Here's why (in retail prices) assume volume prices to Apple that are anywhere from 40-60% lower:
3.5" 80GB drives can be had for about $60USD
2.5" 40GB drives require $90USD
It gets worse the higher up you go.
...
There's no way I'd let my product planning group release the mini with anything but a 3.5" drive. You don't think a half inch taller mini would be just as cute?
NOT SMART.
What? We spend so much time at the Shrine o' Mac and the only justification we can find for the choices that they make is that they're dumb?
No. Where there's an inexplicable or illogical act there's an unrecognized motive.
And it's this: The laptop HD is shock-resistant. So when the Mac mini is in your car's dashboard and you brake short, it won't skip on you and display that you're now in Delaware.
The use of 2.5 drives was a bad choice for consumer and shareholder alike.
Here's why (in retail prices) assume volume prices to Apple that are anywhere from 40-60% lower:
3.5" 80GB drives can be had for about $60USD
2.5" 40GB drives require $90USD
It gets worse the higher up you go.
2.5" 80GB drives will require from $170-200
Well, your retail prices for 2.5" drives are 20-30% too high.
Quote:
You'll be hard pressed to find many 160GB units that cost more than $130, in fact, a great many come in at $99, for $170-200, there are numerous 200GB options, and even a few 250GB options!
Right - which precisely proves my point. $60 retail (excluding special deals) is about the bottom of the market, which is where the 40GB 2.5" drives are now.
Quote:
Apple assumes to sell 300K Mac mini's per quarter, or 1.2 Million a year. You can safely assume a component cost savings averaged between the two mini models (499 and 599) of $25-40 per unit, just by using 3.5" drives. Do the math, anywhere from 25-48 million worth of pure unadulterated profit. There's no way I'd let my product planning group release the mini with anything but a 3.5" drive. You don't think a half inch taller mini would be just as cute?
Well, I thought the same thing, and then I was told some things that I can't restate here, and now I understand that your assumptions above are totally wrong wrt to this product.
You can dislike the 2.5" drives for many reasons, but the cost/profit argument from Apple's perspective is wrong.
What? We spend so much time at the Shrine o' Mac and the only justification we can find for the choices that they make is that they're dumb?
No. Where there's an inexplicable or illogical act there's an unrecognized motive.
And it's this: The laptop HD is shock-resistant. So when the Mac mini is in your car's dashboard and you brake short, it won't skip on you and display that you're now in Delaware.
--B
Sorry, but that's absurd. I assure you, Apple doesn't give a damn about the one fourth or one sixteenth of one percent of a fraction of ICE fanatics who might in 1 out of a 3000 cases attempt to install the Mac mini into their latest neon monstrosity. It's so small a niche that it is statistically insignificant. I guarantee you, Apple doesn't care and neither does Jobs. The mini has no display, it's NOT designed to be used in transit, though it can be easily transported fom place to place.
What they do care about is using the mini as bait for potential purchases of more expensive models. That is the ONLY reason that the mini is spec'd as it is, and to discourage (easy/cheap) modification. "Want a bigger/faster HDD, more RAM, why not just spring for this lovely iMac?"
That's all there is to it, plain and simple. The flaw in this, if you bothered to read the argument, is that those who haven't bough Apple's AIO in the past, won't buy them now either. The AIO is fundamentally different, and the mini won't convince anyone who's shopping primarily on price that AIO's are the way to go.
Like I wrote before. They may wan a mac, they certainly want it cheap (and headless). That means their option are the mini and the mini. I don't believe Apple can upsell them straight off.
There is an argument worth making, however, that the Mac mini is not design to convert the unfaithful to an iMac straight away, but to get someone who buys a mini today, to buy an iMac in two years: to see the goodness and come to the light. That's all well and good, except it offers no reason why Apple shouldn't make more per machine right now, especially when they can do so while offering the consumer more value at identical price points.
one fourth or one sixteenth of one percent of a fraction of ICE fanatics who might in 1 out of a 3000 cases attempt to install the Mac mini into their latest neon monstrosity.
"The next generation adapter that's coming out this year...there's an incredible consumer demand for these things." SJ MWSF Keynote 2005.
iPod's integrated into the steering wheel controls and the dashboard display. Mm doesn't need its own display. Could just plug into any car manufacturer's heads-up display.
Well, your retail prices for 2.5" drives are 20-30% too high.
They are indeed a little high, but not 20-30%
The cheapest retail 40GB 2.5" HDD (4200rpm) is still $85. Even if Apple is getting a deal on it to take it to the same price as 80GB (5400rpm) 3.5" drives, they're giving up twice the storage capacity, and a substantial speed difference.
At 80GB, it gets worse. (there aren't any 2.5" drives available for less than 150 retail at this size, and I think we can both agree that at least for the 599 model, a 3.5" drive would have been a better choice.)
