More unofficial Mac clones up for sale on eBay - Page 3

I am missing your point. My TiBook is over 4 years old. It still works. I bought the extended care warentee because if if failed in the first three years, I would have wanted it replaced. At this point, if it fails I would want a new one, so I probably wouldn't have bought additional years of AppleCare even if it was available.

With insurance is is not reasonable to say after the fact: "I didn't need it therefore I wasted my money." Insurance protects you against catastrophic loss. I pay $200 to protect against having to pay a $1200 repair in the first three years. If there is a 1 in 6 chance or better that my computer might need a major repair then I break even or the odds are with me.
Even if there is only a 1 in 15 chance, if I would not have the lump sum to replace my computer then the $200 protects against being without a computer for the time it would take me to raise $2K for a new one. Of course this is way oversimplified as there are different levels of repair need. There is also a value to "piece of mind" for many people.

Or, to put it another way, imagine there are 10 guys who opt out of their company's health plan to get a $1000 bonus every year. 5 years later they have a party to celebrate the $50,000 that they collectively saved. They call themselves geniuses. Then one of them gets cancer and gets stuck with $200,000 in medical bills, loses his car and his house and goes bankrupt. Would you say that only he made a bad choice and the other 9 were smart?

Exactly!

And the people who say "well, they hackers would find a way around this!" I say, Sure. Of course. The point of this scheme would be to stop or slow large scale cloning not to stop the hobbiest or hacker. It would give Apple an angle to either profit from the large scale cloner's use of their R&D, or sue them to oblivion for not paying for full licenses

So you think Apple simply wants to make some money on the lawsuit?

That doesn't mean any users have rated the product (or even have a product).
That is simply what users rated after reading the article.

What an ugly piece of garbage!! Enough said.

Sorry, Ben, but I haven't been able to locate the source of your "Steve has said publicly that he doesn't listen to customers" assertion. Could you help me out a bit here with a few links?

Except for Apple, all-in-ones are still a fairly new category for PC's. While several companies have attempted them in the past, they were not very good, to say the least. now they are learning style from Apple, and with the proliferation of models from all major manufacturers, they must be selling.

While not doubt, Apple would sell xMacs, ir some varient, the question is whether they would sell enough for Apple to bother.

It's pretty clear that Apple wil not get into the cheap mid tower business. That's just not Apple. their machines have to have a minimum of features that represent the current thinking at Apple.

That makes sense. Look at how many people here complain every time Apple leaves some feature out of a base model!

I can't se the sense of Apple selling something even close to what these copies are. They aren't clones, because they aren't 100% compatible. They're more like the old IBM " compatibles", which weren't.

He means that there would have to be a point to a suit. If the "company" delivers two or three machines, then is gone, what point would there be in trying to sue them?

Notice that on the EBay site, there have been no buyers, even after Apple Insider gave him a ton of hits!

I used to think that... now I'm wondering if it might be better for the long term health and adoption of OSX (and beyond) if the hacker community adopts Apple and uses custom-built systems to stretch our notions of what an Apple computer is and can be. Perhaps Apple would be willing to become the company they need to be by allowing this kind of hack, as long as they keep making their money on the OS and keep selling quality hardware to people willing to pay for it.

I guess I wasn't specific enough.

I don't think there's any evidence that most consumers want an AIO for their DESKTOP. Better?


Based on apple's product line, how can you say that they have a minimum of features? They don't even have a DVD burner in the base laptop or mini, which is available in PCs that cost hundreds less.

And a midtower wouldn't be lacking in features, it would be easy for it to beat the current mini in every way but size. The problem is apple's machines have to have a minimum of gimmicks. And the midtower wouldn't have one, it would simply be a utilitarian machine in an appealing price range.

It's not exactly a true statement. He was talking about customers not knowing what they want until you show it to them, and that's why Apple doesn't do market research asking for customer opinions. They present their products to the consumer fully formed, then modify their products after feedback from buyers.

Probably not. The technical issues in doing that would be devastating.

I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that Apple's lack of response here indicates that they have the mythical mid-range tower in the pipeline and ready to go soon. Such a product would pretty much lay waste to any clone maker's efforts, even with the expected Apple mark-up. I know I'm probably wrong, but I remain hopeful.

