We've all known that the Mini is the computer Apple hates. That's fine, but what Apple's done this time is to kill the soul of the machine.
The Mini is the hobbyist machine. It's the only part of the Mac line that you can modify to run billboards, in-car systems, trade show booths, security systems, concert lighting, business servers, telephone systems and whatever else your mind dreams up. It's the Hypercard of Mac hardware.
Contrary to many, I'm fine with the chip. I don't expect Apple to put a top notch chip into its el cheapo machine. Ditto for graphics.
But this is still a machine for tinkerers, and non-upgradable RAM is a poke in the eye.
As Panoptician said, maybe it would be less insulting if Apple had explained the long wait to upgrade the Mini with a move to a smaller form factor.
But to wait so long just to put new Airport connectivity, remove Firewire and then hardwire the RAM is abysmal.
many of your examples are commercial (running billboards, booths, concerts), in which case they buy the ram.
We need an iMac without the built in display. MacAir? What a let down!
This is the 30th anniversary of the Macintosh and this is what we get? Does anybody remember the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh? And Tim gives us an iMac with the same form factor as models from 2007 (!!) but with a Retina Display (A nice touch, but nothing to warrant what should be a big celebratory 30th Mac). Proof that Apple doesn't care about the Mac anymore.
iPads, iPods, and iPhones are great but they will never come close to the heart and soul of a Mac. Most people that own Apple products these days are bandwagoners many of whom haven't even touched a Mac. Since Kindergarten I've used them and it is that deep connection and personality between the Mac and the user that Apple is straying from, and it is turning into a disposable flimsy aluminum device manufacturer. Apple, get your soul back!! Perhaps Tim is the right guy to make Apple lots of money, but not the right guy to carry on Apple's great Macintosh legacy.
newsflash - desktop sales are flatlining, while mobile devices and notebooks are the growth.
and you're wrong, the retina iMac isnt the same form factor as a 2007 iMac. I have the 2011 and even it's different. today's is much thinner and lighter. while I'm sure you'd like them to invent some new crazy shape, the reality is making it thinner is the only way to reduce its size.
yeah this is a sucky thing... I would not recommend using a mac without at least 8gb out of the box especially if you'll use it for more than browsing
then it sounds like a perfect entry level machine for my parents, who use their old mini for....browsing the web. and email. light productivity with iWork.
need it to do more? upgrade it. still need more? get apples mid level computers.
$300 to upgrade to 16 Gig of memory? I upgraded mine (prior version) from third-parties for under $100.
Apple is getting sleazy here, putting in too little RAM (4 gig), making it not upgradable, and charging over twice the market price for that necessary upgrade.
Do they really think we're this stupid? They shouldn't forget that, even those who're trapped in Apple's ecosystem can still get even for this by discouraging others. That's precisely what I do with AT&T.
I can do it with Apple if it doesn't get its act together. I can also make my high-end Mac mini last long enough to make a used Mac Pro reasonable.
And I'll spare you the contempt I have for Phil Schiller if he thinks the only options Apple ought to offer us is an underpowered Mac mini or an iMac that forces us to deal with the double-trouble woes of having the computer and display in the same device. When one fails, the other is worthless. He's rich enough not to care. I'm not.
You want a headless Mac. Got it. Go directly to Schultz to share your woes.
Mmm... Methinks you have never installed and configured FreeBSD (any BSD) otherwise you wouldn't suggest that as a legitimate option for the average user.
Ubuntu? Really? Out of the fire (MS) and into the frying pan (Canonical) Might as well pick up a cromebook to go with that.
If you really want to experiment with Linux install Debian (you do realize it is what Canonical bases ubuntu off, yes?)
For mainstream users however, there really is only two choices (windows & OS X), For the tinkerer hobbyist types; knock yourself, out cobble together discount hardware from a dozen different sources, install linux (or even BSD (but again not for the neophyte)) and make it work. It is a very entertaining way (for some) to spend theirleisure time. Don't however construct a pretense that it is a legitimate option for the mass consumer (or for any professional user who has to value his or her time (and doesn't have a dedicated IT guru/staff to keep things running))
When was the last time you installed Ubuntu and used it? Ubuntu is super easy and full of features most people can use with no specialized training. I find it more intuitive than OS X.