I think you're underestimating just how limiting a 40GB drive can be. I know, I have one in my 12" PB. 15+ GB are gone just to software. All my writing and correspondence stays on the PB (backed up periodically). Over 22GB of music sits on my 30GB iPod. If I didn't have the iPod, the PB HDD would already be maxed. Only a couple of GB of music actually sit on the PB at any given time. Next up is iPhoto. I shoot a 3MP camera mainly to document events, and I burn everything to CD. If even half of the photos sat on my PB, the HDD would be bursting at the seams. These days, most consumer cams sport between 5-8MP. Apple encourages users to keep it all in iPhoto -- with their slide show, it's a nice idea, but with the way a consumer digicam can chew through a 512MB flash card, it won't be many outings before your 40GB HDD is full. iMovie? Forget it. iTunes/iPhoto will eat a 40GB HDD within months of ownership. That's bad, as is the needlessly slow 4200rpm speed, just wait till you get a few apps going.
I re-iterate, this would be a better machine, were it half an inch bigger in every direction, so that it could offer better HDD value and easy access (dual) RAM slots for the same price.
I, of course, am biased in this regard. The eMac has no reason at all to exist in the consumer space. If it were up to me, I'd stretch the mini to 6.5" tall (to again make a "cube") put in regular (faster and more flexible) drives, incorporate the PS into the unit, offer complete I/O (ie. including mic-in and SPDIFF out), and provide an industry standard 2 user accessible RAM slots, as well as user accessible airport slots.
"The next generation adapter that's coming out this year...there's an incredible consumer demand for these things." SJ MWSF Keynote 2005.
iPod's integrated into the steering wheel controls and the dashboard display. Mm doesn't need its own display. Could just plug into any car manufacturer's heads-up display.
I have a pipe-dream in the pipeline.
Yeah, but Matsu is dead-on on this point. Cars are not a market that Apple cares one whit about serving directly. If people want to eviscerate a mini or iBook, that's all well-and-good for Apple, but I'd be stunned if they spent even $1 to make that easier to do for this specific market.
Home theatre on the other hand is a large and growing market.
Yeah, but Matsu is dead-on on this point. Cars are not a market that Apple cares one whit about serving directly. If people want to eviscerate a mini or iBook, that's all well-and-good for Apple, but I'd be stunned if they spent even $1 to make that easier to do for this specific market.
Home theatre on the other hand is a large and growing market.
The biggest pictures are the ones that always seem the least tenable. Anyway, we'll talk about it once my car's Synced with my stereo. 8)
Just out of curiosity, where was it said/written that the iMac mini is using a 2.5" form factor hard drive? I was just looking for the drive specs and couldn't find any on anything I would call an "official" site.
The Mac mini?s diminutive motherboard is exactly the width of its RAM slot. That?s because the Mac mini uses full-size PC2700 RAM. Apple could have saved some space by using laptop RAM, but it wouldn?t have helped much, given the size of that pesky optical drive. However, the Mac mini?s hard drive is the same kind you?d find in a laptop: it?s a 2.5-inch, 4200 rpm drive.
There's been several reports on forums as well of what it says in System Profiler, I think it's a Toshiba HD, likely the same ones in iBook/PB.
The cheapest retail 40GB 2.5" HDD (4200rpm) is still $85. Even if Apple is getting a deal on it to take it to the same price as 80GB (5400rpm) 3.5" drives, they're giving up twice the storage capacity, and a substantial speed difference.
Penny wise, pound foolish.
It has already noted that there would be a production cost increase with manufacturing a larger case, packaging materials and shipping. I dont think it would be huge, but it would directly impact the profit margin ( and only to fit the bigger hard drive. I discount any addition that adds more cost - 2 ram slots - or jeopardizes the Mini's precise marketing position ).
Regardless, you also have a faulty assumption.
That the difference in retail price between 2.5" and 3.5" drives carries over into wholesale prices. I put it to you that there is no market for retail 2.5" drives. Very, very few people ever build machines with them, or upgrade their laptops. By comparison people are buying 3.5" drives at retail all the time. I dont have any hard figures, but a look at compusa's catalogue reveals that they sell 11 different models of 2.5" drive, and 50 of 3.5". When you go into the store there is a whole shelf of different 3.5" drives, and no 2.5" drives.
The net result of this is that drive manufacturers can basically charge whatever they want at retail, because the few people who want a 2.5" drive dont have any choice ( they have to have one ).
When you look at wholesale it is a different story. Laptops made up almost 50% of holiday sales. You can guarantee that OEMs push really hard on those drive prices.
Indeed, laptop drives, being physically smaller, should cost less than desktop drives, within certain capacity thresholds. ATM drives have just hit 100gb per platter. A 2.5" platter might be expected to hold 40gb. The result is that the per platter cost of the drive favors the 2.5" while the per GB cost favors the 3.5", eg: to put in the lowest capacity drive available it is cheaper to get a 2.5" than a 3.5".
So, not only does Apple get a cheaper drive ( in absolute terms ). It also aids product differentiation. Users perceive drive upgrades as being difficult and expensive, creating the possibility of an upsell. But, on the flip side, the diminutive form of the Mini, and its lower cost, contribute to the perception that it is an appliance, which is cheap enough to just replace when upgrades are required.
