Apple split out the desktop and laptop numbers in 2012 in their SEC filing and it was 75% laptop, 25% desktop and every filing since, they say the numbers have moved more to portables and they stopped splitting them out. The desktop ASP was $1300, which points to a higher purchase price. Tim Cook reported that the ~2-2.5 month iMac delay in late 2012 caused a 700,000 unit shortfall:
A $1300 desktop ASP indicates mostly cheap desktops not higher model desktops. $1299 was the base price for an iMac. For ASPs to be $1300 that means there must be many minis sold to offset every iMac above the base model and all mac pros.
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That was when they sold 4.1m Macs vs 5.2m the previous year. This means they should have sold 4.8m Macs, at least 75% of those would be laptops and at least 700k iMacs. This leaves 1.2m - 0.7m = 0.5m to be split between Mac Pro and mini. But, that assumes that they didn't sell any iMacs, which wasn't the case and it assumes desktops still hold 25% but they've been noted to slip further. If you assume the iMac would be 3/2.5 x 700k = 840k, this leaves 360k between mini and Pro.
Math is slightly wrong. 1.3M desktops assuming 75-25 split from 5.2M. Assuming that 840K number that's 460K between mini and pro. If you assume 160K for Mac Pros to get a nice 300K round number that's still double your 150K assertion.
Given the $1300 ASP the numbers are far closer to 500K minis than 100K minis.
Frankly there's no way for there only to be 150K mini sales/qtr unless you assume that 27" iMacs sales are under 100K/qtr.
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The other thing to consider is revenue. Even if the mini is 250k units but selling at $599, that's $150m with 30% gross = $45m gross profit. A $999 iMac might manage to boost revenue as it pushes Mac buyers looking for a quad-i7 to a much higher price, it offers a lower entry price for PC buyers and it pushes mini bundle buyers towards giving Apple money for the display. Maybe a lot of mini buyers just won't buy a Mac but I doubt they'd lose many sales. If they come in with a $799 Macbook Air, that'll more than make up for any losses from the mini.
Mini ASPs are higher than $599 and there is no reason to believe that the margins are only 30% for the mini. And you really think that the $599 mini BOM is $420? More likely the gross margins are north of 35%.
For the mid tier $799 mini they are essentially selling a $700 quad core i7 ultrabook for $800 without screen, keyboard, battery or trackpad.
I don't disagree with much of what you have said in your entire message but I'm not certain I agree with this entirely. First off if anybody really thinks that desktops are doing well sales wise they have to be nuts. The demand for desktops has fallen substantially. In Apples world they likely have gone past 80% laptops though I'm kinda hoping for reinvigorated Mac Pro sales shifting that some. All one has to do is to walk into any store selling computers and see that desktops, if they even exist are relegated to a corner in the store. This is a fact in Apples stores too.
I think it's like Steve Jobs said, desktops are just becoming the "trucks" of computers. But that doesn't have to mean work only, high end gaming needs a truck, and gaming is increasing.
You don't need a desktop for games. Even the HD5000 in the Air will play the games in that link at reasonable quality:
A $1300 desktop ASP indicates mostly cheap desktops not higher model desktops. $1299 was the base price for an iMac.
It wasn't $1299 when those stats were published, they shifted the entry to $1299 the month after. It was $1199 at that point. Plus they sell cheaper education models and have educational discounts.
Given the $1300 ASP the numbers are far closer to 500K minis than 100K minis.
Frankly there's no way for there only to be 150K mini sales/qtr unless you assume that 27" iMacs sales are under 100K/qtr.
That's true, 150k is on the low side, though it's possible to reach that later in the refresh cycle. Say the ASP of the Mini is $700, ASP of the iMac is $1350 and Pro is $3000 (entry was $2499). Go with 75k Pro in 2011-2012 (it was estimated at 50k), to hit an ASP of $1300, you need:
(m x $700 + i x $1350 + 75k x $3000)/(m+i+75k) = $1300
m = 300k, i = 840k
If the number of Mac Pros or ASP is higher, the number of Minis would also have to be higher but that can't happen as we know how many units they sold total so this is probably close. If the Mac Pro was 50k, the mini would be closer to 250k. The iMac ASP could have been lower but 300k for the mini is reasonable.
