Apple's Mac mini an 'important product,' staying in lineup

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 56
    Mac mini 901 days
    Mac pro 1202 days

    Yeh real important
    Are you one of the single-digit percentage of Mac customers who actually own a Mac Pro? If not, why complain?
    What does that matter? It is not ok to abandon your users like this.
    I find the insesant complaining by people who don't even own or plan to own Pros childish and revealing an ulterior motive. 

    As for the line, while it's easy to build products in the safe confines of your head, reality is a different beast. things happen. As Craig explained they bet on parallel processing being the future of GPUs but the industry didn't go there. Pro was thermally constrained by this bet. things happen. time machines don't actually exist. 

    But it let me guess, you've never misstepped at your job or business? Must be nice. Then again, you don't make as many forward thinking, big bets and risks with your product lines as Apple does. With their big bets come big rewards. 
    Right...heaven forbid someone from being thoroughly disappointed in Apple for not updating a technology product for 2-3 years.  Definitely an ulterior motive there.
    williamlondonentropys
  • Reply 22 of 56
    Just hanging out here - money (effectively) in hand - waiting for the new Mac Mini to be released to replace my old one. I don't care about Apple's communication (or lack thereof) on this matter. It's been a long time so there's no sense in buying the current version.

    This is one case where better communication on their part would have perhaps made an additional sale: I've been waiting for over a year because... well, the Mini was due for an upgrade. But had I known a year ago that no upgrade was coming for at least a year, I might have just purchased an iMac or something else that was recently updated.

    But whatever. I'll just sit back and wait until the new one comes out.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 23 of 56
    blastdoorblastdoor Posts: 3,258member
    All Schiller did was confirm what we know -- if you go to the Apple store, you can buy a Mac Mini. 

    He provided zero information about the future of this product. 


    lorin schultztallest skil
  • Reply 24 of 56
    brif said:
    I am happy to hear Mac Mini is still alive. It is, IMO, stuck in a vicious cycle of being underrated and underpowered, one the result of the other. Personally, I wonder why Apple doesn't tout it like the ultimate small business machine: I cannot help but think that many smaller companies would be better off buying it instead of buying low-spec'd PCs and then spending a fortune on maintenance.
    I would buy one if it could drive three displays. I currently drive three displays with my MacBook Pro
  • Reply 25 of 56
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    Apple will incorporate Vega2 GPGPUs from AMD and those come out late Fall 2017.
    scottw2 said:
    I use a Mac Mini as my main computing machine. I'm an advanced user and would like to see the following feature:

    (1) Upgradable RAM & SSD. Apple can make a Mac-not-so-Mini (or call it just a Mac!) to accommodate that

    (2) More ports on the front

    (3) Discrete GPU option (hey, Apple is making its own graphics chips soon)
    Vega that is coming this month from AMD fits inside Notebook form factors. So you can expect that in the iMac, Macbooks and Mac Mini being on-board with HBM2 memory.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 26 of 56
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,834member
    Mac mini 901 days
    Mac pro 1202 days

    Yeh real important
    Are you one of the single-digit percentage of Mac customers who actually own a Mac Pro? If not, why complain?
    What does that matter? It is not ok to abandon your users like this.
    I find the insesant complaining by people who don't even own or plan to own Pros childish and revealing an ulterior motive. 

    As for the line, while it's easy to build products in the safe confines of your head, reality is a different beast. things happen. As Craig explained they bet on parallel processing being the future of GPUs but the industry didn't go there. Pro was thermally constrained by this bet. things happen. time machines don't actually exist. 

    But it let me guess, you've never misstepped at your job or business? Must be nice. Then again, you don't make as many forward thinking, big bets and risks with your product lines as Apple does. With their big bets come big rewards. 
    Right...heaven forbid someone from being thoroughly disappointed in Apple for not updating a technology product for 2-3 years.  Definitely an ulterior motive there.
    Being disappointed is fine. Apple is disappointed to, if you read the source material. They took a chance on where they thought the industry was going w/ GPU processing and it didn't come to fruition. Shit happens. If you've ever run a business you'd understand this point painfully well. But the amount of incessant complaining and foot-stomping isn't merely being disappointed -- it's being a hater, or at the least an irrational child. It's equivalent of stomping your feet on the ground because you dont have the thing you want when you want it.