There is no evidence to support that. Even the furthest possible deviation from my analysis still puts desktop drives at the same cost (while offering a minimum of twice the storage, and superior speed)
If there were any economies of scale to be exploited in the use of 2.5" drives, other, far more cost conscious, manufacturers than Apple would have been using them in desktops for months! Likewise, if there were any real money to be saved in making a computer extra compact, those same manufacturers would already be doing so. They aren't, because there isn't. It's that simple.
You CAN save shipping costs by getting more machines on a palette, but it's the size of the container, not the device, that counts. Look at the mini packaging, you could easily put a machine of twice the volume into the same box, ergo, NO ADDITIONAL SHIPPING COSTS.
Trust me, the desire to make it small, has more to do with the Mini's intended role as a bait for consumers. Apple wants those people to buy other more expensive macs, and hampers your ability to upgrade the mini in order to accomplish that. It's role as an appliance you describe well enough: if you won't buy other macs, perhaps you'll just buy more minis. And I agree that it's made extra small for that purpose, however, in doing so, both performance and overall value have been comprimised, at a minimum. Potentially, so has short-term profitability.
It's all staked upon the ability to of Apple to up-sell, but this has problems since most of the mini's core market hasn't ever wanted anything to do with Apple's typically overpriced AIOs.
If nothing else, the introduction of the mini proves Apple's passionate addiction to the AIO form factor, for although they have finally released a headless machine, they have taken extra pains to seal it up even tighter than there alreay locked down AIO's. Rather than repack an i/eMac into a 6.5"^3 device and offer it somewhere south of 799, they've chosen to define a niche that leaves the AIO as the aspirational machine in their line-up.
There is no doubt from this poster, that the mini will sell wel enough as is, but there is also no question that a 799 iMac sans screen, would trounce just about every model Apple sells (a true switcher)
There is no evidence to support that. Even the furthest possible deviation from my analysis still puts desktop drives at the same cost (while offering a minimum of twice the storage, and superior speed)
If there were any economies of scale to be exploited in the use of 2.5" drives, other, far more cost conscious, manufacturers than Apple would have been using them in desktops for months! Likewise, if there were any real money to be saved in making a computer extra compact, those same manufacturers would already be doing so. They aren't, because there isn't. It's that simple...
But we do not know the price that Apple is paying for these drives, if they got a better volume discount or whatever...or they wanted to increase their volume priceing for these drives so that they could get a better price across their product line that uses these drives to maximize their profit margin on PowerBooks and iBooks. It may be that the economies of scale cover all 3 products profit margin, and not just that of the 'mini. It could also just be that Steve just prefered the smaller form factor and wanted to go with it for esthetic reasons.
If nothing else, the introduction of the mini proves Apple's passionate addiction to the AIO form factor, for although they have finally released a headless machine, they have taken extra pains to seal it up even tighter than there alreay locked down AIO's. Rather than repack an i/eMac into a 6.5"^3 device and offer it somewhere south of 799, they've chosen to define a niche that leaves the AIO as the aspirational machine in their line-up.
I think it proves Apple's (or at least Jobs') passionate addiction to the notion of the computer as an appliance. The very first Macintosh was intended to be an appliance, and the iMac mini is the second realization of this ~20 years later. This time he's a whole lot closer.
There's been several reports on forums as well of what it says in System Profiler, I think it's a Toshiba HD, likely the same ones in iBook/PB.
Well, there's you answer, Matsu. If Apple ships close to a million of these drives per quarter (250k iBooks, 250k PBs, 500k minis? I'm guessing), I must assume there's economy of scale in that figure to help keep the mini at or below $500, not to mention how it can help iBook costs.
I don't think the Mac mini is the end of this case design either. I think there's some accounting to do for what will (hopefully, I know) come into its design.
But it goes the other way too. iMacs plus eMacs plus Minis = roughly the same numbers, toss in low end towers too... In addition to the broader economies brought on by commodity pricing levels forced by the whole industry.
Unfortunately you're right, Im not privvy to wholesale pricing, and can only speculate.
Quote:
Even the furthest possible deviation from my analysis still puts desktop drives at the same cost (while offering a minimum of twice the storage, and superior speed)
Actually, I think it puts 2.5" at a lower cost. Which is the point I was making. It is not relevant to Apple that you can get a bigger, faster drive for a few dollars more. That doesnt fit with what the Mini as a whole is.
Quote:
If there were any economies of scale to be exploited in the use of 2.5" drives, other, far more cost conscious, manufacturers than Apple would have been using them in
desktops for months!
Mainstream manufacturers have different scenarios to what Apple faces with the Mini. However, it is only recently that laptops have reached 50% market share ( last couple of months ). I think we will see 2.5" drives penetrate the low end market fairly quickly. It is important to note that Apple will be paying more for the 80 gb drive, so it may not fit other companies plans to have various modes within a lineup using different drives.
