4GB is not enough for any of the operating system releases of the last 3 years, and Apple are a bunch of crooks for selling Macs with less than 8GB at this point.
Supply and demand affect each other no question - if you supply what people don't want, you'll have poor demand; if demand is low for what you sell, supply needs to be adjusted to suit. Apple has been at this a long time and they can see what's selling and where retailers are ending up. Not many computer manufacturers have lasted 30 years. Samsung ditched their European PC market entirely this year, HP wanted to sell their PC division off (they are the largest PC manufacturer in the world), Sony has sold off its Vaio line and no longer makes PCs. Acer's CEO resigned after their poor PC sales last year. It happened a long time ago with smaller brands:
These trends are industry-wide, go into any computer store, even online stores and you'll see the same thing:
If PC manufacturers could shift demand back to desktops it's guaranteed they would in a second but they've tried everything. Before Apple went with quad-i7s around 2009/2010, Intel had Core 2 Quads in 2007. PC manufacturers jumped at this to give desktop users higher performance. The bundle deals were very cheap. They'd throw in everything - display, keyboard/mouse, as much RAM as you wanted, as much video memory. So what happened? The customers didn't need to go back. Not only had they cut their margins so low that it was barely worth doing in the first place, they elongated the upgrade cycle.
At first this seems like a win for the customer but not if it's not profitable for the seller as they'll either go bankrupt or change strategy.
If Apple had offered a quad-i7 Iris Pro mini for $849-899, they'd sell more to a certain class of buyer but it's wrong to assume this type of buyer represents a high volume market. It's easy to assume that the 15" Retina Macbook Pro is a high volume seller simply because it's far more powerful but it's not high volume. The high volume in the laptop side comes from the Air and 13" MBP. For every person needing to batch encode movies or run a server or render intensive creative projects, there are 10 people who just want a cheap machine for the office.
They could make a high-end mini that is really expensive but it needs a different motherboard for the quad-i7 and hardly anyone would pay over $1000 for one so why bother when they can sell those people an iMac or rMBP and make a profit on the display sale too?
What's the downside? It's not a high volume market no matter how you look at it, all mini users can stop buying if they want and it won't affect Apple one bit. The portion that previously bought an i7 who want to stay with Apple and still need a quad-i7 will buy an iMac or MBP and Apple will make twice the profit. The xMac crowd that have finally had enough will go and find out how much of a headache running a hackintosh is and regret it or just use Windows and regret it even more.
Your arguments are balanced and hard to rebut.
I think that you and the PC manufacturers are right, at least within a short time frame, and from a pure business point of view.
But seeing how many people use their laptops as de facto desktops I can't believe that the desktop is as dead as it is proclaimed.
Maybe I am just a dreamer?
May be I am, as I said before, just to much niche in my needs. The same as with jumbo phones. I don't think 6'' phones are the way to go.
The same as the super tiny phones they were manufacturing in the late 90's.
May be I am getting to old for the fashion style development of computers that is going on at the moment?
But I have the hope that in the same way as fashion trends come back from the dead - the good and the bad ones - desktops and reasonable sized phones will be revived!
I have to disagree -- mobile isnt popular because apple waved a magic wand and brainwashed everyone using "marketing". mobile is popular because that's what people want. Apple then uses marketing to sell their brand over the competitor's.
You haven't really read my post. I said that Apple is giving the mini a lackluster price/performance ratio in comparison to its iMac and mobile offerings. Never talked about the competitors, only about Apple!
4GB is not enough for any of the operating system releases of the last 3 years, and Apple are a bunch of crooks for selling Macs with less than 8GB at this point.
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.
You assume way too much about me and my experience. I have used all the major OSes since 1985 (including OS/2 Warp and BeOS), and maintain a Linux cert. among others. So, I am not a newbie when it comes to the command line. I was playing around with Sun Sparc Stations in the mid-90s when Sun still existed. You are confusing me for an Apple Fanboy which are lemmings and often do not have experience outside of Windows and Mac. I always say I will use the best tool for the job, and consistently, it has been Macintoshes for my needs. Since OS X took the underpinning of NetBSD and tossed a GUI on it, it had continued to get better until 10.7. Now, I can toss up a dev server running a LAMP stack and use top tier vector illustration apps and other professional apps that are not available except as open source imitations that are still stifled by inconsistent UIs and clunky interfaces. Add in homebrew and it’s the best of both worlds.
