Wondrous, thank you!
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Quick Takes: Mac Mini Turning 3.5 Years Old, But Unlike Mac Pro, Apple Remains Silent About Future Updates
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Wondrous, thank you!
[doublepost=1523017677][/doublepost]
In the past week:
Eaton Centre
Yorkdale
Fairview
All mall stores in Toronto.
As a mini 2011 user I'm not sure what I want to do next. A 2012 would make updates available after June when my 2011 is left behind but is that the best choice. I don't really want a current model. I might just move to iMac since it seems like it will be forever before a better Mini is available.
When I saw the thumbnail of the image article over on the right it looked like a lock-ness-esque picture of a blimp. Something about the camera angle and the Apple logo being upside down.
I think the reason the mini hasn’t been updated is the same reason the MBA hasn’t been updated. Once you factor in the cost of all the components, it’s not profitable to sell it at its current price using 2018 components. I know Apple gets much better prices than retail, but if I price an i5-7500, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB blade SSD, I’m already over $400. That doesn’t include the motherboard or case, the cost to design, build, ship, and advertise. Yes, Apple has billions in cash, but they didn’t get there by making bad business moves.
Like everyone else, I’d love to see a new mini, but sadly current economics means it is either going to be poorly spec’ed or too expensive. I think this is the reason Apple is looking at an architecture transition—it’s the only way they believe they can deliver systems at low price points without them being crap. It’s why iPad is the cheapest Apple product.
Like everyone else, I’d love to see a new mini, but sadly current economics means it is either going to be poorly spec’ed or too expensive. I think this is the reason Apple is looking at an architecture transition—it’s the only way they believe they can deliver systems at low price points without them being crap. It’s why iPad is the cheapest Apple product.
I wasn't saying that. He stated that he needed a matte screen because of the brightness levels in the room he is using it in.
And actually, from a pricing standpoint, the iMac is a replacement for the Mac mini. Especially considering what you get the "2014" Mac mini an the 2017 21.5" iMac.
That's fair and I concede that the screen really is amazing on the iMac, and it probably would work well enough in direct sunlight. I was more focused on the fact that they seem to be set on using a different screen, and that is a totally justifiable reason to exclude the iMac.
It's not too complicated. Just follow the iFixIt tutorial. Allow 1 hour for the procedure, since you'll probably want to clean the interior at the same time. With some experience, you can change a drive in under 15 minutes.
TIP: if you don't have the special tool to pull the guts out of the housing, a pair of small screwdrivers will work just fine.
When Apple Computer dropped the second part of their name I didn't realize the implications.
Apple should be updating Macs yearly or whenever newer tech becomes available. No one can tell me they're not making truckloads by selling outdated tech. Has the added bonus of having a shorter lifespan, meaning people have to come back to replace quicker as well.
Well, apparently 80% of mac sales are now laptops, so I guess they feel if they are going to offer an entry level mac, it had just as well be a notebook form factor. At least that way they will have a low margin but relatively high volume product, not a low margin low volume one...
The big selling point to me is that I can put a screen on VESA mount, attach the mac mini to the back of the monitor, and have a very clean workstation in a very small spot. Our house has one of those telephone nooks but we don't have a home phone so it is basically just a really small desk built into the wall. It's not big enough for me to host a real workstation, but the space is great for family management, quick writing sessions, guest web surfing and as a home server.
For us, I keep our personal calendars synced with it plus a special "activities calendar" of local events and a bunch of bookmarks for attractions, local weather, etc. That way if I have to work and someone is visiting they can easily see the schedule and plan something to do with their day. For these tasks everyone seems to praise the ultrawide 21:9 monitor in portrait mode. We also have a few key apps like Paprika (to manage meals), iTunes (to make it easy to do whole home streaming), skype (because her parents still don't have cell phones), and I think I still have twitter installed (but no one used it and... well... they solved that one for us).
I looked at Cozi but I wasn't a huge fan... plus a website does not replace a desktop app.
Could I do all that with an iMac? Sure, but not in the space I use. It's a really tiny spot.
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What's more embarrassing is that Apple want £809 for a dual-core 2.8 i5 mac mini with 8GB RAM and 1TB fusion, that was released in October 2014 .....
Honestly, this is just bizarre. Is apple the only company that is this slow to update their hardware?
Not likely, but it would be pretty neat if Apple designed the Mac Pro in such a way that it starts out as a base ~$800 Mac—maybe not as "mini" to start but you just bolt different components onto it as needed. Not sure how that would affect the thermal stuff though. But a lot of people hear "modular" and think they'll be able to upgrade it like a homemade PC. Nope. If that were the case we'd have a new one by now. I feel like they're developing some kind of system where you just pop in different boxes which snap into place. Need a new GPU? Snap off the old box and snap on a new one. Need more RAM? Pop on another little box. SSD upgrade? So on and so forth…hopefully allowing us to swap CPUs but we'll see. Unfortunately all of these components will end up with a premium price compared to off-the-shelf components. Hopefully though the spec will be made available to third parties to develop upgrade modules for it—even if it's just limited to Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA. Though they may use Apple chips.
Why? They didn't make any other announcements that were not education related. iPad/iOS is their bet in education, not macOS.
I agree. Sometimes I feel whole switch to glossy is a result of selling to consumers who want their macs to look like their TV screen. Anyone who computed in the 90s (remember CRT antiglare shields?) knows that glossy screens increase eye strain and reduces productivity.
I wanted to replace it with another mini, but I couldn't justify the money for how old the hardware was.
I don't know why they down graded the processors to a max of 2 cores. That was also a deal-breaker for me.
[doublepost=1523032167][/doublepost]I still have a 2006 mac mini which on its first hard drive. It is a great little unit. The problem is now you can't update the OS and thus the rest of the software (browsers etc).
I wanted to replace it with another mini, but I couldn't justify the money for how old the hardware was.
I don't know why they down graded the processors to a max of 2 cores. That was also a deal-breaker for me.
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4K support (along with its USB 2.0 ports) was what finally made me move on from my Mini. I was actually quite happy with it otherwise, was using it for Photoshop, Illustrator, presentation design in Keynote, and even some light video editing in Final Cut Pro. I'd dropped an SSD into it and it had 8 GB of RAM which seemed to be keeping things moving. I did many thousands of dollars worth of graphic design on that thing and it never let me down. In fact, it's still in service, chugging away on my wife's desk and running High Sierra quite nicely. I/O to her Time Machine drive is ghastly slow, but it's for backups after all.
To be super honest, I could have kept using it for another year or two, but I got greedy for more pixel density and "had to" (lol) get an iMac 5K. I suppose Apple's strategy of not updating the Mini worked, because I probably would've bought a 4K-capable Mini if it existed and a Dell monitor or something. Ah well.
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I don't see how an Apple TV is even close to a Mac mini. AFAIK, it can't run any productivity apps (calendar, messages, notes etc).
It was gone for a while but the mini re-appeared in my local Apple store. One now sits next to a nMP. Two of the new LG 5K monitors on the table. Of course, neither of them are running at 5K.
I can see the Keynote slide now, "33% faster than the current Mac Mini!"
I really hope that Apple never adopts the A processor for the Mac. Having the x86 cpu has been a huge benefit for me. I remember all to well the isolation that came with using 68k and PPC processors.