So assuming 400K minis with a $700 ASP and 35% margins is $98M gross profits/qtr or $392M/year.
I'd say it's 250k Mini at 30% margin but I'd agree with a $700 ASP = ~$53m gross/qtr. Is this an argument for or against though? Even your figure is half the revenue of the soon to be axed iPod line.
The unit volumes could be enough to keep it going but how many of those bought the mini simply because the iMac was too expensive? A $999 iMac could change that.
And yet here is an article today saying PC gaming now exceeds console gaming (by dollar amount):
I don't doubt those specs one bit, but gaming rigs are a different beast than a desktop machine. That is they are more likely to be sold though specialty retailers/builders and contain hardware not commonly found in a desktop PC.
I think it's like Steve Jobs said, desktops are just becoming the "trucks" of computers. But that doesn't have to mean work only, high end gaming needs a truck, and gaming is increasing.
I would tend to agree that Steve's characterization is more or less correct. In the context of Apple though they have nothing that can realistically pass for a gaming rig. The Mini isn't even remotely capable, the iMac may have a limited ability here and the Mac Pro is just configured wrong. The Mac Pro does have potential though for those with deep pockets.
Honestly my interest in gaming on a PC is near zero though for some reason I do simple games on the iPad. I'm not interested in an improved Mini for gaming, but rather to have a machine where I can leverage the GPU for design work. In other words I want respectable OpenGL and OpenCL support. Haswell does that for the Mini or would if Apple would plug one in. Of course a Broadwell machine with DDR4 and other improvements would be very nice and probably worth the wait. -- that is if we knew it was coming. The problem is if it takes until December for Broadwell to come out and then another six months for Apple to update to it, I may just say screw it in a moment of frustration.
Why wow? You can't honestly believe that public sector employees need a union. Many a community has been bankrupted because of union holding hostage communities for ever increasing wages. Not to mention is the fact that most of these unionized positions are a relative cake walk compare to working in the real world.
Well, I can honestly say, I don’t believe it is possible to selectively deprive any group from collective means to justice in an educated liberal democracy. I'm sure many, maybe most, democratic governments throughout history have desired ways to restrict or remove the ability of their citizens to act collectively, but how do they do it without becoming a contradiction?
Is that "real world" irony wizard, arguingfor the removal of unions by expressing "cakewalk" resentments?
If the number of Mac Pros or ASP is higher, the number of Minis would also have to be higher but that can't happen as we know how many units they sold total so this is probably close. If the Mac Pro was 50k, the mini would be closer to 250k. The iMac ASP could have been lower but 300k for the mini is reasonable.
It strikes me as unlikely that the iMac ASP is lower than $1350. It strikes me as unlikely that the iMac ASP is as low as $1350 given all the upsell (memory, sad, etc).
I believe that price is for volumes of 1000. Of course, Apple doesn't pay that but they are still paying a lot more than what an Atom CPU costs and that BOM of around $400 is probably pretty spot on.
I think that's going to be an iMac with an A8 chip. That alone would shave hundred of dollars off the price.
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Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
And hundreds of features off the capabilities.
Maybe an Atom CPU, like the Dell Venue Pro 11 and others are using that have been decently reviewed for speed running full Win 8.1....??
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Originally Posted by MacTac
Want to make a lower cost iMac?
Offer one WITHOUT the screen.
Some of us want a DESKTOP processor in a desktop Mac.
Instead Apple us a laptop without a screen in the mini.
"Some" being the operative word here... ...Apple's playing a volume game (other than with the Pro - a strategic offering to keep a growth path to the top for OS X among true power users, and the ATV - the "strategic hobby" to date), and if they weren't going to release the endlessly-craved-by-gear-heads headless mid-range Mac when the PC market was healthy and growing, highly doubtful they'll do it now.
Good move by apple, now I am happy because they accepted myprotest. They are thinking and taking those decisions by which they can attract market. Before this their products were used by higher class families and now they are tending their products towards lower/middle class families.
It strikes me as unlikely that the iMac ASP is lower than $1350. It strikes me as unlikely that the iMac ASP is as low as $1350 given all the upsell (memory, sad, etc).
