There is a huge gap both in capability and price between the mini and the Mac Pro. This big of a gap does not exist in the laptop and iMac lines. Mac mini at $699 and Mac Pro starting at $2499. How about something halfway between at $1299-$1599?
I've been using Macs maybe 6 or 7 years, and I guess I asked this question back then. The answer was that Apple won't introduce a "middle of the range" tower because it would cannibalise MacPro sales.
Apple feel they have to have these very high end Mac Pros because, even though hardly anyone wants to buy them, the people that do need that performance (for music- and video- and image-editing) are the very top of their field and very influential - the 0.1% cream of the crop. If Apple could cost-effectively make and sell MacPros to these people and the the mid-range tower to the next 1.9% or 4.9% of the market, then they would do so. But the 0.1% cream of the crop isn't a big enough market to enable MacPros to be manufactured cost-effectively.
So what Apple does is sell the iMac / Mac Mini range as slightly too gimped for people like us, to widen the Mac Pro market to 2% or 5%, so that we're driven to buy one. Not all of us do, of course, but there are plenty of local wedding photographers and graphic designers who presently buy Mac Pros but who would be all over a mid-range model in a heartbeat. For these guys a couple of grand's savings is not to be sniffed at - if you've got 5 employees using MacPros that's maybe 10 grand in the boss's pocket, if he can switch them to a cheaper model. Of course it's not worth doing that, if the employees are less productive, and thus the gimpification of the Mini.
The Mac Mini's specification has improved over the last few iterations - I was really surprised when I learned Apple had released one with dual video-out. For me, that is the killer feature that had previously driven me to buy PowerMacs (MacPro's predecessor), though the price sorely stretched me. Consequently, I can't rule out a mid-range model, but I think it's pretty unlikely. I won't be surprised by Apple, anymore, and if they released one tomorrow I'd shake your hand and commend your perspicacity, but they haven't released a mid-range model in the last decade, why do you think they'd release one now?
I joined this thread to find out more about the next model of Mac Mini, not circlejerk about what I'd like Apple to sell. I don't intend this as a dig at you personally, but I think talking about what we'd all dream of in a mid-range model is derailing the speculation somewhat. I think when I speculated about the power consumption of quad-cores in relation to Minis then that's me circlejerking, too - why would Apple release a quad-core Mini at 1/3 or 1/4 the price of their cheapest Mac Pro? I really want a quad-core Mac Mini, because I can't afford a Pro, but thinking like that I can't see them doing so until they have dropped the quad-core Pro and established 8 cores as the lowest-end of Pro. Maybe I could see a range of 6-, 8- and 12-core Mac Pros in Q1 2011, then a quad-core Mini in Q4. Currently most of Intel's quad-core chips are three to four times the power consumption of those in the Mini.
Right now it is like Apple has a small car and a full size car. Apple doesn't seem to know that mid size cars is the largest market.
Except the largest market is for laptops. In recent years Apple's largest-selling products has been laptops, and they have come to be one of the largest vendors of laptop computers, including all the PC manufacturers out there. They have achieved this by responding to their laptop successes with a wide and embracing selection of laptops - their MacBook ranges are excellent, I doubt if anyone is seriously complaining about gaps in it (more than minor niggles).
Apple instead wants all of us to buy crossovers which is what the iMac is. It does a little bit of everything to try to fill the most roles but because it is packaged the way it is it isn't going to be the best at any of them. Too many compromises.
You have to understand Job's psychology in this. I can't say I have medical qualifications or any great insight, but it's clear that he rules the company from the top-down, that he is a perfectionist and that design is important to him. All Apple's creations are results of his "vision" - Steve probably feels that it's not the iMac that's a compromise, but the Mac Mini and even the Pro. The iMac is this simple, elegant product, a computer that anyone can use, that (for the end-user) has no complexity.
I used to know an architect with this amazing designer home - he had several pieces of furniture which were famous for their notable design, Eames chairs and stuff like this. The place was an old cottage (maybe 17th century, or something), but inside it had white painted walls and minimal clutter, which led it to feel airy and spacious; carefully selected objects provided splashes of colour and interest. This home was exactly how you'd expect an architect or well-off designer to live, and this guy had an iMac - it fitted perfectly into his vision, which he probably shares quite closely with Steve.
A little old lady buys an iMac, she doesn't need to know whether she needs a VGA or DVI monitor; she doesn't even have to plug in the monitor, getting confused about which connector to use (as I have seen PC buyers do). She doesn't even have to plug in the keyboard! Wireless keyboards are now standard on iMacs - she just plugs in the power and switches it on. This is what Steve believes in - it's how he sees the world, and it's the world he wants to live in. iMacs and MacBooks fit perfectly into this vision, much much more so than the other models in the Apple range.
I ****ing hate the iMac. I think it's retarded that you have to throw away a monitor when you want to upgrade the CPU. But you have to understand that iMacs are a core product for Apple.
Look at Jeep. Lot's of models that are designed to try to meet the needs of lots of people but the Wrangler which is the best at being a Jeep is outselling all the other models. The Wrangler isn't the cheapest Jeep ( Mac mini) and it isn't the most expensive Jeep (Mac Pro) but it is the one most Jeep buyers want.
Instead of a Wrangler Apple gives us a Honda Element (iMac).
A very different market - lots of factors influence this, including economies of scale and demands upon the Apple's design team. Apart from anything else, Jeep don't have to redesign their engines every 2 years to accommodate a completely new generation of CPU.
Stroller.
