My parents' Acer monitor has VGA, DVI, and HDMI inputs.
4 of mine and 2 relatives don't though, your point? cos in terms of numbers "I've won"
Yes HDMI should/will be on more monitors, but given that the mini is a "bring your own monitor" machine HDMI might not be the way to go, will HDMI for instance carry the higher resolution that even ancient old VGA will?
what if ma and pa switcher get a mac mini with HDMI but "it wont work with our old PC monitor"
re position the mini as a tivo type machine? yeah seems like a good idea, sling in the BD for backup and it looks interesting, but EXPENSIVE. suddenly you have a machine that ISNT the low cost option for switchers that it should be, plus you get to eat into potential profit by NOT selling an aTV and NOT garnering the profits from rentals or sales.
/QUOTE]
I agree with what you've said. The concept I was talking about would be a merging of the AppleTV into the Mini, or vice versa, along with some other abilities. Perhaps, for the use I'm thinking of, it would have been better discussed as an AppleTV+ option, with an optical drive, etc.
I know three people now that have a cable box with a built in DVR w/an unusable firewire port, a MB, iPhone, and either both an iMac and AppleTV, or MM. Two of them use a slingbox. One of them bitches about the lack of Slingplayer for iPhone, which I'm sure will soon be remedied.
Anyway, they either use the MM directly connected to their TV, in these cases with the DVI-HDMI cable, or an AppleTV, to view media on their TVs with Front Row. If the AppleTV, or Mini, would allow for streaming to their iPhones, MBs, etc., like a Slingbox, that would be one less item thrown in the mix. If the AppleTV had the option of a bluray drive, it would allow for the viewing of the bluray movies, but it can't be used to play online poker, or any other game, check email, etc., the way a Mini can. As is, neither the AppleTV, or MM, can be used as a DVR. I forgot to mention the use of Time Capsule... not that I'm suggesting they make an AppleTV/Mini/SlingBox/DVR/Airport Base station.. it's just a convenient way to keep your media off the MM, & MB.
It seems to me that if Apple wanted to make a terrific "living room"/entertainment center system, a merging of these ideas would be excellent, and would be one more way for their many products to work together.
I've got a somewhat unrelated question, too... Why can't I stream from my iPhone as a source to my, or any else's, AppleTV?
apple will need to wait for a better cable card system for them to have a good DRV maybe they can work with direct TV to come out with HD DVR + Apple TV system.
Well I just did what I said I would earlier in the post, albeit one day later on sunday night I ordered the high end (really ) Mac Mini. I "ummed and ahhed" a bit about the money and just said to hell with it in the end.
I've the extra Ram ordered from Crucial and a 250Gb HDD ordered as well.
interestingly there was no, "New Price" come checkout time as promised on the UK store page, but then I haven't gotten a confirmation email yet either so who knows.
be interesting to see what happens my order IF they update on Tuesday. looking forward to having a spare computer though, and Leopard should be fun.
Think I'll keep you up to date on this thread about the "New Price" should one materialise.
rather excited really, isn't that the way with new Macs
-
Just in case anyone is interested, WHY a Mini? Well 1) Price, I cant really afford an iMac, at least not the one that I want (24"top end), and they ALL have the glossy screen.
2) They run pretty damn near silent, and as Im gonna be using it with Logic thats important (while graphics prowess isn't)
3) I've already been inside one, so I know what I'm doing.
4) MORE USB ports than the iMac!!!! which is just staggering IMO
re position the mini as a tivo type machine? yeah seems like a good idea, sling in the BD for backup and it looks interesting, but EXPENSIVE. suddenly you have a machine that ISNT the low cost option for switchers that it should be, plus you get to eat into potential profit by NOT selling an aTV and NOT garnering the profits from rentals or sales.
/QUOTE]
I agree with what you've said. The concept I was talking about would be a merging of the AppleTV into the Mini, or vice versa, along with some other abilities. Perhaps, for the use I'm thinking of, it would have been better discussed as an AppleTV+ option, with an optical drive, etc.
I know three people now that have a cable box with a built in DVR w/an unusable firewire port, a MB, iPhone, and either both an iMac and AppleTV, or MM. Two of them use a slingbox. One of them bitches about the lack of Slingplayer for iPhone, which I'm sure will soon be remedied.
Anyway, they either use the MM directly connected to their TV, in these cases with the DVI-HDMI cable, or an AppleTV, to view media on their TVs with Front Row. If the AppleTV, or Mini, would allow for streaming to their iPhones, MBs, etc., like a Slingbox, that would be one less item thrown in the mix. If the AppleTV had the option of a bluray drive, it would allow for the viewing of the bluray movies, but it can't be used to play online poker, or any other game, check email, etc., the way a Mini can. As is, neither the AppleTV, or MM, can be used as a DVR. I forgot to mention the use of Time Capsule... not that I'm suggesting they make an AppleTV/Mini/SlingBox/DVR/Airport Base station.. it's just a convenient way to keep your media off the MM, & MB.