The most revealing figures are from 2012 where they noted the desktop unit volume as 4.656 million and revenue $6.040b and when Tim Cook said there was a 700,000 unit shortfall in iMacs in January 2013.
This put the iMac above 800,000 units for the quarter. It might not be that every quarter but the iMac sold that many even as far back as 1999:
If you assume the iMac sells 840k/qtr and Mac Pro 50k/qtr, that leaves 4.656m - 4x840k - 4x50k = 1.096m minis = 274k/qtr.
4x(274k x 700 + 840k x 1350 + 50k x 3000) = $5.9b, which is close to the reported revenue
The Mac Pro could sell more of course or have higher ASP and that throws things off a bit but this should have been roughly the distribution in 2012.
If the mini were to sell 500k with the iMac ASP higher to keep the revenue correct, it throws the unit volume out and it conflicts with the iMac volumes indicated by Apple explicitly.
One argument to keep the mini going is that these numbers mean it would make more revenue than the Pro, which they keep selling but I think they were going to stop selling the Pro and this latest design was simply because they decided they wanted to keep making them and there is no alternative for people using 12-cores and dual GPUs. There are performance equivalents for mini buyers albeit at far higher prices for the quad models. For dual-core i5, it's now $599 mini or $899 MBA and the Air has an SSD.
If they do decide to drop the mini, I'd like to see Apple make a more affordable laptop with a quad-i7 chip and Iris Pro. I reckon they could do a $1499 rMBP with one. It's a good bit higher priced than the $799 mini but the resale would be higher too.
Dropping the mini shouldn't have a downside for Apple as people will simply have to buy more expensive Macs so even if the unit volume goes down, the revenues go up.
Maybe an Atom CPU, like the Dell Venue Pro 11 and others are using that have been decently reviewed for speed running full Win 8.1....??
Atom is and has been seen in poor light compared to AMDs BRAZOS offerings. As such Intel has had to increase performance drastically to keep up. However realize that reviews by many online sources bias expectations when it comes to low end hardware. A good review doesn't imply that a laptop even remotely competes against mainstream laptop processors.
"Some" being the operative word here... ...Apple's playing a volume game (other than with the Pro - a strategic offering to keep a growth path to the top for OS X among true power users, and the ATV - the "strategic hobby" to date), and if they weren't going to release the endlessly-craved-by-gear-heads headless mid-range Mac when the PC market was healthy and growing, highly doubtful they'll do it now.
Maybe not but they need something that fills the gap below the Mac Plus. The sad thing here is that the Mini with the newest chips would be a far better machine than it has been in the past. Haswell would solve the GPU performance problems right now. Broadwell would give Apple the opportunity to do significantly better performance wise. In a nut shell I'd hate to see the Mini discontinued just when technology is catching up with user needs.
In any event I'm pretty much convinced that Apple needs a low cost offering of some sort no matter how well it sells. It is simply an expectation that customers have that is reasonable.
Dropping the mini shouldn't have a downside for Apple as people will simply have to buy more expensive Macs so even if the unit volume goes down, the revenues go up.
If Apple where to do something like that I'd probably go back to Linux. I can tolerate a bit of "Apple Tax" for ease of use and reliability but that implies hardware I'm willing to buy in the price range that I see as reasonable.
Don't get me wrong if I won the lottery tomorrow I would buy a Mac Pro that day. However these days I'm in a position where hardware purchases must be justifiable and frankly I don't need a Mac Pro. I certainly would like one but that is far different from being able to actually put one to use.
The problem with today's Mini, especially considering how long Haswell has been out, is that it is over priced. It is overpriced because the hardware is simply outdated by a good 8 months now. Even if I didn't want the Haswell GPU, I still can't justify paying list price for the Mini considering how outdated it is.
WWDC is a month away now so maybe we will see something then or just before. If not I will be extremely disappointed with Apple as I don't see it as unreasonable to expect them to keep up technology wise.
Atom is and has been seen in poor light compared to AMDs BRAZOS offerings. As such Intel has had to increase performance drastically to keep up. However realize that reviews by many online sources bias expectations when it comes to low end hardware. A good review doesn't imply that a laptop even remotely competes against mainstream laptop processors.