I'm not talking about being disappointed by the software. I'm talking about being disappointed by the hardware from Apple. If you don't like their hardware then switch manufacturers and load software that can do the job, or build your own machine. If you must run software that isn't available for Ubuntu or other Debian based OSs then use a virtual machine and run Windoz inside GNU/Linux. Just get hardware that can handle it at a much cheaper price than Apple offers. Use the virtual machine just for that specific task and use GNU/Linux for everything else. Lots of people run Windoz in OS X. Just do the same thing with Ubuntu.
Get a machine that allows you to upgrade the parts over the years so you don't need to buy a whole new system every time you need to improve something in your hardware.
I love the look of the Mac Mini but downgrading the processor or not upgrading much doesn't seem like a move in the right direction. The only new thing in the 27" iMac is the screen. It must look great but faster chips should be included in all models every refresh.
It seems to me that Apple is just dragging its heels on getting rid of OS X machines and switching to the phone and tablet making it wants to do. There will be an iOS laptop soon. Once that exists the Mac lineup will be left to die. They are just prolonging the suffering of the OS X faithful by putting out minimal improvements in their computers.
Now that Dell, HP, and others are suffering in the computer markets, they are producing fewer computer choices too. As phones and tablets get more powerful, desktop machines will fade away and become enterprise devices again and thus will cost a fortune to procure. Consumers had better hope that tablets and phones can become total desktop replacements. Otherwise the average person will never be able to afford a home computer. We'll just have to own smart TVs instead.
Get your desktop machines now. Hold on to them and enjoy the nostalgia of running old programs for long into the future. Some people love their Amigas and Commodores. In a few years we'll all miss our desktop machines that had user serviceable parts.
The whole point of the mini is the what you can do with it for the price. When Apple started selling intel Minis the first was was slow and not well received and they upped the speed and passive aggressively it feels like raised the price by $100. Then it became powerful enough to make money with it so Apple stopped updating them to see if people would get tired of waiting and buy an iMac. It was still popular so they made sure to take away the GPU on the affordable models and gave you the ability to have a real fast one at the price of an iMac. People still kept buying them so now they just raised the price of the $599 model by another $100 and made the cheap model as underpowered as a macbook air, which since its using chips that are years and years old now is not costing them much to produce. So now they want more money up front by not giving you enough ram that you must buy from them at time of purchase or never be able to upgrade again. Any used mini is better than these ones and the come at a lower price. In the next 2 years there will be plenty of much faster alternatives that you can use as media servers for much less money. And the ones that are as expensive can be used to play games that the Mini would skip frames on. By then the mini will be updated like what, one time?
Now that Dell, HP, and others are suffering in the computer markets, they are producing fewer computer choices too. As phones and tablets get more powerful, desktop machines will fade away and become enterprise devices again and thus will cost a fortune to procure. Consumers had better hope that tablets and phones can become total desktop replacements. Otherwise the average person will never be able to afford a home computer. We'll just have to own smart TVs instead.
Get your desktop machines now. Hold on to them and enjoy the nostalgia of running old programs for long into the future. Some people love their Amigas and Commodores. In a few years we'll all miss our desktop machines that had user serviceable parts.
I don't think so. It's true there was a trend away from desktops to phones and tablets because for the mainstream it was the hot new thing because they do websurfing and communicating so well. But more and more people realize that phones and tablets aren't well suited when it comes to being productive.
And so I think the desktops are here to stay and will gain in interest again soon.
The reason why the architecture of the new macminis isn't so impressive is because Apple deliberately chose to downgrade it in order to boost the interest in an imac or the mac pro.
But I think that is a wrong strategy, the macmini is a formfactor that people are interested in and wouldn't want any other formfactor, they want to use their own display and have that little machine separate. For those people there should be all options available, including quadcore.
