Closing the book on Apple's Mac mini - Page 5

I am otherwise having a great time getting in contact with all of my friends though: "Facebook" is a great self updating address book. "Flickr" is a great online tool for sharing your pictures. "YouTube" is great for sharing your videos. And "MySpace" is great for discovering new artists.

The interface experience might be awkward, but at least I am having a great iLife on the internet. Don't be confused by all the crap 2.0 out there, its core message is that a stand alone web site is so last century and only applicable to small and large businesses. Apple should take notice of that and redefine its internet strategy for consumers. Hence exit iWeb.



They should offer basic things for free and let you pay for the extra storage. .mac could be a great intro to their operating system.



Those "several million" people are willing to pay the extra cash when they get hooked to the operating system introduced by .mac. Apple should make all their sub 1000$ computers ultra portable, while the +1000$ range is giving you the comfort of having a large screen included.

Hence good bye to the Mac Mini and the mid tower fantasy.
Long live the iPhone (which actually is a 500$ mini computer) and long live the baby Macbook!

does anyone suspect that this fabled withdrawl of the mac mini could be a great way of driving up sales just before an announcement? despite evidence to the contrary its not unheard of...

You can do that all already with a Mac Mini. The stackable fw disks from Lacie, Iomega etc suit the bill exactly. OSX Server cutdown isn't really needed - OSX client is enough although Apple could finesse setting up user shares and enabling mail, apache, php etc taking away some of the admin duties. VNC isn't required - you've got Apple Remote Desktop client built in already. Portal software - I usually use phpWebSite on them but any will do. Apple have a groupware wiki project in Leopard Server which I think is to be open source. Calendar sharing too.

If Apple replaced the Mini with a 'Home Server' type appliance I for one would be 3 times over the moon and doing loop-the-loop. It's exactly what I need for small business clients already using Macs and for my home use.

what are apples plans for the edu market if they kill the mini and the 17" what are schools ganna buy then ????

maybe there ganna kill the 17" to customer sales like they did the emac.

If this is true, then Apple is making a strategic mistake

- Not everyone wants a laptop
- Not everyone wants an all integrated desktop
- Most PC users will have a desktop (e.g. tower), separate screen, mouse and keyboard.

The Mac Mini is currently the only sub-$1000 product which has the ability to convert PC users to Mac and does not require users wanting to do so to throw away or sell on eBay ALL their PC equipment.
I believe it is still Apple Inc.'s strategy to convert as many people from PC to MAC and this will be made more difficult if the Mac Mini is scapped. They are bound to come up with an alternative.

As to the AppleTV, let's not forget it only has a 1Ghz processor. For those who believe that the Mac Mini will be scrapped in favour of an AppleTV with wireless keyboard and mouse should rethink the differences of what they can do with a Mac Mini compared to an AppleTV.

After 23 years if banning Apple products from my home I went out and purchased a 1.83GHz Mac Mini with 1GB of memory last month. A week or so ago I thought that bumping it up to 2GB was a better idea so I called my local Apple store.

They wanted $350 for the SODIMM memory and $30 to install it. (Crucial wants $88 for the same parts.) So I hung up the phone and murmured, "Dammit!"

Sorry about that...

I have not read the whole thread, but in view of the rumor about a redesigned iMac coming soon, I find the new rumor about the Mac mini death quite interesting.

Thanks, I hadn't spoken to someone who had used one.

I take it you are saying it is slower than a Mac Mini "Server" via a 10/100 switch.
(and I assume you have used it)

Just in general, not just with the Mac Mini, when are Apple going to stop putting those crappy little combo drives in things?

Who uses these things these days - cost of DVD burners are so cheap these days.

It's ironic that a company that prides itself at being at teh forefront of technology with bold moves like ditching floppies etc. still faffs around with this rubbish in the name of 'engineering' a spread of products at so called 'affordable' prices.

The fact is the low end option of any Mac product has always been traditionally utterly useless, making a total mockery of their so-called 'entry level' price points.

The big differance is that it doensnt effect preformance on the Mac, and it is easily removable.

