I don't need the video to consider this plausible. The MacBook-like internals, the move to mDP, all these things are pretty self-evident. And there seem to be a lot of rumblings about desktop updates.
No, I agree, I think this is very plausible. Although I give it about a 50-50 chance that this is an engineering prototype and not a final design.
I would say the upcoming mini is perfectly capable of handling Photoshop for the average designer.
i think it will run photoshop fine, as well. however, i want to run photoshop, illustrator, and indesign all at the same time, all with files open and switch back and forth rapidly. or, all the web suite apps, depending on the project. i dont want to have to wait for massive memory paging on a small slow drive each time i switch between apps. this hinders productivity, and is massively annoying. especially with safari, mail, calendar, etc also open in the background. this is how a real-world average designer needs to operate. my macbook 2gz doesn't handle this very well, that is why i want a desktop. but, again, a macpro is overkill. i use aftereffects as well. this is 2009, it works okay on my macbook - but, only if most other apps are closed. considering a huge chunk of cost for a new macbook pro is a screen which is closed 30 days out of a 31 day month, it is a waste of money. so, again, a small capable desktop is needed. the current mac mini is not enough.
i dont want to have to wait for massive memory paging on a small slow drive each time i switch between apps.
You can get a 7200 rpm drive for it. Perhaps they will offer a BTO option this time. Once we can be assured of prolonged SSD performance, that's an even better option.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DHagan4755
The tardiness of the new Mac mini on Apple's part is beyond pathetic
Sadly I don't think they have anything up their sleeve.
They have treated the mini like a cheap whore ? trotted her out as an "affordable" Mac; ignored her when they went high-end with the aluminum iMac and the unibody MacBook Pros...
I agree entirely. When you see Apple do things like this and the MobileMe launch as well as the itunes app store launch that was offline for days, it just makes Apple look like a bunch of amateurs.
People say they must have something great to deliver but only because it's unbelievable that they can take so long to refresh their products, not because there's any evidence they are capable of it.
They can't ship their machines with Snow Leopard and risk incompatibilities out of the box. If they were waiting for desktop quads, they are out now.
No updates at MW was pathetic. This is, as you say, beyond pathetic.
I agree entirely. When you see Apple do things like this and the MobileMe launch as well as the itunes app store launch that was offline for days, it just makes Apple look like a bunch of amateurs.
That fiasco will not fade from consumer memory quickly, though it looks like Apple has decided to stagger releases more.
Quote:
If they were waiting for desktop quads, they are out now.
Desktop C2Q or Intel's low-power C2Q designed for AIOs?
Desktop C2Q or Intel's low-power C2Q designed for AIOs?
The low power ones, though they are listed as desktop chips. There was an environmentally friendly version launched yesterday and appears in Intel's processor spec list now.
"The Xeon L3110 clocks in at 3GHz across its dual cores and 6MB of Level 2 cache but consumes a more modest 45W of power, suiting it to very compact workstations and rackmount servers.
All three chips should be ready for use today and carry prices of $224, $369 and $530 in large batches for PC makers."
The higher models have 65W TDPs. Even if Apple went with a single 24" model iMac with a dual 3GHz Xeon at 45W round about the lowest price point, the performance of that should be worth it. Maybe two models like the laptops, one with 9400M.
With these announcements from Intel, the refreshes must be coming soon. I read that some analysts downgraded AAPL suspecting a refresh could come as late as June. That just can't be the case but what we've seen so far of Apple without Jobs is distinctly underwhelming and if they keep going like this, the press is going to have a field day tying Apple's success to Jobs' presence in the company.
If Apple and jobs wants to downplay the importance of his leadership at the company, Apple need to start acting like they can handle the real world on their own.
I agree. The Mac Pro is already well-differentiated from the rest of Apple's line by using the Xeon, which contains many optimizations for high performance and high throughput computing. It is also a DP system and will likely have MP options once Intel releases the rest of the Nehalem-based Xeons. It's really aimed at people doing complex video compositing (AfterEffects, Shake), editing high resolution images (mostly scientific imaging) or scientific computing; in other words, a very exclusive set of users. I would say the upcoming mini is perfectly capable of handling Photoshop for the average designer.
