I guess Apple is thinking if I can provide my own monitor and keyboard, I can provide my own optical drive as well. Perhaps there's some merit to that, since I could get a blu-ray drive if I wanted, or whatever. It lowers the price for people that don't need them, and the Mac mini is already sort of a DIY beast so the added complexity of having to shop for, purchase and install an optical drive isn't a big concern.
If I opt for the faster of the two Mac minis (the 2.5GHz one, not the 2.3GHz one ) I get 4GB of RAM instead of 2 and a discrete Radeon GPU rather the other mini's impotent Intel integrated graphics. I would opt for the 750GB drive, more for its 7200RPM speed than the extra 250GB (which is nice just the same).
I am perfectly capable of buying my own mouse or magic mouse or magic trackpad or some combination, and I am perfectly capable of choosing my own less-expensive wired Apple keyboard which brings the Mac mini up to a total of $1,396.
And I am perfectly capable of buying my own Apple 27" monitor for $999, for a total of $2,395. And finally, I'm perfectly capable of buying an external DVD burner at additional cost.
I am a little surprised by this given the large amount of users out there who have these and use them as HTPCs. They rejoiced at the addition of the HDMI port now they have to lament the loss of the DVD drive. I suspect the previous model will be popular on Ebay for some time to come.
As for me, I've been an Apple TV user for a while now and can't complain. Digital media is the future. I predict the end of the disc (CD/DVD/BLURAY) before the end of the decade.
In a world where everything is downloaded, the whole idea of bandwidth caps or paying by the megabyte is ridiculous. The faster the downloading becomes a more accepted practice than using old fashioned discs, the faster the bandwidth caps you are currently suffering on will disappear.
I keep hearing about these bandwidth caps in the USA but I've never met or known anyone in my country that ever had to endure them on a non-mobile device. From that I gather that bandwidth caps for home use are a US (southern US), aberration that will soon go away.
In Canada, pay per use internet is on the horizon. The internet companies were pushing for it months ago and then there was a huge public backlash. Because of the election, many politicians made it an issue and it never happened. However now with the election over it's on the table again.
With Software updates and having to download all of my apps from the internet now...will Steve pickup the tab for my increased internet data bandwidth usage charges?
Nope. He also didn't pay for the shipping costs of getting boxed software sent to you in the mail. (or if you prefer the cost of gas to drive to a store to buy it or for you trendy urban types the caloric resources needed to power your human legs to walk yourself there)
Besides, this is what you should expect for being so cheap.
The trouble is that Apple doesn't have anything mid range for me to spend more money on. Now in order to have an internal optical drive I have to jump up to professional grade and shell out $2499.
"If your Mac problem is a little less common ? your hard drive has failed or you?ve installed a hard drive without OS X, for example ? Internet Recovery takes over automatically,"
The trouble is that Apple doesn't have anything mid range for me to spend more money on. Now in order to have an internal optical drive I have to jump up to professional grade and shell out $2499.
So they removed the optical drive, and the price stayed the same?
I could understand ditching it on notebooks, but ditching it on a desktop machine that is already uber tiny to begin with seems ridiculous to me.
I was waiting for the new macmini with thunderbolt to replaces my g4 macmini. Now i wont be doing that. I have my macmini plugged up to my tv, it is used for everything and watching dvds. Wow, on top of the machine not having a keyboard, mouse or monitor it has no optical drive. This thing should cost $499, why because i have to supply everything else. \
CDs are still the easiest way to give somebody some music, especially when you don't know what sort of technology they have. None of the "music social" features of various products have really caught on. CDs are ubiquitous.
I promise I'm not trying to be mean here, but I get the feeling you're either old or out of touch. We all grow older and things change. Fighting it is of little use. I used to own boxes and boxes of floppies. When Apple introduced the first Mac without a floppy drive, I gasped, but this latest change is one most of us saw coming.
Everybody I know is swapping files on SD cards and flash drives these days. SD cards, in particular, are becoming... what was that word you used? Oh yes: ubiquitous. Burning a CD kind of feels nostalgic.
It isn't that the CD/DVD drive is going away quite yet. It's more a case of it not being an essential part of a computer anymore. For around $50 you can get an external drive. That's what I plan on doing when I buy a new Mini. Like you, I'm not ready for the CD to go away yet. But do I need one built into my Mac? Not so much. I just need one around every now and then.
