$100 increase for Apple's redesigned Mac mini seen as disappointment - Page 4

Well, 'stiff'. Not 'unreasonable'.

HHAHAHahahahahahahahahHAHAHAHHAHHa.

*Wipes tears from eyes.

Sure. Whatever you say Dave.

Yeah. Blame it on the Chinese.

Blame it on the PPC.

I didn't think it would be Apple's fault... And I thought McVities digestive biscuit Christmas 'tins' were expensive...

Lemon Bon Bon.

There you go.

Just an 'illusion.' (*Looks at the sky.)

I think that's a good idea. Let's eliminate all the entry models. So that way we can just buy Apple's 'top of the line.' In effect the 'top end' becomes the entry model... *Looks blankly.

Lemon Bon Bon.

I wish the mini could learn a remote the way ATV does.

well, 100$ more is not so much, when you consider it's 250€ more over here in europe (previous basic model was 549€)
for the record, google tells me 250€ is 308.15$ !!

I'm very happy that I bought my first mac mini this week end... the previous model 2.26 GHz, 2GB ram, 160GB disk

[QUOTE

Apple makes small incremental steps, so say what you want, it's coming.[/QUOTE]

Well, the 'mini' is evidence of that. 'Less' spec for even more money.

Add that to the glacial pace of GPU cards in Mac machines. And the glacial nature of the Open GL drivers in the OS.

Incremental. Glacial. Just semantics, I guess.

Lemon Bon Bon.

I'm happy I'm not paying £649 for a 'tin' with crap specs.

Lemon Bon Bon.

Eh, if the title of this article were "Apple upgrades top-end Mac Mini and drops price $100, eliminates low-end Mini" the comments in this thread would be entirely different. You're just being subjected to emotional manipulation by the media, inflaming your passions and all that.

I started a thread pondering just what impact the Mini's changes will have on the next iMac bump over here: http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...66#post1653366

Lemon>Yeah man, they clearly didn't read any of those threads full of us talking about a bigger Mini with i5s 400 going up to 649 is a 62.25% increase

£649 for a biscuit tin. Fcuk me.

I agree.

If I buy that, I'm being emotionally manipulated by Apple's media.

Lemon Bon Bon.

Looking at the price of this thing, the same thing struck me. If there is an aTV in the wings, and if they were to price this machine cheaper, they couldn't charge a premium for the new aTV. And they did just release a phone for pre-order today that rivals the price of this.

Still, though, it's a bit pricey.

It's been pointed out yes, but poorly, and incorrectly.

Late 2009 Mini:
Middle: 2.53GHz 4GB RAM 320GB hdd 9400M OS X $799

Mid 2010 Mini:
Base: 2.4GHz 2GB RAM 320GB hdd 320M OS X $699

Slower cpu, less ram, faster GPU. <sarcasm>Yes, OH so improved </sarcasm>

That's it. I aint sleeping a wink tonight.

250£ extra. Where's the fekking quad core and a 4850 in a slightly bigger Mini?

*greed. The stench of it I smell.

Lemon Bon Bon.

apple currently sells an iPod Touch for $199(30% profit margin).
remove the display(glass, touch membrane, LCD, backlight).
remove the headphone jack and dock connector.
add an HDMI port, A4 chip.

BOOM! new AppleTV $99 (Apple will sell the device at cost and make the profit on increased app, music, movie, and miscellaneous hardware sales)

Yes, the current AppleTV's days are numbered.
We will probably see the new AppleTV this Fall before the holidays.
---
Also consider Steve's comments about a "go to market strategy" at the All Things Digital conference recently.

I don't think Jobs wants any moving parts. One of the first to drop the 3 1/2 floppy. He'll move to solid state drives as soon as the technology lets him.

$100 is a lot of money when buying a computer. The Mac mini needs to be at $499, the cheapest MacBook $799, everything else less Benji.

ok, maybe $299, this is Apple we're talking about. The current aTV is $229, for about as much functionality as the iPod plus YouTube and iTunes music Store. With the Cost of the iPad between $499 and $829, that's close to the Mac Mini currently is.

Well it is not a door stop. What it is is an ultra compact and low power desktop.

It is not a ripoff by any stretch of the imagination, there are plenty of Core 2 PCs being sold in the USA right now. While I agree about the RAM, the rest of the machine is pretty much exactly what I expected.