The mini is not perfectly capable of handling Photoshop use except for the very lightest Photoshop usage. The meager RAM makes it impossible to effectively use Photoshop files >500MB. The mini even chokes on complex and large InDesign and Illustrator files. The Mac pro is very popular at publishing and advertising shops for high end Creative Suite use. Actually the Pro is overkill for this CS3/4 work, I have to admit. And it's the main reason why we are still hanging on to 1st generation G5s; they already have 6GB of RAM; and secondary internal hard drives for scratch disks and such. A Mac Pro would be nice but unnecessarily expensive, especially in this economic climate.
The mini is not perfectly capable of handling Photoshop use except for the very lightest Photoshop usage. The meager RAM makes it impossible to effectively use Photoshop files >500MB. The mini even chokes on complex and large InDesign and Illustrator files. The Mac pro is very popular at publishing and advertising shops for high end Creative Suite use. Actually the Pro is overkill for this CS3/4 work, I have to admit. And it's the main reason why we are still hanging on to 1st generation G5s; they already have 6GB of RAM; and secondary internal hard drives for scratch disks and such. A Mac Pro would be nice but unnecessarily expensive, especially in this economic climate.
I think the question being raised is not whether the current mini can handle Photoshop but whether the current lineup of MacBooks can handle Photoshop. The presumption has been for a long time that the next mini will keep to pattern and be, for practical purposes, a headless MacBook.
The mini is not perfectly capable of handling Photoshop use except for the very lightest Photoshop usage. The meager RAM makes it impossible to effectively use Photoshop files >500MB. The mini even chokes on complex and large InDesign and Illustrator files. The Mac pro is very popular at publishing and advertising shops for high end Creative Suite use. Actually the Pro is overkill for this CS3/4 work, I have to admit. And it's the main reason why we are still hanging on to 1st generation G5s; they already have 6GB of RAM; and secondary internal hard drives for scratch disks and such. A Mac Pro would be nice but unnecessarily expensive, especially in this economic climate.
The average mini buyer is not going to be working on 500MB Photoshop files. Even then I have effectively worked on larger photoshop files on lower clocked G5's and G4's with 1 MB of memory. The biggest problem with older versions of PS (CS 3 and earlier?) is that they are not "intel native" and have to run under Rosetta, which slows it down.
If you need to regularly work on 500MB Photoshop files or larger/complex InDesign and Illustrator then you are a fool to buy a mini or even a Macbook for the task. If you are doing this type of computing then you are probably using the computer professionally or as a student studying to become a professional and you need a much more capable computer than a mini. I would go so far as to say that you need at least a mid range iMac or MacBook Pro.
The mini is not perfectly capable of handling Photoshop use except for the very lightest Photoshop usage. The meager RAM makes it impossible to effectively use Photoshop files >500MB. The mini even chokes on complex and large InDesign and Illustrator files. The Mac pro is very popular at publishing and advertising shops for high end Creative Suite use. Actually the Pro is overkill for this CS3/4 work, I have to admit. And it's the main reason why we are still hanging on to 1st generation G5s; they already have 6GB of RAM; and secondary internal hard drives for scratch disks and such. A Mac Pro would be nice but unnecessarily expensive, especially in this economic climate.
You don't have to use the stock amount of RAM. The mini will take up to 3GB of RAM if you buy third party. For those the Mac Pro and mini are too big or too small, it looks like the iMac is often used as the "goldilocks" computer, the current one will do 4GB, I would expect that the next iMac should work with 6GB or 8GB.
You don't have to use the stock amount of RAM. The mini will take up to 3GB of RAM if you buy third party. For those the Mac Pro and mini are too big or too small, it looks like the iMac is often used as the "goldilocks" computer, the current one will do 4GB, I would expect that the next iMac should work with 6GB or 8GB.