I changed the memory in my Dad's mini without much effort. And I'm not the most handy guy around. The drive isn't much an issue given either firewire or a NAS and the 5400 rpm notebook dirve didn't seem horribly impact performance.

Two minutes my a$$. I just upgraded a intel minis ram and it took me about 10 minutes to do. Even when you factor in that I am Polish and that it probably took me twice as long as a normal person it is not a "simple" nor "quick" thing to do. \

I am very impressed with how it is put together.
Jim

Guys! Guys! Hey! Read the earlier stories on AI and follow the links from some of those posters. It doesn't matter! Chill out!



We now have OSX out in the wild. Can you see the headless mac? Mid-size tower etc etc?
Apple is NOT interested in building commodity boxes. However if businesses need a cheep tower to try out OSX well, then, great! These boys will build them. OSX will make the leap into business.

Really, it's time anyway.

Apple had gone to Intel because the guys at IBM (PA Semiconductor) just weren't ready with their chips. So they spent time on Intel for a while and now they've bought PA Semi.

Well, what do you think PA Semi is gonna make? OK, how about specialized chipsets that will run OSX ...and windows... at some SCREAMING speed that will make the hackintosh 'problem' totally beside the point....

Understand? yet??

That's why I ended up with an iMac. I wanted to switch to a Mac and for the price, it was the only one that made sense. When you added in upgrades to the Mini to make it even vaguely comparable, it was close to the price of iMac (and that's without a monitor for the Mini).


Exactly. And there are other parts that are nice to be able to port to a new computer, like hard drives, network cards and the CD/DVD burners. I suppose I could remove the hard drive from my iMac but it would render both the monitor and computer halves useless.

And there's other nice things about the PC in that you don't have to pay for stuff you don't need. I've had my iMac for about a year and a half and have never made use of Firewire. The built in webcam gets almost no use (the only major use it got was as a bar code scanner while I was playing with a demo Delicious Library).

Not saying I don't like my iMac, but the one-size-fits-most model that Apple is aiming for probably doesn't fit that many people at all. Which might be why their laptop (sorry mobile computer) models are hugely outpacing desktop models, as people are used to the ideas of having less flexibility with a laptop.

According to articles in the industry press and elsewhere, many people ARE buying portables as desktop replacements.


Believe it or not, most people don't burn DVD's.


We're talking about an APPLE machine, not a mindbender machine.

The point isn't that you can't add more drive space, it's that the machine is only available with a tiny drive. Apple screwed themselves by designing around a laptop drive, it makes it impossible for them to be competitive with size and price of the drive.

And while you can open a mini pretty quick if you're handy, there's no question it's more of a pain than most other models from Apple. Plus the mini still maxes out at 2 gigs of ram tops, doesn't it?

Of course. That doesn't mean that people want an AIO desktop over a headless desktop. I still haven't seen anything remotely suggesting that there's significant demand for AIO machines.


And yet, budget PCs give people the option while macs don't.


What are you talking about?

You buy what you need. Most PC's, if not all, in that price range also bottom out at 2 GB RAM.

You can get 2.5" drives up to 320 GB, with a 500 GB drive coming before too long. And the plug-in drive underneath drives that both Vinea and I mentioned are a viable option. Then you can go to a TB for one, and add several more later.

Aside from the general, sort of vapid equation: More use out of your comp = might die sooner, how does using a VM or dual booting significantly shorten the life of the logic board. You *might* have a case with dual booting and HDs because of mechanical stress, but the mobo?

Two minutes to open it dummy.

I look at the increasing sales as an indication.


wonderful. Then we will have peiple here complaining that they paid for a feature they don't use, and how Apple forced it upon them.

You've been here long enough to know that.


I'm talking about your description of the mini tower you think Apple would (should) deliver:


That's a mindbender machine, not an Apple machine.

Yes, but I guess my point is that the drive doesn't seem to that badly affect performance based on the limited benchmarks in those reviews. And you can get 320GB 2.5" drives or 7200 RPM 200GB drives.

Would it be better with 3.5" drives? Sure.

Would I like to see a mini-tower with 1 or more slots? Sure.

Is the mini good enough as is that I'd buy one after the update? Yep. The only thing I can't do is play games on it very well. I don't expect that to change even with a X4500 in there.

