"Becomes"? I think it became non-upgradeable three years ago.
Only thing you can upgrade is the disk which is difficult and it voids your warranty.
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The new Mac mini is almost certainly coming
- Thread starter GabrieleR
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"Becomes"? I think it became non-upgradeable three years ago.
Only thing you can upgrade is the disk which is difficult and it voids your warranty.
Lol, it’s a nothing statement.
The next lowest rung on the CEO statement ladder is “the Mini product line has been discontinued”
Tim Cook's statement translates to "...just called over and had an engineer assigned to look into it..."
The better possibility ... and likely outcome will be some sort of loss with some sort of gain ... i.e. The "Mini" name and price-point will be abandoned and Apple will revisit the headless desktop with a Mac Pro that can down-size to the $2500.00 price-point. I for one could live with that!
Meh. There are WAY more powerful machines than the most powerful Mac Pro, that cost < $1500. If Apple really wants to go down that route, they'd have to start the pricing at $1500, and go up from there.
The whole point of the Mac mini was to provide MacOS and adequate performance at an affordable price. Take away the affordable price aspect and you no longer have anything comparable.
For example, I would not spend $2,500 to upgrade my 2012 Mac mini - currently being used as a HTPC for HD video playback.
With all due respect, your post makes no sense at all. Mac Mini customers gain literally nothing in that scenario. What you described is a simple discontinuation of the Mac Mini - nothing more, nothing less. A $2,500 machine is NOT a replacement for the Mac Mini. That's like saying a Lamborghini is a suitable replacement for a Honda Civic.
Mac Mini customers have absolutely no use (or desire) for a machine at that price point. Why wouldn't they just buy a Macbook Pro and save $1,300?
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That is still WAY out of the range of what most Mac Mini customers would be willing to pay. And again, it would be far more likely they would buy a Macbook Pro at a significant savings.
How much power do you people think Mac Mini owners need? Let's try to be somewhat realistic.
The Mac Mini was not designed to appeal to people who wanted massive super computers that cost thousands of dollars.
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Ah yes, I understand - I also agree with you but I was speaking from the Apple perspective ... which I believe to be soon revealed as ... "so you want a headless desktop ... when mobility is King ... when our primary profits come from some other product - well then let's solve two problems ... eliminate the "low-end, consolidate inventory and allow users to customize in the $2500.00 to $5000.00 range. Of course wiping clean the concept of economy and driving the speciality market which after all that's what we amount to...
OK, all the "$2500 and up" folks go back to the "The New Mac Pro Is Almost Certainly Coming" thread and leave this one to us poor schlubs who want a sub-$1000 useful Mini.
I don't want to die, just wanta ride my motorcyyyyycle.
Arlo, is that you?
From Apple's perspective the Mini represents the "Radio Shack" mentality that may appeal to DIY'ers, Mod'ers and savvy buyers who know just how much power they need and make use of aftermarket upgrades to grow their expectations. The Apple store exhibits this sterility of technology which as it advances will become more fragile and less open to tinkering.
The Apple mindset wants you to view computing from the iPhone - iPad perspective where a iMac Pro represents the standing paradigm for desktop. If we want something that Apple isn't focused on and they decide to do it they'll make it financially attractive for Apple.
The Apple mindset wants you to view computing from the iPhone - iPad perspective where a iMac Pro represents the standing paradigm for desktop. If we want something that Apple isn't focused on and they decide to do it they'll make it financially attractive for Apple.
Probably people speculated on this many times before, but anyway it's interesting to imagine the impossible, what modern updated Mac Mini 2017 might look like—under normal healthy competitive market conditions—in terms of both specs/looks and price (not as now when one single Apple monopoly sits on it, in theory it can do anything, in practice opts for doing nothing, except making some incoherent noises on how "important" it is, yeah, right).
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If you managed to get macOS running on a Radio Shack computer, you would have a Hack-a-Shack. (Yes Virginia, there will almost certainly be a new Mac mini, but waiting for it will drive you crazy.)
Right. And I do think people (well, most people) understand that a "sub-$1000" Mac is not going to be as powerful as a Pro, and not as expandable or upgradeable. That said I do hope that if such a machine is essentially not upgradeable (i.e. soldered on RAM and storage) that the specs will at least be sufficient for several years of decent computing (i.e. I would view 16 GB RAM as a minimum for a *new* non-expandable desktop model, perhaps with a 32 GB option; while 8 GB is mostly enough now, it may not be in too many more years and I'd not want to buy a new machine which maxes out at 8 GB without an upgrade path). As for the GPU, as long as the machine has TB3 and will have eGPU support, that piece is at least largely taken care of.
ya your definatly on the right mindset there 16gb ram is the way togo with a good price point and egpu support would b a nice system but with the crazy costs of ram idk if that is viable
I was only referring to the notion of creating a new semi-pro tower, not a mini replacement.
A Mini should be a mini, and Apple can even glue in everything. A mid-tower is needed for the DIY/tinkerers. The Pro can remain the domain of the $10K+ pro users.
32GB would be the aforementioned 2500 USD "Mini".
I'm more in the "gutted 12 inch MB"-camp.
But we'll see what Intel can do with the integrated AMD GPU. That should be able to drive at least two 4k screens, even with m5/m7 CPUs.
When is that to materialize in products? Apparently 2018H1.
Would probably/hopefully still be OK to run small VMs for testing purposes.
A fully loaded 2014 mini shows as $1999.00 so a maxed out 2018 for $2500.00 is not out of line.
Really enjoyed trying out a 12 inch Macbook for a couple of weeks. I tested the m3 and was fairly impressed with the 5 watt chip. Keyboard is much better that the Macbook Pro and did all task that didn't need much power very well. I like the concept a lot but it needs another port and better battery life. It makes my 4k screen look great with type c to display port and with another type c/mini display port it could be clam shelled with power and drive the display at the same time at 60Hz without needing a hub.
It also worked great as a Plex media server to transcode blue ray 30 Gb mkv file and stream to my Roku Plex app. It could in a pinch Handbrake a blue ray disk but do to thermal throttling would take twice as many hours as compared to a 15 watt chip which takes twice as long as my desktop chip.
I think this laptop will have a bright future.
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Priceless!
[doublepost=1512015506][/doublepost]All the things we've grown to appreciate in the Mini and we want to step it up to 2018 standards and capabilities with ports and rendering so we can keep it with 5-years of usability while Apple does "what" exactly to spike their 2-year addiction cycle .... no .... we'll have to pay for that and do expect Apple to price it accordingly and they may find an interesting way to shorten that buy cycle down a bit to 3 years .
Hmm. I don't think this is too likely, but perhaps Apple could offer a mac mini upgrade program, as with the iPhone. Probably not once a year, but maybe every other year. If you are going to make a disposable product, why not lock people into an upgrade program? The product would have to be upgraded more often than once every four years, though.
... that could be the "induced" modularity where those upgraded capabilities reside in the enhanced module and the "Pro" capabilities reside in the full-blown nMacPro - of course being able to build-out the hardware from one tier to the next would be essential.
Almost certainly right, but does it matter? The new Mac Mini is still almost certainly coming.