On a PC, brand new, it is not uncommon to see a 3-minute boot time. remove all of the crap that AUTOMATICLY LAUNCHES and it is a ~20 second boot.

Only fools buy computers from Amazon...I say that as a loyal amazon customer with the amazon creditcard statments to prove it, it is the same or close to going straight to apple...so get it from Apple

Huh? Going through Amazon = no sales tax and mail-in rebate.

I got my first gen intel iMac for $1550 that way (down from $1700).

Ditto -- I made the switch because of the Mac Mini. I already had a screen and $500 was all I was willing tor risk at the time to "try out" a Mac. Now I own 4 Macs. Mac Mini, two MacBooks, and an iBook. I'll probably buy more as the business expands. Currently working great with no complaints!!!! I think they need to keep a price point in the $500 range even if they don't keep the Mini. Maybe a $500 MacBook????

Sorry to veer off topic. I bought an Airport Extreme because I needed a new router. The "airdisk" feature was only a bonus but it takes 20 minutes just to backup a few hundred megabytes of data. I have not used a mini as a server but feel sure it's quite a bit faster. (Something about needing a decent processor to convert the data.)

Yes, a slightly larger version of the midi with a full-size hd would be great. With the same good looks and the same low noise level, it would be an even more useful machine. I'd buy one as a home server!

Anyway, think of the rumours that the iMac 17" disappearing - replacing both the mini and the 17" with a "midi" makes a lot of sense, I think.

The difference? All of those are actual websites, Web 2.0 is just the sum of a bunch of not very well defined websites amounting to anything new and interesting on the web.


Yeah Apple should offer free Email and AIM Screen name (I now prefer my .Mac to my old AIM) free. But asking for free WebDAV is far too costly to the company in bandwith and storage.


Yes they are willing to pay extra cash but they aren't going to be introduced through .Mac as you say, and asking for Sub $1000 Ultraportables just won't happen right now. The iPhone may be a mini computer, but it still needs to sync with another computer just to use 1/3 of it's functionality. Ultraportables are generally quite expensive though.

Sebastian

I was waiting to see what kind of update the Mini would receive before I switched, as the Mac Mini is the only Mac in my price range, as you say, if it's discontinued, Apple will have lost another customer here.

Simultaneously getting rid of the small-screened iMac and the Mini would be disasterous. I know everyone's buying MacBooks these days, but Apple needs a cheap Mac. I work in the education industry, and we need a small Mac for classrooms, either a screenless one or one with a small flat panel. I'm not going to use a MacBook for a classroom workstation. What would really be nice is a screenless Mac that is upgradeable (two PCIe slots; one for gfx and an extra) and small. Maybe a New Cube? Either that, or keep the small iMac and drop the price $100 or so. I like the cheap, expandable, screenless Mac idea better.

Mac Mini + AppleTV = Apple TV 2.0

I see discontinuing of the Mac Mini as a good sign that somethhing even better is coming. I'm sure Apple has been getting a lot of market feedback over the last few years, and has been working on "one more thing" to introduce really soon.

Equally likely to this RUMOUR is that AI "sources" heard that the mini is getting DROPPED, but that what they DIDNT hear is the REST of the sentance "...Dropped in PRICE..."

---

Now god does not exist.

But if she did, does she own a Mac Mini? and can it play Doom!?

Apple designed the Mac Mini out of spite. Steve couldn't stand the fact that people would dare to want something other than an iMac. When people asked Apple for a low end desktop without a built in display, Apple gave us a (practically) sealed box with poor graphics and few possibilities for internal expansion. "Here's your headless iMac. Hope you choke." said Apple. By providing a user-unfriendly enclosure, limited expansion, and withholding hardware updates, Apple purposely set up the Mac Mini to fail. If Apple decides to discontinue the Mini, they will put the blame on the customers. Apple will use the Mini's failure as "proof" that "nobody" wants a low end desktop, even though Apple never made an honest effort in the first place. It's like those software companies that make poor Mac versions of their software and then drop their Mac support when Mac users don't buy it.

