Mac mini misses its target consumer - Page 6

There are a lot of appliances: Packet-Radio modems, telephone modems (I hate those usb modems, which are not plug&play because they need an extra driver), data cables for mobile phones and pdas, and since I am in the network business I make also a lot of use of the rs232 ports with routers, switches, firewalls of any brand. Even sun servers have a standard rs232 port to communicate.

Are there mac compatible usb2rs232 converters on the market? Most of them won't even run under linux.


I think, video editing is a great issue for pc users. I watch tv only on pc, and every time I record something I cut out the commercials and reencode the video and audio streams to a something smaller format. Although most users won't use video editing right now, it will become more and more important, I think, as it happened with audio.

I am still thinking of buying a mac mini though, I talked to a collague a few theys ago, who has a mac, and he is pretty fond of it. Although it might now replace my pc at first.

cu,
David

Ha ha ha, Thats funny. I have in my bomb shelter (Swiss thing ) a box with 4 brand-new keyboards and mice from Apple. I have never used them, one button mouse , white gay dirt attracting keyboard \. Im really happy Apple left them out; it saves me from storing them or throwing them out. Get over it people!


<EDIT>Added link about our bomb shelters</EDIT>

I was gonna buy one until I read that. What were they thinking?

It makes sense to to the thousands of PC owners who have done just that.

I'm a PC owner, and I think it's too bad the MiniMac is so skimpy on hardware (not to mention it's apparent lack of user-upgradability). Including myself, there are four guys in my office considering buying a MiniMac (we're C++ programmers, not your run-of-the-mill PC user). Of the four, I'm the only one that wishes there was more juice in the hardware in terms of video (the chipset Apple is using is like four years old now).

For the record, I don't care about the lack of keyboard or mouse, or even that it only has two USB ports. I just don't want to be robbed in order to get more memory or a larger hard drive into it. Hell, even their laptops are memory upgradable. What were they thinking?

But the OS GUI is built around OpenGL, is it not? More video muscle is always a good thing for an GUI built on OGL.

BTW, I can build an AMD64-based "gamer's machine" with a lot more oomph than a PowerMac for a LOT less money, but that's not what this thread is about.

But try finding decent HD video software (FCE HD) for under 1000$, and show me an included suit for a self built windows rig that matches iLife pound for pound, Web brousers, IE 6 or safari, safari has its quirks but it is not as "hole-y" as ie6 out of the box in xp.

And over all security, plug that windows rig into a dsl line with no fire wall or router, do nothing else to it and come back in 2 hrs...

Overall security: BSD v WIN NT, are we seeing the added value yet?

BTW the only thing windows CAN do right is gameing, If all you want to do is play games, get a pc, if you want to get real work done, get a Mac.

BTW time is money, a good tech, can charge like 60$/hr, at least arround here) and to build and configure this system, you are looking at ~5 hrs, that is $300 in time, whereas the mac takes ~1 hr to set up out of the box, that is a saveings in time of ~$240

I agree that the sp g5 is ~500$ over priced, but dual processor rigs on the PC side aint cheap.

Man, you'd lose a lot on money making a bet like that. Even my laptop has 728mb. I don't know anyone that doesn't have at least 512mb. Windows 2K and XP need 256mb just to stand upright...

Okay, this is just plain dumb.

Joe-blow consumer looking at the MiniMac: "Gee, the upgrade to 1gb is so expensive..."

Retail sales nitwit: "Well, then, you might want to consider this machine here - it comes with a 12-inch monitor."

Joe-blow consumer looking at the MiniMac: "Cool. How much memory does it come with?"

Retail sales nitwit: "256mb. But it comes with a monitor."

Joe-blow consumer looking at the MiniMac: "Then I still have to pay for the upgrade to 1gb."

Retail sales nitwit: "Of course, and that upgrade costs even more."

Joe-blow consumer looking at the MiniMac: "I see. Hey, tell me about those PC's again..."


Even the most power Macs available only come with 256MB stock. WTF is that about?