I just want to use what works reliably and without needing to find arcane settings to make a new video card work with Ubuntu or CentOS. I used to work in an IT Support Department managing Exchange servers, Networking, back-ups for an office of 400 with Mac and PCs and the occasional Linux machine. I got sick of always fixing machines. So, when I went home, I just wanted something that worked. After leaving support, I built a Tri-boot machine in 2007 to keep current, and the hardest part was getting current video card drivers for the then new NVidia 8800GTS to run flawlessly on Ubuntu — let’s not even talk about Debian’s piss poor performance out of the gate. These issues were remedied, but not for at least a quarter as far as I recall. Dropping into init 1 to fix things was also a PITA. The performance on Linux felt snappier than OS X of that era, but the navigation sucked, and reconfiguring dual-homed networking meant a trip to the command line. To me a lot of the configuration chores on both Linux and Windows were a waste of time.
Aside from the app availability and polish of the UI, all the Horsepower in the world won’t make up for lost time of a crappy UI (Linux GUI shells — some of which are also backsliding— or Windows). Most computers these days are faster than their users, meaning the bottle neck is user input and navigation. With OS X I still have excellent 3rd party software to speed navigation (default folder, alfred, etc), and file search works which is something I could never say about any version of Windows. Linux varients have some appeal, but the UI is still clunky compared to the sophistication of OS X.
It doesn't take much to see that Apple is going for a future entry level OS X device built to its mobile standards; no internal expansion, fanless, pocketable, the ultimate appliance. Same place Intel is heading. Might even look like a mobile device; I hope so.
What's the point of internal expansion anymore, it will all be done externally, and using mobile memory and storage is just the last step. I look forward to USB 3.1 Type C connectors and Thunderbolt 3: the future.
If this Mac Mini isn't your cup of tea, neither will future ones be.
Motorola did a study many years ago around the time of the Mac clone period. They found that 95% of computer users did not upgrade their computers.
I'm sure those people either didn't care or they just upgraded their whole machine later.
You could say Apple is going for the lowest common denominator in consumers of targeting those who don't care about specs and just want something that works.
Seems a lot of people who visit the Apple store are like that. They are not computer literate. They just want something that works well with their phones.
4GB is not enough for any of the operating system releases of the last 3 years, and Apple are a bunch of crooks for selling Macs with less than 8GB at this point.
We have an early 2009 MacBook with 4 GB of RAM. Did a standard (not clean) install of Yosemite. Seems to work just fine.
4GB is okay for most people. Fine for base model. Sucks its soldered in and is not user upgradable though.
Motorola did a study many years ago around the time of the Mac clone period. They found that 95% of computer users did not upgrade their computers.
I'm sure those people either didn't care or they just upgraded their whole machine later.
You could say Apple is going for the lowest common denominator in consumers of targeting those who don't care about specs and just want something that works.
Seems a lot of people who visit the Apple store are like that. They are not computer literate. They just want something that works well with their phones.
It's not so much that they're not computer literate. It's that to the average consumer the computer (or computing device) is just an appliance, or tool, to get stuff done. The have no interest whatsoever to tinker with the guts of the device. Hence the purpose of the Genius Bar, if you're lucky enough to have an Apple Store within your area.
Apple advises use only up to 8 gigs of memory not 16 they told me about the 2011 model I own.
FYI, Crucial RAM and OWC both offer to sell 16 GB for the mid 2011 Mac mini machine
This happens a lot, where Apple will list a lower max RAM because the machine was manufactured at time when the DIMMs only had less per chip, so at time of mfg, the choice was probably maxed at 2 x 4GB = 8GB.
But now with higher density RAM, it can be more: 2 x 8GB = 16 GB. (and Apple does not go back and boost their max RAM numbers)
I have regularly installed the Crucial or OWC higher RAM amounts in various Macs with no problems encountered.
Perhaps they need some coding messiah to come in and save the day. At which point, Microsoft can exclaim, "Hallelujah!"
Cute. Yeah they definitely need to get an handle on the issue.
Maybe debut a second OS directed at Mac and Linux switchers that breaks with traditional Windows code and isn't as susceptible to the multitude of Windows viruses. I have no idea whether that would work commercially, but no sane Mac switcher is going back to worrying daily about thousands of PC viruses.