I worked for a white box shop in '97 that used 2.5" drives as standard even then. Even with the additional cost of the IDE adapter and the drive bay adapter ( 2.5" drives dont really play well in the ATX world ) they were price and capacity competitive with other shops in the area.
Quote:
Likewise, if there were any real money to be saved in making a computer extra compact, those same manufacturers would already be doing so. They aren't, because there isn't. It's that simple.
Because they arent in the market that Apple is in. I cant speak to the cost of abandoning standard ATX components, but it is huge. Apple have massive capital investment to allow them to operate their custom everything model. Even today they are still designing their own custom ASICs. There just arent any other mass market manufacturers who do that. Smaller companies just dont have the margins ( in the PC market ) to support that effort.
The reality is that what is cost effective for Apple ( because of how they already operate ) may well be wrong for another company.
Quote:
You CAN save shipping costs by getting more machines on a palette, but it's the size of the container, not the device, that counts. Look at the mini packaging, you could easily put a machine of twice the volume into the same box, ergo, NO ADDITIONAL SHIPPING COSTS.
But Apple air ship their products direct from Taiwan and China. How many other manufacturers do that? Weight is vital in air shipping. Even in sea shipping everything is standard container sizes. Every extra one costs more. Even ignoring weight, Im sure that Apple have the minimum packaging required to protect the machine in transit. They will know how many DOAs they get with a certain volume of packaging, and those numbers will be optimised to minimise cost to Apple from having to perform tech support/replacements.
Quote:
Trust me, the desire to make it small, has more to do with the Mini's intended role as a bait for consumers. Apple wants those people to buy other more expensive macs, and hampers your ability to upgrade the mini in order to accomplish that.
Apple will have very carefully optimised the profit margin on this machine to make it practical for them. Sure, it has to meet a certain marketing position ( which I think it does ), but Apple have demonstrated a streak of ruthlessness when it comes to axing projects that arent going to hit the spot in more ways than one. The cube demonstrates what happens when everything isnt carefully considered. The PDA project is another example. Apple are stepping very, very carefully. Their uphill battle is slippery.
I just think it is short sighted to look at the retail cost of drives and then complain that Apple could have given the Mini a 3.5" drive and kept it at the same price point. It is vastly more complicated than that.
Quote:
All stuff about AIO
I see two things at play here. Apple is still stuck under the boot of their CPU manufacturers. IBM still isnt manufacturing enough/cheaply enough, Moto still hasnt ramped up the G4 clock speed. It is improving, but slowly. It makes no sense for Apple to sacrifice their high end high margin to sell the same number of cheap low margin machines.
Apple are looking to a future of information appliances. The Mac has always strived for this. But I think the Mini is the first true realisation of it.
Its not being marketed in any way as a PVR. That's the usual premature geek fantasy. So wisdom or otherwise is a non question. The mini is what it is, the smallest, cheapest Mac they could make. Why pretend its something else just so you can criticise it? You have a perverse need to be critical. They will not be able to make enough of these things to fulfil the enormous demand. It will therefore in Apple's terms be a roaring success. Why is this always such a f*cking problem for you?
No it isn't being marketed as a PVR - but who cares? It's a computer with all the correct things that could make it easily the most popular media center type deal - ever if not really the first one from a large OEM type.
Smallest, cheapest mac they could make? Hah - what a joke - yes it would have been so much more money to buy a half an inch of extruded plastic cases, that just would have made it a 1,000 dollar computer. In fact I bet it is cheaper/better to make it a half in thicker and use typical 3.5" hard drives - but as Matsu stated earlier it is quite clear as to why they didn't do that.
I love those last few lines "It will therefore in Apple's terms be a roaring success." WELL WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT WHAT APPLE WANTS?? Are you the type of person who wakes up and checks Apples stock prices - yet you don't own any Apple stock? Are you the kind of person who keeps a photo of Steve Jobs in your wallet? Seriously who cares what Apple deems as successful or not. This machine is on target to be the next big thing and with a few modifications it could easily be the next big media center hub that Apple is always talking about and I think the next thing everyone including myself wants.
Basically I just wanted to say Matsu - you hit the nail on the head. I think anyone who disagrees is an Apple apologist type/zealot who thinks Apple has no secret motive and can do no wrong because they are one of the "good" companies.
I honestly can't believe people are talking about the extra cost of shipping and weight. Shipping and packaging and what not is part of doing business - while it does matter it isn't going to decide the design of what a computers dimensions are going to be - I mean that's just an absolute joke. This thing weighs less than iBooks - yet they manage to ship those comparable to every other computer manufacturer in the US with regard to price/features.
I can't understand why anyone would think using slower/more expensive hard drives would have any benefit - yes they might have gotten a discout since it's the same drive in the laptops but guess what! They use those ide drives in their desktops which use quite a bit of those same drives they could be using with more space in them which would have let them STILL get a discount.