If people want integrated displays they will buy imacs, but it's not good to artificially create deficiencies in order to coerce people to buy imacs instead.
When was the last time you installed Ubuntu and used it? Ubuntu is super easy and full of features most people can use with no specialized training. I find it more intuitive than OS X.
I'm not talking about being disappointed by the software. I'm talking about being disappointed by the hardware from Apple. If you don't like their hardware then switch manufacturers and load software that can do the job, or build your own machine. If you must run software that isn't available for Ubuntu or other Debian based OSs then use a virtual machine and run Windoz inside GNU/Linux. Just get hardware that can handle it at a much cheaper price than Apple offers. Use the virtual machine just for that specific task and use GNU/Linux for everything else. Lots of people run Windoz in OS X. Just do the same thing with Ubuntu.
Get a machine that allows you to upgrade the parts over the years so you don't need to buy a whole new system every time you need to improve something in your hardware.
I love the look of the Mac Mini but downgrading the processor or not upgrading much doesn't seem like a move in the right direction. The only new thing in the 27" iMac is the screen. It must look great but faster chips should be included in all models every refresh.
It seems to me that Apple is just dragging its heels on getting rid of OS X machines and switching to the phone and tablet making it wants to do. There will be an iOS laptop soon. Once that exists the Mac lineup will be left to die. They are just prolonging the suffering of the OS X faithful by putting out minimal improvements in their computers.
Now that Dell, HP, and others are suffering in the computer markets, they are producing fewer computer choices too. As phones and tablets get more powerful, desktop machines will fade away and become enterprise devices again and thus will cost a fortune to procure. Consumers had better hope that tablets and phones can become total desktop replacements. Otherwise the average person will never be able to afford a home computer. We'll just have to own smart TVs instead.
Get your desktop machines now. Hold on to them and enjoy the nostalgia of running old programs for long into the future. Some people love their Amigas and Commodores. In a few years we'll all miss our desktop machines that had user serviceable parts.
Considering the amount of trouble went to to make the Retina iMac and nMP, I don't see them leaving the desktop market anytime soon. As for an iOS laptop, personally I don't see it. iOS isn't even optimized for keyboard / mouse.
I did a VB install of Ubuntu to see if it could read the format of one of the external hard drives I have to pull the content off of it.
Despite the format being one of Linux' native types, it couldn't even see the drive.
Uninstalled immediately.
Was it an obscure file system? Which one? Your limitation and failure was probably within VB and not within Ubuntu. Try again with a native installation. Ubuntu opens all of the ones I've used. Even Butter FS and ZFS are useable in GNU/Linux.
Was it an obscure file system? Which one? Your limitation and failure was probably within VB and not within Ubuntu. Try again with a native installation. Ubuntu opens all of the ones I've used. Even Butter FS and ZFS are useable in GNU/Linux.
Uh... it had a 2 in it. Hang on, I think I still have the drive.
To me this just means I will tell people to grab the 20123 Quad cores while they can! Hell, I might just pick one up too. Like many here, I believe in flexibility and upgradability. But most users won%u2019t care as one poster said, it is also my experience that few people upgrade memory not realizing how cheap a speed boost it can be. It is just us old/advanced users that care for a machine that is inexpensive and flexible.
A friend said that Apple was going to transition to disposable computers with non-user replaceable parts at least 3%u20134 years back. He was completely right, as each successive model has less upgradable parts. Again, only us computer geeks care, but it will be a sad day if I am forced to more to Linux for freedom of choice for hardware. And if I do that will break my 30 year streak of using Macs as my primary machine.*
(*I also used Windows 95, 2000, XP%u20138, but only to know enough to be able to troubleshoot and support them in IT departments%u2014plus the occasional windows only game!:)
...Like many here, I believe in flexibility and upgradability. But most users won%u2019t care as one poster said, it is also my experience that few people upgrade memory not realizing how cheap a speed boost it can be. It is just us old/advanced users that care for a machine that is inexpensive and flexible.
...but it will be a sad day if I am forced to more to Linux for freedom of choice for hardware. And if I do that will break my 30 year streak of using Macs as my primary machine.