I like Mac OS X, but having a real choice would be nice. When Apple is unchallenged, things get crazy bad very fast.
The new lower-entry price is great but with non-user-upgradable RAM I'd have to get the 16GiB to maximize longevity. I also don't care for the 1.4GHz processor. Since it'll be an Time Machine and iTunes Server (and hopefully a VPN server) I think my best longterm option for the price is a Mac mini with GigE and USB 3.0 which means I can get a Late-2012 Mac mini once Apple updates their Refurbished store.
you can buy a synology NAS that does/has everything you mentioned and much more (Time Machine server, iTunes Server, VPN server, GigE, USB 3.0), much better (RAID, etc), for much less than the mac mini configuration you're contemplating.
as I stated elsewhere, I'm very glad I bought the mini server quad core I7 model just before it was discontinued. with 7200RPM drives and 16GB ram running yosemite, it's a developer's dream machine.
I was considering the upgrade to the mac mini, I have the mid 2011 mac mini, i put 16gb of ram in it, mainly because this machine is on 24/7, i love this thing, since it doesn't need to be a power house (i have my rMBP) I might just keep my 2011 mac mini & put an SSD in it, its starting to show its age a bit, the SSD should help extend its life.
I'm kinda sad about the non upgradable ram in the new one, i got the basic entry mac mini in 2011, it had 2gb of ram at the time, the upgrade to 8gb cost almost as much as the system so i put in 16gb myself, was maybe $120 at the time, which does work, never had an issue.
ram upgrades aren't a serious thing to do, the new iMac lets users upgrade it, this seems more strategic from apple than practical.
Meh, cue vehement screeching from a tiny minority, 95% of people won't give a shit. Really, upgrading memory is hardly done anymore and not as necessary as it used to be. Non-issue.
Actually, it was a big issue for me with my 2012 Macbook Pro (non-retina) which after last years OSX update (Mavericks) was really struggling with it's original 4Gb of RAM, I upgraded to 16Gb and now it's fine and Yosemite is really a great OS.
I bought this model (Pro), rather than the Air, simply due to it's upgrade-ability, and that decision hasn't been proven wrong.
A cheapish lesson to never buy any apple basic config, but the big issue for me is that there are many shops locally selling Apple products (Macbook, IMac and Mac Mini) but they only ever have the basic config available and, to be honest, there's no Apple shops around here and I don't want to order online.
So, having non-upgradeable memory (whether it's retina macbook, iMac or Mac Mini) certainly is a deterrent for me.
TBH, I don't think Apple care in the slightest . they're now the big corporate machine, they're selling hardware and just want to sell more, so....
Actually, it was a big issue for me with my 2012 Macbook Pro (non-retina) which after last years OSX update (Mavericks) was really struggling with it's original 4Gb of RAM, I upgraded to 16Gb and now it's fine and Yosemite is really a great OS.
I bought this model (Pro), rather than the Air, simply due to it's upgrade-ability, and that decision hasn't been proven wrong.
A cheapish lesson to never buy any apple basic config, but the big issue for me is that there are many shops locally selling Apple products (Macbook, IMac and Mac Mini) but they only ever have the basic config available and, to be honest, there's no Apple shops around here and I don't want to order online.
So, having non-upgradeable memory (whether it's retina macbook, iMac or Mac Mini) certainly is a deterrent for me.
TBH, I don't think Apple care in the slightest . they're now the big corporate machine, they're selling hardware and just want to sell more, so....
This always happens when people compare their experiences with older models. The base Retina Macbook Pro now has 16GB soldered so what this means is that vs the 2012 model where it came with 4GB and you had to order 16GB from a 3rd party, open it up yourself and install it, you now get it bundled. There may be a chance you'd need 24GB or 32GB in future but it's unlikely. Soldered RAM means the IGPs get proper memory bandwidth.
Now, if you buy an entry model machine with 4GB or 8GB and find that it's not enough, chances are you bought the wrong machine in the first place but it's not a big deal as you can sell it and buy the right machine to use with a suitable amount of memory.
DDR4 with Broadwell doubles the density so I expect memory prices will fall lower than DDR3 eventually. Imagine that RAM prices drop low enough that 8GB is in every entry machine, 16GB is minimum in every iMac/MBP or higher and you get 24-32GB upgrades in those for $200-400, that's not much to complain about. All the problems that happen with transitions become irrelevant in a couple of years.
