The Mac Mini is more important to Apple than shown in your article -- it's not just a price point. The Mini is a key player in winning over PC users to the Mac world. It's perfectly priced, designed and sold to PC owners that already have a LCD monitor, PC Keyboard and Mouse.
I'm a 23 year PC veteran that never owned a Mac. I wanted to create a high quality audio system out of a computer and chose the Mini for a number of reasons. The quality of the unit, the price, the suitability to the task and interest in checking out OSX.
I would have never bought an iMac, or a MacBook or a MacPro, not in a million years. The Mini was the perfect entry and I'm very happy with the Mini. I tell my PC friends about it and see others going the same direction as myself.
I have my Mini sitting directly on top of my Dell desktop PC. It's connected to my Dell keyboard, Monitor and Mouse with a Belkin Flip KVM switch. At first, I would use the Mini only to rip CDs to my external HD for the music system. But now that all my CDs are ripped I find myself using the Mini more and more. I've even started to buy software for it to do other tasks. These are tentative steps at this point, but I've only owned the Mini for 3 months. I do like OSX and my views on computers is changing with Mac's change to Intel processors and support of BootCamp and Parallels, etc.
To kill the Mini would be extremely short sighted on Apples part and throw a wrench in their plans to increase overall market share from PC user conquests.
Sorry, thanks for pointing that out. It was confusing to have the sources cited so far down in the article. I'm used to the news convention of putting the more concrete stuff at the top of the article, with the opinion following.
Well, if this is true and Apple really does drop the Mini completely, and with rumours of dropping the 17" iMac, I see this as Apple looking to push a completely new device at the $899 - $1099 price range. Maybe the headless tower people have clamored for? It will be very sad to see the mini go though, I was able to switch three families from PCs to Macs by taking them to Apple stores and pointing out the Mac Mini. Apple is equated with high prices by a lot of people and it was refreshing to have a $499 or $599 computer to dangle at people. For the families I switched, they were looking for something to browse the internet with, do word processing, play a few simple games, without having to go through the endless hassle of Windows. The Mini was perfect, and if it is indeed dead, it will be sorely missed...
This is good news! "Connecting the dots" with this rumor, the iMac 17" demise rumor, the ultra-thin portable rumor, and new MBP rumors indicates innovative new products coming!
Why would you hook up a beautiful little computer to a dirty old keyboard, mouse and monitor?
This is for a niche of nickle-pinchers and media-center freaks. It is simply not a mainstream computer. Axe it!
Completely wrong. My (reasonably small) company has purchased probably 20 of them in the last year. Almost 2/month. It's a great way for a business to replace an aging fleet of G4-class machines while leveraging monitors and keyboards that are still perfectly functional. Even if you need a new monitor for the deployment, a cheap Samsung flat-panel is a hell of a lot more bang-for-the-buck for the non-graphic artist than an Apple panel. I can keep the total cost to outfit a user with new Mac Mini and supporting hardware under $1000. Some software is more expensive than that, fer crhissakes.
i keep waiting for the mac mini to get just a little bit better, so that i can buy it. It never does though, it seem as though the report is right in that Apple does indeed neglect the mac mini. To discover that they didn't even release a press release for a model release, seems a bit irresponsible however, well, it gave way to the design for Apple TV, and will still be cheap on eBay, who know, Apple insider could be off and the mac mini may in fact turn into Apple tv.
After your all done whining, I think chopping the mini makes perfect sense.
Cool MacRumors member concept Mac:
Quote:
may it be touch-screen keyboard, that contains the CHIP, RAM, optical drive... and a little flash-based instant HD, then the processed info will be updated and stored in the HDD, which locates inside the monitor outfit.
The Mac Mini is an incredibly versatile machine. Ih an external firewire drive as a server for about 2 years now. It has been a solid dependable machine. It's small size makes it easy to hide (perfect as a server). I use it to store the family music and photo collections.
As Laptops become dominant there is an increasing role for a home server. This is a market Microsoft has recognized and is targeting. Having a machine as a central shared device for the family is really useful, especially when storage space on laptops continues to be an issue. The AppleTV is not this central shared device. It is a semi-dumb peripheral. That makes sense in Apples Digital media strategy. However, I contend that their is an emerging role for a home server that can store our digital lifestyle artifacts and allow them to be shared amongst household members.
Come on Apple, keep the Mini and beef up this shared capability. AppleTV provides a great digital media peripheral that allows you to liberate your media to the big screen. Now let's see some developments to allow the centralization and sharing of shared albums.