Value wise the mini is on the low end for Macs. It certainly is priced so an iMac is a better value but all in all it's not a bad little box. An 80% solution.

I have a Quicksilver. The ONLY card in the thing is a video card. I never updated the CPU (or made it a dual) because all of the possible upgrades were more expensive than simply getting a G4 mini. The only card I might have stuck in there is an 802.11 card so I could go wireless.

This isn't to say that others don't need or want slots but except for the piss poor graphics the mini is a credible desktop.


3GB for the current models. 2GB for my Dad's. A minor pain but still not difficult. Let's put it this way...if you can't figure it out you probably shouldn't be mucking around in there anyway.

Not that I saw - a quick check of machines from Dell, Acer, HP in that range were 4 gig capacity on the low end ($299 machine) and 8 in the range of the minis. While I'm sure there are probably some out there, I didn't see any machines that were limited to 2 gigs.

So yeah, there's no question the mini lags in the max ram department.


And you can get 3.5 drives up to a terrabyte. And 3.5 drives are cheaper across the board for any given size. And 3.5 drives are available in faster configurations, and generally tend to be faster overall than 2.5 drives (especially for the price).

So the mini lags in the HD department as well, even if you dump the stock drive and put in your own.

To be honest I'm bewildered that anyone would even try and defend the ram and HD situation in the mini.


See above. The point is that the mini lags desktop machines in the HD department. And it does.


Ah, there's that 80% number again. Funny, looks more like 20% to me.


If by "credible" you mean "hey, at least it runs most basic apps". Sure, it's not useless, but it's simply not competitive on price or performance. If apple wasn't so tied to the form factor, they could easily replace it with a better machine at the same price or a similarly specced machine at a lower price (I'd love to see both).


Are you sure about that? Apple says 2 on their website.

Apple will hope this just goes away. There's no evidence that they are selling many of these, if any, so its likely it'll self extinguish. If it does gain any traction then Apple would be obligated to go after them. OSX will not be licensed while Steve is alive.

Not the ones in the Dell and Acer catalogs they send me.


Did you read my post? I said that. You can get all the terabyte drives you want for the mini.


No, it doesn't.


Because that's not a machine intended for those who need more, as opposed to those who THINK they need more.

And 2 GB RAM is enough for most people. Then, you CAN get as much storage as you want, it's just not going to be internal, past a certain point. Big deal!

Don't buy it then and quit fekkin moaning!

I havent bought Apple care for my two desktops, but would highly recommend it for a laptop a laptop is more likely to get abuse that will require repair.

No-one is holding a gun to your head saying "BUY APPLE CARE!!" its an option thats there IF you feel you might need it, obviously if you are gonna be throwing your desktop at the wall... it might be something you use.

the standard 1 year warranty should cover 99% of hardware failures.. if an electronic component is going to fail at all it will most likely be in the first 3 months OR LESS.

Source? I thought you said you saw more companies offering AIO, and that you assumed that meant they were selling more?


I certainly agree that people will complain about idiotic things. But that doesn't change the fact that apple is offering less features on a more expensive machine.

And actually I have no objection to apple shipping a machine without a basic feature like DVD burning...the problem is they leave out the feature but still charge way more than a PC with the feature. Cheap and stripped down is OK, less cheap with more stuff is OK - but the mini is stripped down AND less cheap.


Funny, a useful machine without a gimmick is what most consumers are buying and most PC companies are selling. It's not a "mindbender" [sic] machine, it's a mainstream one and a very popular one.

It's funny to see a product idea rejected because it's not outlandish and impractical enough.

So I guess we agree that apple won't sell a computer that is just a simple, useful one, they won't ship it unless they can find a gimmick to throw in...but do you think that's really a good thing?


I guess you need to look a bit harder then before making generalizations about "most if not all PCs in that price range". I literally checked the cheapest Dell I could find on their website, and it handles 4 gigs.


Not internal drives (and doesn't an external drive kind of defeat the purpose of the mini form factor?).

You can put a bigger hard drive in a desktop PC than a mini. Period.


Really? So are you saying that you CAN put a TB drive in a mini, or that you can't put one in a desktop machine? Because neither is true.


Whether mini owners NEED more space is a different issue. But it doesn't change the fact that the mini can't handle as much ram as some PCs in the same price range and that it can't have as large an internal hard drive as desktop machines.

