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Mac Mini Expected to Receive First Major Redesign Since 2010 Very Soon

I am more wondering how many people are actually buying mac minis or iMacs. People have moved to mobile.

Back in 2004-7 everyone wanted/had his own laptop, today no one wants even a desktop computer they do everything from their phones. The desktop computer returned to its original 1980s application, work and enthusiasts.
 
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sunapple said:
I would want to attach it to the back of a monitor. In that scenario the current form is a bit bulky. Don’t get me wrong I loved my minis, but I never liked having an otherwise useless brick on my desk.
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iMac?
 
The Mac ball. People will complain that it rolls here and there, though.

Mac-ball.jpg
 
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ttyRazor said:
The current case was sized to fit an optical drive, a hard disk and replaceable RAM. A lot of that volume doesn’t make sense any more, even after accounting for cooling.
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Of course, what the Mac Mini-like PC box makers do is “fill” spare space with consumer utility like m.2 storage slots… often at least 2 slots and sometimes more. Then those who want more storage can add it inside and pay market rates for up to 8TB per stick instead of 3 to 5 times market for only one such block of storage.

But why would any of us Mac people want that when we can have a smaller case instead?

How fun it will be to get that one-time “ooooh, ahhhhh” reaction to the tiniest Mac before all such first reactions are realized and nobody cares anymore. And if we want/need more storage, we can append it such that we end up needing MORE desk space than the old design for BOTH Mac Tiny + appendages... with beautiful cables running like spaghetti strands to connect it all. 🎉🎉🎉

Innovative victory is ours! Let the joy flow far & wide.
 
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zorinlynx said:
My question here is why does the Mac Mini have to be smaller? It's a desktop machine. I'd rather it stay the current size and maintain better thermal performance and also not have all the cables plugged into it crowded together in a huge mess that ends up dragging the machine around.
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It improves the bottom line for Apple. If they can fit 4 units into the shipping space that previously fit 1 unit, their shipping costs go down. Do that at scale, and you've meaningfully increased the margins of a product.
 
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ignatius345 said:
Amazed you got this far with it! My 2014 5K fusion drive died like 3 years ago.

It's like a couple hours' work to cut it open, yank out the HDD and replace it with an SSD, if you're handy and take it step by step. I think I spent maybe $250 on a repair kit from iFixit and a 1TB SSD. All that said, even with the SSD inside it was still massively slower than the M1 iMac I replaced it with...
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I'm still using a Late 2012 that originally had the fusion drive. Have replaced the PSU and the SSD part of the Fusion drive failed, so I'm booting from an external SSD. Will upgrade to the new Mini when it comes out.
 
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ThomasJL said:
Are people really excited that the Mac mini being redisgned to be smaller will inevitably mean the continuation of Tim Cook's corporate greed-based anti-consumer decision to prevent the entire Macintosh line from having upgradable memory and uprgadable hard drives?
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“The man” is always out to get you. Always.
 
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Slix said:
It's a Power Macintosh 6400! This isn't my photo though. If I had it handy I would have posted my Power Mac 8600 with its giant monitor. :p
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Thank you for the information. It is very interesting to me about the two PowerPCs that you mentioned.
 
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MacBH928 said:
I am more wondering how many people are actually buying mac minis or iMacs. People have moved to mobile.

Back in 2004-7 everyone wanted/had his own laptop, today no one wants even a desktop computer they do everything from their phones. The desktop computer returned to its original 1980s application, work and enthusiasts.
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People play video games. And edit photos and videos. And they want larger screens sometimes just for web browsing because that sucks on mobile.

And people have jobs lol
 
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MacBH928 said:
I am more wondering how many people are actually buying mac minis or iMacs. People have moved to mobile.

Back in 2004-7 everyone wanted/had his own laptop, today no one wants even a desktop computer they do everything from their phones. The desktop computer returned to its original 1980s application, work and enthusiasts.
Click to expand...
I'm on my second Mini. Love it. My Macbook is for moving around. I also do gaming from my desk so I go back and forth between gaming and work with a nice big monitor. I barely use my laptop, to be honest. My iPad gets more mileage than my laptop these days.
 
MacBH928 said:
I am more wondering how many people are actually buying mac minis or iMacs. People have moved to mobile.

Back in 2004-7 everyone wanted/had his own laptop, today no one wants even a desktop computer they do everything from their phones. The desktop computer returned to its original 1980s application, work and enthusiasts.
Click to expand...
who has moved to mobile for anything beyond brain rotting social media? I don't know of any pro environment where people are doing everything on a phone. Word processing? Not a phone. Photo editing? not a phone. Video editing? not a phone. Graphic design in general? not a phone. I would say people are more mobile with laptops then ever before as the power that is in a laptop is significantly better then it ever has before, but people are not migrating away from a desktop OS to get any real work done.
 
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I think a Mac mini the size of a potato makes sense. It leaves more room on my desk for USB hubs for those of us who dare to think different (USB A) and cable ties to try and stop the whole thing moving around the desk like ship lost at sea. If that doesn't secure it well enough, hopefully it's also got a flat top so I can put my old Mac Mini on it as ballast. Anyway, the main thing is it will be smaller and look cool, even if it may run hot or loud or both. As long as the Pro model still comes with 16GB of RAM but continues to charge a premium for memory that is now standard even on the base model, I'm happy. I should have only been considering the Studio and Apple have every right to design this product to remind me of my mistake. I'm sorry.
 
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Oh boy, smaller might mean it will thermal throttle quicker. Sadistic move from Apple if the goal is to upsell mini users to the Studio line because of the reduced performance.
 
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