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Mac Mini to be Discontinued?
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What would the point be? Who cares if it's 3cm thick?! Who cares that it's 3in thick?! Size has little relevance in the desktop computer market, except as eye-candy.
Alas.
-Clive
Nothing wrong with eye candy, especially in home interiors. A lot of people don't want a beige, grey or black box with lots of wires poking out of it cluttering up the room they've spent a lot of money decorating. It's an important factor to many people, probably more important to them than how fast the FSB speed is, for instance.
And most of them bought all in ones. The Mini is a switcher machine without any real attempt at understanding the switcher.
Deffo.
I know a girl who recently bought a Samsung laptop purely because it was glossy black. That's it. She didn't check out what ports it had, optical drive, RAM, HDD or accessories- just that it was shiny black.
And that's OK too. The personal computer revolution was meant for and driven by the desire to get as many machines in the hands of as many people as possible... and people are all different and have different needs.
Most of us here are geeks and look at machines in a certain way but others have different needs that are just as important to them.
I bought a BlackBook (now sold) for a second laptop just because it was black. My main setup is pretty ugly as it is sitting on my desk, but it works.
I don't think people want to deprive those more interested in "eye candy" of having that choice, it's more about giving at least reasonable choice to other people who want something extra, like for eg., a decent matte-screen option, as opposed to something shiny & reflective that looks good on a superficial level, but for some people is almost useless to do serious work on for long periods of time.
Yes, this is it, exactly.
I don't mean to shame eye-candy, as even I bought a G4 Cube and am using its shell for an HTPC.
Eye-candy isn't unimportant. I'd just like to have the option of something that dials down on the eye-candy and dials up on the functionality.
-Clive
That may have been its original intent, but I suspect a lot of the recent "switchers" are iPhone and iPod Touch programmers that have bought Minis in the last year.
^^^^
I talked to a lady at the Apple Store purchasing one. I told her not to be too miffed as the salesman was trying to "upsell" her to a mid-range iMac.
She said she is fed up with her PC and decided, even in today's economy, to spend extra for a Mac as it's now an investment that she hopes will be almost trouble free and last a long time.
She ended up walking out with a basic Mini, and wired keyboard and mouse. She was smiling...
I talked to a lady at the Apple Store purchasing one. I told her not to be too miffed as the salesman was trying to "upsell" her to a mid-range iMac.
She said she is fed up with her PC and decided, even in today's economy, to spend extra for a Mac as it's now an investment that she hopes will be almost trouble free and last a long time.
She ended up walking out with a basic Mini, and wired keyboard and mouse. She was smiling...
^^^^
I talked to a lady at the Apple Store purchasing one. I told her not to be too miffed as the salesman was trying to "upsell" her to a mid-range iMac.
She said she is fed up with her PC and decided, even in today's economy, to spend extra for a Mac as it's now an investment that she hopes will be almost trouble free and last a long time.
She ended up walking out with a basic Mini, and wired keyboard and mouse. She was smiling...
That might happen a little more often if Apple happened to ever update it.
Why don't they sell their computers (or at least an updated mini) at (what I think is) a realistic price and take the consumer desktop market overnight?
I never sell macs to all the people that ask me for advice, value for money is my and should be everyone's top priority, irrelevant of budget.
I never sell macs to all the people that ask me for advice, value for money is my and should be everyone's top priority, irrelevant of budget.
check your private messages
Look at your private message to see what is on sale at New Egg.
Look at your private message to see what is on sale at New Egg.
Yeah, that's a really good price - it's really a good, quiet enclosure. If I build another one, it'll be inside a Lian Li enclosure with the 9400m chipset.
Where have all the rumours gone? We haven't heard anything for a while now. If a new Mini is to be launched in January then shouldnt we start to hear rumours already or is this unconfirmed mini, just a well kept secret?
Does anybody know how soon before a major release of an Apple product we normally start to hear the rumours and see, off the production line photos?
Does anybody know how soon before a major release of an Apple product we normally start to hear the rumours and see, off the production line photos?
the issue isn't just price. Even when considering that the higher price is part of what funds all the added service potential that comes with the machines
It's the hassle of switching data over to a new machine, it's learning a new system, it's having to buy all your software again or even having to change what you use because they don't make it for the mac.
So even if Apple decided to go cheap and sell their stuff for 3 digit prices, doesn't mean suddenly they would own the market.
With all the people that want the mini, I don't understand why they can't keep making the mini. Are they really losing money by offering it? Probably not.
Our organization buys a lot of Apple hardware, and a lot of Minis. I talk to the Apple Education consultants/ Apple System Engineers for our area regularly and have been bemoaning the state of the Mini for some time.