You can get a PC with more ram and a bigger internal drive for cheaper. That's a fact. You're not disputing that, you're just making excuses for it.

I know I'm not "most people", but I replace my HD every year with a bigger, faster one. I spend $100 and I get more capacity, more speed and the peace of mind that comes from new hardware.

RAM is very different because RAM is only a good deal when it's being produced in high volume. RAM for yesterday's computers rarely costs less today than it did when the computer is new so it makes sense to load up when you buy the machine.

Apple's AIO sales have doubled. I don't have numbers for the others offhand, but yes, I would assume that the proliferating AIO's around do indeed show that they are selling.


Dell and some others don't make money on these cheap low end machines. they actually lose money on them. They make money when people buy up, paying for features that don't come with the stripped down model. Apple doesn't dothat. their idea is to make money on all sales. That's the correct business model to follow.

Read this, and pay attention to the last paragraph.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2281207,00.asp


To you a gimmick is what many others would think of as a desirable feature.


That's your opinion. That doesn't mean that your ideas are any good, just that you think they are.


That's your opinion. That doesn't mean that your ideas are any good, just that you think they are.


It's also what I see advertised as maximum in the ad sheets that come in the NY Times Friday and saturday. It seems to be what they are marketing to the average consumer.


Big deal. Adding 1.5" to the height is no problem. Very few people care about this. Really!


Again. no one cares.


I'm not making excuses for it. Apple seems to understand what most peope need their machines for than you do.

Almost no one has to upgrade their RAM. And the truth is that almost no one upgrades their HDD either, and if they do, most people buy an external.

And that includes most PC owners with all of that cavernous space.

Many of us here are not "most people". If you saw the HDD towers I've gotten over the years, you'd understand.

I'm not speaking for us, but for the majority of people who never do upgrade. And that is by far, the biggest portion of people with computers.

None of this applies to most of the people here.

MacWorld just released an article of their unboxing and startup of the Psystar Mac. It's loud, TM doesn't work out of the box, but it only costs $751 (without keyboard, mouse, monitor or quality parts). I'm amazed that people would actually consider it a good deal.

http://www.macworld.com/article/1333...5/psystar.html

I find it hilarious that Apple's solution to the messy and complicated desktop is external Superdrives, HDDs and hubs. My ancient iMac has an integrated display, which removes two cords: the data cable and power cable. Unfortunately, I have an external HDD which adds two cords: its data cable and power cable. Even more unfortunate is that the external HDD has been full for many years and I've been in a constant battle with what to delete because I absolutely refuse to buy another external drive. I'm pretty sure I'd be up to three by now, if I bought for necessity. My home-built PC, BTW, has 5 empty HDD bays. I'll never use them all but it's nice to know I could.

The problem with Apple's offerings is that they cut fuctionality for vain design frills. The mini is forced to use a tiny & expensive HDD (not to mention a craptastic GPU) to be as small as it is. Who would really mind if the Mac Mini was 8x8x3 and featured a 3.5" HDD, half-decent GPU (hell, I'd even take mediocre over the GMA 950), and regular RAM instead of SO-DIMMS? Only Steve Jobs and "Carputer" hobbyists.

Who would mind if the iMac was 1" thicker, used a (cheaper, mind you) desktop-Class CPU and *this year's* low end CPU? The computer is behind the display where no one notices... Again, the answer is only Steve Jobs, and perhaps the twelve people who move their iMac around often enough to make the extra weight annoying.

Apple's design priorities are just plain backwards. They make UNNECESSARY engineering decisions which seriously compromise the performance of their machines. Apple *could* be building their units cheaper AND more powerful by using desktop-class components, while making only minimal style compromises... but instead they opt for performance compromises as long as the design fits Steve Job's "vision of the future." How one-dimensional! How about you make good computers for today and let the future worry about itself?

-Clive

You know, this all begs the question...Why exactly are you comparing the Mac mini - which Steve unveiled as a machine designed to minimise footprint, volume and noise and which Apple have always marketed as such, to a Dell jumbo jet with easily 10X the volume and 3X the footprint? The Mac mini is not, never was and never will be budgetware. It's a hardware excercise more than a pricing one.