    And the crazy part -- most of the foot-stompers don't even buy the Pros. Again: the MP is a "single-digit" of all Mac sales. Yet going by the amount of foot-stomping you'd think you each had one, but we know that's not the case. So it's just whining for whining's sake.


    edited April 2017 williamlondondewmepscooter63watto_cobra
  • Reply 27 of 56
    blastdoor said:
    All Schiller did was confirm what we know -- if you go to the Apple store, you can buy a Mac Mini. 

    He provided zero information about the future of this product. 



    Exactly what I was going to say.  Would he have said anything differently if the plan were to stop selling the mini the day the new iMacs or Pros go on sale?
    blastdoor
  • Reply 28 of 56
    I have a late 2012 quad-core i7, 2.3GHz, 16GB MacMini and it's absolutely fantastic as a Kodi and PLEX media machine for my HDTV. I personally upgraded the memory and storage. Nowadays you can't even buy a quad-core MacMini and they're all completely sealed. How stupid is that? Although they still seem to sell out, even the refurbished MacMini prices are high for the dual-core i7 models. My quad-core MacMini is only 100% taxed when I encode video files, otherwise, it barely breaks a sweat. It's a great little desktop. If Apple built newer ones like that, I'd buy it in an instant. The newer MacMinis have updated Iris Pro Graphics.  But only a dual-core processor for that price?  Jeez.  I want more threads for that money.

     I really just don't understand Apple. I'm sure people would buy more MacMinis if they could upgrade them and could order quad-core processors. Why is Apple so stingy on specs? Look at H-Ps Elite Slice. It's not perfect but you can easily get to the components.  It looks nice to me. I know Apple is a far better company than H-P but Apple keeps pulling some bonehead desktop moves as far as I'm concerned.  Apple's design team can't even produce something like the Elite Slice?  C'mon, Apple.  I'm only one person who is only going to buy a computer every five years or so. I'm not that high on Apple's list and I get that much.

    I really like my Apple products but I'd feel more secure if I could have control over my iMac's hard drive if it fails. Apple won't even give it back to me if they need to replace it. I find that scary.
    edited April 2017 danceswithlysol
  • Reply 29 of 56
    eightzeroeightzero Posts: 3,056member
    blastdoor said:
    All Schiller did was confirm what we know -- if you go to the Apple store, you can buy a Mac Mini. 

    He provided zero information about the future of this product. 



    Exactly what I was going to say.  Would he have said anything differently if the plan were to stop selling the mini the day the new iMacs or Pros go on sale?
    No. I rather believe him.
     
    Would you have been surprised if the mini had disappeared yesterday before his comments? And then compare that answer to if it had disappeared today after his comments.

    watto_cobra
  • Reply 30 of 56
    eightzero said:
    blastdoor said:
    All Schiller did was confirm what we know -- if you go to the Apple store, you can buy a Mac Mini. 

    He provided zero information about the future of this product. 



    Exactly what I was going to say.  Would he have said anything differently if the plan were to stop selling the mini the day the new iMacs or Pros go on sale?
    No. I rather believe him.
     
    Would you have been surprised if the mini had disappeared yesterday before his comments? And then compare that answer to if it had disappeared today after his comments.


    I believe him too.  So what?  Nothing in his comment says that Apple will be selling Mac minis or anything like them 12 months from now.  I do believe that they won't stop selling them without an announcement though, so that's something.

    Here's what we know:

    Near the end, John Paczkowski had the presence of mind to ask about the Mac Mini, which hadn’t been mentioned at all until that point. Schiller: “On that I’ll say the Mac Mini is an important product in our lineup and we weren’t bringing it up because it’s more of a mix of consumer with some pro use. … The Mac Mini remains a product in our lineup, but nothing more to say about it today.”