It seems to me that if Apple wanted to make a terrific "living room"/entertainment center system, a merging of these ideas would be excellent, and would be one more way for their many products to work together.
I've got a somewhat unrelated question, too... Why can't I stream from my iPhone as a source to my, or any else's, AppleTV?
Putting a BD drive in the aTV would take away from driving sales of movies and TV Shows from iTMS, so I REALLY doubt Apple will do that, instead look for them lowering the entry price of the aTV to push sales and gather a bigger userbase.
Seems Like you need NAS.
Would a mini running as a central server to multiple aTVs solve "some" of your needs?
Still cant check email on aTV though, but the thought of using the TV for anything more than a quick glance at the web doesn't really appeal to me at all.
sounds like what you really need are multiple minis.
I was at one time running a mini on one TV with multiple HDDs attached to Airport Extreme and watching movies on iTunes, with aTV on another TV accessing iTunes on the mini. It's not completely elegant, but it kept the TV rooms free of the HDDs. I may well move back to that type of a setup once I get the funds. or when I have the time, look into using a mini as a server (something I have ZERO experience in) but If I can get remote screen sharing of the server mini (think thats what its called) up and running it might be another solution.
So if one of the many applications for the mini is as a home media center with tv as display, it might stand to reason that the next mini would need better specs to stand out from the Apple TV.
Perhaps we can imagine a Master Apple TV home server which holds all that great iTS content on big HDs and streams to the ATVs in various rooms throughout the McMansion.
All of my Macs benefit from a centralized location to offload huge media files. The MBA can't hold more than an iPod, and it's only a matter of time before Back To My Mac becomes back to my iTunes library so I can listen to/watch on my iPhone over 3G.
Apple has already shown a 1Tb drive in a similar enclosure (TC), so why not upgrade the mini to full desktop specs? An iMac without the AIO form factor might be a better fit in the lineup with ATV eating the current mini's lunch.
I'm still waiting for esata to make a debut in the Apple lineup, but ExpressCard would get it done and still be flexible. In reality, USB 2.0 is plenty fast for the 2Tb of media jacked into my mini.
It would be nice to have a way to get sound into an HDMI to mini connection, but we're doing ok with the workarounds already. It's not clear that HDMI inputs on TVs are ready for the variable resolution available from computer video cards, and that might need to get cleared up before Apple can sell HDMI that "just works."
When the Mini first came on the market, I was pretty excited. And I came real close to getting one. What stopped me was the poor onboard graphics. So I waited. I posted on a lot of forums about the graphics and possible upgrades, and pretty much everyone said "wait a bit more, Apple's going to upgrade the graphics in the next version". Well, it never happened. I got tired of waiting, ended up buying an HP Slimline (that's still my main system and has never caused me a problem). I never did buy an Apple product.
Would I buy one in the future? Sure if Apple upgraded the product. But I'm not going to be holding my breath for it. Very small form computers always seem to die off for lack of interest by the people who designed and built them. Look at the line of compact computers from Lenovo; never been upgraded since they were introduced. Even the HP lineup has come to a grinding halt since the last upgrade a year ago.
My prediction (and I'd be happy to be wrong) is that Apple will discontinue the Mac Mini.
When the Mini first came on the market, I was pretty excited. And I came real close to getting one. What stopped me was the poor onboard graphics. So I waited. I posted on a lot of forums about the graphics and possible upgrades, and pretty much everyone said "wait a bit more, Apple's going to upgrade the graphics in the next version". Well, it never happened. I got tired of waiting, ended up buying an HP Slimline (that's still my main system and has never caused me a problem). I never did buy an Apple product.
Would I buy one in the future? Sure if Apple upgraded the product. But I'm not going to be holding my breath for it. Very small form computers always seem to die off for lack of interest by the people who designed and built them. Look at the line of compact computers from Lenovo; never been upgraded since they were introduced. Even the HP lineup has come to a grinding halt since the last upgrade a year ago.
My prediction (and I'd be happy to be wrong) is that Apple will discontinue the Mac Mini.
Or replace it with a smaller or larger form factor is more plausible.
Comments
My parents' Acer monitor has VGA, DVI, and HDMI inputs.