Maybe but it's not out yet. I can't put a non-existent computer in my budget (the one I did at the end of last year). 3GB was not enough then; the mini was never in the running for upgrades. The iMac is not appropriate since we have a color correction workflow that uses Eizo monitors. So the best we can do is upgrade only about a third of all G5s to Pros. Unless there is a better product from Apple that suits our needs. I'm telling you though, the PC IT guy in the department would like to see the creative team go to Windows, but that is a whole other can of worms. Not going to happen.
The tardiness of the new Mac mini on Apple's part is beyond pathetic
Sadly I don't think they have anything up their sleeve.
They have treated the mini like a cheap whore ? trotted her out as an "affordable" Mac; ignored her when they went high-end with the aluminum iMac and the unibody MacBook Pros...
I agree entirely. When you see Apple do things like this and the MobileMe launch as well as the itunes app store launch that was offline for days, it just makes Apple look like a bunch of amateurs.
People say they must have something great to deliver but only because it's unbelievable that they can take so long to refresh their products, not because there's any evidence they are capable of it.
They can't ship their machines with Snow Leopard and risk incompatibilities out of the box. If they were waiting for desktop quads, they are out now.
No updates at MW was pathetic. This is, as you say, beyond pathetic.
No i7 Mac Pro. They could offer it as a new mid-tower range. But they're hanging onto the Xeons for grim death...so they can offer the 'best' towers, with huge markups with naff gpus as standard.
No i7 based iMac. They could offer this. But I'm guessing they'll offer some weak knee laptop chip and force you to pony a £1700 entry free into Nehalem class performance.
No Mac mini.
Wintel vendors can't be criticised for offering choice, eh?
No innovation on the desktop to give us something inbetween the Mini and complement the iMac. When was the last time Apple innovated on the desktop? Was it the Cube or the 'Flat chin' iMac? In terms of the line up...not since the Cube. I'm not sure I'm going to count the mini as innovation.
I don't think people expect a Cube, or a cube like desktop from Apple, to return as it was; a polycarbonate encased computer with no active cooling. It's just the idea of a middle of the road desktop between the mini and the Pro. Maybe something the size of the G4 cube isn't right. Maybe something along the lines of a Shuttle. But Apple style.
If they are sticking with Core 2 Duo in the iMac, that is just plain laughable if they are hitting the same price points. Core 2 Duo prices haven't dropped much at all since last time but they can't keep doing this.
Quick search for a PC tower shows you can get the Q8200 quad with 8GB Ram, 500GB HD, DVDRW, Geforce 9500GT w 1GB VRam for under £450. The iMac entry point is £700 usually.
Apple say they can't make 'crap' for x price. What's the mini then? Underpowered piece of spec in a neat biscuit tin design. It's a disgrace.
How is the tower in the above example crap? And you get 8 gigs of ram in it! A gpu with 1 gig of vram you can only dream about in Apple's consumer desktop line up and it's a quad. A figment of imagination for consumer desktop Mac Heads.
The average mini buyer is not going to be working on 500MB Photoshop files. Even then I have effectively worked on larger photoshop files on lower clocked G5's and G4's with 1 MB of memory. The biggest problem with older versions of PS (CS 3 and earlier?) is that they are not "intel native" and have to run under Rosetta, which slows it down.
If you need to regularly work on 500MB Photoshop files or larger/complex InDesign and Illustrator then you are a fool to buy a mini or even a Macbook for the task. If you are doing this type of computing then you are probably using the computer professionally or as a student studying to become a professional and you need a much more capable computer than a mini. I would go so far as to say that you need at least a mid range iMac or MacBook Pro.
Exactly. Thank goodness for the MBP. We have them maxed at 4GB and make great creative machines. For the studio, they prefer some more omph, especially when jobs get down to the wire. The Mac Pros we have work like a dream. I'm not worried about their replacements this year; they are still top of the line machines.
MBP fill in the gaps elsewhere, but they are a pricey gap filler.
As for the Cube, I'm not sure what the reason would be to bring it back. Now, I bought one. It's still running. I love its geek-lusty little Star Trek design. But that's what it is. It's difficult to cool, so it doesn't really buy you very much in terms of internal expandability or advanced graphics capability. The "toaster" optical drive is cool when it works and an enormous pain in the ass when it doesn't--but if you lay it horizontal the way the mockup upthread has it, you lose the central convection column that the Cube relied on to stay cool.
