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2011 Mac Mini - Speculation

Lankyman said:
Yes the do stock them in the Apple stores but you are unlikely to see them either on display or on the shelf, they tend to keep them in the back. Be prepared for plenty of dissuasive sales talk though as they will try to sell the negatives of buying a Mini and upsell you to the iMac - least this has been my experience at three different Apple stores.
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It's funny that all the Best Buys I've visited (which is only about 10, not a big sample) have the current generation mini on display. Typically, though, it's not on display in the little Apple station area, but it's never that far away. They've always been on the stock metal shelving.

mrklaw said:
thats disappointing. Surely they can see there are a reasonable number of people wanting a HTPC and for that an imac is pointless - it'll block the view of my TV :)
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And this is how Best Buy usually displays the mini, as an HTPC hooked up to a non-apple monitor and to a HDTV instead.
 
The Apple store in Los Gatos had one Mini server on display the last time I was there. I had to ask to find it; the sales guy looked at me like I was stupid.
 
Lankyman said:
Yes the do stock them in the Apple stores but you are unlikely to see them either on display or on the shelf, they tend to keep them in the back. Be prepared for plenty of dissuasive sales talk though as they will try to sell the negatives of buying a Mini and upsell you to the iMac - least this has been my experience at three different Apple stores.
Click to expand...

This was my experience at a couple of Apple stores in the US as well. When I bought my 2010 mini back in March, they did have the mini on display but you really had to look for it -- it was in an alcove to the left of the main body of the store. And they definitely tried to tell me I didn't want a mini, because it sucks for video transcoding and such (never mind that the then-current iMac was also not great for transcoding). They even said it was for people who didn't know about computers, etc (I thought that was Apple's whole clientele!). And of course once it was clear I wasn't budging they then push the AppleCare extension to protect what a few minutes before was said to be a horrible outdated computer.

I have a feeling they know that once you walk in the store you've already made up your mind to buy an Apple product, so they see their goal as to make you buy the most profitable product. Few people walk into Apple Store like they would walk into Best Buy or Circuit City and say "hmm, should I buy a computer or not?"
 
Tombs said:
? Not sure thats right, both Kingston and Wimbledon branches had a few on display when I went in there not so long ago.
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As I said "the ones I have been in" e.g. Manchester Arndale, Trafford Centre, Liverpool and one in the Bullring Birmingham. All had the Server version none the base Mini.
 
neo179neo said:
Just sold my 6 month old mac mini, which i got at 15% off... with a magic trackpad i got given, for £650...

MUG!!!

:D
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So now you're cash rich what are you going to replace it with?

If the rumours surrounding the possible discontinuation of the MacBook prove to be correct (just posted on the homepage) let's hope the Mini isn't about to suffer the same fate eh?

I am of the opinion that if the Mini does continue and receives an upgrade then it is only likely to be modest. I don't see Apple giving it a better spec or even equal to their base model iMac. Why would they, it wouldn't make good business sense for them to do so.
 
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Just going to replace it with a brand new mac mini when they get released... i only use it as HTPC connected to my drobo...

Plus i actually got a steal on a MacBook Pro 15" 2.4Ghz, 750GB HDD, 8GB Ram in near enough mint condition... £600 last week...

Been quite lucky of late :D

Bring on LION!!!
 
Lankyman said:
One of the real questions that should be asked at least for UK buyers is why Apple go out of their way to "not" advertise the existence of the Mini at all? You will not find the Mini on display or even mentioned in the sales blurb at any of the Apple resellers that I know of. Indeed the Apple sales blurb simply asks "which Mac is right for you" and then shows all the Apple computer products MINUS any mention of the Mini. You can buy a Mini from a UK Apple reseller but only through their online stores not INstore.

Even Apple's own stores don't display the base Mini, some don't display a Mini at all and at those that do I have only ever seen the "server" version hooked up to a Cinema display.

Whether this is down to SJ influence or simply because Apple are embarrassed by the existence of this product I'm not sure of but it certainly does nothing to raise its profile among buyers.
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I was in Apple store in Covent Garden this morning and asked one of the sales assistants if they had Mac Mins.

Bloke said he thought they had one towards the front if the store as woman had asked about one recently.

He then said he'd only been working for the Apple store for three weeks - and he had never even known Apple made such a computer as the Mini.
 
Lankyman said:
So now you're cash rich what are you going to replace it with?

If the rumours surrounding the possible discontinuation of the MacBook prove to be correct (just posted on the homepage) let's hope the Mini isn't about to suffer the same fate eh?

I am of the opinion that if the Mini does continue and receives an upgrade then it is only likely to be modest. I don't see Apple giving it a better spec or even equal to their base model iMac. Why would they, it wouldn't make good business sense for them to do so.
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Why? I'd like them to have the same basic internals, with three form factors. Mini if you have a monitor/TV; iMac if you don't; MBP if you want a laptop. I don't see where there is any particular conflict

There are plenty of people that don't want or need a monitor built into their computer. Better to keep hold of people that dont want an iMac, rather than leave them to buy a desktop.