    He didn't say "the Mac Mini WILL remain a product in our line up" he just said it is.  Until something changes in which case it no longer will be.

    All I expect is that we will learn the fate of the mini "later this year" when the new iMacs are announced since those are the consumer products and the mini is (in Apple's eye's) mostly a consumer product.

    blastdoor
  • Reply 31 of 56
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    There's almost no technical reason a Mac mini couldn't be reengineered to be as small as an iPhone, plus the additional size of ports, these days.
  • Reply 32 of 56
    davendaven Posts: 696member
    Interesting concept. I just read a Forbes article comparing the iPhone 7 to Galaxy 8. In it they said that a Galaxy 8 can be attached to an external monitor and keyboard and function as an Android desktop. Withe the processing power of current chips it would be an interesting concept to make an iPhone/iPad function that way. Give Xcode the functionality where you can design apps where the GUI can switch between iOS for an iOS device or iOS for desktop use. Granted much of a program's development effort is in the GUI so I'm not sure how much effort it would save but from a home user perspective, having all your work with you is an interesting concept especially if you do a lot of it wirelessly.
    GeorgeBMac
  • Reply 33 of 56
    djames4242djames4242 Posts: 651member

    And the crazy part -- most of the foot-stompers don't even buy the Pros. Again: the MP is a "single-digit" of all Mac sales. Yet going by the amount of foot-stomping you'd think you each had one, but we know that's not the case. So it's just whining for whining's sake.
    I'm disappointed, and I might even (mentally) stamp my foot from time to time even though I'm one of those who is unlikely to ever buy a Mac Pro. It's overkill for me. Does that mean I shouldn't wish Apple would keep it relevant? No, because I don't want to see the flood of professional users swing over to Windows. It makes the Mac less relevant, and it makes the Pro apps (which I do use) less relevant and potentially less likely to be kept up-to-date. I've got a Lightroom subscription, but I'm still clinging on to Aperture because its workflow (if not its filters) still beats Adobe's by a long mile. I hope to see Final Cut Pro and Logic stick around because the alternatives are far more expensive.

    Basically, I want my tools to continue to work and to continue to be upgraded. Every person who defects to a competing platform makes that possibility that much less likely.
  • Reply 34 of 56
    freeperfreeper Posts: 77member
    brif said:
    I am happy to hear Mac Mini is still alive. It is, IMO, stuck in a vicious cycle of being underrated and underpowered, one the result of the other. Personally, I wonder why Apple doesn't tout it like the ultimate small business machine: I cannot help but think that many smaller companies would be better off buying it instead of buying low-spec'd PCs and then spending a fortune on maintenance.
    Pardon me, but this mentality is precisely why Mac Minis never caught on. Rather than make a legitimate attempt to compete for market share in the PC market, Apple chose to play to the idea that people chose Windows devices over Macs merely because they are cheap, so they threw a bare bones low spec device at people and claimed "here Windows cheapskates now you have no excuse for avoiding our superior brand and tech!" Please. First off, no one is buying desktops anymore. Everyone buys laptops. Which puts a device with no display, keyboard, trackpad/mouse functionality or battery/mobility at a huge disadvantage. For goodness sakes, a company - no matter the size - would have more use for an iPad than an underpowered desktop. And that is another thing: it is underpowered. People do pay attention to specs, even the ignorant, unwashed cheap Microsoft consumers. Virtually no one is going to buy something with 4 GB of RAM and a middling CPU ... basically the same specs that even Chromebooks have these days. A device with so little power can't be used to do much in the way of actual work, even if it does come with macOS, and everyone knows it. Yes, there are bargain basement Windows laptops with 4 GB of RAM and i3 or i5 processors and 100 Mbit Ethernet and/or 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi being sold, but not very many, and nearly all of them are being bought by consumers, not businesses, small or otherwise. Apple is perfectly capable of making laptops that can actually compete with, say, a Dell XPS on specs while costs just a little bit more while still giving a good margin. Just as they were able to sell an iPad for $299 and eventually finally gave in and started selling iPhones for $399 (albeit years too late for it to matter). Why don't they? The same reason why they didn't make iPhones with screens bigger than 4 inches until 4-5 years after it was obvious that such devices were useful and popular: stubbornness and pride.
    williamlondon
  • Reply 35 of 56
    appexappex Posts: 687member
    Not only is important the brand new Mac mini, but also the brand new Apple Thunderbolt Display for it and the brand new Mac Pro.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 36 of 56
    Hmmm, well after you purchase a mouse, keyboard, and display, aren't you spending what you would spend on a MacBook? What are the advantages of owning a Mac Mini as opposed to a MacBook?
  • Reply 37 of 56
    freeper said:

