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New Mac Mini Finally Coming in October Alongside New iPads?
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I agree, long-term, although I think the logical place to start is the Air, not the Mini. Because the Mini is used by a lot of people as a "Mac Pro lite" -- as a substitute mini-tower if they can get by with it.
While the Air (I have to imagine-- I don't own one) is really a notebook with the same user profile as a cell phone-- typical Air app usage could easily live off of the App Store, I should think. And, there are direct benefits to an Air user, who presumably lives off of battery most of the time, because the ARM has a big advantage over x86 the lower the power profile (while for the Mini, as a plug in device, the wall-plug power saving advantage is minimal).
Yep, I agree. If they re-design and make it crippled and proprietary, then the only Mac left for my needs is a Mac Pro. It is so over-priced for my budget, not sure what my next Mac will be.
Apple has headed to proprietary and soldered devices in a form over function mentality for years. I think the Mini is next but I hope not.
I think you just made my point. People don't always have their iPad or iPhone on. The Apple TV is already always on. No battery to worry about. Especially if someone would want to use homekit. Walk in and say hey siri turn on the lights, hey siri turn on the TV and not worry about where the phone or tablet is or whether its charged or on.
That's not what I said, I said some things require the CPU power and SSD isn't going to provide that. Sure, having SSD is great and in general will speed up any machine overall but that doesn't change the fact that some uses bottleneck the CPU and not the drives.
And yes, I can give examples. Audio, particularly stuff heavy on processing and synthesis (convolution reverb, physical modeling synths etc). One synth that comes to mind that is very CPU heavy is Diva, it is a CPU hog but using it doesn't hit the drives at all. In general, doing multitrack recording with heavy processing can be tougher on the CPU than on modern hard drives. Of course some audio applications are extremely drive heavy, but there are definitely some that bottleneck the CPU.
http://www.u-he.com/cms/diva
And a way more common one is converting video files with an app like handbrake. Even though it's processing a file on a disk, the conversion calculations take much much longer than actually reading and writing the data. In most cases, switching to a faster CPU makes a much bigger difference in encoding speed than switching to a faster drive - the CPU just isn't waiting on the drive.
Not sure where you get that 1 meg figure. Look at something as simple as a video conversion. With a file that's a gig, reading the whole file from even a slow drive takes less than a minute. But the actual conversion takes a number of minutes, depending on the CPU speed it could be many minutes if not an hour or more. Faster drive might speed up reading the data, but even if it reads the whole file in one second, that's going to make a minimal difference on the CPU conversion. But double the CPU power and it's going to cut the conversion time in half.
Again, I'm not saying that SSD doesn't help, it is a great investment that speeds up many things and overall can make a computer feel faster. I'm just saying that some uses genuinely require faster CPU.
You don't think there are pro users working on minis? Or pro users for whom the mac pro is overkill but the mini isn't quite enough? The iMac can serve both entry level and some pro users, I don't see why the mini can't do the same.
Because I value a device that I can improve when I need it. Hard drive and memory cost diminishes with time.
Nice to hear some mac mini news!! Now I will wait for all the 2012's to hit EBAY and Macrumors! 
Of course that's potentially a cool idea, I don't think anyone disagrees with that.
I just don't see any reason they'd need to turn the mini into that product when they can just beef up the aTV. Two separate products now, no reason not to keep them two separate products even if the functionality of the aTV changes a bit.
So far, Apple has yet to release a desktop machine that can't upgrade memory. And if a third party releases an SSD in the right form factors, the same will be the case with drives.
OK, you have convinced me, but, I think you are describing an upgraded ATV, not a Mini. A8, 32GB flash, 4K@60Hz HDMI output, and a microphone and anything else needed for Homekit. It would need a new name. Oh, and more weight, so the HDMI cable doesn't pull it off the table.
I agree it would need a new name. But I think such a device would attract casual computer users who would otherwise buy an inexpensive Windows machine (which IS the main mover for Windows machines). Sit down and write a document on pages, or check your email while also serves your big screen entertainment needs and your lights, thermostat and music.
Which one would the general consumer be more eager to upgrade? A small desktop computer they use every so often, or something they look forward to and depend on using using everyday?
Which would bring more consumers into the Apple ecosystem? Which would be a better value for consumers?
And I think the simplicity of the continuity feature in the mobile age would play a huge part in enticing consumers to pick one up. It would play nice with all the devices you already own. How many consumers already own a Windows phone? A Windows tablet?
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But what you are talking about is an app that could be added to the current ATV with a software update, or better yet, simply adding that functionality to Siri on the iPhone and iPad via home sharing. That's not a new device, it's an app.
The Mac mini's overwhelming two uses are as a home media hub and as an actual low cost alternative server. These things are put on racks quite often.
No, the mini isn't going to be transformed into a different product category. If Apple sticks with it, which is not guaranteed, it is going to remain an entry level headless Mac at its core. It's not going to move into some crossover territory. Apple already has all of that covered with existing devices, services, and software.
