apple to go the '90s route again today. i hope we can agree on the simple fact that once mini is gone (likely), there won't be an entry level, inconspicuous macintosh on the desktop. there's quite a difference between that scenario and what you posted above.
while what you are saying is correct, the person he quoted claimed that this sounded an awful lot like the strategy in the 90's, which he just disproved.
Apple couldn't be any farer of that 90' situation.
They have now basically two product lines; one with notebook chipsets and the other with workstation/server chipsets.
Mini/macbook(pro)/iMac are just different generations of notebook chipset.
Now that Apple sells millions of them, it would be very easy to keep these 3 lines of products that use same chipsets.
So, unibody mini?