Supply Shortages Hint at Possible Mac Mini Refresh

[thebez]

My guess is that new mini in it's default config will be inexpensive (and hence Apple will not use expensive components).

The goal of the mini is to transition Windows users.
Also, Apple has been trying widen its market by lowering it's prices.

I think alot of folks are wishing that Apple would come out with a more powerful machine ...quad processor, lots of disk, great video card, etc... just like a display-less windows machine.

I'm betting on lower prices - $499 OSX machine - mediocre components, but still good enough for stuff like iLife, iWork, iTunes, etc.


P.

That would be nice - put it back to the price it was 5 years ago, in the PPC era! The excuse for the price hike at the time of the intel switch was all the "extras" it came with; the remote, wifi, etc. Now they don't give you the remote, and if you want to plug into a vga monitor you will need to buy a $30 adapter that came in the box free with the $499 PPC model.


What I'd like to see is a mini minus the optical drive and with a single (3.5 inch?) HD in the same size case, or possibly just a bit shorter. The case should otherwise keep the same dimensions. Sell it for $429, and set it up so it can use the DVD drive from the MacBook Air.

 

[thebez]

There is scope. What he said was didn't think most people wanted yet another box. If already have a TV and the TV connects to the internet, runs flash, run HTTP live streams, and has a H.264 decoder in it... what is your box going to do ?

The percentage of TVs with built in internet is rapidly taking off.

If folks are willing to dramatically increase net traffic by creating millions of independent streams of content then the TV will be able to do "on demand" all buy itself. That extra box just gets in the way. It goes the way of external HD tuners and tunerless HD monitors.

I think though what that blows off is folks having their own copy locally stored somewhere. There is a rumor about a time capsule + stripped down Apple TV combo. However, again.... if the TV could "pick up" the media from the time capsule .... what is the point of the extra box ?




Or more simply a mac mini that is a home storage and the TV just contacts the storage unit over local internet. The TV already has a decoder to put the bits onto the screen; just need to get the bits over there. For 1080p content that is an issue even getting it to the local network, but bluray covers that where local broadband doesn't cut it.

Did you think that maybe some of us want a TV bigger than 30 inches that costs less than $1000? Or that maybe some of us don't like the all-in-one approach? If i liked all-in-one, I'd be posting in a thread about iMacs, not Minis.

 

[Undecided]

Let the griping begin about Blu-Ray and the lack there of.

I just saw an ad on TV for a movie coming out on blu-ray, DVD, and digital distribution (and on-demand) all on the same date. So while I recognize that Blu-ray is superior to online distribution, in terms of quality, most people's home setups make it impossible to see a difference, and now the 30 day delay seems to be disappearing. Physical media is dead, or at the very least dying.

 

[Zombie Acorn]

Time for a MacMini/AppleTV combo...

I was thinking that also.

 

[PAC88]

So should I buy now or wait?

 

[aiqw9182]

Geekbench? Take your synthetic benchmarks and cram them up your rear. Real-world benches or nothing.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2921/2

Take a look at the real-world stuff. x264 encoding, CS4, some games, although games will rarely push the CPU nearly as hard as the GPU. See how the i3 spanks the FASTER Core 2 Duo in multimedia? Granted, these are desktop chips, but there's little difference between desktop vs mobile outside of power consumption.

This is funny. For one, I was talking about Arrandale, not Clarkdale. For two, you claimed Core i3 "destroys" the Core 2 in multithreaded applications, Geekbench is a multithreaded benchmark, it showed little gains. For three, the benchmarks you posted pretty much have the 3.33 GHz Core 2 Duo performing better than the 2.93 i3 in every single test except for one or two and again, they were very minimal differences. What's your point again?

 

[cvaldes]

So should I buy now or wait?

Buy now and buy later. Rinse and repeat daily.

Sincerely,

AAPL shareholder

 

[paul4339]

That would be nice - put it back to the price it was 5 years ago, in the PPC era! The excuse for the price hike at the time of the intel switch was all the "extras" it came with; the remote, wifi, etc. Now they don't give you the remote, and if you want to plug into a vga monitor you will need to buy a $30 adapter that came in the box free with the $499 PPC model.