Of course it all depends on usage, Bay Trail-T can handle basic tasks with ease. Even some more complex applications and multi-tasking scenarios can be utilized on a Z3740/Z3770 device. The more recent Bay Trail-T chips paired with 4GB RAM (Z3745, Z3775 and Z3795) can do a little bit more. Cherry Trail-T should push that line even further. If Atom is to represent the bottom line for Intel, the bottom line is no longer the compromise consumers had to deal with when the first Atom processors launched years back. Even on the software side of things, Windows 8.1 Update 1 can be installed on a device with 16GB of space and 1GB of RAM.
If I go from mini to iMac (and I won't rule it out), I don't want an i3. To me if Apple is going to get away with charging $1,299 for the base 21.5" iMac they have now, it needs a 256 GB PCIe SSD at minimum as well. Iris is fine though Iris Pro would be better.
Otherwise give me a new mini with a i5-4200M for $599 (better for it to be $499) and if they want go for the usual 500 GB HDD with a $200 option for a PCIe SSD.
If I go from mini to iMac (and I won't rule it out), I don't want an i3.
I3 is pretty bad, we have ARM and even a few AMD chips encroaching on that level of performance.
To me if Apple is going to get away with charging $1,299 for the base 21.5" iMac they have now, it needs a 256 GB PCIe SSD at minimum as well. Iris is fine though Iris Pro would be better.
At this point I'm not sure the processor is the big thing to wait for, rather at this point you might as well wait for hardware that supports DDR 4 or what ever new generation of RAM Apple goes with. Every APU out there suffered from slow RAM, so a real update in RAM performance means a much better performance profile.
In this regards I was hoping for a Haswell refresh variant that supported a new generation RAM interface. It doesn't look like that is coming though so we may have to wait for Broadwell. intel supposedly will have DDR4 support mid year but not on processors Apple is likely to use in either the Mini nor the iMac. What i'd rely like to see is Apple contract with Intel for an Apple specific variant that does have a DDR4 or what ever early. It is obviously that Intel has the tech to do so with Haswell architecture.
Otherwise give me a new mini with a i5-4200M for $599 (better for it to be $499) and if they want go for the usual 500 GB HDD with a $200 option for a PCIe SSD.
Why this hardware isn't out yet is beyond me. Personally I'd like to hope that Intel and Apple are teaming up again to offer something ground breaking. The other possibility is that Apple introduces an ARM based machine. The longer the wait the more unrealistic my dreams I guess.
The longer the wait the more unrealistic my dreams I guess.
Perhaps it will resemble a black coffee mug. It would be amusing to me to own a trash can, mug, and whatever else that resembles the newest mac pro. I don't really care about machine aesthetics, but it would amuse me anyway.
Perhaps it will resemble a black coffee mug. It would be amusing to me to own a trash can, mug, and whatever else that resembles the newest mac pro.
I like to think that a few designers at Apple where glancing at pictures of an old Cray when designing the Mac Pro. As for a coffee mug I'm surprised that hasn't happened already. The design is so generic you would think that Apple would have a hard time stopping the coffee cup from being marketed.
I don't really care about machine aesthetics, but it would amuse me anyway.
Well I do care about what the new Mini will look like. Mainly because I don't see myself shelling out for a Mac Pro today. Even here it isn't so much about the specifics of the "look" as it is remaining compact while maybe up rating its performance a bit. I'd really like to see the new Haswell or Broadwell/SkyLake processors from the desktop line up moved into this platform simply to control costs. With the desktop lines running very cool these days that shouldn't be a problem with a little engineering effort. Make the new Mini a baby sized Mac Pro which should be entirely doable with single PCB and a power supply.
Why would you read this forum if you don't care. Since there is zeros leakage as to what the new hardware will be like, the best we can do is entertain ourselves with levity.
I3 is pretty bad, we have ARM and even a few AMD chips encroaching on that level of performance.
The i3 is still faster than ARM and one would hope AMD would be faster. I think you have that sentence backwards. The A7 (2564 64 bit multicore) is still slower than the Intel Core i3-3217U (3095 64 bit multicore) and on par with the Pentium (2564) and Celeron 2955 (2387).
Note that the i3-3217U is an under clocked ivy bridge ULV processor from June 2012, not a desktop part. The Celeron 2955U is a Haswell ULV chip and that's pretty impressive. But not enough that I'd want to run OSX on it.