I want features in iTunes and iPhoto that allow me to seamlessly break my library in to multiple locations. ie. Have a core of music on my laptop, have a mush larger family library on a shared machine and be able to sync them both seamlessly to my iPod. This is doable now with some behind the scenes file sharing but Apple could do a much better job if they set their minds to the challenge.
big mistake,this was the best media center ever... now you would have to buy a pro mac and or something else to serve or stream your dvds to the living room. through apple tv that sucks!
or rip them, who has time for that i DONT,great now i am going to have to be some crappy PC for the living room. PHUK!!!!!!!
with a mac mini it was easy and cheap,bad move apple!
I just hope in all sincerity, that you're completely and utterly wrong, AppleInsider. (Unless it means we'll get a "Mac Pro" stripped off the highend stuff at a price point around, say, 700-800 USD.)
We've found the Mac Mini to be the perfect Mac to run the Colorburst RIP software for our Epson large format printers - we have two. A small LCD monitor, a wireless keyboard and mouse, and you're good to go. If you're really tight for space, you could even Velcro? the Mini to the side of the printer! Even with Colorburst's software running under Rosetta, it more than keeps up with the printer.
I'm surprised Apple, Colorburst, Epson and HP aren't pushing the Mini for exactly this use.
I recently bought a Mini for one use - my front room media server. It is SO much better than the Apple TV it kills me. Every time I here of some new way to hack the Apple TV to get it to do something I laugh - the mini does it allready. I have it hooked uped to my TV now with the S-video adaptor (soon it will be to a new HD set with the HDMI adaptor) and optical audio out to mt surround detup. The Apple TV is currently only stereo. I can play ALL video formats I can find, All Audio formats I can find, play DVDs direectly in 5.1, stream video from the net, watch Joost, and stream-transfer files from all my other computers. Sure it cost twice as much as the Apple TV but with the Apple TV you need another computer anyway! The Mini does it all by itself! It has multiple USB and Firewire ports so expansion is no problem. Soon as I get a HD display I will add the Elgato HD TV tuner and have a HD PVR. Right now it has a Elgato EyeTV attached - works great. I guess what I'm saying is if Apple marketed the Mini as the entertainment hub and not as a do all computer (it's graphics engine and processor ar not as suited for gaming and high end stuff) it would sell many more. I sit across the room with a wireless keyboard and mouse and run everything. If they made front row work with Video_TS folders I would be in heaven, but for now I just go to DVD player and use that. Can you even play DVDs on a Apple TV?
Rumors abound about apple dropping the 17'' iMac from the line up, and now this... This opens a large hole in the product matrix, maybe making room for a new machine? I think more people would prefer the machine to be between the iMac and the Macpro though rather than the mini and the iMac.
If AI's sources are correct, I find it most unlikely that that Apple would *only* offer 20" & 24" iMacs as their desktop models and nothing else.
Instead I could see a new Cube (and the fabled xMac) beginning at $1199.
Sure, there'll be some attrition of Mac Pro sales, but it's absolutely the right move. They can use a low-end, GMA/combo drive model (which will come with keyboard & mouse but no display) to upsell to the new iMac (at $1399) with integrated 20" display, SuperDrive, and graphics card -- all that for just $200 more! Higher-end Cubes with SuperDrive & better graphics will also fall in the $1399+ range.
Very sad if true. The mini has opened the Mac to a lot of people who can't afford a more expensive Mac and I hate to see it go.
The only thing I can hope for is a replacement that uses the Apple TV box. It may be a way to cut costs for both products as well as generating some excitement in the market because of an overall upgrade of the product.
Personally I can't understand why Apple would walk away from this market and hope they have something new to replace the mini.
I will be the first to dance on the Mac Mini's grave, if/when it dies. As far as I'm concerned, it was the biggest rip-off in Apple's fleet of computers.
Consider this:
Mac minis were always underpowered when compared against competitor's PCs, and you always got less for the money. At any time, you can go on Dell or HP, and get a more powerful computer than Mac Mini, which INCLUDES a monitor (even if it's crap), and essentials like, I dunno, A MOUSE AND KEYBOARD??
Mac Mini is ridiculous. The highest end model is a pathetic Core Duo 1.8 Ghz, with 512gb RAM, and an 80gb HDD? How do those parts add up to a 799 dollar price tag? Were they charging for the form factor? A comparable 799 dollar PC comes with a bare minimum 1 gig of ram, a 160 gig hard disk, and a much faster CPU.