I build my own machines - here's one I build for my dad's wife last week, buying all components from NewEgg:

Case w/ 300w power supply
AMD 2500 Barton (OEM)
Chaintech nForce2 motherboard (includes onboard LAN, onboard audio, two serial ports, a parallel port, SIX USB 2.0 ports, and firewire 400)
512MB PC2100
ATI Radeon 9200 (retail card)
Hitachi 120GB hard drive
CD-RW/DVD drive
Floppy drive
Heatsink/fan for CPU

With ground shipping, it came to $508.

My dad's wife is re-using her old keyboard, mouse, and monitor, as well as her copy of Win2K, MS Office, and other software.

Looks to me like she got more computer for the same money (obvious security benefits of OS-X notwithstanding). BTW, she went to Dell, and they would have charged her a couple hundred dollars more for a similar machine, even if she omitted the OS they wanted to sell her.

This thread isn't about Power Macs. Take a look at the Dell site. Every low-end computer comes with 256MB stock, until you get to $879 (on sale). Other Macs do have extra slots, a big selling point.

All I was trying to point out was Apple's reasoning for providing only one slot; to make this thing, obviously, a low-end machine that is difficult to soup up.

No he wouldn't. I'm at my parent's house. There are two PC's here. They have..... 256mb. In a moment we'll be going to my fiancé's house. They have a PC with 128. My parents are still good friends with my ex's parents. They have 128.

Now the bad news. In my dorm room (and every other dorm room at my school) there is a computer provided by the school running Windows Xp on 128mb! Although you're right, I wouldn't say it's standing upright Last year those same computers were running 2000 and they were "upright then"

The point being that Joseph Blow (that target market guy, damn he's always getting in the way...) usually only has what came standard at the time that he bought his computer. Even today that's 256 on a lot of PC's.

Normal people do not build their own computers!

Jeez, the mac mini is clearly not aimed at that tiny geek market.

Matter of opinion. She didn't pay you for your time, and it's heavier, bulkier, bigger, and still doesn't run OS X.

I cannot understand all the complaints about the mini not coming with a mouse or keyboard. I thank it was mainly done for two reasons:

1) It is a better marketing strategy to to have a $499 computer which you need to add $30 for a keyboard and mouse than a $529 computer that bundles them in -- that is just the weird way that it works. And a good number of the people will buy a keyboard and mouse from Apple anyway.

2) There have been a lot of complaints about bundling that useless one button mouse with Macs, and a lost of us have more usb keyboards lying around then we know what to do with. So Apple responded by un-bundling the mouse and keyboard, and now each person can make there own choice about which keyboard and mouse they use without having to toss out the ones included with the machine.

I, for one, cheered when I heard that we were not going to be forced to pay for a keyboard and one button mouse with the mini, and I truly hope that this becomes a trend that effects the rest of the Mac lines.

Here here! Apple's keyboards and mice just haven't been all that popular lately. The KB is not adjustable and the mouse has no scroll wheel.

I think that many people are missing an important point - this is the "web-computer" done right. Plug your DVI into your HD flat screen. Add a Griffin Firewave for 5.1. Buy it with bluetooth and WiFi and use a wireless controller. This is what MS tried to do years ago, but the technology i(and) the market is now mature.

All the computer geeks are trying to equare it to PC's, just like audio guys compared the iPod to Walkmans ...

I had the same non-expandable complaints about the iPod.

- user can't replace the battery
- can't upgrade the hard drive

That explains why the iPod is the flop that it is, and every other MP3 player out there is thriving, along with every other music store outside of iTunes.

Oh, wait, I'm wrong.

So, you mean we should consider what Joe Consumer wants in a computer instead of what us computer geeks want? Computer geeks that don't buy bottom-of-the-line boxes?

Folks, Apple is getting very consumer savvy. There is a good reason they left out all the "peripherals". Yes, a keyboard and mouse is an input peripheral. For the same reason they sell computers with a minimum of memory (c'mon a dual 1.8 with 256MB?). So that retailers can upsell.