I actuAlly see it as a solid interim upgrade until the SoC processors come out from Intel and AMD. When gazing upon this new case I can't help but to think this is what they are going for next year.

Thinking about the expense of the new Unibody chassis for one and the big pay raises handed out in China. Shareholders are likely in their thoughts too.

What do you mean here, they have more in the box than ever before. Further the upgraded GPU is far more important than the CPU.

Hell no. Think about it two of theses will sit side beside in a rack mount tray with no problems. This is a great physical design if you ask me, great for implementing as embedded PCs or totally out of the way under a desk.

Nothing I've seen yet implies a cheap ass computer. It actually looks well built and rugged.

I don't know what you are whining about here it is a great upgrade over the previous model. It will serve the Mini market very well indeed. It is not an XMac and never will be. It would make more sense to be sitting here demanding an XMac rather that foolish improvements to the Mini.

For a Mini update this isn't that bad.

Dave

How does this compare spec-wise to the former $799 model. Perhaps instead of saying that it costs $100 more it may be more accurate to say that they discontinued the $599 model and improved and dropped the price of the $799 model.

Check post # 133



Since you mentioned the XMac:

Shuttle PC: 13x8.5x8 884
Old Mini: 6.5x6.5x2 84.5
New Mini: 7.7x7.7x1.4 83
XMac: 10x10x6 600

This would keep the XMac as a very small unit, but still smaller than competing small designs. There would still be room for most discrete GPUs as well.

Apart from being too pricey w/o keyboard or mouse, it's still not the ideal Home Cinema in a box device.

SD slot on the back, not practical, either the side or better still the front.

Concerning Blueray, Some 3rd party will make a USB BD drive in the same facade once OSX supports BD playback.

Maybe Apple should offer, say DVD Player Pro for $29 or something, you know people would buy it to play all their BD stuff.

Also if they included a wireless remote touch pad controller and the App Store w. Games then maybe it would be worth 800 Eur., (but maybe the new Apple TV will be this though).

I mean 800 Eur are they mad?

OK, I missed the memory difference, but add $100 for memory to bump it up to $799, and I'll bet the new graphics with the incrementally slower CPU is a net performance gain. It's still not correct to compare it to the previous low-end model and declare it a price increase on that basis. If anything they held the line on the price and it has other upgrades.

As I said, one can correctly argue that they raised the entry price, but it's not like they jacked it up without giving the buyer more.

Stop talking sense. That'll never work.

I'm glad someone finally pointed this out correctly. If this was release 8 months ago, it would have made sense at this price point, but Apple basically released the average of the two previous models in terms of price and specs. The only two additional items were the HDMI port, which could have been done through the mini display port, and the new body, which is entirely aesthetic.

From a business standpoint, it would make sense to have the lower priced version there, even if few people buy it since there is definitely an up-sell component to having the price listed lower for the entry model.

Apple used to make an XServe cluster node years ago.
I would like to see Apple made an Mac mini cluster node.

Take the new design and replace the 2 hard drives with a single 32GB SSD.
- SD card slot
- Audio jacks
- Mini Displayport
- 3 USB

put in the beefiest CPU that enclosure can handle.

This would also be great for dedicated tasks such as digital signage.

If it folded up. i want the iPAd to fold up, so it is smaller. And then unfold. And stuff.

O.K. First of all this New Mac Mini should have stayed $599. Then to add insult to injury, they want $150 to upgrade to a 2.66 ghz processor. That is only .26 ghz faster. You would think that you would get more for $150, like a GT version of the Video card.

Well, he claims he found it valuable, so

Well, it's not often I'm accused of that. Thought I'd fly it as a trial balloon, see how it goes.

I have a feeling that Apple is hoping to avoid BR as long as possible. It seems to me that HD (true 1080) downloads will come along in the not too distant future and maybe Apple is looking to avoid BR just like Flash-on-mobile??

Personally I haven't bought any BR movies yet because of the price! I just can't bring myself to pay double for a BR disc.

KRR

If you have to transcode all your content before you can watch it then you don't have anything near a true HTPC. Install Perian and you can run pretty much every codec and container via QuickTime.



The Mac OS doesn't support AACS, but Windows does and the HW supports HDCP so if you boot into Windows you can plug in an external Blu-ray drive and play protected Blu-ray media.