Two years ago? Definitely not. Today...hm, a toss up I think. When SJ took over, Apple had probably dozens of different Mac models. Simplifying the product line was one of the keys to recovery. The hardware sales needed to support the OS development; and with the tiny Mac OS market share limiting hardware revenue, supply chain efficiency was very important.

There are about 10 different Mac models in 4 product lines (not counting custom builds from the Apple Store). Let's say you wanted to add a new model (gee, let's pretend is a minitower). You've just increased hardware R&D, supply chain, manufacturing overhead, and inventory management costs by 10%. (We are talking generalities here, so even if you feel the need to nitpick, don't! )

As the Mac market share grows Apple gets a little breathing room and can afford to look at expanding their hardware lineup. Apple's continued marketshare expansion suggests that they have a good product mix...for now. The MacBook Air shows that they are willing to expand the envelope a little. But I'd be hesitant to call that an entirely new product line.

Perhaps they are unsure what to do with the mini. A minitower would likely kill the mini (not enough demand for both), but would cost a little more, leaving Apple with no ultra-low price (by Apple's standards) computer to sell you. They can't hardly de-spec the mini any more than it already is. So do you keep the mini in order to have a low priced Mac? Replace it with a higher priced minitower? Or keep both models and have them compete with each other for a limited market?

None of those options are very good right now because of market share and economy considerations. I think in the next year or so Apple's market share, and an improving ecomony, will make room for supporting both.

The other option is to spec up the mini. Add 1.5 inches to it's height and they could include a 3.5 in HHD (or empty bay) and upgrade the video card. Add an eSATA port and you can add more drives. That would probably take care of 95% of the people begging for a minitower.


I doubt they'd wait for monetary reason. But they might wait until the case is a slam dunk. The absolute worst thing that could happen is Apple lose a lawsuit. That would open the floodgates for cloners.

Thanks for clarifying that it's an assumption with no numbers to back it up.


That doesn't change the fact that people buying the mini are getting less at a higher price. For the record, you can buy a DVD burner for about $30 (meaning apple would get it cheaper, plus save the cost of the CD burner). You honestly don't think apple can afford to put one of those in a $599 machine?


And yet, machines without gimmicks outsell macs by a huge margin. Based on the millions of PC sales, there seem to be many more people who want machines without gimmicks (and without the boost in price that seems to come with them).


Again, it's not my idea. PC companies have been selling millions (tens of millions? hundreds?) of those machines for years. And regardless of what you think of their idea, you have to admit that it sells on the PC side.

You didn't answer my question, do you think it's a good thing that Apple only ships a computer if they can think of a gimmick to put in? And refuses to sell a basic computer that just runs the apps people need?


And yet the buyer isn't limited to what's featured in the ad sheets. If someone wants more than 2 gigs of ram they can get it in a cheap pc (oh no! they have to look beyond the sale flyer!). But not an option on the mini.


I'm not debating how many people care about this, the point is that you can't put as much HD space in a mini. And you can't. I assume that you've changed your argument from "the mini isn't limited" to "who cares if the mini is limited", you're admitting that it is after all?


I'm not making excuses for it. Apple seems to understand what most peope need their machines for than you do.

Almost no one has to upgrade their RAM. And the truth is that almost no one upgrades their HDD either, and if they do, most people buy an external.

And that includes most PC owners with all of that cavernous space.[/QUOTE]

We're talking about whether the mini is more limited with ram and internal HD than PCs in the same price range. You seem to be trying to change the subject.

So can we agree that the mini is more limited with ram and internal HD than PCs in the same price range?

Look, this is not a machine for the majority of people here, who, I assume, like me, have a professional Mac model with upgradable insides.

For everyone else, the Mini, and iMac is a fine choice. I just ordered two 30.6 GHz iMacs Sunday night for my daughter and my wife, both of whom are thrilled at the prospect of getting rid of their old machines.

We can argue this until the end of time, and not come up with an agreement.

But, remember, I was one of the first people on these boards to state my preference that Apple manufacture an xMac (preferably the one I designed).

I'm sorry about that...so let's compare the budget dell to the equivalent mac model...I forget, which mac is that again?


And let's not forget that a midtower would have fewer design constraints than things like laptops (especially the Air), iMac, or the mini, meaning less of an R&D boost than those models.