Comments
Originally posted by Matsu
Here's why (in retail prices) assume volume prices to Apple that are anywhere from 40-60% lower:
3.5" 80GB drives can be had for about $60USD
2.5" 40GB drives require $90USD
It gets worse the higher up you go.
...
There's no way I'd let my product planning group release the mini with anything but a 3.5" drive. You don't think a half inch taller mini would be just as cute?
NOT SMART.
What? We spend so much time at the Shrine o' Mac and the only justification we can find for the choices that they make is that they're dumb?
No. Where there's an inexplicable or illogical act there's an unrecognized motive.
And it's this: The laptop HD is shock-resistant. So when the Mac mini is in your car's dashboard and you brake short, it won't skip on you and display that you're now in Delaware.
--B
Originally posted by Matsu
I'm going to stop you there...
The use of 2.5 drives was a bad choice for consumer and shareholder alike.
Here's why (in retail prices) assume volume prices to Apple that are anywhere from 40-60% lower:
3.5" 80GB drives can be had for about $60USD
2.5" 40GB drives require $90USD
It gets worse the higher up you go.
2.5" 80GB drives will require from $170-200
Well, your retail prices for 2.5" drives are 20-30% too high.
Quote:
You'll be hard pressed to find many 160GB units that cost more than $130, in fact, a great many come in at $99, for $170-200, there are numerous 200GB options, and even a few 250GB options!
Right - which precisely proves my point. $60 retail (excluding special deals) is about the bottom of the market, which is where the 40GB 2.5" drives are now.
Apple assumes to sell 300K Mac mini's per quarter, or 1.2 Million a year. You can safely assume a component cost savings averaged between the two mini models (499 and 599) of $25-40 per unit, just by using 3.5" drives. Do the math, anywhere from 25-48 million worth of pure unadulterated profit. There's no way I'd let my product planning group release the mini with anything but a 3.5" drive. You don't think a half inch taller mini would be just as cute?
Well, I thought the same thing, and then I was told some things that I can't restate here, and now I understand that your assumptions above are totally wrong wrt to this product.
You can dislike the 2.5" drives for many reasons, but the cost/profit argument from Apple's perspective is wrong.
Originally posted by bergz
What? We spend so much time at the Shrine o' Mac and the only justification we can find for the choices that they make is that they're dumb?
No. Where there's an inexplicable or illogical act there's an unrecognized motive.
And it's this: The laptop HD is shock-resistant. So when the Mac mini is in your car's dashboard and you brake short, it won't skip on you and display that you're now in Delaware.
--B
Sorry, but that's absurd. I assure you, Apple doesn't give a damn about the one fourth or one sixteenth of one percent of a fraction of ICE fanatics who might in 1 out of a 3000 cases attempt to install the Mac mini into their latest neon monstrosity. It's so small a niche that it is statistically insignificant. I guarantee you, Apple doesn't care and neither does Jobs. The mini has no display, it's NOT designed to be used in transit, though it can be easily transported fom place to place.
What they do care about is using the mini as bait for potential purchases of more expensive models. That is the ONLY reason that the mini is spec'd as it is, and to discourage (easy/cheap) modification. "Want a bigger/faster HDD, more RAM, why not just spring for this lovely iMac?"
That's all there is to it, plain and simple. The flaw in this, if you bothered to read the argument, is that those who haven't bough Apple's AIO in the past, won't buy them now either. The AIO is fundamentally different, and the mini won't convince anyone who's shopping primarily on price that AIO's are the way to go.
Like I wrote before. They may wan a mac, they certainly want it cheap (and headless). That means their option are the mini and the mini. I don't believe Apple can upsell them straight off.
There is an argument worth making, however, that the Mac mini is not design to convert the unfaithful to an iMac straight away, but to get someone who buys a mini today, to buy an iMac in two years: to see the goodness and come to the light. That's all well and good, except it offers no reason why Apple shouldn't make more per machine right now, especially when they can do so while offering the consumer more value at identical price points.
Originally posted by Matsu
one fourth or one sixteenth of one percent of a fraction of ICE fanatics who might in 1 out of a 3000 cases attempt to install the Mac mini into their latest neon monstrosity.
No. Not neon. Heavens no.
BMW, Mercedes, Volvo, Nissan, Psion (sp?), Alfa Romeo, Ferrari.
"The next generation adapter that's coming out this year...there's an incredible consumer demand for these things." SJ MWSF Keynote 2005.
iPod's integrated into the steering wheel controls and the dashboard display. Mm doesn't need its own display. Could just plug into any car manufacturer's heads-up display.
I have a pipe-dream in the pipeline.
--B
Originally posted by johnsonwax
Well, your retail prices for 2.5" drives are 20-30% too high.
They are indeed a little high, but not 20-30%
The cheapest retail 40GB 2.5" HDD (4200rpm) is still $85. Even if Apple is getting a deal on it to take it to the same price as 80GB (5400rpm) 3.5" drives, they're giving up twice the storage capacity, and a substantial speed difference.