If you want expandable graphics, the box has to be big enough to really do it right. If you don't want the size or bulk of a truly expandable box, there's really no reason to make it larger than a mini.
A mid-tower. They have it already. The Mac Pro. Just stick an i7 chipset in it. Pass on the price benefit as most Wintel desktop vendors have...and Apple have a 'desktop' line for consumers.
Not that I'd complain if they made a more compact Mac Pro case...
The low power ones, though they are listed as desktop chips. There was an environmentally friendly version launched yesterday and appears in Intel's processor spec list now.
Now we have wait for Intel to get Apple enough supply, so I wouldn't expect any release of a new iMac until mid March.
Apple is in a uniquely poor position due to its explosive popularity (though it's not a bad position for any company to be in). With having so few machine type and few speeds within those types Apple needs a considerable more of these new, high-end CPUs than other vendors. Sure, Dell and HP sell more machines, but they do use AMD and Intel and sell most of their machines with older, easier had components. The other companies do made-to-order for the higher-end machines but Apple needs to have all their stores with these new iMacs and have supply ready to sell in the stores and on their website.
Now we have wait for Intel to get Apple enough supply, so I wouldn't expect any release of a new iMac until mid March.
I think they make a supply before they announce it. Plus they produce about 100,000 45nm chips a day from the 4 fabrication plants (not sure if that's each or combined but they run continuously) and Apple only sell about 10 million Macs a year. PCs don't all use the 45nm chips either, a lot are on the 65nm chips. Intel can churn out 10 million of those a month.
In a good quarter, Apple will sell about 2.5 million so Intel only need to give them about 25,000 45nm chips a day and Apple can adjust their shipping times accordingly if the supply isn't there.
Maybe but it's not out yet. I can't put a non-existent computer in my budget (the one I did at the end of last year). 3GB was not enough then; the mini was never in the running for upgrades. The iMac is not appropriate since we have a color correction workflow that uses Eizo monitors. So the best we can do is upgrade only about a third of all G5s to Pros. Unless there is a better product from Apple that suits our needs. I'm telling you though, the PC IT guy in the department would like to see the creative team go to Windows, but that is a whole other can of worms. Not going to happen.
You are using a mini with a monitor that costs twice as much as it does? Some decision maker where you work does not know what he is doing, it would be better to keep an old G5 in service and max out the RAM than move to a mini.
Another solution would be to get an iMac and use the Mini-DVI out to hook it up to your high end monitor, that way you have a computer with two monitor's which your designer's can take advantage of for the plethora of pallets on their monitor. They are faster and support more memory and when the updates come out it will still be more bang for your buck than the mini will. It is unrealistic to use a low end consumer computer for high end design work, and the mini will never be up to the task compared to those computer that are designed for it.
Core i7 is not supposed to be a high volume mainstream cpu folks. It's an enthusiast system. This means you shouldn't be asking for a Core i7 iMac. The iMac is a high volume mainstream computing system.
The Mac mini has sadly been neglected but I hope Apple sees the light and keeps the mini dual core and affordable. The roadmap is laid out well for the mini hardwarewise.
Core i7 is not supposed to be a high volume mainstream cpu folks. It's an enthusiast system. This means you shouldn't be asking for a Core i7 iMac. The iMac is a high volume mainstream computing system.
The Mac mini has sadly been neglected but I hope Apple sees the light and keeps the mini dual core and affordable. The roadmap is laid out well for the mini hardwarewise.
The mini has been neglected and will continue to be neglected as long as people buy them up. Frankly I hope the next mini has the same internals (you know they have to be dirt cheap for the 2.0GHz and 965 northbridge with GMA950, hell give them GMA3100) and just add what they want to push, namely mini-DP. It'll be their recession buster. 50% or more margin on ancient tech, and the people continue to lap it up.
Comments
I don't need the video to consider this plausible. The MacBook-like internals, the move to mDP, all these things are pretty self-evident. And there seem to be a lot of rumblings about desktop updates.