When I got my first Mac and got accustomed to the OS X software I loved it. I became zealous in telling others about how great Apple was. I was happy knowing I had a great machine and that Apple was the best. That changed.
When my Mac Book battery expanded just as the 2007 Sony batteries did in Mac Books, Apple refused to accept it as defective even though they had recalled the identical batteries the year before. Mine had the same part number. Apple's luster faded. Only because of my safety complaint to the Consumer Product Safety Commission did Apple do anything for me.
Then their machines kept adding more and more bloatware. I really don't care about fancy graphical transitions between programs and social media, or iPhone integration. OS X needed more and more horsepower to run those things. I just wanted iWork to be better than Office but they wouldn't really address that. Their machines lost internal accessibility without special tools and skills. Some parts couldn't be upgraded or replaced by users. They started putting laptop hard drives into desktop machines. They were very slow to update their chips.
All of this added up to me feeling like Apple was more about flash than substance. The flash didn't always come with high performance. Other companies integrate the same or better chips so the performance gains weren't only going to Apple. They were also available to HP, Dell, and all of the others.
I dabbled with Ubuntu starting in 2010. I found it faster than OS X even though it was running on an inferior HP machine. By 2013 I was trying other GNU/Linux variations. Eventually that became my main OS.
Noivad you should let go of any disheartening attachment to Apple. Apple is a corporation that has the sole purpose of earning more money. It has no real care for individuals or even fans. It wants to build products that it feels will reach more people per unit of time. If that means forgetting about people who want upgradeable hardware then that is what they will do. It isn't about caring. It is about earning as much money as possible. That is why they will drop desktop machines in the future.
Buy a secondhand tower with decent specifications and start playing with GNU/Linux. See what it can do. Try a few distributions and don't forget to search for specialized software you might use. There are some alternatives. I make it fun learning about the OS and learning terminal commands. Think of a journey into the alternative OS as an adventure with plenty of discovery. Anybody can stick with OS X and Windoz but adventurous people aren't afraid of trying something new that they just might find works better for them, or is at least more fun.
I'm glad I got two 2012 i7 2.6 GHz quad-core CPU Mac Minis two years ago.
I've got one of those. I use it for media conversion, Tivo file sharing, home automation (Indigo), FTP server, security camera recorder, music server and web video viewer (HDMI to my AV system). It has a Fusion drive and 16 gig RAM. It's been a champ so far and I have no plans to replace it. I hope in the future Apple still offers a Mini that can do all that when my current unit needs upgrading.
Comments
many of your examples are commercial (running billboards, booths, concerts), in which case they buy the ram.
newsflash - desktop sales are flatlining, while mobile devices and notebooks are the growth.
and you're wrong, the retina iMac isnt the same form factor as a 2007 iMac. I have the 2011 and even it's different. today's is much thinner and lighter. while I'm sure you'd like them to invent some new crazy shape, the reality is making it thinner is the only way to reduce its size.
then it sounds like a perfect entry level machine for my parents, who use their old mini for....browsing the web. and email. light productivity with iWork.
need it to do more? upgrade it. still need more? get apples mid level computers.
$300 to upgrade to 16 Gig of memory? I upgraded mine (prior version) from third-parties for under $100.
Apple is getting sleazy here, putting in too little RAM (4 gig), making it not upgradable, and charging over twice the market price for that necessary upgrade.
Do they really think we're this stupid? They shouldn't forget that, even those who're trapped in Apple's ecosystem can still get even for this by discouraging others. That's precisely what I do with AT&T.
I can do it with Apple if it doesn't get its act together. I can also make my high-end Mac mini last long enough to make a used Mac Pro reasonable.
And I'll spare you the contempt I have for Phil Schiller if he thinks the only options Apple ought to offer us is an underpowered Mac mini or an iMac that forces us to deal with the double-trouble woes of having the computer and display in the same device. When one fails, the other is worthless. He's rich enough not to care. I'm not.
You want a headless Mac. Got it. Go directly to Schultz to share your woes.