Apple should let Mac Mini die, or at least price it more responsibly. Or better yet, offer a headless mid-range desktop. iMacs are great, but I want my own choice of monitor. If they stick with the Mac Mini, they should make it more powerful (at least iMac amount of power), and give me a fairer price. I can stomach 799 if it's a Core 2 Duo, plenty of RAM, and a bare minimum 250 gig hard disk. Especially since no monitors or other peripherals are involved.
I think the 'mini is a cute machine. But I won't buy one - due to it being a bit under powered. On the other hand, I won't buy a Mac tower due to it's size and noise factor. I had a MDD dual 1Ghz G4 tower and it was loud as everything. I have heard that the newer machines are quieter, but I want whisper quiet. I have a iMac 24" now and it's perfect.
What about a Mac-midi that has a full-size (replaceable) hard drive and has the speed capability of a iMac. Basically a headless iMac. If something like this were in the $1000 range or so, I WOULD be interested.
As a few people have mentioned the Mac mini is pretty important in winning over PC users. I am a 'switcher' and though I've always kept my eye on Apple, the mini gave me the chance to jump in and try it as my main computer. So far it's been great, but I wouldn't have been able to go for the iMa, plus I already have two good hi-res monitors. I knew with the mini that it might be a stepping stone to a more powerful Mac (I've got my eye on a 15" MBP when they finally release Leopard/updated MBP) but I knew that I'd use it for testing even if it wasn't good enough to be my main computer, and at the price it was an easy decision.
I, personally, have never really seen the point of Apple TV, but having a DVD drive was a big reason for me getting the mini, plus obviously it's an actual operational computer ? not just a media device.
Most people are surprised when they realise that 'pretty little box' on my desk is actually my computer! Quite a few people I know now have minis, and wouldn't have tried a Mac otherwise.
I don't really see the point of an inbetween iMac/mini tower ? the cube obviously didn't do that well, the mini seems to have caught on, at least with PC users, and for web development it's excellent as a test box. The mini has enough power, especially with its more recent updates (that haven't been shouted about), and if they'd had the Intel ones available when I got mine I could've thrown my PC away!
Comments
I'm a 23 year PC veteran that never owned a Mac. I wanted to create a high quality audio system out of a computer and chose the Mini for a number of reasons. The quality of the unit, the price, the suitability to the task and interest in checking out OSX.
I would have never bought an iMac, or a MacBook or a MacPro, not in a million years. The Mini was the perfect entry and I'm very happy with the Mini. I tell my PC friends about it and see others going the same direction as myself.
I have my Mini sitting directly on top of my Dell desktop PC. It's connected to my Dell keyboard, Monitor and Mouse with a Belkin Flip KVM switch. At first, I would use the Mini only to rip CDs to my external HD for the music system. But now that all my CDs are ripped I find myself using the Mini more and more. I've even started to buy software for it to do other tasks. These are tentative steps at this point, but I've only owned the Mini for 3 months. I do like OSX and my views on computers is changing with Mac's change to Intel processors and support of BootCamp and Parallels, etc.
To kill the Mini would be extremely short sighted on Apples part and throw a wrench in their plans to increase overall market share from PC user conquests.
It's not opinion. "Sources" were cited.
Best,
K
Sorry, thanks for pointing that out. It was confusing to have the sources cited so far down in the article. I'm used to the news convention of putting the more concrete stuff at the top of the article, with the opinion following.
Why would you hook up a beautiful little computer to a dirty old keyboard, mouse and monitor?
This is for a niche of nickle-pinchers and media-center freaks. It is simply not a mainstream computer. Axe it!
Completely wrong. My (reasonably small) company has purchased probably 20 of them in the last year. Almost 2/month. It's a great way for a business to replace an aging fleet of G4-class machines while leveraging monitors and keyboards that are still perfectly functional. Even if you need a new monitor for the deployment, a cheap Samsung flat-panel is a hell of a lot more bang-for-the-buck for the non-graphic artist than an Apple panel. I can keep the total cost to outfit a user with new Mac Mini and supporting hardware under $1000. Some software is more expensive than that, fer crhissakes.
Viva la mini - the ultimate business Mac.
if so, who-da thunk?
http://ThunkDifferent.com
Cool MacRumors member concept Mac:
may it be touch-screen keyboard, that contains the CHIP, RAM, optical drive... and a little flash-based instant HD, then the processed info will be updated and stored in the HDD, which locates inside the monitor outfit.
