Not to mention devouring MR threads about Mac minis. I think the sticky title of this thread gives it potential to become the bookend response to "The new Mac mini is almost certainly coming" and rant is both a verb and a noun.
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Rant about the new Mac Mini.
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…and Apple doesn’t make one - apart from maybe the base ~$400 iPad.
This is where the cognitive dissonance of defending Apple’s RAM and SSD specs creeps in: every other aspect of the M4 Mini is wildly excessive for “banking, basic spreadsheets etc.” - that’s a job for a $400 iPad, $200 Chromebook or <$400 PC Laptop. You don’t need a 10 core processor for that, or a 10 core GPU, a neural engine, or 3 x 40 Gbps Thunderbolt that can support multiple 6k displays… yet, somehow, that’s all fine and dandy, and everybody celebrates that it’s 40% faster than the machine that was already over-specified for your job last year… but RAM and SSD…. Oh, no, customers don’t need that, they’re OK with 2014 specs for just those particular two things…
The Mac Mini is a premium machine and should have premium specs all-round - If you want to buy one for basic productivity that’s OK but there are far cheaper solutions that provide what is - increasingly - just a web browser.
Currently, it’s a luxury sedan with no back seats and a 1/2 gallon gas tank (both expandable for the price of a second whole car…) because, you know, many people only need to drive, alone, to the store and back…
(But the new model comes with a 1 gallon gas tank, so that’s alright then…)
It’s all about acceptance and categorization.
Internal storage absolutely matters on a portable device or maybe an iMac since you’re paying for the stylishness. The Apple upgrade costs are just completely absurd on these. It is what it is.
Functionally you have to use the base Mac mini differently than you would a properly equipped computer. iMessages must be set to expire in 30 days, you can’t host a photos library on the internal etc. All media must be put on the external. iCloud does not play nicely with external hard drives so there’s a bit of extra work necessary, or just recognition that if you want all that nice stuff you’ll have to pay a huge premium to stay in that ecosystem.
The base Mac mini is like a separate computer designed for particular work. It’s not a family all in one. It’s not a do everything laptop. If you set it to do one thing very well you’ll love it and there’s no computer at this price range which has ever come close to its performance. It’s astonishingly great. Best computer ever for 500 bucks.
But if you try to make it into something else, it becomes either cumbersome to deal with, or has an enormous upfront cost.
No computer can be perfect for all things for a great price. But the Mac mini is as close as possible to a perfect computer at a great price for many particular applications.
Internal storage absolutely matters on a portable device or maybe an iMac since you’re paying for the stylishness. The Apple upgrade costs are just completely absurd on these. It is what it is.
Functionally you have to use the base Mac mini differently than you would a properly equipped computer. iMessages must be set to expire in 30 days, you can’t host a photos library on the internal etc. All media must be put on the external. iCloud does not play nicely with external hard drives so there’s a bit of extra work necessary, or just recognition that if you want all that nice stuff you’ll have to pay a huge premium to stay in that ecosystem.
The base Mac mini is like a separate computer designed for particular work. It’s not a family all in one. It’s not a do everything laptop. If you set it to do one thing very well you’ll love it and there’s no computer at this price range which has ever come close to its performance. It’s astonishingly great. Best computer ever for 500 bucks.
But if you try to make it into something else, it becomes either cumbersome to deal with, or has an enormous upfront cost.
No computer can be perfect for all things for a great price. But the Mac mini is as close as possible to a perfect computer at a great price for many particular applications.
There's no magic master plan explanation here you guys
Apple wants a super attractive entry point, full well knowing that a huge swath of folks will need to upgrade
It's basic pricing theory to mentally set you up at "wow, this is great deal!" and then get you to sort of begrudingly accept their horrendous overcharge on upgrades with a justification of "but the base price is so good and such a great value!"
Basically they get you distracted from how much you actually end up spending by mentally anchoring the starting point down low.
Humans are super susceptible to getting played this way and Tim is alllll about it
They've pivoted to these tactics all over the products.
The MSRPs keep elevating so that things are on "SUPER SALE!!", nearly immediately
Look at how it's going for the Mini 7, as an example. $400 everywhere for the base model, which is actually what the iPad Mini 5 base MSRP was to begin with (and what it still should be)
Ignore all Apple direct pricing and lack of first party sales in these discussions -- Apple are happy to smile, overcharge, and steal money from the easy marks and lazy shoppers who just meander into Apple stores with more money than brains.
There's no "magic RAM" or "better SSDs being used" -- it's all just pricing strategy, overcharging and general abuse of trusting consumers who are usually, to some degree, locked into the ecosystem and of course branding aura that's well pumped up by indirectly rewarded influencers and shills
Apple wants a super attractive entry point, full well knowing that a huge swath of folks will need to upgrade
It's basic pricing theory to mentally set you up at "wow, this is great deal!" and then get you to sort of begrudingly accept their horrendous overcharge on upgrades with a justification of "but the base price is so good and such a great value!"