Forget about the new Mac mini or 27" Retina iMac. What I want is a 21.5" 4K (3840 x 2160) Retina iMac.
Forget about the new Mac mini or 27" Retina iMac. What I want is a 21.5" 4K (3840 x 2160) Retina iMac.
What I want is a 30" Retina iMac.
Mmm... Methinks you have never installed and configured FreeBSD (any BSD) otherwise you wouldn't suggest that as a legitimate option for the average user.
Ubuntu? Really? Out of the fire (MS) and into the frying pan (Canonical) Might as well pick up a cromebook to go with that.
If you really want to experiment with Linux install Debian (you do realize it is what Canonical bases ubuntu off, yes?)
For mainstream users however, there really is only two choices (windows & OS X), For the tinkerer hobbyist types; knock yourself, out cobble together discount hardware from a dozen different sources, install linux (or even BSD (but again not for the neophyte)) and make it work. It is a very entertaining way (for some) to spend their leisure time. Don't however construct a pretense that it is a legitimate option for the mass consumer (or for any professional user who has to value his or her time (and doesn't have a dedicated IT guru/staff to keep things running))
When was the last time you installed Ubuntu and used it? Ubuntu is super easy and full of features most people can use with no specialized training. I find it more intuitive than OS X.
I'm not talking about being disappointed by the software. I'm talking about being disappointed by the hardware from Apple. If you don't like their hardware then switch manufacturers and load software that can do the job, or build your own machine. If you must run software that isn't available for Ubuntu or other Debian based OSs then use a virtual machine and run Windoz inside GNU/Linux. Just get hardware that can handle it at a much cheaper price than Apple offers. Use the virtual machine just for that specific task and use GNU/Linux for everything else. Lots of people run Windoz in OS X. Just do the same thing with Ubuntu.
Get a machine that allows you to upgrade the parts over the years so you don't need to buy a whole new system every time you need to improve something in your hardware.
I love the look of the Mac Mini but downgrading the processor or not upgrading much doesn't seem like a move in the right direction. The only new thing in the 27" iMac is the screen. It must look great but faster chips should be included in all models every refresh.
It seems to me that Apple is just dragging its heels on getting rid of OS X machines and switching to the phone and tablet making it wants to do. There will be an iOS laptop soon. Once that exists the Mac lineup will be left to die. They are just prolonging the suffering of the OS X faithful by putting out minimal improvements in their computers.
Now that Dell, HP, and others are suffering in the computer markets, they are producing fewer computer choices too. As phones and tablets get more powerful, desktop machines will fade away and become enterprise devices again and thus will cost a fortune to procure. Consumers had better hope that tablets and phones can become total desktop replacements. Otherwise the average person will never be able to afford a home computer. We'll just have to own smart TVs instead.
Get your desktop machines now. Hold on to them and enjoy the nostalgia of running old programs for long into the future. Some people love their Amigas and Commodores. In a few years we'll all miss our desktop machines that had user serviceable parts.
The whole point of the mini is the what you can do with it for the price. When Apple started selling intel Minis the first was was slow and not well received and they upped the speed and passive aggressively it feels like raised the price by $100. Then it became powerful enough to make money with it so Apple stopped updating them to see if people would get tired of waiting and buy an iMac. It was still popular so they made sure to take away the GPU on the affordable models and gave you the ability to have a real fast one at the price of an iMac. People still kept buying them so now they just raised the price of the $599 model by another $100 and made the cheap model as underpowered as a macbook air, which since its using chips that are years and years old now is not costing them much to produce. So now they want more money up front by not giving you enough ram that you must buy from them at time of purchase or never be able to upgrade again. Any used mini is better than these ones and the come at a lower price. In the next 2 years there will be plenty of much faster alternatives that you can use as media servers for much less money. And the ones that are as expensive can be used to play games that the Mini would skip frames on. By then the mini will be updated like what, one time?