The desktop i3's do a bit better. The 2100 iMac Core i3-2100 benches in at 4968 for 64-bit multicore.
The current $1099 edu only iMac Core i3-3225 benches in at 5911.
I like to think that a few designers at Apple where glancing at pictures of an old Cray when designing the Mac Pro. As for a coffee mug I'm surprised that hasn't happened already. The design is so generic you would think that Apple would have a hard time stopping the coffee cup from being marketed.
I don't have any issues with the design. I mean with the old one I didn't care how it looked. It was designed to accomplish work, and I wouldn't want them to favor of aesthetics if it necessitated any engineering compromises. It just amuses me picturing an office where the computers, coffee mugs, and trash cans all match. Speaking of cray, I posted this in another thread. I think it's funny and simultaneously an awesome question.
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Well I do care about what the new Mini will look like. Mainly because I don't see myself shelling out for a Mac Pro today. Even here it isn't so much about the specifics of the "look" as it is remaining compact while maybe up rating its performance a bit. I'd really like to see the new Haswell or Broadwell/SkyLake processors from the desktop line up moved into this platform simply to control costs. With the desktop lines running very cool these days that shouldn't be a problem with a little engineering effort. Make the new Mini a baby sized Mac Pro which should be entirely doable with single PCB and a power supply.
I don't think they'll go that route. It was probably the most compact way to fit 2 large gpus and an (up to) 130W cpu. It doesn't necessarily have to make sense with the mini. By the desktop lines I assume you mean the less costly cpus classified as desktop variants.
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Apple split out the desktop and laptop numbers in 2012 in their SEC filing and it was 75% laptop, 25% desktop and every filing since, they say the numbers have moved more to portables and they stopped splitting them out. The desktop ASP was $1300, which points to a higher purchase price. Tim Cook reported that the ~2-2.5 month iMac delay in late 2012 caused a 700,000 unit shortfall:
A $1300 desktop ASP indicates mostly cheap desktops not higher model desktops. $1299 was the base price for an iMac. For ASPs to be $1300 that means there must be many minis sold to offset every iMac above the base model and all mac pros.
Math is slightly wrong. 1.3M desktops assuming 75-25 split from 5.2M. Assuming that 840K number that's 460K between mini and pro. If you assume 160K for Mac Pros to get a nice 300K round number that's still double your 150K assertion.
Given the $1300 ASP the numbers are far closer to 500K minis than 100K minis.
Frankly there's no way for there only to be 150K mini sales/qtr unless you assume that 27" iMacs sales are under 100K/qtr.
Mini ASPs are higher than $599 and there is no reason to believe that the margins are only 30% for the mini. And you really think that the $599 mini BOM is $420? More likely the gross margins are north of 35%.
For the mid tier $799 mini they are essentially selling a $700 quad core i7 ultrabook for $800 without screen, keyboard, battery or trackpad.
http://www.amazon.com/HP-ENVY-Quad-Notebook-Laptop/dp/B00D7Z84OY/ref=sr_1_14?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1398808182&sr=1-14
I'd be surprised if the BOM for the mid tier mini is higher than $520.
So assuming 400K minis with a $700 ASP and 35% margins is $98M gross profits/qtr or $392M/year.
You don't need a desktop for games. Even the HD5000 in the Air will play the games in that link at reasonable quality:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-5000.91978.0.html
Laptops are also in the truck category - people are using them less in favor of post-PC devices.
It wasn't $1299 when those stats were published, they shifted the entry to $1299 the month after. It was $1199 at that point. Plus they sell cheaper education models and have educational discounts.
It was assuming 75-25 from 4.1m Macs plus the 700k iMac shortfall noted by Tim Cook so 360k between mini and Pro.
That's true, 150k is on the low side, though it's possible to reach that later in the refresh cycle. Say the ASP of the Mini is $700, ASP of the iMac is $1350 and Pro is $3000 (entry was $2499). Go with 75k Pro in 2011-2012 (it was estimated at 50k), to hit an ASP of $1300, you need:
(m x $700 + i x $1350 + 75k x $3000)/(m+i+75k) = $1300
m = 300k, i = 840k
If the number of Mac Pros or ASP is higher, the number of Minis would also have to be higher but that can't happen as we know how many units they sold total so this is probably close. If the Mac Pro was 50k, the mini would be closer to 250k. The iMac ASP could have been lower but 300k for the mini is reasonable.