No, I agree, I think this is very plausible. Although I give it about a 50-50 chance that this is an engineering prototype and not a final design.
I would say the upcoming mini is perfectly capable of handling Photoshop for the average designer.
i think it will run photoshop fine, as well. however, i want to run photoshop, illustrator, and indesign all at the same time, all with files open and switch back and forth rapidly. or, all the web suite apps, depending on the project. i dont want to have to wait for massive memory paging on a small slow drive each time i switch between apps. this hinders productivity, and is massively annoying. especially with safari, mail, calendar, etc also open in the background. this is how a real-world average designer needs to operate. my macbook 2gz doesn't handle this very well, that is why i want a desktop. but, again, a macpro is overkill. i use aftereffects as well. this is 2009, it works okay on my macbook - but, only if most other apps are closed. considering a huge chunk of cost for a new macbook pro is a screen which is closed 30 days out of a 31 day month, it is a waste of money. so, again, a small capable desktop is needed. the current mac mini is not enough.
i dont want to have to wait for massive memory paging on a small slow drive each time i switch between apps.
You can get a 7200 rpm drive for it. Perhaps they will offer a BTO option this time. Once we can be assured of prolonged SSD performance, that's an even better option.
The tardiness of the new Mac mini on Apple's part is beyond pathetic
Sadly I don't think they have anything up their sleeve.
They have treated the mini like a cheap whore ? trotted her out as an "affordable" Mac; ignored her when they went high-end with the aluminum iMac and the unibody MacBook Pros...
I agree entirely. When you see Apple do things like this and the MobileMe launch as well as the itunes app store launch that was offline for days, it just makes Apple look like a bunch of amateurs.
People say they must have something great to deliver but only because it's unbelievable that they can take so long to refresh their products, not because there's any evidence they are capable of it.
They can't ship their machines with Snow Leopard and risk incompatibilities out of the box. If they were waiting for desktop quads, they are out now.
No updates at MW was pathetic. This is, as you say, beyond pathetic.
I agree entirely. When you see Apple do things like this and the MobileMe launch as well as the itunes app store launch that was offline for days, it just makes Apple look like a bunch of amateurs.
That fiasco will not fade from consumer memory quickly, though it looks like Apple has decided to stagger releases more.
If they were waiting for desktop quads, they are out now.
Desktop C2Q or Intel's low-power C2Q designed for AIOs?
Desktop C2Q or Intel's low-power C2Q designed for AIOs?
The low power ones, though they are listed as desktop chips. There was an environmentally friendly version launched yesterday and appears in Intel's processor spec list now.
I just found this on electronista though:
http://www.electronista.com/articles....and.atom.cut/
"The Xeon L3110 clocks in at 3GHz across its dual cores and 6MB of Level 2 cache but consumes a more modest 45W of power, suiting it to very compact workstations and rackmount servers.
All three chips should be ready for use today and carry prices of $224, $369 and $530 in large batches for PC makers."
The higher models have 65W TDPs. Even if Apple went with a single 24" model iMac with a dual 3GHz Xeon at 45W round about the lowest price point, the performance of that should be worth it. Maybe two models like the laptops, one with 9400M.
With these announcements from Intel, the refreshes must be coming soon. I read that some analysts downgraded AAPL suspecting a refresh could come as late as June. That just can't be the case but what we've seen so far of Apple without Jobs is distinctly underwhelming and if they keep going like this, the press is going to have a field day tying Apple's success to Jobs' presence in the company.
If Apple and jobs wants to downplay the importance of his leadership at the company, Apple need to start acting like they can handle the real world on their own.
I agree. The Mac Pro is already well-differentiated from the rest of Apple's line by using the Xeon, which contains many optimizations for high performance and high throughput computing. It is also a DP system and will likely have MP options once Intel releases the rest of the Nehalem-based Xeons. It's really aimed at people doing complex video compositing (AfterEffects, Shake), editing high resolution images (mostly scientific imaging) or scientific computing; in other words, a very exclusive set of users. I would say the upcoming mini is perfectly capable of handling Photoshop for the average designer.