Now that Dell, HP, and others are suffering in the computer markets, they are producing fewer computer choices too. As phones and tablets get more powerful, desktop machines will fade away and become enterprise devices again and thus will cost a fortune to procure. Consumers had better hope that tablets and phones can become total desktop replacements. Otherwise the average person will never be able to afford a home computer. We'll just have to own smart TVs instead.
Get your desktop machines now. Hold on to them and enjoy the nostalgia of running old programs for long into the future. Some people love their Amigas and Commodores. In a few years we'll all miss our desktop machines that had user serviceable parts.
I don't think so. It's true there was a trend away from desktops to phones and tablets because for the mainstream it was the hot new thing because they do websurfing and communicating so well. But more and more people realize that phones and tablets aren't well suited when it comes to being productive.
And so I think the desktops are here to stay and will gain in interest again soon.
The reason why the architecture of the new macminis isn't so impressive is because Apple deliberately chose to downgrade it in order to boost the interest in an imac or the mac pro.
But I think that is a wrong strategy, the macmini is a formfactor that people are interested in and wouldn't want any other formfactor, they want to use their own display and have that little machine separate. For those people there should be all options available, including quadcore.
If people want integrated displays they will buy imacs, but it's not good to artificially create deficiencies in order to coerce people to buy imacs instead.
When was the last time you installed Ubuntu and used it? Ubuntu is super easy and full of features most people can use with no specialized training. I find it more intuitive than OS X.
I'm not talking about being disappointed by the software. I'm talking about being disappointed by the hardware from Apple. If you don't like their hardware then switch manufacturers and load software that can do the job, or build your own machine. If you must run software that isn't available for Ubuntu or other Debian based OSs then use a virtual machine and run Windoz inside GNU/Linux. Just get hardware that can handle it at a much cheaper price than Apple offers. Use the virtual machine just for that specific task and use GNU/Linux for everything else. Lots of people run Windoz in OS X. Just do the same thing with Ubuntu.
Get a machine that allows you to upgrade the parts over the years so you don't need to buy a whole new system every time you need to improve something in your hardware.
I love the look of the Mac Mini but downgrading the processor or not upgrading much doesn't seem like a move in the right direction. The only new thing in the 27" iMac is the screen. It must look great but faster chips should be included in all models every refresh.
It seems to me that Apple is just dragging its heels on getting rid of OS X machines and switching to the phone and tablet making it wants to do. There will be an iOS laptop soon. Once that exists the Mac lineup will be left to die. They are just prolonging the suffering of the OS X faithful by putting out minimal improvements in their computers.
Now that Dell, HP, and others are suffering in the computer markets, they are producing fewer computer choices too. As phones and tablets get more powerful, desktop machines will fade away and become enterprise devices again and thus will cost a fortune to procure. Consumers had better hope that tablets and phones can become total desktop replacements. Otherwise the average person will never be able to afford a home computer. We'll just have to own smart TVs instead.
Get your desktop machines now. Hold on to them and enjoy the nostalgia of running old programs for long into the future. Some people love their Amigas and Commodores. In a few years we'll all miss our desktop machines that had user serviceable parts.
Considering the amount of trouble went to to make the Retina iMac and nMP, I don't see them leaving the desktop market anytime soon. As for an iOS laptop, personally I don't see it. iOS isn't even optimized for keyboard / mouse.
I did a VB install of Ubuntu to see if it could read the format of one of the external hard drives I have to pull the content off of it.
Despite the format being one of Linux' native types, it couldn't even see the drive.
Uninstalled immediately.
I did a VB install of Ubuntu to see if it could read the format of one of the external hard drives I have to pull the content off of it.
Despite the format being one of Linux' native types, it couldn't even see the drive.
Uninstalled immediately.
Was it an obscure file system? Which one? Your limitation and failure was probably within VB and not within Ubuntu. Try again with a native installation. Ubuntu opens all of the ones I've used. Even Butter FS and ZFS are useable in GNU/Linux.
Uh... it had a 2 in it. Hang on, I think I still have the drive.
I did a VB install of Ubuntu to see if it could read the format of one of the external hard drives I have to pull the content off of it.
