Mac Mini to be Discontinued?

[pawsey1987]

ann arbor retail store

saw them hauling out a cart with stacks of mac minis out of the entrance store... maybe taking them to a reseller? i dunno. but i could believe it

 

[gkarris]

I concur.

The loud whining minority that's screaming for a "headless" or entry-level junk midtower needs to give it up. It will NOT happen, EVER. Apple will never sell a junk midtower expandable Mac and cannibalize their WORKING market strategy.

Did I mention that their market strategy WORKS. 20 billion bucks in the bank...

Can't afford a Mac? That's not Apple's problem, or anyone else's but yours.



Adios. Whiners are rarely missed.

Midtowers is something Apple will never sale - again, upsell to a Mac Pro.

Unfortunatly, the "Take It or Leave It" attitude has become very, very prevalent. No FW for your camcorder, buy a MacBook Pro. Can't afford a Mac, go to Dell. Don't like Dell's Customer Service, go buy an Acer...

Companies have this snobbish attitude now with "this is what it is", who cares what the people buying the product wants.

Looks like "money talks, baloney walks". The best we can do is just not pay for something we don't want.

Unfortunately, we buy anyways going deeper into debt....

 

[archer75]

Can't afford a Mac? That's not Apple's problem, or anyone else's but yours.

Actually that is apple's problem. If you want to make money you have to sell products at prices people can afford. The more products you have covering multiple price points the more people who can and will buy your products.

 

[madmaxmedia]

This will probably make the mac mini highly valuable.

Except they're already too expensive (given the lack of updates.) They will hold up in value on EBay, but I doubt they'd appreciate significantly in value.

 

[gkarris]

saw them hauling out a cart with stacks of mac minis out of the entrance store... maybe taking them to a reseller? i dunno. but i could believe it

Did you really see them?

Hauling them away usually means a replacement. Usually if they are discontinued, they keep them until they sell out...

 

[deggs37]

I would so buy one if the specs weren't crap. I might still if it actually is discontinued.

 

[Axemantitan]

Of course they're discontinuing it. First of all, it's got Firewire, so right away that's a no-no. And second, why produce a product where the customer has to supply their own keyboard, mouse, and display when they would happily supply you with all that stuff, for a premium.....

I don't expect much out of Apple anymore. Their keynotes starting back in 2007 at the developer's conference, to date have been totally lackluster. They are now pulling out features on their products (firewire anyone??) in order to save money, even though they are saving money in the long run with their new laptop production process.
Pro-level hardware and software have taken a BACK SEAT in favor of the quick-buck consumer gadgetry. (*not saying that the mini is a pro level product by any means). That's where the money is, and that's ALL that Apple cares about. And with 20 BILLION in cash lying around, I cannot for the life of me figure out why Jobs and Co. are hell-bent on fleecing the customer by charging high prices and systematically stripping their products of features.

Remember when the remote CAME WITH their laptops? Remember when the mini-dvi to dvi and vga cables CAME WITH the MBP's and Powerbooks? My 12" PB CAME WITH both connectors. It also came with FIREWIRE and a matte display.

Snow Leopard? "Here's what Leopard should have been, but we redirected too many resources to the iPhone" operating system. Yeah, they'll only charge you $129 for the feature set you should have had with leopard in the first place.
Remember .Mac? Why they changed the name is beyond me. And how they completely screwed up the MobileMe launch is also a mystery. Took them almost three weeks to straighten that fiasco out.

Lackluster keynotes and developer conferences, stripped-down (not in price) product offerings, waning pro-level hardware offerings, glossy this: glossy that. Welcome to the NEW Apple.........minus the Mac Mini.

A very telling quote from Steve Jobs before his return to Apple:

If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth — and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.

As quoted in Fortune (1996-02-19)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs

I think that is exactly what he is doing. First he ends the Microsoft feud and allows Windows to catch up in features to the Macintosh. Then he moves us over to Intel and then makes it so that we can install Windows on our computers and now he is removing features from Macintoshes while keeping the premium prices, making us less likely to buy a Macintosh. He is gradually ending the PC/Mac war and moving us over to the PC camp.

 

[madmaxmedia]

Actually that is apple's problem. If you want to make money you have to sell products at prices people can afford.

They don't want to be the BMW to Microsoft's Toyota. They want to be the Bentley...