4 of mine and 2 relatives don't though, your point? cos in terms of numbers "I've won"
Yes HDMI should/will be on more monitors, but given that the mini is a "bring your own monitor" machine HDMI might not be the way to go, will HDMI for instance carry the higher resolution that even ancient old VGA will?
what if ma and pa switcher get a mac mini with HDMI but "it wont work with our old PC monitor"
HDMI -> DVI is just a small connector that changes the position of the pins.
DVI -> VGA connectors are ubiquitous.
If someone has a DVI capable monitor, for <$5, they're set.
If someone has a VGA-only monitor, for <$10, they're set.
What's so hard about this?
Going raw DVI to an HDCP-encumbered HDMI port is a problem. Going HDCP/HDMI to DVI is not.
There are DVI to HDMI cables out there.
re position the mini as a tivo type machine? yeah seems like a good idea, sling in the BD for backup and it looks interesting, but EXPENSIVE. suddenly you have a machine that ISNT the low cost option for switchers that it should be, plus you get to eat into potential profit by NOT selling an aTV and NOT garnering the profits from rentals or sales.
/QUOTE]
I agree with what you've said. The concept I was talking about would be a merging of the AppleTV into the Mini, or vice versa, along with some other abilities. Perhaps, for the use I'm thinking of, it would have been better discussed as an AppleTV+ option, with an optical drive, etc.
I know three people now that have a cable box with a built in DVR w/an unusable firewire port, a MB, iPhone, and either both an iMac and AppleTV, or MM. Two of them use a slingbox. One of them bitches about the lack of Slingplayer for iPhone, which I'm sure will soon be remedied.
Anyway, they either use the MM directly connected to their TV, in these cases with the DVI-HDMI cable, or an AppleTV, to view media on their TVs with Front Row. If the AppleTV, or Mini, would allow for streaming to their iPhones, MBs, etc., like a Slingbox, that would be one less item thrown in the mix. If the AppleTV had the option of a bluray drive, it would allow for the viewing of the bluray movies, but it can't be used to play online poker, or any other game, check email, etc., the way a Mini can. As is, neither the AppleTV, or MM, can be used as a DVR. I forgot to mention the use of Time Capsule... not that I'm suggesting they make an AppleTV/Mini/SlingBox/DVR/Airport Base station.. it's just a convenient way to keep your media off the MM, & MB.
It seems to me that if Apple wanted to make a terrific "living room"/entertainment center system, a merging of these ideas would be excellent, and would be one more way for their many products to work together.
I've got a somewhat unrelated question, too... Why can't I stream from my iPhone as a source to my, or any else's, AppleTV?
I've the extra Ram ordered from Crucial and a 250Gb HDD ordered as well.
interestingly there was no, "New Price" come checkout time as promised on the UK store page, but then I haven't gotten a confirmation email yet either so who knows.
be interesting to see what happens my order IF they update on Tuesday. looking forward to having a spare computer though, and Leopard should be fun.
Think I'll keep you up to date on this thread about the "New Price" should one materialise.
rather excited really, isn't that the way with new Macs
-
Just in case anyone is interested, WHY a Mini? Well 1) Price, I cant really afford an iMac, at least not the one that I want (24"top end), and they ALL have the glossy screen.
2) They run pretty damn near silent, and as Im gonna be using it with Logic thats important (while graphics prowess isn't)
3) I've already been inside one, so I know what I'm doing.
4) MORE USB ports than the iMac!!!! which is just staggering IMO
re position the mini as a tivo type machine? yeah seems like a good idea, sling in the BD for backup and it looks interesting, but EXPENSIVE. suddenly you have a machine that ISNT the low cost option for switchers that it should be, plus you get to eat into potential profit by NOT selling an aTV and NOT garnering the profits from rentals or sales.
/QUOTE]
I agree with what you've said. The concept I was talking about would be a merging of the AppleTV into the Mini, or vice versa, along with some other abilities. Perhaps, for the use I'm thinking of, it would have been better discussed as an AppleTV+ option, with an optical drive, etc.
I know three people now that have a cable box with a built in DVR w/an unusable firewire port, a MB, iPhone, and either both an iMac and AppleTV, or MM. Two of them use a slingbox. One of them bitches about the lack of Slingplayer for iPhone, which I'm sure will soon be remedied.
Anyway, they either use the MM directly connected to their TV, in these cases with the DVI-HDMI cable, or an AppleTV, to view media on their TVs with Front Row. If the AppleTV, or Mini, would allow for streaming to their iPhones, MBs, etc., like a Slingbox, that would be one less item thrown in the mix. If the AppleTV had the option of a bluray drive, it would allow for the viewing of the bluray movies, but it can't be used to play online poker, or any other game, check email, etc., the way a Mini can. As is, neither the AppleTV, or MM, can be used as a DVR. I forgot to mention the use of Time Capsule... not that I'm suggesting they make an AppleTV/Mini/SlingBox/DVR/Airport Base station.. it's just a convenient way to keep your media off the MM, & MB.