I don't know of any Quad-core option for notebooks that have under a 45W TDP. I don't think those come out until 2011.



I was taking the idea one step further. You basically need a device about the size of the iPod Nano built into a stand that offers a few ports. I look at the new iPhone 4's logic board and it's tiny. Surely, it doesn't have to be that small, but it could be and still push high-profile 1080p content.

Either way, I think we're both right about a cheap TV coming in short order based on A4 and iOS. I think the iPod Special Event is the perfect time to demo this great stocking stuffer.



SSquirrel makes a point, his sarcasm notwithstanding, but he also ignores the other new design changes to the Mac Mini that could very well increase its price.

That's not to say that it makes it the price any easier to swallow, but I have to think that Apple knows exactly what they are doing. How many here who have bought Mac Minis went for the cheapest model and didn't upgrade to a more expensive model? That's one reason why Apple could have gone with a pricer model. How many here would never consider a Mac Mini because it's just too little machine for the money, even at $500, since most of us don't mind if a desktop system takes up more space than a box of chocolates? Count me in this group.

I agree. I stopped buying discs (movie and music) long time ago. I have them downloaded in both channels and now I don't have to worry about storage, scratches and changing disc every time i want to watch or hear different titles. I wish my game consoles have the same approach. ATM, if I have 3 new games that I juts bought, I need to swap the discs to play and that's the main reason I hesitates more... Yes, I'm lazy but then that is progress

I too disappointed with the new Mini.. I don't mind the price increase if they shipped it with newer processor like Core i5 or at least i3. I still can use my student discount but Core Duo CPU is a 'failed' both on Apple and Intel part. I don't care at all about the Blu-Ray drives. Not necessary for both now and the future as the way I sees it. It also Apple's strategy and I agree.

Oh absolutely. Filling the ocean with oil is a huge step forward.

See, that's why everyone needs to get off BP's back¡ If we just let them continue their selfless effort to completely drain the oceans of oil this will never happen again¡ If not by an accident this oil would have evnetually leaked naturally at some point in the Earth's geologic future. These guys are heroes¡




(I'm so not serious)

I quite agree. It's all very well people repeatedly saying Apple doesn't believe in Blu-ray but until there's a suitable home cinema system provided by Apple or others that uses a hard drive, optical broadband nationwide (I'm in the UK) and a better price point for downloads and HD downloads of as high a standard as Blu-ray then people will buy Blu-ray discs and for that reason Apple should at least make their systems compatible and make the streaming/download service a better prospect.

You're looking at it completely wrong. First of all what you described was divergence, not convergence. Convergence would be a Mac mini with an Apple TV UI (or an iOS emulator, if Apple TV gains iOS) replacing Front Row, but still running full OSX. Essentially you'd have macs with an Apple TV mode that was easily accessible. I could see something like that coming in 10.7. What I could not see happening is the Mac Mini being split (diverging) into two computing lines, with one of them solely dedicated to media playback, running iOS on hardware that can't even support it (natively). All for what amounts to a minimal discount from a full fledged computing platform. That seems like an even worse strategy than the current Apple TV.

Lets look at this another way. The 16GB iPad costs $499 and is capable of playing back anything in the iTunes store. Take out some of the largest and most expensive components (the screen and the battery) and add a TV UI and you have a tiny, capable, and cheap set top box that absolutely sips power (it can run off USB power).

A revamped Apple TV will spawn from iPhone/iPad hardware if it's running iOS. There is no need for any of the Mac Mini hardware to show up in a new Apple TV, and if iPad hardware is used, there would be a ton of empty space in a case with the same footprint as mac mini or current apple TV. The Mini isn't supplementing Apple TV in that form factor, it is replacing it. Apple TV is likely destined for much bigger things (by becoming smaller and cheaper).

I believe in clearly labeled sarcasm for less confusion on text forums I'm well aware of the other changes that add cost (mainly the miniaturization of the power unit and the size of the Mini overall, plus the all aluminum nature), but the size of the Mini was fine before, so the other changes add no value for me.