Personally i'd like them to have a range of headless machines like they do laptops. The mini is the 'mac air', the mac pro is the - well - ’mac pro', and then have an in-between - bring on the cube!
 
Tulpa said:
This was my experience at a couple of Apple stores in the US as well. When I bought my 2010 mini back in March, they did have the mini on display but you really had to look for it -- it was in an alcove to the left of the main body of the store. And they definitely tried to tell me I didn't want a mini, because it sucks for video transcoding and such (never mind that the then-current iMac was also not great for transcoding). They even said it was for people who didn't know about computers, etc (I thought that was Apple's whole clientele!). And of course once it was clear I wasn't budging they then push the AppleCare extension to protect what a few minutes before was said to be a horrible outdated computer.

I have a feeling they know that once you walk in the store you've already made up your mind to buy an Apple product, so they see their goal as to make you buy the most profitable product. Few people walk into Apple Store like they would walk into Best Buy or Circuit City and say "hmm, should I buy a computer or not?"
Click to expand...
At my local store (in Southern California) I think they're off to the side and back with the Mac Pro and Apple TV setups, Mac mini and Mac Pro hooked up to 27"s and the ATV on some big plasma/LCD, iMacs on a table in the middle next to them. When the 2009 one came out it was on some island with a (current at the time) 24". No hassle on the sale either, of course it was new and a decent deal back then.

Considering what the biggest draws are (iPads, iPhones, notebooks) I'd probably do the same thing with them, especially considering their age.
Lankyman said:
I am of the opinion that if the Mini does continue and receives an upgrade then it is only likely to be modest. I don't see Apple giving it a better spec or even equal to their base model iMac. Why would they, it wouldn't make good business sense for them to do so.
Click to expand...
If they gave it equal specs to the iMac it'd either melt using the same parts or just cost a lot to approach the same performance using mobile parts.
 
Wonder with the Apple moving away from CD's with the release of Lion via the App Store if the Mini will only come as one model without the Super Drive?
 
FeaRThiS said:
I have it on good authority that the new mac mini will be released in 2011 :p
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damn it, ->:cool: guy told me he wouldn't let anybody else know!

Well with Lion coming soon, and the mini needing a refresh and DVD's being the past man.

I think the new mini will be ultra thin mini, although I kind of wish it weren't so, save some of that room and keep it for more power. Now if they go the way of the macbook air and imbed everything they could really improve the performance on that sucker!

Damn that mini would be plenty small...the macbook air and macbook is also do for an update. Get rid of the CD drives, embed everything, go with the way of flash and keep some room for more memory and battery and heck why doesn't apple just fuse the 3 together into 1 :eek:
 
accessoriesguy said:
damn it, ->:cool: guy told me he wouldn't let anybody else know!

Well with Lion coming soon, and the mini needing a refresh and DVD's being the past man.

I think the new mini will be ultra thin mini, although I kind of wish it weren't so, save some of that room and keep it for more power. Now if they go the way of the macbook air and imbed everything they could really improve the performance on that sucker!

Damn that mini would be plenty small...the macbook air and macbook is also do for an update. Get rid of the CD drives, embed everything, go with the way of flash and keep some room for more memory and battery and heck why doesn't apple just fuse the 3 together into 1 :eek:
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I will be buying the server version I don't see the need for a DVD drive anymore and flash based would be great for performance but unsure if they would use flash memory for a server version.
 
When the Mac Mini is updated, I will get the non-server version so that I can share its DVD with my Air. It will be a very sad thing to me if the base model does not come with a DVD.

I have a spare keyboard and a spare mouse for use on a Mac Mini which will also share a Cinema Display with my Air.
 
FrankHahn said:
When the Mac Mini is updated, I will get the non-server version so that I can share its DVD with my Air. It will be a very sad thing to me if the base model does not come with a DVD.
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Honestly, lacking a built-in optical drive probably wouldn't be as bad as you think it would be. External optical drives are fairly cheep, and if Apple does decide to remove the optical drive, they'll replace it with a second hard drive and give us more internal storage, just like in the current server model. You can always choose to get an external blu ray drive instead, too, since we know that Apple won't be using blu ray technology in their computers (if they do with the mini, I'd probably wet myself a little).

I really wonder if the 2011 server model in the next line up will still manage to get to that $999 price point like the 2010 server model. Since the software is going to be a lot cheaper, I can see the server model following in suit.
 
When I was in the UK Newcastle Apple store a few months ago they had the normal and server Mac Minis out on display to be played with. Shame they don't sell custom ones in the stores or I'd have bought one there and then. As it is it took Apple nearly 2 weeks to ship me one from China.

I would love a new one. I use one as my main browsing desktop. My mum uses one and I'd repurpose my current one as a media player hooked up to the TV downstairs.
 
I was reading the blurb for Lion this morning and one of the things Apple keep banging on about is apps being able to launch in full screen windows, hasn't MS and Windows been doing this since the year dot? :eek:
 
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