It seems to me that if Apple wanted to make a terrific "living room"/entertainment center system, a merging of these ideas would be excellent, and would be one more way for their many products to work together.
I've got a somewhat unrelated question, too... Why can't I stream from my iPhone as a source to my, or any else's, AppleTV?
Putting a BD drive in the aTV would take away from driving sales of movies and TV Shows from iTMS, so I REALLY doubt Apple will do that, instead look for them lowering the entry price of the aTV to push sales and gather a bigger userbase.
Seems Like you need NAS.
Would a mini running as a central server to multiple aTVs solve "some" of your needs?
Still cant check email on aTV though, but the thought of using the TV for anything more than a quick glance at the web doesn't really appeal to me at all.
sounds like what you really need are multiple minis.
I was at one time running a mini on one TV with multiple HDDs attached to Airport Extreme and watching movies on iTunes, with aTV on another TV accessing iTunes on the mini. It's not completely elegant, but it kept the TV rooms free of the HDDs. I may well move back to that type of a setup once I get the funds. or when I have the time, look into using a mini as a server (something I have ZERO experience in) but If I can get remote screen sharing of the server mini (think thats what its called) up and running it might be another solution.
Perhaps we can imagine a Master Apple TV home server which holds all that great iTS content on big HDs and streams to the ATVs in various rooms throughout the McMansion.
All of my Macs benefit from a centralized location to offload huge media files. The MBA can't hold more than an iPod, and it's only a matter of time before Back To My Mac becomes back to my iTunes library so I can listen to/watch on my iPhone over 3G.
Apple has already shown a 1Tb drive in a similar enclosure (TC), so why not upgrade the mini to full desktop specs? An iMac without the AIO form factor might be a better fit in the lineup with ATV eating the current mini's lunch.
I'm still waiting for esata to make a debut in the Apple lineup, but ExpressCard would get it done and still be flexible. In reality, USB 2.0 is plenty fast for the 2Tb of media jacked into my mini.
It would be nice to have a way to get sound into an HDMI to mini connection, but we're doing ok with the workarounds already. It's not clear that HDMI inputs on TVs are ready for the variable resolution available from computer video cards, and that might need to get cleared up before Apple can sell HDMI that "just works."
apparently no conspiracy about a new Mini.
confirmation email arrived, should be here friday.
apparently no conspiracy about a new Mini.
I don't think they'll release one until after the official Montevina release in 2-3 weeks.
I would have waited to buy one. Still, if you got the cheap one, you'd only lose £100 or so from selling it on again.
I don't think they'll release one until after the official Montevina release in 2-3 weeks.
I would have waited to buy one. Still, if you got the cheap one, you'd only lose £100 or so from selling it on again.
I think its in this thread, but I said before, the ebay price and the Apple price are pretty much the same.
I bought now because I dont want a redesigned "now even smaller" one with 1.8" drive in it and no optical.
I'm really waiting on the 4 core iMac
Would I buy one in the future? Sure if Apple upgraded the product. But I'm not going to be holding my breath for it. Very small form computers always seem to die off for lack of interest by the people who designed and built them. Look at the line of compact computers from Lenovo; never been upgraded since they were introduced. Even the HP lineup has come to a grinding halt since the last upgrade a year ago.
My prediction (and I'd be happy to be wrong) is that Apple will discontinue the Mac Mini.
When the Mini first came on the market, I was pretty excited. And I came real close to getting one. What stopped me was the poor onboard graphics. So I waited. I posted on a lot of forums about the graphics and possible upgrades, and pretty much everyone said "wait a bit more, Apple's going to upgrade the graphics in the next version". Well, it never happened. I got tired of waiting, ended up buying an HP Slimline (that's still my main system and has never caused me a problem). I never did buy an Apple product.
Would I buy one in the future? Sure if Apple upgraded the product. But I'm not going to be holding my breath for it. Very small form computers always seem to die off for lack of interest by the people who designed and built them. Look at the line of compact computers from Lenovo; never been upgraded since they were introduced. Even the HP lineup has come to a grinding halt since the last upgrade a year ago.
My prediction (and I'd be happy to be wrong) is that Apple will discontinue the Mac Mini.
Or replace it with a smaller or larger form factor is more plausible.
My prediction (and I'd be happy to be wrong) is that Apple will discontinue the Mac Mini.
If they do, you'll see old models changing hands on eBay for as much as they are worth new.