At 80GB, it gets worse. (there aren't any 2.5" drives available for less than 150 retail at this size, and I think we can both agree that at least for the 599 model, a 3.5" drive would have been a better choice.)
I think you're underestimating just how limiting a 40GB drive can be. I know, I have one in my 12" PB. 15+ GB are gone just to software. All my writing and correspondence stays on the PB (backed up periodically). Over 22GB of music sits on my 30GB iPod. If I didn't have the iPod, the PB HDD would already be maxed. Only a couple of GB of music actually sit on the PB at any given time. Next up is iPhoto. I shoot a 3MP camera mainly to document events, and I burn everything to CD. If even half of the photos sat on my PB, the HDD would be bursting at the seams. These days, most consumer cams sport between 5-8MP. Apple encourages users to keep it all in iPhoto -- with their slide show, it's a nice idea, but with the way a consumer digicam can chew through a 512MB flash card, it won't be many outings before your 40GB HDD is full. iMovie? Forget it. iTunes/iPhoto will eat a 40GB HDD within months of ownership. That's bad, as is the needlessly slow 4200rpm speed, just wait till you get a few apps going.
I re-iterate, this would be a better machine, were it half an inch bigger in every direction, so that it could offer better HDD value and easy access (dual) RAM slots for the same price.
I, of course, am biased in this regard. The eMac has no reason at all to exist in the consumer space. If it were up to me, I'd stretch the mini to 6.5" tall (to again make a "cube") put in regular (faster and more flexible) drives, incorporate the PS into the unit, offer complete I/O (ie. including mic-in and SPDIFF out), and provide an industry standard 2 user accessible RAM slots, as well as user accessible airport slots.
Originally posted by bergz
[B]No. Not neon. Heavens no.
BMW, Mercedes, Volvo, Nissan, Psion (sp?), Alfa Romeo, Ferrari.
"The next generation adapter that's coming out this year...there's an incredible consumer demand for these things." SJ MWSF Keynote 2005.
iPod's integrated into the steering wheel controls and the dashboard display. Mm doesn't need its own display. Could just plug into any car manufacturer's heads-up display.
I have a pipe-dream in the pipeline.
Yeah, but Matsu is dead-on on this point. Cars are not a market that Apple cares one whit about serving directly. If people want to eviscerate a mini or iBook, that's all well-and-good for Apple, but I'd be stunned if they spent even $1 to make that easier to do for this specific market.
Home theatre on the other hand is a large and growing market.
Originally posted by johnsonwax
Yeah, but Matsu is dead-on on this point. Cars are not a market that Apple cares one whit about serving directly. If people want to eviscerate a mini or iBook, that's all well-and-good for Apple, but I'd be stunned if they spent even $1 to make that easier to do for this specific market.
Home theatre on the other hand is a large and growing market.
The biggest pictures are the ones that always seem the least tenable. Anyway, we'll talk about it once my car's Synced with my stereo. 8)
--B
This is as close as I've seen so far as far as an "official" source, which I'll claim MacCentral(Macworld news section) to be.
http://www.macworld.com/2005/01/news...view/index.php
Under the pic of the mini:
The Mac mini?s diminutive motherboard is exactly the width of its RAM slot. That?s because the Mac mini uses full-size PC2700 RAM. Apple could have saved some space by using laptop RAM, but it wouldn?t have helped much, given the size of that pesky optical drive. However, the Mac mini?s hard drive is the same kind you?d find in a laptop: it?s a 2.5-inch, 4200 rpm drive.
There's been several reports on forums as well of what it says in System Profiler, I think it's a Toshiba HD, likely the same ones in iBook/PB.
Originally posted by Matsu
The cheapest retail 40GB 2.5" HDD (4200rpm) is still $85. Even if Apple is getting a deal on it to take it to the same price as 80GB (5400rpm) 3.5" drives, they're giving up twice the storage capacity, and a substantial speed difference.
Penny wise, pound foolish.
It has already noted that there would be a production cost increase with manufacturing a larger case, packaging materials and shipping. I dont think it would be huge, but it would directly impact the profit margin ( and only to fit the bigger hard drive. I discount any addition that adds more cost - 2 ram slots - or jeopardizes the Mini's precise marketing position ).
Regardless, you also have a faulty assumption.
That the difference in retail price between 2.5" and 3.5" drives carries over into wholesale prices. I put it to you that there is no market for retail 2.5" drives. Very, very few people ever build machines with them, or upgrade their laptops. By comparison people are buying 3.5" drives at retail all the time. I dont have any hard figures, but a look at compusa's catalogue reveals that they sell 11 different models of 2.5" drive, and 50 of 3.5". When you go into the store there is a whole shelf of different 3.5" drives, and no 2.5" drives.
The net result of this is that drive manufacturers can basically charge whatever they want at retail, because the few people who want a 2.5" drive dont have any choice ( they have to have one ).
When you look at wholesale it is a different story. Laptops made up almost 50% of holiday sales. You can guarantee that OEMs push really hard on those drive prices.