What I'd like to see is a mini minus the optical drive and with a single (3.5 inch?) HD in the same size case, or possibly just a bit shorter. The case should otherwise keep the same dimensions. Sell it for $429, and set it up so it can use the DVD drive from the MacBook Air.

I agree, the optical drive should be optional, like the MacBook Air - They seem to be promoting getting rid of the optical drive - it also would cut costs.

The goal really is to get you to eventually buy an iMac ... The biggest complaint I've heard about the iMac from the ordinary consumer Joe, is the price. They hesitate to shell out that kinda of cash because their Windows machine does enough for them (email, surf, etc).

The mini is there to hook windows users on to OSX, and reasonably priced software like iLife/iWork and eventually hope they will upgrade to something more expensive.

To do this, I'm guessing, Apple will try to make an inexpensive machine to reach as many consumers as they can.


Wild guess: throw in a Magic Mouse to get consumers hooked on the 'multi-touch' interface with OSX/iLife, so that they wouldn't want go back to windows.


P.

 

[RazHyena]

This is great news.

I'm seriously considering buying a Mini so I can use my Macbook on the go. Currently it's filling the role as my desktop (and pretty darn well, I might add) with an external HP monitor.

Oh, and if anyone wants to buy me an iPad, feel free to do so.

 

[JAT]

I just saw an ad on TV for a movie coming out on blu-ray, DVD, and digital distribution (and on-demand) all on the same date.

Most movies now come out like this, what does that have to do with anything?

So while I recognize that Blu-ray is superior to online distribution, in terms of quality, most people's home setups make it impossible to see a difference, and now the 30 day delay seems to be disappearing. Physical media is dead, or at the very least dying.

Well, if you are still running SDTV, then yeah, don't bother with BD. Why does people not bothering to upgrade matter to the latest tech?

This just isn't even making sense.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

If there is a quad core processor put into the mini, I'll buy one.

I'll buy two and hopefully they have a Nvidia 320M or some new ATi product in there and I'll use both for OpenCL/OpenGL development.

 

[cvaldes]

If there is a quad core processor put into the mini, I'll buy one.

I'll buy two and hopefully they have a Nvidia 320M or some new ATi product in there and I'll use both for OpenCL/OpenGL development.

Jesus H. Christ, what are you guys smoking? Not even the recently updated high-end 17" MacBook Pro offers a quad-core processor as a build-to-order option.

Quad-core processors aren't coming to the Mac mini this year. End of discussion.

It's not an unworthy goal, however we'll see you in a couple of years.

 

[swarmster]

How about you go and check some facts before you blabb about stuff you obviously "heard" somewhere. The Core i3 is far superior to any Core 2 Duo at the same clock speed and even beats the lower end Core 2 Quads.

Cute! For years, I also had trouble understanding how people could "learn" things they read at places other than online fan forums.

For those that don't recall the horrors of the Celeron years that plagued low-end PCs for generations, they were low-clocked, power-hungry, half-cache, and half-assed versions of their sister Pentiums. Intel figured giving them a hip new marketing name like "Celeron" would make them more palatable somehow.

Now we see the i3, a new hip marketing name for the bastard of the real i-lineup. But forget comparing it to the i5 and i7 for a second and let's look at it next to the latest Core 2 Duos. The Core 2 Duos are available in 2.53-2.8GHz flavours, versus i3's 2.13-2.26GHz. The Core 2 Duos use about 2/3 of the power the i3 does. The Core 2 Duos have 6MB of cache, versus i3's 3MB.

Starting to sound familiar?

I'll leave the question of whether Intel is also force-feeding everyone their completely worthless video (of the sort Apple banished from the mini 2 generations ago) with the i3 as an exercise to the reader.

(Bonus points: find a dual core processor that beats a low-end quad given any un-named benchmark test of your choosing! Then pretend this is surprising.)

Why some people think the most valuable computing company in the world should stick Intel's crappiest available processor in their computers is unknown to me. But I'd guess they're still cheesed that the iPad doesn't use an Atom, too.