Despite the format being one of Linux' native types, it couldn't even see the drive.
Uninstalled immediately.
There's your problem. By default, VB and other virtual machines isolate the guest OS from much of the host's hardware and software since the whole point of a virtual machine is to let you test something in a sandbox without messing up the underlying system should something go awry. Once you configure VB correctly (per these instructions for example http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/mac-os-x-read-ext3-ext4-external-usb-hard-disk-partition/), you should have no problem reading your external hard drive as long as it uses one of the many filesystems supported by Linux (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems#Supporting_operating_systems).
Uh... it had a 2 in it. Hang on, I think I still have the drive.
Was it EXT 2?
That's the one!
A friend said that Apple was going to transition to disposable computers with non-user replaceable parts at least 3%u20134 years back. He was completely right, as each successive model has less upgradable parts. Again, only us computer geeks care, but it will be a sad day if I am forced to more to Linux for freedom of choice for hardware. And if I do that will break my 30 year streak of using Macs as my primary machine.*
(*I also used Windows 95, 2000, XP%u20138, but only to know enough to be able to troubleshoot and support them in IT departments%u2014plus the occasional windows only game!:)
...Like many here, I believe in flexibility and upgradability. But most users won%u2019t care as one poster said, it is also my experience that few people upgrade memory not realizing how cheap a speed boost it can be. It is just us old/advanced users that care for a machine that is inexpensive and flexible.
...but it will be a sad day if I am forced to more to Linux for freedom of choice for hardware. And if I do that will break my 30 year streak of using Macs as my primary machine.
When I got my first Mac and got accustomed to the OS X software I loved it. I became zealous in telling others about how great Apple was. I was happy knowing I had a great machine and that Apple was the best. That changed.
When my Mac Book battery expanded just as the 2007 Sony batteries did in Mac Books, Apple refused to accept it as defective even though they had recalled the identical batteries the year before. Mine had the same part number. Apple's luster faded. Only because of my safety complaint to the Consumer Product Safety Commission did Apple do anything for me.
Then their machines kept adding more and more bloatware. I really don't care about fancy graphical transitions between programs and social media, or iPhone integration. OS X needed more and more horsepower to run those things. I just wanted iWork to be better than Office but they wouldn't really address that. Their machines lost internal accessibility without special tools and skills. Some parts couldn't be upgraded or replaced by users. They started putting laptop hard drives into desktop machines. They were very slow to update their chips.
All of this added up to me feeling like Apple was more about flash than substance. The flash didn't always come with high performance. Other companies integrate the same or better chips so the performance gains weren't only going to Apple. They were also available to HP, Dell, and all of the others.
I dabbled with Ubuntu starting in 2010. I found it faster than OS X even though it was running on an inferior HP machine. By 2013 I was trying other GNU/Linux variations. Eventually that became my main OS.
Noivad you should let go of any disheartening attachment to Apple. Apple is a corporation that has the sole purpose of earning more money. It has no real care for individuals or even fans. It wants to build products that it feels will reach more people per unit of time. If that means forgetting about people who want upgradeable hardware then that is what they will do. It isn't about caring. It is about earning as much money as possible. That is why they will drop desktop machines in the future.
Buy a secondhand tower with decent specifications and start playing with GNU/Linux. See what it can do. Try a few distributions and don't forget to search for specialized software you might use. There are some alternatives. I make it fun learning about the OS and learning terminal commands. Think of a journey into the alternative OS as an adventure with plenty of discovery. Anybody can stick with OS X and Windoz but adventurous people aren't afraid of trying something new that they just might find works better for them, or is at least more fun.
I'm glad I got two 2012 i7 2.6 GHz quad-core CPU Mac Minis two years ago.
I've got one of those. I use it for media conversion, Tivo file sharing, home automation (Indigo), FTP server, security camera recorder, music server and web video viewer (HDMI to my AV system). It has a Fusion drive and 16 gig RAM. It's been a champ so far and I have no plans to replace it. I hope in the future Apple still offers a Mini that can do all that when my current unit needs upgrading.