Indeed, laptop drives, being physically smaller, should cost less than desktop drives, within certain capacity thresholds. ATM drives have just hit 100gb per platter. A 2.5" platter might be expected to hold 40gb. The result is that the per platter cost of the drive favors the 2.5" while the per GB cost favors the 3.5", eg: to put in the lowest capacity drive available it is cheaper to get a 2.5" than a 3.5".
So, not only does Apple get a cheaper drive ( in absolute terms ). It also aids product differentiation. Users perceive drive upgrades as being difficult and expensive, creating the possibility of an upsell. But, on the flip side, the diminutive form of the Mini, and its lower cost, contribute to the perception that it is an appliance, which is cheap enough to just replace when upgrades are required.
Originally posted by mmmpie
Penny wise, pound foolish.
Perfect post. Have a cookie.
If there were any economies of scale to be exploited in the use of 2.5" drives, other, far more cost conscious, manufacturers than Apple would have been using them in desktops for months! Likewise, if there were any real money to be saved in making a computer extra compact, those same manufacturers would already be doing so. They aren't, because there isn't. It's that simple.
You CAN save shipping costs by getting more machines on a palette, but it's the size of the container, not the device, that counts. Look at the mini packaging, you could easily put a machine of twice the volume into the same box, ergo, NO ADDITIONAL SHIPPING COSTS.
Trust me, the desire to make it small, has more to do with the Mini's intended role as a bait for consumers. Apple wants those people to buy other more expensive macs, and hampers your ability to upgrade the mini in order to accomplish that. It's role as an appliance you describe well enough: if you won't buy other macs, perhaps you'll just buy more minis. And I agree that it's made extra small for that purpose, however, in doing so, both performance and overall value have been comprimised, at a minimum. Potentially, so has short-term profitability.
It's all staked upon the ability to of Apple to up-sell, but this has problems since most of the mini's core market hasn't ever wanted anything to do with Apple's typically overpriced AIOs.
If nothing else, the introduction of the mini proves Apple's passionate addiction to the AIO form factor, for although they have finally released a headless machine, they have taken extra pains to seal it up even tighter than there alreay locked down AIO's. Rather than repack an i/eMac into a 6.5"^3 device and offer it somewhere south of 799, they've chosen to define a niche that leaves the AIO as the aspirational machine in their line-up.
There is no doubt from this poster, that the mini will sell wel enough as is, but there is also no question that a 799 iMac sans screen, would trounce just about every model Apple sells (a true switcher)
Originally posted by Matsu
There is no evidence to support that. Even the furthest possible deviation from my analysis still puts desktop drives at the same cost (while offering a minimum of twice the storage, and superior speed)
If there were any economies of scale to be exploited in the use of 2.5" drives, other, far more cost conscious, manufacturers than Apple would have been using them in desktops for months! Likewise, if there were any real money to be saved in making a computer extra compact, those same manufacturers would already be doing so. They aren't, because there isn't. It's that simple...
But we do not know the price that Apple is paying for these drives, if they got a better volume discount or whatever...or they wanted to increase their volume priceing for these drives so that they could get a better price across their product line that uses these drives to maximize their profit margin on PowerBooks and iBooks. It may be that the economies of scale cover all 3 products profit margin, and not just that of the 'mini. It could also just be that Steve just prefered the smaller form factor and wanted to go with it for esthetic reasons.
Originally posted by Matsu
If nothing else, the introduction of the mini proves Apple's passionate addiction to the AIO form factor, for although they have finally released a headless machine, they have taken extra pains to seal it up even tighter than there alreay locked down AIO's. Rather than repack an i/eMac into a 6.5"^3 device and offer it somewhere south of 799, they've chosen to define a niche that leaves the AIO as the aspirational machine in their line-up.
I think it proves Apple's (or at least Jobs') passionate addiction to the notion of the computer as an appliance. The very first Macintosh was intended to be an appliance, and the iMac mini is the second realization of this ~20 years later. This time he's a whole lot closer.
Originally posted by MCQ
There's been several reports on forums as well of what it says in System Profiler, I think it's a Toshiba HD, likely the same ones in iBook/PB.
Well, there's you answer, Matsu.
I don't think the Mac mini is the end of this case design either. I think there's some accounting to do for what will (hopefully, I know) come into its design.
Originally posted by Matsu
There is no evidence to support that.
Unfortunately you're right, Im not privvy to wholesale pricing, and can only speculate.
Even the furthest possible deviation from my analysis still puts desktop drives at the same cost (while offering a minimum of twice the storage, and superior speed)
Actually, I think it puts 2.5" at a lower cost. Which is the point I was making. It is not relevant to Apple that you can get a bigger, faster drive for a few dollars more. That doesnt fit with what the Mini as a whole is.
If there were any economies of scale to be exploited in the use of 2.5" drives, other, far more cost conscious, manufacturers than Apple would have been using them in
desktops for months!