The mini is not perfectly capable of handling Photoshop use except for the very lightest Photoshop usage. The meager RAM makes it impossible to effectively use Photoshop files >500MB. The mini even chokes on complex and large InDesign and Illustrator files. The Mac pro is very popular at publishing and advertising shops for high end Creative Suite use. Actually the Pro is overkill for this CS3/4 work, I have to admit. And it's the main reason why we are still hanging on to 1st generation G5s; they already have 6GB of RAM; and secondary internal hard drives for scratch disks and such. A Mac Pro would be nice but unnecessarily expensive, especially in this economic climate.
The mini is not perfectly capable of handling Photoshop use except for the very lightest Photoshop usage. The meager RAM makes it impossible to effectively use Photoshop files >500MB. The mini even chokes on complex and large InDesign and Illustrator files. The Mac pro is very popular at publishing and advertising shops for high end Creative Suite use. Actually the Pro is overkill for this CS3/4 work, I have to admit. And it's the main reason why we are still hanging on to 1st generation G5s; they already have 6GB of RAM; and secondary internal hard drives for scratch disks and such. A Mac Pro would be nice but unnecessarily expensive, especially in this economic climate.
I think the question being raised is not whether the current mini can handle Photoshop but whether the current lineup of MacBooks can handle Photoshop. The presumption has been for a long time that the next mini will keep to pattern and be, for practical purposes, a headless MacBook.
The mini is not perfectly capable of handling Photoshop use except for the very lightest Photoshop usage. The meager RAM makes it impossible to effectively use Photoshop files >500MB. The mini even chokes on complex and large InDesign and Illustrator files. The Mac pro is very popular at publishing and advertising shops for high end Creative Suite use. Actually the Pro is overkill for this CS3/4 work, I have to admit. And it's the main reason why we are still hanging on to 1st generation G5s; they already have 6GB of RAM; and secondary internal hard drives for scratch disks and such. A Mac Pro would be nice but unnecessarily expensive, especially in this economic climate.
The average mini buyer is not going to be working on 500MB Photoshop files. Even then I have effectively worked on larger photoshop files on lower clocked G5's and G4's with 1 MB of memory. The biggest problem with older versions of PS (CS 3 and earlier?) is that they are not "intel native" and have to run under Rosetta, which slows it down.
If you need to regularly work on 500MB Photoshop files or larger/complex InDesign and Illustrator then you are a fool to buy a mini or even a Macbook for the task. If you are doing this type of computing then you are probably using the computer professionally or as a student studying to become a professional and you need a much more capable computer than a mini. I would go so far as to say that you need at least a mid range iMac or MacBook Pro.
The mini is not perfectly capable of handling Photoshop use except for the very lightest Photoshop usage. The meager RAM makes it impossible to effectively use Photoshop files >500MB. The mini even chokes on complex and large InDesign and Illustrator files. The Mac pro is very popular at publishing and advertising shops for high end Creative Suite use. Actually the Pro is overkill for this CS3/4 work, I have to admit. And it's the main reason why we are still hanging on to 1st generation G5s; they already have 6GB of RAM; and secondary internal hard drives for scratch disks and such. A Mac Pro would be nice but unnecessarily expensive, especially in this economic climate.
You don't have to use the stock amount of RAM. The mini will take up to 3GB of RAM if you buy third party. For those the Mac Pro and mini are too big or too small, it looks like the iMac is often used as the "goldilocks" computer, the current one will do 4GB, I would expect that the next iMac should work with 6GB or 8GB.
You don't have to use the stock amount of RAM. The mini will take up to 3GB of RAM if you buy third party. For those the Mac Pro and mini are too big or too small, it looks like the iMac is often used as the "goldilocks" computer, the current one will do 4GB, I would expect that the next iMac should work with 6GB or 8GB.
Maybe but it's not out yet. I can't put a non-existent computer in my budget (the one I did at the end of last year). 3GB was not enough then; the mini was never in the running for upgrades. The iMac is not appropriate since we have a color correction workflow that uses Eizo monitors. So the best we can do is upgrade only about a third of all G5s to Pros. Unless there is a better product from Apple that suits our needs. I'm telling you though, the PC IT guy in the department would like to see the creative team go to Windows, but that is a whole other can of worms. Not going to happen.