 

[Doc.Mac]

What I'd like to see is a mini minus the optical drive and with a single (3.5 inch?) HD in the same size case, or possibly just a bit shorter. The case should otherwise keep the same dimensions. Sell it for $429, and set it up so it can use the DVD drive from the MacBook Air.

That would be very nice!

Or maybe a Mini Server without Snow Leopard Server priced like the normal one.

 

[oysteins]

Bingo

Time for a MacMini/AppleTV combo...

I think you are right. MacMini/AppleTV is a perfect combo. And with the speed this market is moving it is only natural that updates of the combo comes quick. Hopefully this will be the platform for the Apple audiovisual activities.

 

[mrklaw]

make it slightly taller, with room for putting in the imac innards rather than the MB ones. then give me i5 and i7 options and I'm in

 

[Lord Vader]

My crystal ball says:

New model called Mac Mini Pro
w/ Quad Core
w/ nvidia 320m graphics module
w/ HDMI port
w/ Embedded WiFi and Bluetooth
w/ Blu Ray super drive option
w/ front USB port
w/ terabyte drive option

there is also another model with a bunch of options to replace Mac TV and become a living room entertainment hub with LOTS of WiFi suite software to use your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch as you watch your favorite show or movie.

USB in the front? Not happening on Apple device.

 

[Tanguyvd]

Let the griping begin about Blu-Ray and the lack there of.

BR is not gonna happen... and frankly, i'm not that frustrated about it. HD streaming, cloud tv... that would be nice

How 'bout i3 while maintaining Mini Display Port?

i do no expect apple to drop the MiniDP for HDMI. they just introduced it.

My crystal ball says:

New model called Mac Mini Pro
w/ Quad Core
w/ nvidia 320m graphics module
w/ HDMI port
w/ Embedded WiFi and Bluetooth
w/ Blu Ray super drive option
w/ front USB port
w/ terabyte drive option

there is also another model with a bunch of options to replace Mac TV and become a living room entertainment hub with LOTS of WiFi suite software to use your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch as you watch your favorite show or movie.

I had a dream, that one day....

USB in the front? Not happening on Apple device.

exactly!

 

[KnightWRX]

For those that don't recall the horrors of the Celeron years that plagued low-end PCs for generations, they were low-clocked, power-hungry, half-cache, and half-assed versions of their sister Pentiums. Intel figured giving them a hip new marketing name like "Celeron" would make them more palatable somehow.

The Celeron 300A was for a time, the pinacle of processors available from Intel for gamers. Cheap, fast, 450 mhz capable without added cooling. The Abit BH-6 was THE board to run it on. CPU Soft Menu in the BIOS with 3 RAM slots, 5 PCI slots, which was rare at the time. It destroyed the Pentium IIs, even the 333 mhz, which was about 4 times as costly.

The Celeron always had a place as a budget CPU. Let's face it, cache/clock don't matter to someone browsing the web and reading e-mail or even playing games. Like that other said : "It just works". People get too hung up on specs sometimes and forget what it is they really need.

Now we see the i3, a new hip marketing name for the bastard of the real i-lineup. But forget comparing it to the i5 and i7 for a second and let's look at it next to the latest Core 2 Duos. The Core 2 Duos are available in 2.53-2.8GHz flavours, versus i3's 2.13-2.26GHz. The Core 2 Duos use about 2/3 of the power the i3 does. The Core 2 Duos have 6MB of cache, versus i3's 3MB.

Please explain to me how the Core2Duos running at 2.53 ghz vs I3's 2.13 ghz matters ? Please, pretty please, with sugar on top, if you have no clue what you're talking about, shut up.

Clock speed hasn't mattered in years. Instructions per clock is what matters and the i3 does more. It is faster than a Core 2 Duo clock for clock, albeit, not very much. In the end it doesn't matter. Apple can't use nVidia integrated graphics with an i3.

A MBP refresh with i3 instead of Core 2 Duo would have sucked for gaming. Apple did the right choice. Core 2 Duo is plenty fast anyhow (heck, computers built in the last 10 years are plenty fast for what people need them for mostly. Except gamers and artists, no one really exploits much of a computer these days in the consumer realm).