 

[nilk]

Dropping the Mac Mini and not replacing it with something equivalent would be a huge mistake. The Mac Mini is their "gateway drug" machine. My first Mac was the first-generation G4 Mac Mini. It was extremely slow because of the 4200 RPM hard drive in it, and wasn't very usable because of that (unless I booted from a faster drive via Firewire), but gave me a taste of OS X (I was mainly a Linux user). A few years later I bought a Mac Pro. And now I have a MacBook Pro (previous generation refurbished) arriving in a few days.

It would be a mistake for them not to have an entry level machine as they are losing potential converts. However, I never thought the Mac Mini was a really good entry level machine. The thing is a pain to upgrade (I've done a RAM upgrade myself with the putty knife technique to open it). The small form factor is pointless, most people buying their first Mac desktop don't care about size. They should make something that uses a regular 3.5" hard drive and is user-upgradable for hard drives and RAM. Preferable allow at least two internal hard drives. Hell, I find 4 internal drives limiting on my Mac Pro. The Mac Mini should be replaced with something that is more of a mini-Mac Pro, at least if they want to convert people over from PC's. But I don't think they're going to do that.

 

[229dan229]

Then the iMac is really sucking. The Mac mini outsells the iMac almost every day on Amazon. Mostly because people hate glossy screens though.....

Most people dont buy an iMac of amazon =/

 

[Rivix]

Actually that is apple's problem. If you want to make money you have to sell products at prices people can afford. The more products you have covering multiple price points the more people who can and will buy your products.

Yup. Especially if the economy is going south.

 

[penguy]

The arrogance of some posts relating to people's ability to afford this or that is amazing to me.

The issue for this thread has to do with the Mini, and considering how many posts were made to the other mini thread, there is interest, despite what some of you believe. It certainly fit my needs for the past three years, but I too was ready for the next upgrade. I do a lot of processing of jpg and RAW files which are large and cumbersome without fast hard drives and a LOT of memory, not to mention a better graphics processor. I have everything else I need, so the Mini is/was not more expensive than the next mac or iMac.

I'm happy to consider a replacement for the mini in whatever direction Apple takes it, but hopefully it is not as described by several posters, ie, smaller (because they can) and without an optical drive, etc. This needs to be a real computer, not a desktop Macbook Air!!!

 

[Joe The Dragon]

I read three pages, so could have missed someone else's comments.


Plenty of power with atom and you could make a incredible cheap mini with those specs. If they want more switchers... It's the equivalent of a free crack rock.

The atom is weaker then to days mini with slower gpu, 1gb of ram MAX and NO GIG-E.

 

[AtariKee]

Midtowers is something Apple will never sale - again, upsell to a Mac Pro.

Unfortunatly, the "Take It or Leave It" attitude has become very, very prevalent. No FW for your camcorder, buy a MacBook Pro. Can't afford a Mac, go to Dell. Don't like Dell's Customer Service, go buy an Acer...

Companies have this snobbish attitude now with "this is what it is", who cares what the people buying the product wants.

Looks like "money talks, baloney walks". The best we can do is just not pay for something we don't want.

Unfortunately, we buy anyways going deeper into debt....

The few thousand or so whining about the changes Apple is making and decrying their "snobbish" attitude are nothing compared to the millions that actually buy the products.

Customers come and go constantly. There is truly no loyalty anymore, and I think Steve realizes this and no longer cares about a whining minority. I can imaging him shrugging at the site of some moron willing to jump ship because of a couple of changes. You can't please everybody, and its just best to let them move on. Besides, I think some people actually WANT Apple to fail so they can feel secure in their notion of jumping ship to a PC and joining their "friends".

Some people refuse to move on to newer and better. So be it. Whine away. But don't expect to get your asses kissed because it won't happen.

 

[gkarris]

Some people refuse to move on to newer and better. So be it. Whine away. But don't expect to get your asses kissed because it won't happen.

People asked for a 3G iPhone, and got it...

I guess we shall see...

Ready to purchase one to hold me over the next 3 years in case it gets canned. Will be happier if replaced instead...

 

[TiggsPanther]

Over 110 pages later and a year since the Mini thread was first started and not a single one of you get it! Let’s be real for a minute do you really think it takes this long for a design engineer to create a new Mini which is the simplest thing in the world to design! Its over.