This always happens when people compare their experiences with older models. The base Retina Macbook Pro now has 16GB soldered so what this means is that vs the 2012 model where it came with 4GB and you had to order 16GB from a 3rd party, open it up yourself and install it, you now get it bundled. There may be a chance you'd need 24GB or 32GB in future but it's unlikely. Soldered RAM means the IGPs get proper memory bandwidth.
Now, if you buy an entry model machine with 4GB or 8GB and find that it's not enough, chances are you bought the wrong machine in the first place but it's not a big deal as you can sell it and buy the right machine to use with a suitable amount of memory.
DDR4 with Broadwell doubles the density so I expect memory prices will fall lower than DDR3 eventually. Imagine that RAM prices drop low enough that 8GB is in every entry machine, 16GB is minimum in every iMac/MBP or higher and you get 24-32GB upgrades in those for $200-400, that's not much to complain about. All the problems that happen with transitions become irrelevant in a couple of years.
The base 15" Pro has 16Gb, not the 13" which has 8gb
What happens in 2-3 years when 8Gb is not enough. You're screwed - like many people who complain about soldered in memory..
It is far more imprtant that I can expand teh memory than "getting propoer memory bandwidth"!!
And, no, i'm not using it with with any special software, just numerous desktops and applications open simultaneously. It worked fine like that when I got it, but after Mavericks it did not. simples. Built in obsolescence..
I should not be having to worry about buying the right machine with the "right" amount of memory, it's obviously one of those things you might want or need to increase depending on which software you might need to use or which lame OS has been released..
Now, if you buy an entry model machine with 4GB or 8GB and find that it's not enough, chances are you bought the wrong machine in the first place but it's not a big deal as you can sell it and buy the right machine to use with a suitable amount of memory.
I'm sorry, that's insane. This is a machine for switchers. Telling people new to the platform to sell their new machine and buy a different one is an exercise in business failure.
Apple's going to have to up the base RAM in the Mini to 8GB as soon as they can.
It's obvious the Mini offerings (like the rest of the Mac line) are meant to push people toward the higher tier. But this is the budget machine, it's not like the rest of the line.
It's for the budget-conscious and tinkerers who want to experiment with integrations.
And I'd guess the lowest rung is the most popular choice. Apple has deliberately priced the line so that the iMac looks like a better value. Who buys Minis that cost $1000?
If you're going to deny upgrades, the specs have to be good in the first place.
Comments
Supply and demand affect each other no question - if you supply what people don't want, you'll have poor demand; if demand is low for what you sell, supply needs to be adjusted to suit. Apple has been at this a long time and they can see what's selling and where retailers are ending up. Not many computer manufacturers have lasted 30 years. Samsung ditched their European PC market entirely this year, HP wanted to sell their PC division off (they are the largest PC manufacturer in the world), Sony has sold off its Vaio line and no longer makes PCs. Acer's CEO resigned after their poor PC sales last year. It happened a long time ago with smaller brands:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4719833.stm
These trends are industry-wide, go into any computer store, even online stores and you'll see the same thing:
If PC manufacturers could shift demand back to desktops it's guaranteed they would in a second but they've tried everything. Before Apple went with quad-i7s around 2009/2010, Intel had Core 2 Quads in 2007. PC manufacturers jumped at this to give desktop users higher performance. The bundle deals were very cheap. They'd throw in everything - display, keyboard/mouse, as much RAM as you wanted, as much video memory. So what happened? The customers didn't need to go back. Not only had they cut their margins so low that it was barely worth doing in the first place, they elongated the upgrade cycle.
At first this seems like a win for the customer but not if it's not profitable for the seller as they'll either go bankrupt or change strategy.
If Apple had offered a quad-i7 Iris Pro mini for $849-899, they'd sell more to a certain class of buyer but it's wrong to assume this type of buyer represents a high volume market. It's easy to assume that the 15" Retina Macbook Pro is a high volume seller simply because it's far more powerful but it's not high volume. The high volume in the laptop side comes from the Air and 13" MBP. For every person needing to batch encode movies or run a server or render intensive creative projects, there are 10 people who just want a cheap machine for the office.