(crossposting from the Arstechnica thread with some additions)
See I wanted Apple to go the opposite direction with the Mini. Hell, even if it was 10x10x6 it would be almost 2/3 the volume of a Shuttle PC. The original 8x8x8 Cube dimensions are even smaller still. Don't shrink it, make it bigger, start upgrading the entire desktop lineup to i5 cpus. An i5 with 4GB RAM and a DX11 ATI card at a reasonable price would have been complete switch-bait for me. I have a large desktop PC at home right now that is definitely more powerful than the Mini. I like the idea of switching to Mac, but the Mini as it exists currently is not the device to entice that switch. i5 with good graphics, yep, I woulda been there with bells on.

Steve is obsessed with making everything as small as possible (unless it's the Mac Pro, in which case it's ginormous) so no go on that. Dimensions like I talk about would have been more in line with the long debated XMac and something like that priced at $800 or even $900 would have been more expensive, but a much greater value.

The original purpose of the Mini was to have an inexpensive Mac to help induce switchers. Clearly that is less of a concern for them these days.

People who rewatch movies more than once and don't want to pay $4.99 every time they do it? People who don't want their movie to expire after 24 hours once they start watching it? I can rent Blu-Ray's by mail and have the best audio and video quality possible at home, and they don't cost me $5 a piece; and, if I don't watch it in 24 hours someone doesn't break into my house and take it back.


Don't hold your breath. Unlike discs, streaming content will always be limited by distribution windows; many movies aren't available day-and-date with the disc, many are only available for 60-90 days, and many more will never be available at all. You'll never see an endless library of movies built the way Apple has with music, which is why the disc will live much longer than streaming enthusiasts like to believe.



The only way you lose a physical disc collection is by robbery or fire, both of which are covered by insurance. You can lose your entire digital collection in an instant with a hard drive failure, which is guaranteed to happen eventually with non solid-state drives, and there's zero reimbursement.

ok please, Blu-Ray is fantastic. lots of people enjoy them and have collections of them. including myself. Many of us are also in places where you can not do VOD or streaming. Not everyone wants that all the time.

so... they ought to give consumers the OPTION to do BLU-RAY on the mac. not just tell them they can't which is what Apple is doing.

Also... for the $100 price increase, which is what this is... apple ought to have

1- HDMI (check)
2- Blu-Ray playback (not done) there are plenty of Superdrives which can read BD also.
3- Nvidia 330m chip (not done) this is a much better graphics chip than the 320m

all in all, i think this is a nice update, just slightly overpriced.

So what you're saying is that you didn't want a mini at all. That has no bearing on it's value for those who want a compact pc. Apple wont make an xmac because there is no profit in the traditional desktop market (it's a race to the bottom), and little room for them to differentiate themselves. Apple isn't after market share, they are after profit. If you are willing to switch to a mac, but only if they have a traditional desktop, you are worth very little to them. It's that simple.

It sucks, but that's business, and that's why I built a PC for gaming. I also own a MBP and I'd love to have the new mini under my TV. Apple chooses their markets and I purchase mac products when our interests align, and other products when they don't.

I suspect that the value of the small form factor and the sub $1000 pricing will still be sufficient for most switchers. In fact, I find this version a lot more appealing than the last, I wouldn't be surprised to see it outsell the old one over its lifecycle, despite the increase in the base price.

I think you may be right that the Mac Mini isn't the right device to entice switchers, which is probably why Apple dropped the low-end model. I think it's much more likely that switchers will be enticed by iMacs and MacBook Pros.

Spec obsessed gamers and HW geeks, probably aren't going to be enticed at all, and certainly not by a Mini, of any description. People looking for "budget" computers probably aren't going to be enticed either, a lot of them are buying netbooks. But, for the average Windows user, a Mac Mini at even $500-$600 dollars may not look like such a good deal, especially when they compare their current display to what they could get with an iMac or MBP, and realize that their windows keyboard isn't really ideal for Mac use.

My guess is that Apple isn't really seeing much switching action with these systems. The workstation version probably represents a small niche that they'd like to sell to but doesn't warrant a multiplicity of models. The server version may represent a bigger, perhaps growing, market for people looking for a SOHO server. But, all in all, I'd bet that most switchers aren't buying Mac Minis.

Also, the "Mac Mini" you are asking for isn't a Mini at all, except in the sense that what you really want is a cheaper, "mini" Mac Pro, which there are no signs on the horizon that I'm aware of that we will be seeing anytime soon, if ever.