Another change we're going to see is the end of the Mac Pro as we know it. Not yet, but soon. A decade ago, we needed those huge beasts to house our stuff. I had a G4 with an internal Zip drive (HA!) a CD/DVD, plus a pair of internal drives, plus a PCI card for SCSI and three more dedicated to a Pro Tools (pro audio) rig. Now, I don't even want internal drives at all. I have four external drives stashed behind my desk and I LOVE it. If the promise of Thunderbolt holds true, we're really just going to need a tiny beefy Mini to connect to our external stuff.
Yes, external stuff adds clutter, but it also lowers cost for us and it makes upgrading so much easier.
In Canada, pay per use internet is on the horizon. The internet companies were pushing for it months ago and then there was a huge public backlash. Because of the election, many politicians made it an issue and it never happened. However now with the election over it's on the table again.
I won't be surprised if this spreads to other countries, simply because the companies that provide internet services are greedy bastards. On the other hand, it's good that there are companies like Apple and Netflix (among others) moving over to an internet delivery model because their model only works so long as consumers can afford internet delivery of content. In other words, expect companies like Apple to fight for a more free internet. And that will be good for us all.
The beauty of the external Superdrive is you only need one, to share among all your Macs.
The external Superdrive only works with the MacBook Air, by design. Plugging it into another Mac does nothing (a kernel log says it is not compatible).
I promise I'm not trying to be mean here, but I get the feeling you're either old or out of touch.
Congratulations, you're great at it without even trying.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2oh1
When Apple introduced the first Mac without a floppy drive, I gasped, but this latest change is one most of us saw coming.
I was happy when they ditched the floppy. Floppies were unreliable and held very little data. But the optical drive has many years of life left in it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2oh1
Everybody I know is swapping files on SD cards and flash drives these days. SD cards, in particular, are becoming... what was that word you used? Oh yes: ubiquitous. Burning a CD kind of feels nostalgic.
I've never had anyone pass me an SD card. Last time I wanted to use a thumb drive I had to go ask everyone in the office, and only a couple people had them. Most people have several devices capable of reading a CD. That's my point: if I want to hand some music to someone, I don't want to get into a format discussion with them. You don't see street musicians selling SD cards.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2oh1
It isn't that the CD/DVD drive is going away quite yet. It's more a case of it not being an essential part of a computer anymore.
Bull. When Netflix stops mailing DVDs, then maybe. Oh right, go to the library's media section (as I've been doing lately) and look around: audio CDs, DVDs etc etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2oh1
For around $50 you can get an external drive. That's what I plan on doing when I buy a new Mini. Like you, I'm not ready for the CD to go away yet.
You must be old. Old and mean. Anyway, if you're 'not ready for the CD to go away' then, wouldn't you want one to come with your computer? Why clutter things up?
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2oh1
But do I need one built into my Mac? Not so much. I just need one around every now and then.
Well, I do. I use my optical drives constantly. I wore the one on my MacBook out. My wife uses the one on her MacBook Pro all the time as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2oh1
Another change we're going to see is the end of the Mac Pro as we know it.
Good riddance. However there are some down-sides to external drives: cable clutter and noise being the primary ones.
Thunderbolt can carry 10W of power, but you're right, things like a video card would need much more. Perhaps my dream of modular mini would get a little messy.
DVD drives on the other hand, can run on USB power. Pretty simple to buy one of the many external DVD burners out there, put it on top of the mini, and use a short USB cable to plug it in to minimize clutter. I don't see why people view the lack an internal optical drive as such a big deal.
Not if there's no OS on the drive at all I can't. With an optical drive and a DVD I just reinstall.
A flash drive would do the same thing, only faster. I heard you'll be able to buy the OS on those next month. I know you were referring to the internet restore for macs with Lion already installed, not buying a new copy of the OS, but even if they choose to include physical restore media with each mac, it would be better to put it on a flash drive. It's certainly not a reason to keep the optical drive.
As an aside. PC vendors have long forgone including restore disks with new PCs, if the hard drive crashes on those, you're in no better shape either. Even though they have an optical drive, they no disk to put in it. So you'd have to buy a new copy of windows, which costs more than a Lion flash drive.