They could make a high-end mini that is really expensive but it needs a different motherboard for the quad-i7 and hardly anyone would pay over $1000 for one so why bother when they can sell those people an iMac or rMBP and make a profit on the display sale too?
What's the downside? It's not a high volume market no matter how you look at it, all mini users can stop buying if they want and it won't affect Apple one bit. The portion that previously bought an i7 who want to stay with Apple and still need a quad-i7 will buy an iMac or MBP and Apple will make twice the profit. The xMac crowd that have finally had enough will go and find out how much of a headache running a hackintosh is and regret it or just use Windows and regret it even more.
Your arguments are balanced and hard to rebut.
I think that you and the PC manufacturers are right, at least within a short time frame, and from a pure business point of view.
But seeing how many people use their laptops as de facto desktops I can't believe that the desktop is as dead as it is proclaimed.
Maybe I am just a dreamer?
May be I am, as I said before, just to much niche in my needs. The same as with jumbo phones. I don't think 6'' phones are the way to go.
The same as the super tiny phones they were manufacturing in the late 90's.
May be I am getting to old for the fashion style development of computers that is going on at the moment?
But I have the hope that in the same way as fashion trends come back from the dead - the good and the bad ones - desktops and reasonable sized phones will be revived!
I have to disagree -- mobile isnt popular because apple waved a magic wand and brainwashed everyone using "marketing". mobile is popular because that's what people want. Apple then uses marketing to sell their brand over the competitor's.
You haven't really read my post. I said that Apple is giving the mini a lackluster price/performance ratio in comparison to its iMac and mobile offerings. Never talked about the competitors, only about Apple!
Okay, enjoy your lies.
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.
You assume way too much about me and my experience. I have used all the major OSes since 1985 (including OS/2 Warp and BeOS), and maintain a Linux cert. among others. So, I am not a newbie when it comes to the command line. I was playing around with Sun Sparc Stations in the mid-90s when Sun still existed. You are confusing me for an Apple Fanboy which are lemmings and often do not have experience outside of Windows and Mac. I always say I will use the best tool for the job, and consistently, it has been Macintoshes for my needs. Since OS X took the underpinning of NetBSD and tossed a GUI on it, it had continued to get better until 10.7. Now, I can toss up a dev server running a LAMP stack and use top tier vector illustration apps and other professional apps that are not available except as open source imitations that are still stifled by inconsistent UIs and clunky interfaces. Add in homebrew and it’s the best of both worlds.
I just want to use what works reliably and without needing to find arcane settings to make a new video card work with Ubuntu or CentOS. I used to work in an IT Support Department managing Exchange servers, Networking, back-ups for an office of 400 with Mac and PCs and the occasional Linux machine. I got sick of always fixing machines. So, when I went home, I just wanted something that worked. After leaving support, I built a Tri-boot machine in 2007 to keep current, and the hardest part was getting current video card drivers for the then new NVidia 8800GTS to run flawlessly on Ubuntu — let’s not even talk about Debian’s piss poor performance out of the gate. These issues were remedied, but not for at least a quarter as far as I recall. Dropping into init 1 to fix things was also a PITA. The performance on Linux felt snappier than OS X of that era, but the navigation sucked, and reconfiguring dual-homed networking meant a trip to the command line. To me a lot of the configuration chores on both Linux and Windows were a waste of time.
Aside from the app availability and polish of the UI, all the Horsepower in the world won’t make up for lost time of a crappy UI (Linux GUI shells — some of which are also backsliding— or Windows). Most computers these days are faster than their users, meaning the bottle neck is user input and navigation. With OS X I still have excellent 3rd party software to speed navigation (default folder, alfred, etc), and file search works which is something I could never say about any version of Windows. Linux varients have some appeal, but the UI is still clunky compared to the sophistication of OS X.
It doesn't take much to see that Apple is going for a future entry level OS X device built to its mobile standards; no internal expansion, fanless, pocketable, the ultimate appliance. Same place Intel is heading. Might even look like a mobile device; I hope so.
What's the point of internal expansion anymore, it will all be done externally, and using mobile memory and storage is just the last step. I look forward to USB 3.1 Type C connectors and Thunderbolt 3: the future.
If this Mac Mini isn't your cup of tea, neither will future ones be.
Motorola did a study many years ago around the time of the Mac clone period. They found that 95% of computer users did not upgrade their computers.
I'm sure those people either didn't care or they just upgraded their whole machine later.