 

[Hattig]

How about you go and check some facts before you blabb about stuff you obviously "heard" somewhere. The Core i3 is far superior to any Core 2 Duo at the same clock speed and even beats the lower end Core 2 Quads.

The Intel Graphics make it like Usain Bolt running whilst carrying a 100kg sack of concrete mix.

 

[Eric-PTEK]

Cute! For years, I also had trouble understanding how people could "learn" things they read at places other than online fan forums.

For those that don't recall the horrors of the Celeron years that plagued low-end PCs for generations, they were low-clocked, power-hungry, half-cache, and half-assed versions of their sister Pentiums. Intel figured giving them a hip new marketing name like "Celeron" would make them more palatable somehow.

Now we see the i3, a new hip marketing name for the bastard of the real i-lineup. But forget comparing it to the i5 and i7 for a second and let's look at it next to the latest Core 2 Duos. The Core 2 Duos are available in 2.53-2.8GHz flavours, versus i3's 2.13-2.26GHz. The Core 2 Duos use about 2/3 of the power the i3 does. The Core 2 Duos have 6MB of cache, versus i3's 3MB.

Starting to sound familiar?

I'll leave the question of whether Intel is also force-feeding everyone their completely worthless video (of the sort Apple banished from the mini 2 generations ago) with the i3 as an exercise to the reader.

(Bonus points: find a dual core processor that beats a low-end quad given any un-named benchmark test of your choosing! Then pretend this is surprising.)

Why some people think the most valuable computing company in the world should stick Intel's crappiest available processor in their computers is unknown to me. But I'd guess they're still cheesed that the iPad doesn't use an Atom, too.

And your wrong....

The i3 is an i5 without turbo boost.

That's it. That is the difference in the Westmere chips. Turbo boost IMO is totally useless, you get a 266mhz jump in speed on single cores.

My wife's 2.93ghz i3 is way faster than her outgoing 2.7ghz C2D and its not the .23ghz that is making it faster.

In nearly every test the the i3/i5 are identical and scale up with MHZ performance, the biggest diff is you can get a 3.33ghz i5 and the i3 stops at 3.

The laptop line of processors goes along the same lines.

Your power consumption statement is also erroneous because you forget to include the power used by the GPU in a C2D setup since it is built into the i3.

 

[Bye Bye Baby]

Would love to see a mini update. Just don't know which direction we are going with iTunes. i would love to have some kind of cloud solution, but what do I do with my own stuff?

Do I upload 2TB of stuff to a cloud? If then, do I need a mac mini media centre?

 

[Hattig]

And your wrong....

You're

The i3 is an i5 without turbo boost.

That's it. That is the difference in the Westmere chips. Turbo boost IMO is totally useless, you get a 266mhz jump in speed on single cores.

Turbo-boost is useful, with adequate cooling it can run the entire CPU at a faster speed, never mind the times when a single thread just needs a boost, often quite a high boost - the i5 520M (a suitable Mac Mini CPU) boosts from 2.4GHz to 2.93GHz.

However it is more useful in quad-core products than dual-core products.

My wife's 2.93ghz i3 is way faster than her outgoing 2.7ghz C2D and its not the .23ghz that is making it faster.

It's probably the fresh, unlumbered Windows installation.

Your power consumption statement is also erroneous because you forget to include the power used by the GPU in a C2D setup since it is built into the i3.

So what, the Intel graphics are worse than useless for Apple, and the Mac Mini doesn't have the space inside for a discrete GPU. I'll take the minor hit in CPU performance in order to have a 10x faster GPU.

Except that the fastest i3 is 2.26GHz (35W), so a Core 2 Duo at 2.66GHz (P8800 / P9600: 25W) is not a bad alternative.

 

[KnightWRX]

BR is not gonna happen... and frankly, i'm not that frustrated about it. HD streaming, cloud tv... that would be nice

Wake me up when HD streaming reaches the quality of Blu-Ray and nothing has yet replaced it.

 

[temetrepo]

I wish apple would make them in black to match monitors and home theaters.

There's always colorware

damn, i just got another mac mini a 2 weeks ago