As Laptops become dominant there is an increasing role for a home server. This is a market Microsoft has recognized and is targeting. Having a machine as a central shared device for the family is really useful, especially when storage space on laptops continues to be an issue. The AppleTV is not this central shared device. It is a semi-dumb peripheral. That makes sense in Apples Digital media strategy. However, I contend that their is an emerging role for a home server that can store our digital lifestyle artifacts and allow them to be shared amongst household members.
Come on Apple, keep the Mini and beef up this shared capability. AppleTV provides a great digital media peripheral that allows you to liberate your media to the big screen. Now let's see some developments to allow the centralization and sharing of shared albums.
I want features in iTunes and iPhoto that allow me to seamlessly break my library in to multiple locations. ie. Have a core of music on my laptop, have a mush larger family library on a shared machine and be able to sync them both seamlessly to my iPod. This is doable now with some behind the scenes file sharing but Apple could do a much better job if they set their minds to the challenge.
or rip them, who has time for that i DONT,great now i am going to have to be some crappy PC for the living room. PHUK!!!!!!!
with a mac mini it was easy and cheap,bad move apple!
lets start a petition!!!!!!
I'm surprised Apple, Colorburst, Epson and HP aren't pushing the Mini for exactly this use.
interesting if mac mini disappear, something is there for WWDC, hope we all surprised NOT disappointed.
Rumors abound about apple dropping the 17'' iMac from the line up, and now this... This opens a large hole in the product matrix, maybe making room for a new machine? I think more people would prefer the machine to be between the iMac and the Macpro though rather than the mini and the iMac.
If AI's sources are correct, I find it most unlikely that that Apple would *only* offer 20" & 24" iMacs as their desktop models and nothing else.
Instead I could see a new Cube (and the fabled xMac) beginning at $1199.
Sure, there'll be some attrition of Mac Pro sales, but it's absolutely the right move. They can use a low-end, GMA/combo drive model (which will come with keyboard & mouse but no display) to upsell to the new iMac (at $1399) with integrated 20" display, SuperDrive, and graphics card -- all that for just $200 more! Higher-end Cubes with SuperDrive & better graphics will also fall in the $1399+ range.
Wouldn't that be nice?
The death of the Mini means Steve 0 for 2 on a cube/square design. At least his glass cube store worked out for him.
The only thing I can hope for is a replacement that uses the Apple TV box. It may be a way to cut costs for both products as well as generating some excitement in the market because of an overall upgrade of the product.
Personally I can't understand why Apple would walk away from this market and hope they have something new to replace the mini.
Consider this:
Mac minis were always underpowered when compared against competitor's PCs, and you always got less for the money. At any time, you can go on Dell or HP, and get a more powerful computer than Mac Mini, which INCLUDES a monitor (even if it's crap), and essentials like, I dunno, A MOUSE AND KEYBOARD??
Mac Mini is ridiculous. The highest end model is a pathetic Core Duo 1.8 Ghz, with 512gb RAM, and an 80gb HDD? How do those parts add up to a 799 dollar price tag? Were they charging for the form factor? A comparable 799 dollar PC comes with a bare minimum 1 gig of ram, a 160 gig hard disk, and a much faster CPU.
Apple should let Mac Mini die, or at least price it more responsibly. Or better yet, offer a headless mid-range desktop. iMacs are great, but I want my own choice of monitor. If they stick with the Mac Mini, they should make it more powerful (at least iMac amount of power), and give me a fairer price. I can stomach 799 if it's a Core 2 Duo, plenty of RAM, and a bare minimum 250 gig hard disk. Especially since no monitors or other peripherals are involved.
What about a Mac-midi that has a full-size (replaceable) hard drive and has the speed capability of a iMac. Basically a headless iMac. If something like this were in the $1000 range or so, I WOULD be interested.
I, personally, have never really seen the point of Apple TV, but having a DVD drive was a big reason for me getting the mini, plus obviously it's an actual operational computer ? not just a media device.
Most people are surprised when they realise that 'pretty little box' on my desk is actually my computer! Quite a few people I know now have minis, and wouldn't have tried a Mac otherwise.
I don't really see the point of an inbetween iMac/mini tower ? the cube obviously didn't do that well, the mini seems to have caught on, at least with PC users, and for web development it's excellent as a test box. The mini has enough power, especially with its more recent updates (that haven't been shouted about), and if they'd had the Intel ones available when I got mine I could've thrown my PC away!