You could say Apple is going for the lowest common denominator in consumers of targeting those who don't care about specs and just want something that works.
Seems a lot of people who visit the Apple store are like that. They are not computer literate. They just want something that works well with their phones.
Okay, enjoy your lies.
4GB is not enough for any of the operating system releases of the last 3 years, and Apple are a bunch of crooks for selling Macs with less than 8GB at this point.
We have an early 2009 MacBook with 4 GB of RAM. Did a standard (not clean) install of Yosemite. Seems to work just fine.
4GB is okay for most people. Fine for base model. Sucks its soldered in and is not user upgradable though.
Motorola did a study many years ago around the time of the Mac clone period. They found that 95% of computer users did not upgrade their computers.
I'm sure those people either didn't care or they just upgraded their whole machine later.
You could say Apple is going for the lowest common denominator in consumers of targeting those who don't care about specs and just want something that works.
Seems a lot of people who visit the Apple store are like that. They are not computer literate. They just want something that works well with their phones.
It's not so much that they're not computer literate. It's that to the average consumer the computer (or computing device) is just an appliance, or tool, to get stuff done. The have no interest whatsoever to tinker with the guts of the device. Hence the purpose of the Genius Bar, if you're lucky enough to have an Apple Store within your area.
Okay. We don’t care. Enjoy your garbage.
There's no need to go this far. Mac OS X is great, but saying everything else is garbage is...well, garbage.
Microsoft's biggest problem is that they've never gotten a handle of the virus issue. They seem to think they have a usability problem.
Mac users who have been freed from dealing with Windows viruses (and macros, etc.), won't ever go back to that.
Apple advises use only up to 8 gigs of memory not 16 they told me about the 2011 model I own.
FYI, Crucial RAM and OWC both offer to sell 16 GB for the mid 2011 Mac mini machine
This happens a lot, where Apple will list a lower max RAM because the machine was manufactured at time when the DIMMs only had less per chip, so at time of mfg, the choice was probably maxed at 2 x 4GB = 8GB.
But now with higher density RAM, it can be more: 2 x 8GB = 16 GB. (and Apple does not go back and boost their max RAM numbers)
I have regularly installed the Crucial or OWC higher RAM amounts in various Macs with no problems encountered.
Perhaps they need some coding messiah to come in and save the day. At which point, Microsoft can exclaim, "Hallelujah!"
Perhaps they need some coding messiah to come in and save the day. At which point, Microsoft can exclaim, "Hallelujah!"
Cute. Yeah they definitely need to get an handle on the issue.
Maybe debut a second OS directed at Mac and Linux switchers that breaks with traditional Windows code and isn't as susceptible to the multitude of Windows viruses. I have no idea whether that would work commercially, but no sane Mac switcher is going back to worrying daily about thousands of PC viruses.
I like Mac OS X, but having a real choice would be nice. When Apple is unchallenged, things get crazy bad very fast.
The new lower-entry price is great but with non-user-upgradable RAM I'd have to get the 16GiB to maximize longevity. I also don't care for the 1.4GHz processor. Since it'll be an Time Machine and iTunes Server (and hopefully a VPN server) I think my best longterm option for the price is a Mac mini with GigE and USB 3.0 which means I can get a Late-2012 Mac mini once Apple updates their Refurbished store.
you can buy a synology NAS that does/has everything you mentioned and much more (Time Machine server, iTunes Server, VPN server, GigE, USB 3.0), much better (RAID, etc), for much less than the mac mini configuration you're contemplating.
as I stated elsewhere, I'm very glad I bought the mini server quad core I7 model just before it was discontinued. with 7200RPM drives and 16GB ram running yosemite, it's a developer's dream machine.
this new mini stuff, ugh.
I was considering the upgrade to the mac mini, I have the mid 2011 mac mini, i put 16gb of ram in it, mainly because this machine is on 24/7, i love this thing, since it doesn't need to be a power house (i have my rMBP) I might just keep my 2011 mac mini & put an SSD in it, its starting to show its age a bit, the SSD should help extend its life.
I'm kinda sad about the non upgradable ram in the new one, i got the basic entry mac mini in 2011, it had 2gb of ram at the time, the upgrade to 8gb cost almost as much as the system
so i put in 16gb myself, was maybe $120 at the time, which does work, never had an issue.
ram upgrades aren't a serious thing to do, the new iMac lets users upgrade it, this seems more strategic from apple than practical.
