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Much Smaller Mac Mini Coming?

to drop the size anymore is just silly. Mac Mini's are tiny.

I'd much rather have them include a decent graphics chip, not intel integrated.

if this became a fully capable mini tower. if you can have a basic and a more advanced one, it would be killer.

ie a little upgrade available, like the ole cube.
 
Apart from in the looks department, I doubt Apple could do THAT much better than the Gumstix computers, and they're not very powerful...
 
Bad Paper said:
yes, but the Macbook Airs seem to be flying off the shelves, so clearly :apple: is doing something right
Click to expand...

Absolutly, the Mac Air is selling better than anyone but Apple would have expected. But ..... It is a different type of user. It is a user that has a need for something light to carry around on trips, does not need 320 Gig drives and is fine with a single USB port. Most of these are professionals whose Air is their 2nd or 3rd system.

The mini population is a different population. First time user, the Grandmas of the world, The lady looking at what's playing at the movies or looking up a recipe, the kids that need a Mac and have to sell newspapers to get it, the common user that uses a browser, email and chat for 98 percent of their computing needs and is sick of all the malware that comes with using a WinTel.

I love both systems, not putting either one down, just saying that changing them too much would have an effect on the price and the targeted audience.
 
I love how everyone is just posting the exact same stuff that was posted back on Page 1 and 2 without reading through the forum.....
Read people Read!
:rolleyes:
There has probably been only about 3 pages worth of original content here.
 
KindredMAC said:
I love how everyone is just posting the exact same stuff that was posted back on Page 1 and 2 without reading through the forum.....
Read people Read!
:rolleyes:
There has probably been only about 3 pages worth of original content here.
Click to expand...

what more can be said? Most us are in agreement on what we do and don't wanna see, with some people thinking on more grandiose scale.
 
This will likely not be "fixed" since the cost of the machine would rise too high with a high end graphics card included, plus the heat output would rise dramatically, it would require more power (larger power brick).

cube said:
Macbook-class graphics does not address the complaints in this department since going Intel.
Click to expand...
 
AnthonyKinyon said:
This will likely not be "fixed" since the cost of the machine would rise too high with a high end graphics card included, plus the heat output would rise dramatically, it would require more power (larger power brick).
Click to expand...

Yeah, right. The PPC Mac mini had discrete graphics and it cost $100 less than this Intel crap.
 
I'd be happy with a MacBook-clone (sans screen) in an Apple TV form factor. It'd be peachy if the top-of-the-line included a discrete gpu/vRAM of 128 mb.

cube said:
That's a GPU from many years ago. For the same money you would have something much better today.
Click to expand...

But I suspect the principal reason Apple used a discrete gpu with the PPC Mini was because the G4 had substantial difficulty with H.264 decoding, Apple's codec of choice, thus the need for a gpu that could handle such tasks. The Intel chips did much better with that. The Core Solo was only good for low-bitrate/low resolution, but the Core Duos can handle 1080 in a moderate bitrate or 720 in a high bitrate. The problem is, there are few video playback apps that can take advantage of substantial use of both cores.
 
If they drop the optical drive, apple will have a new product line. They would probably shrink the size, similar to iMac. The spec would probably have a little upgrade. Well, hope not just a little...
 
No. Apple has shown that the reason they used a discrete GPU is because there were no integrated graphics for PPC. It's all about milking the customer base.
 
Clive At Five said:
It's pretty much a known fact that they have agents scouring the web, collecting feedback left by communities like these.
Click to expand...
Is it, now? Who knows this fact, how, and why? I cannot imagine Apple wasting its resources combing these fora for their market research. Apple is interested in capturing market share, not pleasing Kool-Aid drinking fanbois.

Everytime someone whines, "Come on, Apple..." or "Come on, Steve..." and pollutes MR with a laundry list of desires, they are wasting our time. GTFO.
 
Here's what I'm hoping this means.

I'm hoping Apple kills two birds with one stone. The two birds: 1) the desire for smaller and less intrusive desktops; 2) the desire for a mid-range Mac.

Apple could expand the Mini line-up upward and downward to mimic the iPod line-up. One one end, you have the new smaller Mac Nano, dispensing with things like the optical drive and unneeded ports, and on the other, you have a new Mac that is about twice the height of the old Mini to give you better processors, accessible RAM and GPU and more ports, etc. In the middle, you have the Mini as it now exists with a bump in specs.

That would be an amazing move that would fulfill the growing demands from new customers that Apple is facing.
 
If they switch to using laptop memory in a horizontal layout, they can easily reduce the height by at least 1/3rd. Remove the optical drive and there goes another 1/3rd drop in in height. Now what you've got left is an AppleTV.

Hooray... :confused:

What I would rather see with the next Mini, is: Geforce 8600 graphics and an HDMI port (w/ audio) instead of DVI. The size is just fine as is. :cool:
 
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