Originally Posted by DHagan4755
The tardiness of the new Mac mini on Apple's part is beyond pathetic
Sadly I don't think they have anything up their sleeve.
They have treated the mini like a cheap whore ? trotted her out as an "affordable" Mac; ignored her when they went high-end with the aluminum iMac and the unibody MacBook Pros...
I agree entirely. When you see Apple do things like this and the MobileMe launch as well as the itunes app store launch that was offline for days, it just makes Apple look like a bunch of amateurs.
People say they must have something great to deliver but only because it's unbelievable that they can take so long to refresh their products, not because there's any evidence they are capable of it.
They can't ship their machines with Snow Leopard and risk incompatibilities out of the box. If they were waiting for desktop quads, they are out now.
No updates at MW was pathetic. This is, as you say, beyond pathetic.
'Waaaaaaaaaaaaay beyond pathetic.' (To paraphrase Apple's 'Waaaaay beyong the rumour sites...hype...)
Hmm. Nearly 3 months into 09 and NOTHING!
No i7 Mac Pro. They could offer it as a new mid-tower range. But they're hanging onto the Xeons for grim death...so they can offer the 'best' towers, with huge markups with naff gpus as standard.
No i7 based iMac. They could offer this. But I'm guessing they'll offer some weak knee laptop chip and force you to pony a £1700 entry free into Nehalem class performance.
No Mac mini.
Wintel vendors can't be criticised for offering choice, eh?
No innovation on the desktop to give us something inbetween the Mini and complement the iMac. When was the last time Apple innovated on the desktop? Was it the Cube or the 'Flat chin' iMac? In terms of the line up...not since the Cube. I'm not sure I'm going to count the mini as innovation.
Lemon Bon Bon.
I don't think people expect a Cube, or a cube like desktop from Apple, to return as it was; a polycarbonate encased computer with no active cooling. It's just the idea of a middle of the road desktop between the mini and the Pro. Maybe something the size of the G4 cube isn't right. Maybe something along the lines of a Shuttle. But Apple style.
Yep. Apple style.
Lemon Bon Bon.
If they are sticking with Core 2 Duo in the iMac, that is just plain laughable if they are hitting the same price points. Core 2 Duo prices haven't dropped much at all since last time but they can't keep doing this.
Quick search for a PC tower shows you can get the Q8200 quad with 8GB Ram, 500GB HD, DVDRW, Geforce 9500GT w 1GB VRam for under £450. The iMac entry point is £700 usually.
Apple say they can't make 'crap' for x price. What's the mini then? Underpowered piece of spec in a neat biscuit tin design. It's a disgrace.
How is the tower in the above example crap? And you get 8 gigs of ram in it! A gpu with 1 gig of vram you can only dream about in Apple's consumer desktop line up and it's a quad. A figment of imagination for consumer desktop Mac Heads.
Yeesh. What's going on?!
And if the 'new' iMacs are DUO? *Shrugs.
Looks at the sky in disbelief.
Lemon Bon Bon.
The average mini buyer is not going to be working on 500MB Photoshop files. Even then I have effectively worked on larger photoshop files on lower clocked G5's and G4's with 1 MB of memory. The biggest problem with older versions of PS (CS 3 and earlier?) is that they are not "intel native" and have to run under Rosetta, which slows it down.
If you need to regularly work on 500MB Photoshop files or larger/complex InDesign and Illustrator then you are a fool to buy a mini or even a Macbook for the task. If you are doing this type of computing then you are probably using the computer professionally or as a student studying to become a professional and you need a much more capable computer than a mini. I would go so far as to say that you need at least a mid range iMac or MacBook Pro.
Exactly. Thank goodness for the MBP. We have them maxed at 4GB and make great creative machines. For the studio, they prefer some more omph, especially when jobs get down to the wire. The Mac Pros we have work like a dream. I'm not worried about their replacements this year; they are still top of the line machines.
MBP fill in the gaps elsewhere, but they are a pricey gap filler.