Maybe so, but until/unless they actually declare it as being dead and there is official word that it will never be upgraded, then a potential update is still the best option going if needing to replace/buy a Mac on a budget.

Whilst the machine still appears on Apple's site, I simply cannot justify the extra couple of hundred quid (that is needed elsewhere) on going for a MacBook (don't need a laptop) or an iMac (don't need a screen, really can't afford the price-hike). And I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

It's not even "hope" that they'll update it, in my case. It's "fear".
I need to buy two machines. What the non-Mac is depends entirely on what the Mac purchase is. And in the ideal case, the Mac is a Mini. And as the purchases are going to be staggered by several months, I can't risk the Mini getting an update halfway through commiting to the alternate path.

I can, however, wait. Until they either kill it off entirely, or until my iBook totally keels over. But unless one of those happen, or a miracle happens and the Mini gets an update, I can't justify the extra spend.

And I know there are people out there who want them for various reasons. (Small office computers and HTPCs., amongst others) But who can 't justify the price of the current models.
The specs might be outdated now, but the Mini (as a product line) fits the exact bill for many of us out there. And until it's oficially EOLd, we will wait.

 

[Fitzcaraldo]

I concur.

The loud whining minority that's screaming for a "headless" or entry-level junk midtower needs to give it up. It will NOT happen, EVER. Apple will never sell a junk midtower expandable Mac and cannibalize their WORKING market strategy.

Did I mention that their market strategy WORKS. 20 billion bucks in the bank...

Can't afford a Mac? That's not Apple's problem, or anyone else's but yours.

Ahh professor...

I can afford a hundred macs... I use two dedicated Mac Pros for work, an iMac for communications, and a MacBook Pro on the go.

I use Mac Mini's sans keyboard, mouse, and screen for Security system, an ftp server, mail server, itunes servers, local media server, and machine controller.

Explain why i would want to use an iMac or Mac book to replace any of the above?

 

[relimw]

I've been waiting months for Apple to update these little fellows, they work great for small home servers. I suppose now I'll have to think of a different way to do things, I really don't need an iMac with a screen for a home server.....

 

[Joe The Dragon]

I'm sure there's a market for a slightly larger $749 Mac mini with a 250 GB 3.5" HDD, 2 GB RAM, 2.26 GHz, SuperDrive and a GMA X4500.

$749 should have video card with it's own ram not the intel GMA crap. NV 9300m / 9400m is better but at $700 - $800 on a desktop it should have 128 - 256 or maybe even 512 vram.

 

[rjheys]

They are to dam SLOW!!

I want a Mini to be an iMac but with out the screen, about 2.4 GHz, 4 GB memory, up to 750 hard drive and those new Nvidia graphics like the new MacBook's. That I would buy. not the crap Apple currently sell.

 

[schneb]

Longtime Mac users like me know what a mess Apple was in back in the 90s, exactly because of so many models and specs. SJ came and cleaned up that mess, so as to give a CLEAR message to the market.

Longtime Mac users like myself (mid-80s) know that yes, you do NOT have a multitude of SAME models with various specs. But that is NOT what I am talking about. I am talking about choices such as something in between the MacPro and the Mac Mini in regard to headless offerings. Now, it is MacPro or NOTHING as it seems to be looking. So why do you think today is better with 4 MacBooks, 2 MacBook Airs, and 3 MacBook Pros? Sounds like the 90s are back, so your point rings hollow.

 

[Joe The Dragon]

How about replacing it with MAC OS X for all at $200?

How about replacing it with MAC OS X for all at $200?

 

[macnvrbck]

The Mini was my first computer too.

The FIRST 1.25Ghz referbished for $379!!!

I bumped the memory to 1.25GB a few years back and it is still kicking ass and taking names at my parents house!

 

[madmaxmedia]

Unfortunately, we buy anyways going deeper into debt....

Well, the credit crunch will solve that problem- what if there's not enough credit to go around for people to charge their cards with?

 

[IrishMac]

I do wonder if Apple will actually kill the Mini. If it was doing that poorly it wouldn't have lasted as long as the cube did. Instead its stuck around obviously selling enough for Apple to keep it available, with little effort on the r&d side. So thinking along those lines its easy to guess that Apple still have plans for the mini. As others have already suggested merging the ATV with the mini makes sense.

Lets hope they're brewing something new.