    Pardon me, but this mentality is precisely why Mac Minis never caught on. Rather than make a legitimate attempt to compete for market share in the PC market, Apple chose to play to the idea that people chose Windows devices over Macs merely because they are cheap, so they threw a bare bones low spec device at people and claimed "here Windows cheapskates now you have no excuse for avoiding our superior brand and tech!" Please. First off, no one is buying desktops anymore. Everyone buys laptops. Which puts a device with no display, keyboard, trackpad/mouse functionality or battery/mobility at a huge disadvantage. For goodness sakes, a company - no matter the size - would have more use for an iPad than an underpowered desktop. And that is another thing: it is underpowered. People do pay attention to specs, even the ignorant, unwashed cheap Microsoft consumers. Virtually no one is going to buy something with 4 GB of RAM and a middling CPU ... basically the same specs that even Chromebooks have these days. A device with so little power can't be used to do much in the way of actual work, even if it does come with macOS, and everyone knows it. Yes, there are bargain basement Windows laptops with 4 GB of RAM and i3 or i5 processors and 100 Mbit Ethernet and/or 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi being sold, but not very many, and nearly all of them are being bought by consumers, not businesses, small or otherwise. Apple is perfectly capable of making laptops that can actually compete with, say, a Dell XPS on specs while costs just a little bit more while still giving a good margin. Just as they were able to sell an iPad for $299 and eventually finally gave in and started selling iPhones for $399 (albeit years too late for it to matter). Why don't they? The same reason why they didn't make iPhones with screens bigger than 4 inches until 4-5 years after it was obvious that such devices were useful and popular: stubbornness and pride.
    I'm not sure that's entirely fair. I work from home 90% of the time and I use a mid-2011 Mac Mini as my primary machine. It has a dual-core, 2.3ghz i5 processor. Pretty moderate even six years ago. It still chugs along just fine and does most of what I need it to do. I run Windows 10 in a VM most of the time with multiple development environments, and I run a number of Mac applications alongside it (right now I've got Aperture and OmniGraffle running, a number of terminal windows, and a flash-based Internet radio site playing in the background).

    I do agree that 4gb or RAM is (and was at the time) too little, and alongside a memory upgrade I also had to immediately replace its slow HDD with a SSD. I will also agree with your points that the $499 Mac Mini is stupidly underpowered, but the other models (especially paired with PCI-E SSD drives) are perfectly usable in a corporate environment. In fact, my Mac Mini hasn't had a moment of unplanned downtime while my Windows laptop using cohorts have all been down on multiple occasions when their machines ate themselves. And those laptops my company provides us are comparatively underpowered even considering the fact that they are five years newer. My company provided laptop (which I never, ever use) runs an i3 processor and came with a whopping 4gb or RAM and a 120gb SSD.
    stompywatto_cobra
  • Reply 38 of 56
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    Are you one of the single-digit percentage of Mac customers who actually own a Mac Pro? If not, why complain?
    I’m a Mac Pro owner and I’ll gladly help complain about the Mac Mini. I couldn’t tell you how many people I’ve helped enjoy Macs for the first time thanks to the Mini, but the damn thing needs an update, even for casual users.
    pscooter63
  • Reply 39 of 56
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,834member