Edit: Turns out, Internet Recovery lets you install onto a completely blank hard drive on the new Macs. Both AI and macrumors are now reporting that. No worries.
I was waiting for the new macmini with thunderbolt to replaces my g4 macmini. Now i wont be doing that. I have my macmini plugged up to my tv, it is used for everything and watching dvds. Wow, on top of the machine not having a keyboard, mouse or monitor it has no optical drive. This thing should cost $499, why because i have to supply everything else. \
It's $100 less than it was yesterday, the CPU is better, the GPU can be better, the RAM is faster, the hard drive is larger, and the ports are modern. And all you can do is complain. An optical drive is $30. Heck, a standalone DVD player is $30.
The beauty of the external Superdrive is you only need one, to share among all your Macs.
Only if it doesn't cost much as multiple internal drives...
I still prefer multiple drives. First off, not all my computers are in the same room. Carrying drive around the house or run to other part of house (where drive is sitting) to pop in blank media is sort of... uncomfortable.
In addition, if you have only one shared drive (and that one fails), you suddenly go from 100% functional to 0% functional ODs. According to Murphy's law, you will need to burn CD/DVD or watch something OD based when that happens
Only if the mini is the only computer in the house. Otherwise you can use the optical drive of any Mac on your home network.
Besides, this is what you should expect for being so cheap. You are using the cheapest computer Apple makes and you are running two OS's on it. I bet you are running on minimal RAM and have a VGA BenQ monitor attached to it as well.
The only thing cheaper would be switching back to Windows and buying some awful windows box that will last all of a year before it blows up or needs to be upgraded. Maybe that's your future.
Only if the mini is the only computer in the house. Otherwise you can use the optical drive of any Mac on your home network.
So the plan for getting consumers to migrate to a new paradigm is to require they have older "obsolete" hardware, so they can load their latest software on the "newer, better" hardware.
Comments
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827151231
Can everyone shut the hell up now?
I guess Apple is thinking if I can provide my own monitor and keyboard, I can provide my own optical drive as well. Perhaps there's some merit to that, since I could get a blu-ray drive if I wanted, or whatever. It lowers the price for people that don't need them, and the Mac mini is already sort of a DIY beast so the added complexity of having to shop for, purchase and install an optical drive isn't a big concern.
If I opt for the faster of the two Mac minis (the 2.5GHz one, not the 2.3GHz one ) I get 4GB of RAM instead of 2 and a discrete Radeon GPU rather the other mini's impotent Intel integrated graphics. I would opt for the 750GB drive, more for its 7200RPM speed than the extra 250GB (which is nice just the same).
I am perfectly capable of buying my own mouse or magic mouse or magic trackpad or some combination, and I am perfectly capable of choosing my own less-expensive wired Apple keyboard which brings the Mac mini up to a total of $1,396.
And I am perfectly capable of buying my own Apple 27" monitor for $999, for a total of $2,395. And finally, I'm perfectly capable of buying an external DVD burner at additional cost.
Or, I could go here.
As for me, I've been an Apple TV user for a while now and can't complain. Digital media is the future. I predict the end of the disc (CD/DVD/BLURAY) before the end of the decade.
You're looking at it from the wrong side perhaps.
In a world where everything is downloaded, the whole idea of bandwidth caps or paying by the megabyte is ridiculous. The faster the downloading becomes a more accepted practice than using old fashioned discs, the faster the bandwidth caps you are currently suffering on will disappear.
I keep hearing about these bandwidth caps in the USA but I've never met or known anyone in my country that ever had to endure them on a non-mobile device. From that I gather that bandwidth caps for home use are a US (southern US), aberration that will soon go away.
In Canada, pay per use internet is on the horizon. The internet companies were pushing for it months ago and then there was a huge public backlash. Because of the election, many politicians made it an issue and it never happened. However now with the election over it's on the table again.
With Software updates and having to download all of my apps from the internet now...will Steve pickup the tab for my increased internet data bandwidth usage charges?
Nope. He also didn't pay for the shipping costs of getting boxed software sent to you in the mail. (or if you prefer the cost of gas to drive to a store to buy it or for you trendy urban types the caloric resources needed to power your human legs to walk yourself there)
What a bastard.