Yes, the processor alone is $225:
http://ark.intel.com/products/67355/intel-core-i5-3210m-processor-3m-cache-up-to-3_10-ghz-rpga
Add in the metal case, motherboard, 4GB RAM, wifi, bluetooth, software, power supply, packaging, that can easily add $195.
I'd say it's 250k Mini at 30% margin but I'd agree with a $700 ASP = ~$53m gross/qtr. Is this an argument for or against though? Even your figure is half the revenue of the soon to be axed iPod line.
The unit volumes could be enough to keep it going but how many of those bought the mini simply because the iMac was too expensive? A $999 iMac could change that.
I would tend to agree that Steve's characterization is more or less correct. In the context of Apple though they have nothing that can realistically pass for a gaming rig. The Mini isn't even remotely capable, the iMac may have a limited ability here and the Mac Pro is just configured wrong. The Mac Pro does have potential though for those with deep pockets.
Honestly my interest in gaming on a PC is near zero though for some reason I do simple games on the iPad. I'm not interested in an improved Mini for gaming, but rather to have a machine where I can leverage the GPU for design work. In other words I want respectable OpenGL and OpenCL support. Haswell does that for the Mini or would if Apple would plug one in. Of course a Broadwell machine with DDR4 and other improvements would be very nice and probably worth the wait. -- that is if we knew it was coming. The problem is if it takes until December for Broadwell to come out and then another six months for Apple to update to it, I may just say screw it in a moment of frustration.
Why wow? You can't honestly believe that public sector employees need a union. Many a community has been bankrupted because of union holding hostage communities for ever increasing wages. Not to mention is the fact that most of these unionized positions are a relative cake walk compare to working in the real world.
Well, I can honestly say, I don’t believe it is possible to selectively deprive any group from collective means to justice in an educated liberal democracy. I'm sure many, maybe most, democratic governments throughout history have desired ways to restrict or remove the ability of their citizens to act collectively, but how do they do it without becoming a contradiction?
If the number of Mac Pros or ASP is higher, the number of Minis would also have to be higher but that can't happen as we know how many units they sold total so this is probably close. If the Mac Pro was 50k, the mini would be closer to 250k. The iMac ASP could have been lower but 300k for the mini is reasonable.
It strikes me as unlikely that the iMac ASP is lower than $1350. It strikes me as unlikely that the iMac ASP is as low as $1350 given all the upsell (memory, sad, etc).
http://ark.intel.com/products/67355/intel-core-i5-3210m-processor-3m-cache-up-to-3_10-ghz-rpga
In the quantities that Apple buys? It was used in the MBP 13" as well.
$225 is the base price before volume discounts.
I believe that price is for volumes of 1000. Of course, Apple doesn't pay that but they are still paying a lot more than what an Atom CPU costs and that BOM of around $400 is probably pretty spot on.
I think that's going to be an iMac with an A8 chip. That alone would shave hundred of dollars off the price.
And hundreds of features off the capabilities.
Maybe an Atom CPU, like the Dell Venue Pro 11 and others are using that have been decently reviewed for speed running full Win 8.1....??
Want to make a lower cost iMac?
Offer one WITHOUT the screen.
Some of us want a DESKTOP processor in a desktop Mac.
Instead Apple us a laptop without a screen in the mini.
"Some" being the operative word here... ...Apple's playing a volume game (other than with the Pro - a strategic offering to keep a growth path to the top for OS X among true power users, and the ATV - the "strategic hobby" to date), and if they weren't going to release the endlessly-craved-by-gear-heads headless mid-range Mac when the PC market was healthy and growing, highly doubtful they'll do it now.
Good move by apple, now I am happy because they accepted my protest. They are thinking and taking those decisions by which they can attract market. Before this their products were used by higher class families and now they are tending their products towards lower/middle class families.
The most revealing figures are from 2012 where they noted the desktop unit volume as 4.656 million and revenue $6.040b and when Tim Cook said there was a 700,000 unit shortfall in iMacs in January 2013.