The problem isn't that the Mac mini isn't selling. The problem is that the Mac mini is selling, and Apple would rather those customers bought a machine that cost $25,000,000,000,000 instead of $600, and they're going to try to force them to. This is because although they talk a good game to their shareholders, Apple doesn't really care about marketshare. They only care about profit margins and "cannibalization" of their more inflexible, overpriced products that there's a reason no one wants to buy.

Make it 4 slots for ram.

And toss in a 2nd HDD bay, 120 gig is fine for system, cache and apps, but I would add a 750 GB drive after market and I don't like fire wire boxes cluttering my workspace. Even the cheapest PCs at Bestbuy have a 2nd HDD bay

And just curious, what would happen it I were to say put a Radion 1650 pro with 512MB RAM in one of these...The drivers are so close that it would likey work

I agree. People shouldn't be using their religious beliefs in these threads. There are plenty of other sites designed for just that purpose.

I don't suppose you actually read any Mac Pro reviews or impressions? I think the MDD was known to be one of the loudest Macs. Mac Pro is probably the quietest tower available from any commercial seller right now, which is an accomplishment given what is stuffed inside it.


From what I've heard about Steve, Buddha might have a chance.


You can edit the duplicate post to remove duplicated information.


My Seagates are fine. Most of the competition seems to be louder. I really don't even hear the clicks.


Unfortunately, Apple has been known to be too steep on upgrade pricing. I heard that they will install third party memory if you want them to, at the same installation price ($30), just bring in your upgraded chips.


As far as I know, Amazon is the only way to buy Macs at a decent discount.

Anyway, if true, I hope that this rumor means that something else will take its place. It seems premature to replace it with a smaller version. Maybe a new cube? I thought that the mini was a nice hook to get people to at least try OS X. I've seen a lot of this, and myself included. I bought a mini early 2005, and that's why I now own more expensive hardware. I just don't see how a newbie is going to jump on a $1100+ machine, that is just too much money to risk on something unfamiliar.

I do have projects in mind for a mini, I hope there is some compact OS X capable replacement available in case I make something I think is worth commercializing. I don't think I can commercialize an AppleTV with a shoehorned full version of Tiger, or expect customers to do the same.

Except what you're asking for is impossible. Since you, and others, aren't buying enough Mini's that are possible, Apple may be discontinuing it.

Don't ask for something that can't be made, and say that if it were available, you would buy it.

I've never found Amazon's computer sales numbers to have any meaning at all. They aren't representitive of computer sales. If they were, Apple would be selling 35 million computers a year.

As for people lining up to buy one now, well, first we have to see if Apple is discontinuing it. If they are, a last minute sales spurt means nothing.

No I don't.

Who would be doing this? Apple isn't. AI has no real knowledge of what's going inside Apple. they are just guessing, even though they may be correct. But, they also may not be.

Apple rarely comments on these third party stories.

Schools rarely use the Mine, and the 17" is not very popular in schools anymore either.

Schools are going mostly to MacBooks, or 20" iMacs.

The truth is that even today, I have met few people who burn DVD's. Most people still seem to burn CD's. Low end computer buyers don't often do movies. That isn't their interest. And just how many of them backup, where a DVD is a much better choice than a CD? Do you backup regularly? Few do.

No, the computer has never sold well. The expectations when it first was announced was that it might sell millions every year, but that never happened.

They're some pretty smart fools, then.

Amazon very consistently beats Apple (both online and at Apple Stores) by a combination of instant rebates, mail-in rebates, and no sales tax. My girlfriend got her MacBook for $999... if she'd bought it in an Apple Store, it would've been close to $1200, including sales tax.

The only advantages of going with Apple Stores is that they seem to get supplied first, so if you need a hard-to-get item, they're more likely to have it in stock; and they also sometimes have good deals on refurbs.

Of course, if you're at that point, you might as well consider going used, and there's plenty of good sites for that.

.

i strongly disagree, if someone downloads a movie from iTunes where they will back it up?

it takes 10 bucks to download a movie and less than 50 cents to buy DVD media.