Meh, cue vehement screeching from a tiny minority, 95% of people won't give a shit. Really, upgrading memory is hardly done anymore and not as necessary as it used to be. Non-issue.
That's utter bollocks.
I bought this model (Pro), rather than the Air, simply due to it's upgrade-ability, and that decision hasn't been proven wrong.
A cheapish lesson to never buy any apple basic config, but the big issue for me is that there are many shops locally selling Apple products (Macbook, IMac and Mac Mini) but they only ever have the basic config available and, to be honest, there's no Apple shops around here and I don't want to order online.
So, having non-upgradeable memory (whether it's retina macbook, iMac or Mac Mini) certainly is a deterrent for me.
TBH, I don't think Apple care in the slightest . they're now the big corporate machine, they're selling hardware and just want to sell more, so....
You are dead wrong people upgrade their memory a lot now.
This always happens when people compare their experiences with older models. The base Retina Macbook Pro now has 16GB soldered so what this means is that vs the 2012 model where it came with 4GB and you had to order 16GB from a 3rd party, open it up yourself and install it, you now get it bundled. There may be a chance you'd need 24GB or 32GB in future but it's unlikely. Soldered RAM means the IGPs get proper memory bandwidth.
Now, if you buy an entry model machine with 4GB or 8GB and find that it's not enough, chances are you bought the wrong machine in the first place but it's not a big deal as you can sell it and buy the right machine to use with a suitable amount of memory.
DDR4 with Broadwell doubles the density so I expect memory prices will fall lower than DDR3 eventually. Imagine that RAM prices drop low enough that 8GB is in every entry machine, 16GB is minimum in every iMac/MBP or higher and you get 24-32GB upgrades in those for $200-400, that's not much to complain about. All the problems that happen with transitions become irrelevant in a couple of years.
This always happens when people compare their experiences with older models. The base Retina Macbook Pro now has 16GB soldered so what this means is that vs the 2012 model where it came with 4GB and you had to order 16GB from a 3rd party, open it up yourself and install it, you now get it bundled. There may be a chance you'd need 24GB or 32GB in future but it's unlikely. Soldered RAM means the IGPs get proper memory bandwidth.
Now, if you buy an entry model machine with 4GB or 8GB and find that it's not enough, chances are you bought the wrong machine in the first place but it's not a big deal as you can sell it and buy the right machine to use with a suitable amount of memory.
DDR4 with Broadwell doubles the density so I expect memory prices will fall lower than DDR3 eventually. Imagine that RAM prices drop low enough that 8GB is in every entry machine, 16GB is minimum in every iMac/MBP or higher and you get 24-32GB upgrades in those for $200-400, that's not much to complain about. All the problems that happen with transitions become irrelevant in a couple of years.
The base 15" Pro has 16Gb, not the 13" which has 8gb
What happens in 2-3 years when 8Gb is not enough. You're screwed - like many people who complain about soldered in memory..
It is far more imprtant that I can expand teh memory than "getting propoer memory bandwidth"!!
And, no, i'm not using it with with any special software, just numerous desktops and applications open simultaneously. It worked fine like that when I got it, but after Mavericks it did not. simples. Built in obsolescence..
I should not be having to worry about buying the right machine with the "right" amount of memory, it's obviously one of those things you might want or need to increase depending on which software you might need to use or which lame OS has been released..
Now, if you buy an entry model machine with 4GB or 8GB and find that it's not enough, chances are you bought the wrong machine in the first place but it's not a big deal as you can sell it and buy the right machine to use with a suitable amount of memory.
I'm sorry, that's insane. This is a machine for switchers. Telling people new to the platform to sell their new machine and buy a different one is an exercise in business failure.
Apple's going to have to up the base RAM in the Mini to 8GB as soon as they can.
It's obvious the Mini offerings (like the rest of the Mac line) are meant to push people toward the higher tier. But this is the budget machine, it's not like the rest of the line.
It's for the budget-conscious and tinkerers who want to experiment with integrations.
And I'd guess the lowest rung is the most popular choice. Apple has deliberately priced the line so that the iMac looks like a better value. Who buys Minis that cost $1000?
If you're going to deny upgrades, the specs have to be good in the first place.