Besides, this is what you should expect for being so cheap.
The trouble is that Apple doesn't have anything mid range for me to spend more money on. Now in order to have an internal optical drive I have to jump up to professional grade and shell out $2499.
Not if there's no OS on the drive at all I can't. With an optical drive and a DVD I just reinstall.
The new models now shipping come with an internet recovery system - yes even if there is no OS on the drive at all.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...ss_repair.html
"If your Mac problem is a little less common ? your hard drive has failed or you?ve installed a hard drive without OS X, for example ? Internet Recovery takes over automatically,"
The trouble is that Apple doesn't have anything mid range for me to spend more money on. Now in order to have an internal optical drive I have to jump up to professional grade and shell out $2499.
No. There is another.
http://www.apple.com/imac/design.html
So they removed the optical drive, and the price stayed the same?
I could understand ditching it on notebooks, but ditching it on a desktop machine that is already uber tiny to begin with seems ridiculous to me.
I was waiting for the new macmini with thunderbolt to replaces my g4 macmini. Now i wont be doing that. I have my macmini plugged up to my tv, it is used for everything and watching dvds. Wow, on top of the machine not having a keyboard, mouse or monitor it has no optical drive. This thing should cost $499, why because i have to supply everything else.
CDs are still the easiest way to give somebody some music, especially when you don't know what sort of technology they have. None of the "music social" features of various products have really caught on. CDs are ubiquitous.
I promise I'm not trying to be mean here, but I get the feeling you're either old or out of touch. We all grow older and things change. Fighting it is of little use. I used to own boxes and boxes of floppies. When Apple introduced the first Mac without a floppy drive, I gasped, but this latest change is one most of us saw coming.
Everybody I know is swapping files on SD cards and flash drives these days. SD cards, in particular, are becoming... what was that word you used? Oh yes: ubiquitous. Burning a CD kind of feels nostalgic.
It isn't that the CD/DVD drive is going away quite yet. It's more a case of it not being an essential part of a computer anymore. For around $50 you can get an external drive. That's what I plan on doing when I buy a new Mini. Like you, I'm not ready for the CD to go away yet. But do I need one built into my Mac? Not so much. I just need one around every now and then.
Another change we're going to see is the end of the Mac Pro as we know it. Not yet, but soon. A decade ago, we needed those huge beasts to house our stuff. I had a G4 with an internal Zip drive (HA!) a CD/DVD, plus a pair of internal drives, plus a PCI card for SCSI and three more dedicated to a Pro Tools (pro audio) rig. Now, I don't even want internal drives at all. I have four external drives stashed behind my desk and I LOVE it. If the promise of Thunderbolt holds true, we're really just going to need a tiny beefy Mini to connect to our external stuff.
Yes, external stuff adds clutter, but it also lowers cost for us and it makes upgrading so much easier.
In Canada, pay per use internet is on the horizon. The internet companies were pushing for it months ago and then there was a huge public backlash. Because of the election, many politicians made it an issue and it never happened. However now with the election over it's on the table again.
I won't be surprised if this spreads to other countries, simply because the companies that provide internet services are greedy bastards. On the other hand, it's good that there are companies like Apple and Netflix (among others) moving over to an internet delivery model because their model only works so long as consumers can afford internet delivery of content. In other words, expect companies like Apple to fight for a more free internet. And that will be good for us all.
The beauty of the external Superdrive is you only need one, to share among all your Macs.
The external Superdrive only works with the MacBook Air, by design. Plugging it into another Mac does nothing (a kernel log says it is not compatible).
I promise I'm not trying to be mean here, but I get the feeling you're either old or out of touch.
Congratulations, you're great at it without even trying.
When Apple introduced the first Mac without a floppy drive, I gasped, but this latest change is one most of us saw coming.
I was happy when they ditched the floppy. Floppies were unreliable and held very little data. But the optical drive has many years of life left in it.
Everybody I know is swapping files on SD cards and flash drives these days. SD cards, in particular, are becoming... what was that word you used? Oh yes: ubiquitous. Burning a CD kind of feels nostalgic.