This put the iMac above 800,000 units for the quarter. It might not be that every quarter but the iMac sold that many even as far back as 1999:
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2000/01/19Apple-Reports-First-Quarter-Profit-of-183-Million.html
If you assume the iMac sells 840k/qtr and Mac Pro 50k/qtr, that leaves 4.656m - 4x840k - 4x50k = 1.096m minis = 274k/qtr.
4x(274k x 700 + 840k x 1350 + 50k x 3000) = $5.9b, which is close to the reported revenue
The Mac Pro could sell more of course or have higher ASP and that throws things off a bit but this should have been roughly the distribution in 2012.
If the mini were to sell 500k with the iMac ASP higher to keep the revenue correct, it throws the unit volume out and it conflicts with the iMac volumes indicated by Apple explicitly.
One argument to keep the mini going is that these numbers mean it would make more revenue than the Pro, which they keep selling but I think they were going to stop selling the Pro and this latest design was simply because they decided they wanted to keep making them and there is no alternative for people using 12-cores and dual GPUs. There are performance equivalents for mini buyers albeit at far higher prices for the quad models. For dual-core i5, it's now $599 mini or $899 MBA and the Air has an SSD.
If they do decide to drop the mini, I'd like to see Apple make a more affordable laptop with a quad-i7 chip and Iris Pro. I reckon they could do a $1499 rMBP with one. It's a good bit higher priced than the $799 mini but the resale would be higher too.
Dropping the mini shouldn't have a downside for Apple as people will simply have to buy more expensive Macs so even if the unit volume goes down, the revenues go up.
Maybe not but they need something that fills the gap below the Mac Plus. The sad thing here is that the Mini with the newest chips would be a far better machine than it has been in the past. Haswell would solve the GPU performance problems right now. Broadwell would give Apple the opportunity to do significantly better performance wise. In a nut shell I'd hate to see the Mini discontinued just when technology is catching up with user needs.
In any event I'm pretty much convinced that Apple needs a low cost offering of some sort no matter how well it sells. It is simply an expectation that customers have that is reasonable.
If Apple where to do something like that I'd probably go back to Linux. I can tolerate a bit of "Apple Tax" for ease of use and reliability but that implies hardware I'm willing to buy in the price range that I see as reasonable.
Don't get me wrong if I won the lottery tomorrow I would buy a Mac Pro that day. However these days I'm in a position where hardware purchases must be justifiable and frankly I don't need a Mac Pro. I certainly would like one but that is far different from being able to actually put one to use.
The problem with today's Mini, especially considering how long Haswell has been out, is that it is over priced. It is overpriced because the hardware is simply outdated by a good 8 months now. Even if I didn't want the Haswell GPU, I still can't justify paying list price for the Mini considering how outdated it is.
WWDC is a month away now so maybe we will see something then or just before. If not I will be extremely disappointed with Apple as I don't see it as unreasonable to expect them to keep up technology wise.
Atom is and has been seen in poor light compared to AMDs BRAZOS offerings. As such Intel has had to increase performance drastically to keep up. However realize that reviews by many online sources bias expectations when it comes to low end hardware. A good review doesn't imply that a laptop even remotely competes against mainstream laptop processors.
Of course it all depends on usage, Bay Trail-T can handle basic tasks with ease. Even some more complex applications and multi-tasking scenarios can be utilized on a Z3740/Z3770 device. The more recent Bay Trail-T chips paired with 4GB RAM (Z3745, Z3775 and Z3795) can do a little bit more. Cherry Trail-T should push that line even further. If Atom is to represent the bottom line for Intel, the bottom line is no longer the compromise consumers had to deal with when the first Atom processors launched years back. Even on the software side of things, Windows 8.1 Update 1 can be installed on a device with 16GB of space and 1GB of RAM.
Otherwise give me a new mini with a i5-4200M for $599 (better for it to be $499) and if they want go for the usual 500 GB HDD with a $200 option for a PCIe SSD.
In this regards I was hoping for a Haswell refresh variant that supported a new generation RAM interface. It doesn't look like that is coming though so we may have to wait for Broadwell. intel supposedly will have DDR4 support mid year but not on processors Apple is likely to use in either the Mini nor the iMac. What i'd rely like to see is Apple contract with Intel for an Apple specific variant that does have a DDR4 or what ever early. It is obviously that Intel has the tech to do so with Haswell architecture.