How many people buy the bottom-of-the-line, get-you-in-the-store computer? About as many as buy the car that comes with no options. Nowadays, computer retailers are no longer making big margins (thanks to Dell) so they have to make it elsewhere.

And retailers will love this $500 box as it will give them excuses to sell up to a couple of hundred bucks of extras with decent margins. No salesman is going to push a buyer to a $499 all-in-one Windoze box (if one such exists) when they can make more money with a Mac mini and all the extras.

Don't be too sure yet. I'd bet that Apple will deal with the major retailers to take back the boatloads of RAM chips they remove for the free upgrades. (Apple might even provide retailers with minis that are already upgraded to avoid the hassle.) This Mac has only been on the market six days. The good deals aren't usually offered right off the bat.

No problem - buy the 512 model then.

They were thinking: get you into the store with the $499 price, and have you realize that it makes sense to spend the extra $175 for the bigger drive, faster CPU and more memory. And that if you want a GB of RAM, you'd be taking a look at the iMac G5 at that price point.

All companies with good marketing departments do this. They are not in business to give you a cheap 100% upgradeable computer. They want you to either buy something more expensive and/or buy another one when it is time to upgrade. Resale on Macs is really good.

Did you add the price of XP into that? That would add another $200 for XP Pro....

Switchers will already have a keyboard and mouse and monitor they can use so that argument is silly.

Pick up a Mac mini for peanuts and just dump your Windoze tower. Genius.

Oh you'are a C++ programmer? I'm one also! I would also like to have a much better video card in the mini, but the machine is really small and cute and... Xcode is really something to see in person! I was a NeXT fan from the beginnning and I was always astonnished by the advance of the NeXT developer tools. The concepts are really cleans. It's powerful and yet simple. For a developer it's a real value added and there is no equivalent on the PC side (no not even C# + .NET).

Apple know take a lead on the software (iLife, iWork and there other apps) in part thanks to the concepts in Cocoa (even if not all the iApps are written in Cocoa).

It's really impressive...

Apple needs something between imac and the pro towers if they wont put a video card slot into imac. we now have 3 all in one consumer machines and everyone has the rock bottom slowest videochips with no way to option out of it. Mini isnt that much of a value when you look hard at it. Apple just refuses to allow any consumer machine to have decent video even middle of the road video

The only problem (and not much of one for me as i will buy a new KB anyway) is that most PCs come with PS/2 KBs, at least untill 4 months ago (last time i cared)

Yes, the small amount of interfaces is indeed a problem.

Well, I'll need to buy at least a usb hub, 2x usb2ps/2 converters and a mac compatible usb2rs232 converter.

I always thought of buying an apple before, but they were quite expensive, because they had a monitor build in, which I didn't need (I just hook a new computer to my kvm). Also I would have no use of included keyboard and one-button-mouse.

David

I'm a PC user. To be more specific, a MEDIA CENTER PC user. I use my "Computer" to watch Live TV, Record TV (using HDD and DVD-R), play DVD, DivX,MP3 or CD, look at Photos, email, MSN message, surf the web etc etc etc. It does just about everything digital media related that I can think of. Its small too, a Shuttle, and looks really nice with its brushed aluminium casing. I can control the whole media frontend system through Windows XP Media Center 2005 edition with an officially endorsed remote control (even uses sms style typing for MSN messenger and typing websites in). Sounds great? well its not as good as you'd think. Its random, it crashes, it halts, it restarts.... its not SOLID. The idea is fantastic, but the execution is half arsed. My girlfriend HATES it, but likes the idea very much, she ends up using the old stereo in the bedroom, or switching over to "normal" tv and complains that she wants the old VHS back.... BUT she doesnt want all the BULK. She likes the look of the little box that does it all... and so do I.

When I heared about "headless Mac" I hoped they might make some kind of "Media system" and I think the Mac Mini would have been the prime product. Its SOOOOO close!!