I was told this week 110% the Mini is not dead and a new model is on the way. When I asked whether it'd be a new revision or just new innards he wouldn't tell me anymore.
pretty inconsequential, but there you go.
I was told this week 110% the Mini is not dead and a new model is on the way. When I asked whether it'd be a new revision or just new innards he wouldn't tell me anymore.
pretty inconsequential, but there you go.
If it were just about money, they probably would have. Ive isn't so much a computer designer as he an artist. If there's no inspiration or if somethings gets Boring to them, he and Jobs have a tendency to let a product lay fallow until they can think up something new.
Here in Brazil, Apple sell a lot of macMinis and iBooks. But cannot realy beat the local production. Dell, HP, etc. offers more for the same price. And what is Brazil anyway - a tiny tiny slice of the market! At the USA and Europe, I cant say why somebody buy it, why not a notebook?
I beleive it will die soon, and I will miss it!
I beleive it will die soon, and I will miss it!
Good point, even the Unibodies had some kind of leaked photos (genuine or not). And you would have thought Apple would have had that nailed down pretty tight.
I'm hoping to see unibody Mini photos - maybe after Christmas.
Let's be cynical and assume the leaks actually come from Apple. If the pictures start showing up after Christmas, we'll know Apple held them back until after the 'holiday shopping season', so as not to impact on sales...
Nonsense. There are no end of factors influencing purchase that cannot be reduced to a simple dollar value.
I bought our Mini for a media centre to go in our living room two years ago this Christmas.
At that time, no other manufacturer was offering anything with even a remotely similar form factor. Add in very low power consumption and near-silent operation and you have a compelling argument for the Mini as a solution to our needs.
Yes, I could have got a plastic box from Dell with equivalent specs for less money but it wouldn't have fitted into the available space, wouldn't have been as quiet or as cool and would have looked chuffing awful.
In addition, I would have had to grapple with Windows. I'm not from a Windows background and, whilst not clueless, it's not my natural environment and would have made relatively simple tasks unnecessarily complicated.
As it is, the Mini has sat in the corner of the room under the TV, acting as our PVR, stereo and DVD player, whilst also doubling as a wireless router for the rest of the house, with zero maintenance for 23 months.
I can't put a cash value on that.
Cheers
Jim
Oh I see, the new Mini will just be the new Mac Tablet but with an optical drive instead of a touchscreen...
I'll be in line outside the store...
Long time Apple user gone for good!
Well folks looks like I have turn the corner and I don't plan to ever come back! I bought my decked out top of the line Dell Hybird a few months before Jobs wrote his insulting comments after a conference call and I finally sealed the deal today when I placed my order for the new Dell mid range tower with the Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 / 2.33 GHz for only $799.
Specs here:
http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/dell-studio-mt/4507-3118_7-33345352.html?tag=mncol;psum
So long Steve! you did earn tons of my money over the years but the party is over! Good luck guys waiting for Steve to approve a box like the one I just placed my order for.
Feel free to scan back through a few of my earlier post to see where I fell off the band wagon but truth be told it was really the arrogant attitude that Steve displayed a month or so back in his report which can be found here on MR.
No I am not rich or rolling in cash and yes I work hard for my cash and in today's economy I am on a strict budget! but according to SJ Apple does not cater to me anyway so... why make a man rich you publicly stated I am not who he caters to anyway.
Hey Steve! that's right the Dell I just bought falls under the category of "Budget desktop system" opps my bad you don't produce Budget systems! pardon me for even thinking I was worthy to step foot into one of your Apple stores the poor peasant that I am.
Well folks looks like I have turn the corner and I don't plan to ever come back! I bought my decked out top of the line Dell Hybird a few months before Jobs wrote his insulting comments after a conference call and I finally sealed the deal today when I placed my order for the new Dell mid range tower with the Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 / 2.33 GHz for only $799.
Specs here:
http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/dell-studio-mt/4507-3118_7-33345352.html?tag=mncol;psum
So long Steve! you did earn tons of my money over the years but the party is over! Good luck guys waiting for Steve to approve a box like the one I just placed my order for.
Feel free to scan back through a few of my earlier post to see where I fell off the band wagon but truth be told it was really the arrogant attitude that Steve displayed a month or so back in his report which can be found here on MR.
No I am not rich or rolling in cash and yes I work hard for my cash and in today's economy I am on a strict budget! but according to SJ Apple does not cater to me anyway so... why make a man rich you publicly stated I am not who he caters to anyway.
Hey Steve! that's right the Dell I just bought falls under the category of "Budget desktop system" opps my bad you don't produce Budget systems! pardon me for even thinking I was worthy to step foot into one of your Apple stores the poor peasant that I am.