Mainstream manufacturers have different scenarios to what Apple faces with the Mini. However, it is only recently that laptops have reached 50% market share ( last couple of months ). I think we will see 2.5" drives penetrate the low end market fairly quickly. It is important to note that Apple will be paying more for the 80 gb drive, so it may not fit other companies plans to have various modes within a lineup using different drives.
I worked for a white box shop in '97 that used 2.5" drives as standard even then. Even with the additional cost of the IDE adapter and the drive bay adapter ( 2.5" drives dont really play well in the ATX world ) they were price and capacity competitive with other shops in the area.
Likewise, if there were any real money to be saved in making a computer extra compact, those same manufacturers would already be doing so. They aren't, because there isn't. It's that simple.
Because they arent in the market that Apple is in. I cant speak to the cost of abandoning standard ATX components, but it is huge. Apple have massive capital investment to allow them to operate their custom everything model. Even today they are still designing their own custom ASICs. There just arent any other mass market manufacturers who do that. Smaller companies just dont have the margins ( in the PC market ) to support that effort.
The reality is that what is cost effective for Apple ( because of how they already operate ) may well be wrong for another company.
You CAN save shipping costs by getting more machines on a palette, but it's the size of the container, not the device, that counts. Look at the mini packaging, you could easily put a machine of twice the volume into the same box, ergo, NO ADDITIONAL SHIPPING COSTS.
But Apple air ship their products direct from Taiwan and China. How many other manufacturers do that? Weight is vital in air shipping. Even in sea shipping everything is standard container sizes. Every extra one costs more. Even ignoring weight, Im sure that Apple have the minimum packaging required to protect the machine in transit. They will know how many DOAs they get with a certain volume of packaging, and those numbers will be optimised to minimise cost to Apple from having to perform tech support/replacements.
Trust me, the desire to make it small, has more to do with the Mini's intended role as a bait for consumers. Apple wants those people to buy other more expensive macs, and hampers your ability to upgrade the mini in order to accomplish that.
Apple will have very carefully optimised the profit margin on this machine to make it practical for them. Sure, it has to meet a certain marketing position ( which I think it does ), but Apple have demonstrated a streak of ruthlessness when it comes to axing projects that arent going to hit the spot in more ways than one. The cube demonstrates what happens when everything isnt carefully considered. The PDA project is another example. Apple are stepping very, very carefully. Their uphill battle is slippery.
I just think it is short sighted to look at the retail cost of drives and then complain that Apple could have given the Mini a 3.5" drive and kept it at the same price point. It is vastly more complicated than that.
All stuff about AIO
I see two things at play here. Apple is still stuck under the boot of their CPU manufacturers. IBM still isnt manufacturing enough/cheaply enough, Moto still hasnt ramped up the G4 clock speed. It is improving, but slowly. It makes no sense for Apple to sacrifice their high end high margin to sell the same number of cheap low margin machines.
Apple are looking to a future of information appliances. The Mac has always strived for this. But I think the Mini is the first true realisation of it.
Originally posted by vinney57
Its not being marketed in any way as a PVR. That's the usual premature geek fantasy. So wisdom or otherwise is a non question. The mini is what it is, the smallest, cheapest Mac they could make. Why pretend its something else just so you can criticise it? You have a perverse need to be critical. They will not be able to make enough of these things to fulfil the enormous demand. It will therefore in Apple's terms be a roaring success. Why is this always such a f*cking problem for you?
No it isn't being marketed as a PVR - but who cares? It's a computer with all the correct things that could make it easily the most popular media center type deal - ever if not really the first one from a large OEM type.
Smallest, cheapest mac they could make? Hah - what a joke - yes it would have been so much more money to buy a half an inch of extruded plastic cases, that just would have made it a 1,000 dollar computer. In fact I bet it is cheaper/better to make it a half in thicker and use typical 3.5" hard drives - but as Matsu stated earlier it is quite clear as to why they didn't do that.
I love those last few lines "It will therefore in Apple's terms be a roaring success." WELL WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT WHAT APPLE WANTS?? Are you the type of person who wakes up and checks Apples stock prices - yet you don't own any Apple stock? Are you the kind of person who keeps a photo of Steve Jobs in your wallet? Seriously who cares what Apple deems as successful or not. This machine is on target to be the next big thing and with a few modifications it could easily be the next big media center hub that Apple is always talking about and I think the next thing everyone including myself wants.
I honestly can't believe people are talking about the extra cost of shipping and weight. Shipping and packaging and what not is part of doing business - while it does matter it isn't going to decide the design of what a computers dimensions are going to be - I mean that's just an absolute joke. This thing weighs less than iBooks - yet they manage to ship those comparable to every other computer manufacturer in the US with regard to price/features.
I can't understand why anyone would think using slower/more expensive hard drives would have any benefit - yes they might have gotten a discout since it's the same drive in the laptops but guess what! They use those ide drives in their desktops which use quite a bit of those same drives they could be using with more space in them which would have let them STILL get a discount.
Seriously I can't believe you people sometimes.