Why this hardware isn't out yet is beyond me. Personally I'd like to hope that Intel and Apple are teaming up again to offer something ground breaking. The other possibility is that Apple introduces an ARM based machine. The longer the wait the more unrealistic my dreams I guess.
The longer the wait the more unrealistic my dreams I guess.
Perhaps it will resemble a black coffee mug. It would be amusing to me to own a trash can, mug, and whatever else that resembles the newest mac pro. I don't really care about machine aesthetics, but it would amuse me anyway.
Who cares!
Well I do care about what the new Mini will look like. Mainly because I don't see myself shelling out for a Mac Pro today. Even here it isn't so much about the specifics of the "look" as it is remaining compact while maybe up rating its performance a bit. I'd really like to see the new Haswell or Broadwell/SkyLake processors from the desktop line up moved into this platform simply to control costs. With the desktop lines running very cool these days that shouldn't be a problem with a little engineering effort. Make the new Mini a baby sized Mac Pro which should be entirely doable with single PCB and a power supply.
Why would you read this forum if you don't care. Since there is zeros leakage as to what the new hardware will be like, the best we can do is entertain ourselves with levity.
I3 is pretty bad, we have ARM and even a few AMD chips encroaching on that level of performance.
The i3 is still faster than ARM and one would hope AMD would be faster. I think you have that sentence backwards. The A7 (2564 64 bit multicore) is still slower than the Intel Core i3-3217U (3095 64 bit multicore) and on par with the Pentium (2564) and Celeron 2955 (2387).
http://www.computingcompendium.com/p/arm-vs-intel-benchmarks.html
Note that the i3-3217U is an under clocked ivy bridge ULV processor from June 2012, not a desktop part. The Celeron 2955U is a Haswell ULV chip and that's pretty impressive. But not enough that I'd want to run OSX on it.
The desktop i3's do a bit better. The 2100 iMac Core i3-2100 benches in at 4968 for 64-bit multicore.
The current $1099 edu only iMac Core i3-3225 benches in at 5911.
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac-core-i3-3.3-21-inch-aluminum-early-2013-education-specs.html
2564 isn't encroaching on 5911 unless you think less than half is encroaching.
In comparison the 2013 $1299 Core i5 iMac benches in at 10310.
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac-core-i5-2.7-21-inch-aluminum-late-2013-specs.html
For $200 the base iMac is better.
The 2012 mini clocks in at 5666 for the Core i5 and 12567 for the Core i7.
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_mini/specs/mac-mini-core-i7-2.6-late-2012-specs.html
From JUST a CPU perspective the 2012 Core i7 mini is still pretty damn good trailing the current 2013 21" iMac Core i7 (14159) by only 1600 points.
GPU wise it's a different story.
I like to think that a few designers at Apple where glancing at pictures of an old Cray when designing the Mac Pro. As for a coffee mug I'm surprised that hasn't happened already. The design is so generic you would think that Apple would have a hard time stopping the coffee cup from being marketed.
I don't have any issues with the design. I mean with the old one I didn't care how it looked. It was designed to accomplish work, and I wouldn't want them to favor of aesthetics if it necessitated any engineering compromises. It just amuses me picturing an office where the computers, coffee mugs, and trash cans all match. Speaking of cray, I posted this in another thread. I think it's funny and simultaneously an awesome question.
Well I do care about what the new Mini will look like. Mainly because I don't see myself shelling out for a Mac Pro today. Even here it isn't so much about the specifics of the "look" as it is remaining compact while maybe up rating its performance a bit. I'd really like to see the new Haswell or Broadwell/SkyLake processors from the desktop line up moved into this platform simply to control costs. With the desktop lines running very cool these days that shouldn't be a problem with a little engineering effort. Make the new Mini a baby sized Mac Pro which should be entirely doable with single PCB and a power supply.
I don't think they'll go that route. It was probably the most compact way to fit 2 large gpus and an (up to) 130W cpu. It doesn't necessarily have to make sense with the mini. By the desktop lines I assume you mean the less costly cpus classified as desktop variants.