All you people going on about the lack of keyboard and mouse and poor spec are nit picking. I dont care whats in it as long as it WORKS, and for 500 bucks I think the specs are fine. At the end of the day, I have spent so much money "Upgrading" my PC to try and get Media Center running properly that its untrue! And faffing endlessly with drivers, even HACKING them around and being afraid to touch the damn thing incase I do something wrong and the whole system needs reformatting again.

I want something out of the box that doesnt need upgrading every 5 months, doesnt have driver issues and doesnt need a clunky keyboard, but just say a simple bluetooth remote controller with a small thumb pad for mouse control (that I dont mind paying extra for if I choose). I just want a solid system that does what its supposed to. And I DONT want the "Extras" shoving down my throat... mac keyboards and mice are far too expensive even if I did want to use them.

The idea is great. Start with a base system that you can choose to "accesorize" But I think what Apple should also do with this mac mini is go straight for the All-in-one media box. Ok, you can use it as a cheap computer, or a basic media unit with an ipod on a monitor as it is now, but what about making an addon the same size and style as the mac mini that sits underneath/alongside it and turns it into a killer media machine with A/V in/out connections, a Remote control, and PVR capabilities (Dual tuner too, so it can record one channel whilst watching another), All running off a fancy simple to use front end that incorporates iLife iTunes iDVD etc all running ontop of the solid Mac OS X. Basically get in on what Micro$oft are trying to do with Media Center PC's.. but do it RIGHT and make it work properly. Team that up with an iPod Video (If something like that ever emerges) and you've got a killer media combo for personal home and portable media needs.

Id pay another $500 for said box if I knew guaranteed that it would work glitch free all through a simple interface.

I see Elgato have a very near product in the eyeHome... but its just lacking the Live TV option (only displays recorded "tv" files on the TV).

I look with eager eyes to see if Apple move into this untapped territory... Or maybe a third party like Elgato. Until then, I struggle on with my media PC pouring never ending amounts of money into it in a vein hope that one day it will work how it should.

Maybe if the Mac mini succeed they will produce a mini on steroid with a G5 and more upgradibility.

It now seems that having their retail stores they are more in contact with they customers and are starting to listen to them.

If a significant number of them ask for this kind of machine, I'm sure they will produce it. They have everything to do it from a technical standpoint.

And once people have tried and enjoyed the Mac mini and want a much powerful machine...

Who knows one day...

She's using a previously purchased copy of Win2K. She doesn't like XP. She probably wouldn't like OS-X either, no matter how hard I try to talk her into at least looking at it. However, I could get XP Pro for $125-150 if I shopped hard enough.

BTW, how much does it cost to buy a new version of OS-X?

1) I don't charge family/friends for my time. Do you? Besides, I'm almost positive that the price for assembly of the MiniMac isn't a big factor in the price, so this is a moot point.

2) You think she carries her computer around the house with her? If/when I get a Mac, it'll live in the computer room where it belongs, I don't care how small it is.

3) It doesn't run OS-X because Apple can't/won't develope/release OS-X for the PC (which is understandable).

Technically speaking, there is no "512mb model". There is a 256MB model that can be upgraded by Apple to 512mb.

Of course, that's being pedantic...

That is a key, y'know. Apple, in the past, has had problems with computer salespeople who just didn't want to care about presenting it as a viable option. In order to get those who know what they are selling, they had to build their own stores. Although, it appears that they will only sell Apple input peripherals there...

Interesting you mention buying the Mac mini online. I never considered the Mac mini as something a switcher would buy online. I know a lot of PC users who, while being Internet savvy, would be worried about buying a Mac online and making a mistake. Seems to me, the Mac mini is something to get people in the store.

As has been pointed out many times by many others, once you start calculating in what you want in a real computer (and not the bottom-of-the-line special) and you hit the Recalculate key at the Dell store or the Apple store, you notice that Apple does have some competitively priced goods out there.

OS X is around the same price. I think you can find 10.3 for less than $100 at some places now.

Not to be rude, or mean, or anything... Just making a point... For $500 you get similar HW you mentioned above plus an OS in the Mac mini. The price you listed for the ix86 HW didn't have an OS included into the price.