I've never had anyone pass me an SD card. Last time I wanted to use a thumb drive I had to go ask everyone in the office, and only a couple people had them. Most people have several devices capable of reading a CD. That's my point: if I want to hand some music to someone, I don't want to get into a format discussion with them. You don't see street musicians selling SD cards.
It isn't that the CD/DVD drive is going away quite yet. It's more a case of it not being an essential part of a computer anymore.
Bull. When Netflix stops mailing DVDs, then maybe. Oh right, go to the library's media section (as I've been doing lately) and look around: audio CDs, DVDs etc etc.
For around $50 you can get an external drive. That's what I plan on doing when I buy a new Mini. Like you, I'm not ready for the CD to go away yet.
You must be old. Old and mean. Anyway, if you're 'not ready for the CD to go away' then, wouldn't you want one to come with your computer? Why clutter things up?
But do I need one built into my Mac? Not so much. I just need one around every now and then.
Well, I do. I use my optical drives constantly. I wore the one on my MacBook out. My wife uses the one on her MacBook Pro all the time as well.
Another change we're going to see is the end of the Mac Pro as we know it.
Good riddance. However there are some down-sides to external drives: cable clutter and noise being the primary ones.
Except for all the extra power cords and bricks.
Thunderbolt can carry 10W of power, but you're right, things like a video card would need much more. Perhaps my dream of modular mini would get a little messy.
DVD drives on the other hand, can run on USB power. Pretty simple to buy one of the many external DVD burners out there, put it on top of the mini, and use a short USB cable to plug it in to minimize clutter. I don't see why people view the lack an internal optical drive as such a big deal.
Not if there's no OS on the drive at all I can't. With an optical drive and a DVD I just reinstall.
A flash drive would do the same thing, only faster. I heard you'll be able to buy the OS on those next month. I know you were referring to the internet restore for macs with Lion already installed, not buying a new copy of the OS, but even if they choose to include physical restore media with each mac, it would be better to put it on a flash drive. It's certainly not a reason to keep the optical drive.
As an aside. PC vendors have long forgone including restore disks with new PCs, if the hard drive crashes on those, you're in no better shape either. Even though they have an optical drive, they no disk to put in it. So you'd have to buy a new copy of windows, which costs more than a Lion flash drive.
Edit: Turns out, Internet Recovery lets you install onto a completely blank hard drive on the new Macs. Both AI and macrumors are now reporting that. No worries.
No. There is another.
I was waiting for the new macmini with thunderbolt to replaces my g4 macmini. Now i wont be doing that. I have my macmini plugged up to my tv, it is used for everything and watching dvds. Wow, on top of the machine not having a keyboard, mouse or monitor it has no optical drive. This thing should cost $499, why because i have to supply everything else.
It's $100 less than it was yesterday, the CPU is better, the GPU can be better, the RAM is faster, the hard drive is larger, and the ports are modern. And all you can do is complain. An optical drive is $30. Heck, a standalone DVD player is $30.
How do you load that stuff on your new cool super mini?
The beauty of the external Superdrive is you only need one, to share among all your Macs.
Only if it doesn't cost much as multiple internal drives...
I still prefer multiple drives. First off, not all my computers are in the same room. Carrying drive around the house or run to other part of house (where drive is sitting) to pop in blank media is sort of... uncomfortable.
In addition, if you have only one shared drive (and that one fails), you suddenly go from 100% functional to 0% functional ODs. According to Murphy's law, you will need to burn CD/DVD or watch something OD based when that happens
Only if the mini is the only computer in the house. Otherwise you can use the optical drive of any Mac on your home network.
Besides, this is what you should expect for being so cheap. You are using the cheapest computer Apple makes and you are running two OS's on it. I bet you are running on minimal RAM and have a VGA BenQ monitor attached to it as well.
The only thing cheaper would be switching back to Windows and buying some awful windows box that will last all of a year before it blows up or needs to be upgraded. Maybe that's your future.
Unless your other Mac is Air.
Only if the mini is the only computer in the house. Otherwise you can use the optical drive of any Mac on your home network.
So the plan for getting consumers to migrate to a new paradigm is to require they have older "obsolete" hardware, so they can load their latest software on the "newer, better" hardware.
I don't get this one.