    And the crazy part -- most of the foot-stompers don't even buy the Pros. Again: the MP is a "single-digit" of all Mac sales. Yet going by the amount of foot-stomping you'd think you each had one, but we know that's not the case. So it's just whining for whining's sake.
    I'm disappointed, and I might even (mentally) stamp my foot from time to time even though I'm one of those who is unlikely to ever buy a Mac Pro. It's overkill for me. Does that mean I shouldn't wish Apple would keep it relevant? No, because I don't want to see the flood of professional users swing over to Windows. It makes the Mac less relevant, and it makes the Pro apps (which I do use) less relevant and potentially less likely to be kept up-to-date. I've got a Lightroom subscription, but I'm still clinging on to Aperture because its workflow (if not its filters) still beats Adobe's by a long mile. I hope to see Final Cut Pro and Logic stick around because the alternatives are far more expensive.

    Basically, I want my tools to continue to work and to continue to be upgraded. Every person who defects to a competing platform makes that possibility that much less likely.
    So did you actually read all the background info, like the Daring Fireball article? There is no flood of Pro users fleeing for Windows -- the Pro has terrible sales numbers. More, Apple said most of the pro application uses use MacBooks and iMacs, which will never go away even if the Pro does. This is because modern machines are very, very capable. They do what you used to need a workstation for, but now don't. Thus the software isn't going anywhere. 
    williamlondonRayz2016watto_cobra
  • Reply 40 of 56
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,834member
    freeper said:
    brif said:
    I am happy to hear Mac Mini is still alive. It is, IMO, stuck in a vicious cycle of being underrated and underpowered, one the result of the other. Personally, I wonder why Apple doesn't tout it like the ultimate small business machine: I cannot help but think that many smaller companies would be better off buying it instead of buying low-spec'd PCs and then spending a fortune on maintenance.
    Pardon me, but this mentality is precisely why Mac Minis never caught on. Rather than make a legitimate attempt to compete for market share in the PC market, Apple chose to play to the idea that people chose Windows devices over Macs merely because they are cheap, so they threw a bare bones low spec device at people and claimed "here Windows cheapskates now you have no excuse for avoiding our superior brand and tech!" Please. First off, no one is buying desktops anymore. Everyone buys laptops. Which puts a device with no display, keyboard, trackpad/mouse functionality or battery/mobility at a huge disadvantage. For goodness sakes, a company - no matter the size - would have more use for an iPad than an underpowered desktop. And that is another thing: it is underpowered. People do pay attention to specs, even the ignorant, unwashed cheap Microsoft consumers. Virtually no one is going to buy something with 4 GB of RAM and a middling CPU ... basically the same specs that even Chromebooks have these days. A device with so little power can't be used to do much in the way of actual work, even if it does come with macOS, and everyone knows it. Yes, there are bargain basement Windows laptops with 4 GB of RAM and i3 or i5 processors and 100 Mbit Ethernet and/or 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi being sold, but not very many, and nearly all of them are being bought by consumers, not businesses, small or otherwise. Apple is perfectly capable of making laptops that can actually compete with, say, a Dell XPS on specs while costs just a little bit more while still giving a good margin. Just as they were able to sell an iPad for $299 and eventually finally gave in and started selling iPhones for $399 (albeit years too late for it to matter). Why don't they? The same reason why they didn't make iPhones with screens bigger than 4 inches until 4-5 years after it was obvious that such devices were useful and popular: stubbornness and pride.
    Nope, wrong. Ive said very clearly in the new yorker article -- they experimented with big phones way back during the 4, but they were too clunky due to thickness. Only once they got the shell down did it feel right. 

    Inversely, the knockoffs only went big because they sucked at processing and needed the bigger battery to make up for it. In effect they couldn't make competitive smaller phones. 
    williamlondonwatto_cobra
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