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You're right, but I think they will keep it around until they actually do make the switch to ARM. At that point they actually could and probably would market a product that is essentially a beefed up ATV that you can do light computing on, run iTunes, and connect external or network storage to.
Thanks for the rant. Mac mini with OS X Server means two drives, Fusion Drive means one drive and one SSD blade. The second drive bay is unnecessary. One 9.5mm notebook drive can now hold up to 2TB of data, enough for many use cases. And exactly the same amount of storage space Apple is offering today with its two 1TB drives maximum.
So no, we would lose nothing by making the Mac mini a little smaller. And the current MacBook Pro isn't too thin either. I have an old one and I never use the optical drive and I never use the Ethernet port. That's all useless weight, I have to carry around. Let the Floppy Disk die already!
That's not the point and there are some Apple products that can not be configured to their full potential. For example, the low end Mac Mini in 2012 was not configurable to 16GB RAM when it first was release. Neither was the low end Macbook Pro. You had to buy the high end model to be able to configure it with higher spec. This also applies to storage. Apple forces you to buy higher end products to get better specs. It is a gimmick. The low end models supported 16GB and because they were upgradeable, people would upgrade them on their own.
The real issue is that Apple is on path to force you to configure your product at their WAY over priced specs. They force his by soldering RAM and creating proprietary connectors for their flash storage, putting proprietary firmware on their storage which forces fans to go full speed when the FW is absent, etc, etc, etc. Do they need proprietary connectors? Do then need to solder RAM? msata not good enough? The answer is that they want to force you to buy their configurations and then force them to be obsolete so you buy a new one in a couple years.
If I buy a machine, I want to buy it and as time goes by, upgrade it with the latest and greatest hardware. All until I am ready for my next one. Apple wants you to buy a new one when you are ready to upgrade it. Good for Apples cash fund, CRAPPY for it's customers.
You are correct, my bad .. I kinda thought of the new Pro as a new category, which it isn't of course.
What would be even cooler is if they made it bigger and used desktop components for higher performance. Make it even bigger so it can accept a real PCIe graphics card
On a laptop, soldering ram lets them make the case smaller and thinner. So if they want a certain size they do need to solder it. Not sure why soldered ram keeps coming up on this thread when they have never done that on a desktop computer.
And msata isn't good enough. They didn't go with a proprietary connection for those just to be different, they did it because going proprietary let them achieve speeds faster than existing SATA or mSATA. Faster SATA standards are in the works but they weren't available yet when Apple released these machines with drives that went faster than SATA allowed. Once there are faster SATA options available Apple may embrace them.
This will be a first day buy for me.
I love my 2012 mac mini and will let my sales rep have it and experience OS for her first time with 16g RAM.
iMacs are beautiful, but I already have a IPS 27" screen and other fixins, and the mac mini is perfect for my moderate graphic design/photography needs.
I love my 2012 mac mini and will let my sales rep have it and experience OS for her first time with 16g RAM.
iMacs are beautiful, but I already have a IPS 27" screen and other fixins, and the mac mini is perfect for my moderate graphic design/photography needs.
Sadly real 4k/5k support would need dp1.3 or hdmi2.0. Mini will not be the first mac to get these, rather the last one. So let's see in 2016-2017...
To be precise, nMP has workstation cpu, so there no headless mac with desktop class cpu.
Since Apple hates headless macs, what if they have thought mini in a new way: a gradle for ipad. When you stick your ipad to it, it changes to mini's screen. How about that?
Or 2018-2019+. It took almost four years for TB 2 to incorporate DP 1.2. And even that hasn't yet made it to the Mini (or the iMac for that matter). TB 3 is not planned to incorporate DP 1.3 when it rolls out with Skylake in 2015 (or 2016 if Broadwell is any indication), so you're probably looking to at least TB 4 for DP 1.3 to arrive on the scene. By the time that makes its nMP/MBP debut and trickles down to the Mini we'll probably be celebrating the new decade.
This highlights one of the main problems with tethering the video output standard to another, non-directly-related standard. Combining video and data into one port is great for a one-cable connection to your Apple monitor, but crappy for pretty much everything else.
Maxwell 2.0 cards are supporting HDMI 2.0 and DP 1.3. GM107(GTX750Ti/860M) and GM204(GTX970/980) already are supported by Yosemite.
Someone said that Mini will get the A8X as a chip. No, because it will no longer be a Mac Mini, only the AppleTV. I agree, that new AppleTV will be an iBeacon with Home Automation, SSD for running games as a console, and built in Wi-Fi router. But I am sure it will not be Mac Mini, but AppleTV. That type of computers Intel calls NUC, and for them they designed 4.5W CPU's. From Apple's side its pointless to use in AppleTV that kind of CPU's if they have A8 that draws less power and gives quite similar performance.