Originally Posted by Amorph
As for the Cube, I'm not sure what the reason would be to bring it back. Now, I bought one. It's still running. I love its geek-lusty little Star Trek design. But that's what it is. It's difficult to cool, so it doesn't really buy you very much in terms of internal expandability or advanced graphics capability. The "toaster" optical drive is cool when it works and an enormous pain in the ass when it doesn't--but if you lay it horizontal the way the mockup upthread has it, you lose the central convection column that the Cube relied on to stay cool.
If you want expandable graphics, the box has to be big enough to really do it right. If you don't want the size or bulk of a truly expandable box, there's really no reason to make it larger than a mini.
A mid-tower. They have it already. The Mac Pro. Just stick an i7 chipset in it. Pass on the price benefit as most Wintel desktop vendors have...and Apple have a 'desktop' line for consumers.
Not that I'd complain if they made a more compact Mac Pro case...
Lemon Bon Bon.
The low power ones, though they are listed as desktop chips. There was an environmentally friendly version launched yesterday and appears in Intel's processor spec list now.
Now we have wait for Intel to get Apple enough supply, so I wouldn't expect any release of a new iMac until mid March.
Apple is in a uniquely poor position due to its explosive popularity (though it's not a bad position for any company to be in). With having so few machine type and few speeds within those types Apple needs a considerable more of these new, high-end CPUs than other vendors. Sure, Dell and HP sell more machines, but they do use AMD and Intel and sell most of their machines with older, easier had components. The other companies do made-to-order for the higher-end machines but Apple needs to have all their stores with these new iMacs and have supply ready to sell in the stores and on their website.
Now we have wait for Intel to get Apple enough supply, so I wouldn't expect any release of a new iMac until mid March.
I think they make a supply before they announce it. Plus they produce about 100,000 45nm chips a day from the 4 fabrication plants (not sure if that's each or combined but they run continuously) and Apple only sell about 10 million Macs a year. PCs don't all use the 45nm chips either, a lot are on the 65nm chips. Intel can churn out 10 million of those a month.
In a good quarter, Apple will sell about 2.5 million so Intel only need to give them about 25,000 45nm chips a day and Apple can adjust their shipping times accordingly if the supply isn't there.
Maybe but it's not out yet. I can't put a non-existent computer in my budget (the one I did at the end of last year). 3GB was not enough then; the mini was never in the running for upgrades. The iMac is not appropriate since we have a color correction workflow that uses Eizo monitors. So the best we can do is upgrade only about a third of all G5s to Pros. Unless there is a better product from Apple that suits our needs. I'm telling you though, the PC IT guy in the department would like to see the creative team go to Windows, but that is a whole other can of worms. Not going to happen.
You are using a mini with a monitor that costs twice as much as it does? Some decision maker where you work does not know what he is doing, it would be better to keep an old G5 in service and max out the RAM than move to a mini.
Another solution would be to get an iMac and use the Mini-DVI out to hook it up to your high end monitor, that way you have a computer with two monitor's which your designer's can take advantage of for the plethora of pallets on their monitor. They are faster and support more memory and when the updates come out it will still be more bang for your buck than the mini will. It is unrealistic to use a low end consumer computer for high end design work, and the mini will never be up to the task compared to those computer that are designed for it.
The Mac mini has sadly been neglected but I hope Apple sees the light and keeps the mini dual core and affordable. The roadmap is laid out well for the mini hardwarewise.
Core i7 is not supposed to be a high volume mainstream cpu folks. It's an enthusiast system. This means you shouldn't be asking for a Core i7 iMac. The iMac is a high volume mainstream computing system.
The Mac mini has sadly been neglected but I hope Apple sees the light and keeps the mini dual core and affordable. The roadmap is laid out well for the mini hardwarewise.
The mini has been neglected and will continue to be neglected as long as people buy them up. Frankly I hope the next mini has the same internals (you know they have to be dirt cheap for the 2.0GHz and 965 northbridge with GMA950, hell give them GMA3100) and just add what they want to push, namely mini-DP. It'll be their recession buster. 50% or more margin on ancient tech, and the people continue to lap it up.