So

do not use iTunes??
do not download movies? TV Shows??
do not backit up?

i see so many excuses for not including a DVD burner than including them.

actually it could drive AWAY some sales of iTunes Movie download (and larger content) because you can NOT save them any where (considering HDD size also so small).

i felt hard when my MacBook did not had DL burning capability (once i downloaded more than 5 movies and two seasons of 24)

i think it is illogical to think and support, low end customers does not need DVD burning capabilities. my $0.02

Apple is the first one get rid of Floppy drive, from the same company it is unacceptable NOT to include dvd burner, which are dirt cheap nowadays.

Isn’t it MAC gives a complete pacakge of iLife of everyone of us???

All things considered -- this should be the case.

And the real reason why Apple could decide to kill mini may be the "Leopard". This beast probably is just too power-hungry for Mac mini with "512 MB RAM, 60 GB Hard Drive" (Time Machine that eats big chunks of hard drive, etc...).

Upgrading minimal configuration of Mac mini to at least 1 GB RAM and 120-160 GB Hard Drive will make it cost $200 (?) more for Apple and end-users -- "sub $1000" instead of "a bit more than $500". Not competitive, not attractive for switchers (like a lot of guys here may say).

So, Apple needs to replace it with something bigger more resembling Cube. Something that uses standard inexpensive RAMs and Hard Drives (instead of pricey notebook components of mini's). Replacing mobile processor with desktop version (socket 775) will also save additional $50-100...

Let's just wait. I do not believe that Apple decided to kill all inexpensive stuff in favor of top models -- they should start with the slaughter of iPod Shuffles and MacBooks in this case

I think it was a brilliant move by Steve Jobs to leak a "rumor" of the Mini's demise to gauge people's reactions and help Apple guide its future plans for this device.

Sry, double post.

I don't know if I buy into Leopard being the culprit in the Mac Mini's alleged death (actually, it was Colonel Mustard in the study with the candlestick... )

Seriously though, I don't know that you have to have a 120 GB drive, minimum, to run Leopard well. If so, then even the very recently-updated MacBooks are going to have problems, as at the low-end they have only 80 GB hard drives. Would Apple make Leopard THAT exclusive, so that only the very very VERY latest hardware can run it well (in this case, a future revision of the MacBook)? They don't seem to have a history of doing so.

The 1GB of RAM ('Recommended') to run Leopard well scenario I do buy, but even then, the cost is minimal. Yeah, the Apple Store charges $75 to bring your Mini up from 512 MB of RAM to 1GB, but those are rip-off prices. Go to ramseeker.com, and the true price delta will shock you... for example, most folks agree that Crucial carries some pretty nice RAM, yet the price difference between their 512 MB chip for the Mini and 1GB is only $18 (!).

So the Apple Store marks it up 300%... wow, nice work if you can get it.

Even if you someway, somehow needed a 'beeg' HD to run Leopard, the price delta going from a 60 GB notebook drive (what's in the Mini currently) to a 120 GB notebook drive is far less than the $150 Apple would charge you to upgrade... its more like $50.

So, if the Mini really IS dead, I'm not putting it on Leopard. I'd say its either:

1) Apple reverting to its 'bad old ways' and deciding that, while they're making money off the Mini, they just aren't making enough money off the Mini (and the 17" iMac as well), and they're just going to kill off anything sub-$1000 in their lineup, because, well, they can.

2) Apple has something interesting coming along soon to replace the Mac Mini, such as a new Cube, or even a range of minitowers.

I'd hope for #2, but, knowing Apple, it could just as easily be #1, which would mean that Apple's treating many potential switchers and existing fans who are price-sensitive like #2... if you get my drift.

.

Woo, sounds about right to me.

I'm a PC user whos waiting for a nice MBP upgrade (Read GPU) before making the plunge. I really wish the Mac community could find some way to pressure Apple into providing more hardware choices. Even in their current lines it would be nice and make switching a much easier decision.

Earth to Apple! I don't want/need a 2.33 GHZ 17" laptop, give me the 2 GHZ and chop off $400 from the price...

The other advantage, which might only matter to some, is that while Amazon can't customise the machines for sale, Apple does.