Basically they get you distracted from how much you actually end up spending by mentally anchoring the starting point down low.
Humans are super susceptible to getting played this way and Tim is alllll about it
They've pivoted to these tactics all over the products.
The MSRPs keep elevating so that things are on "SUPER SALE!!", nearly immediately
Look at how it's going for the Mini 7, as an example. $400 everywhere for the base model, which is actually what the iPad Mini 5 base MSRP was to begin with (and what it still should be)
Ignore all Apple direct pricing and lack of first party sales in these discussions -- Apple are happy to smile, overcharge, and steal money from the easy marks and lazy shoppers who just meander into Apple stores with more money than brains.
There's no "magic RAM" or "better SSDs being used" -- it's all just pricing strategy, overcharging and general abuse of trusting consumers who are usually, to some degree, locked into the ecosystem and of course branding aura that's well pumped up by indirectly rewarded influencers and shills
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I will have to disagree with both of these statements.
The Mac Mini is the cheapest entry-level, lowest performance Mac possible. In fact, they have the "worst" chips possible in Apple's lineup.
They just appear to be premium to you, because they have been updated before the premium computers, and they just happen to beat them on certain aspects. Wait until Mac Studio and Mac Pro are updated, you'll realize that Mac Mini is the worst performer, despite being an excellent performer when you look at the computer market as a whole.
The Mac Studio is 4x the cost, but is it going to be 4x the performance? That’s very unlikely.
The base model Mac mini feels like a premium machine in a way that previous base model Macs haven’t. It reminds me of Apple in the early 2010s since that was the last time an inexpensive base model stood up this well to the high-end machines.
In 2012 a base model Mac mini could be purchased and upgraded to compete with or even beat Apple’s 13” laptops of the time. The spinning drive was an issue, and it could be swapped out for a SSD. The same is true for the base model M4 Mac mini paired with an external SSD.
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Bingo. Arguments about why the mini even exists, how it should be used, and why anyone would want one are sustained by those who cannot see past their individual use cases, just like the existential arguments about iPad, iPad versus laptop, and Apple Watch versus not having one.
I love how that guy casually assumes everyone installs some 80GB game. LOL.
“You’re going to install some office apps, cache space, then an 80GB game, and 4 hours worth of 5K ProRes. See, you need 1TB to start!”
Apple is in the business of making money, which it does very well by selling iThings and a few computers on the side. It doesn't give a hoot about what some of us think.
What a simplistic take. Of course Apple is in the business of making money, every business is. But there’s a massive difference between extracting value through financial instruments and creating genuinely innovative products people want. The Mac mini is a perfect example: it’s an insane value, and while the upgrade costs are absurd (fair criticism), the product itself reflects how much Apple does care about what its customers think. The compact design is brilliant. The upgraded RAM is hugely beneficial. Honestly, I didn’t even realize I wanted a small, powerful footprint until they created it. That’s the point. Apple doesn’t just follow customer desires; they anticipate them.
They have tons of money in the bank. Giving people decent size SSD and memory will not break them.
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Understand that Apple is selling value, while most PCs are selling based on price.
Yes, consumers can buy a $399 PC running Windows. Apple is selling their premium ecosystem for $599 including AI, iMovie, Photos, etc. Just because the majority of users perform basic tasks doesn't mean they don't sometimes enhance photos, export family videos, or transcribe text. M4 is built to grow within reason. That doesn't mean Apple should include 24GB RAM and 1TB storage.
Also understand that M4 is a byproduct of Apple developing chips for other high performance Macs. This includes TB4 and high GPU core count. The M4 was not built solely for Mac mini. The mini gets an M4 because it obviously helps sell the product. It also contributes to recovering the billions of dollars of NRE has spent developing M4 cores.
Nope. That's like saying just because a Land Rover can crawl rocks means the average LR owner is taking it off road.
If what you suggested was anywhere close to being true, Apple Stores would be running game demos on their in-store demo minis.
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After these opening lines I was settling in to read a humorous post, but then I realized you are serious.
Anyway, I just bought a 2TB SSD from Seagate on the Black Friday sale and I think it cost $70. I spend big on Macs, but never upgrade the base 256GB. I don’t mind spending money, but some things are just foolish. I’ll spend that money on RAM and CPU instead.
it sucks but thunderbolt NVME drives do work great. I just got an 8TB WD Black drive for $549 on Black Friday sale that I'll pop in a cheap 40gbps thunderbolt enclosure from amazon.. On a desktop there's no reason not to do this. laptops need more storage for sure
It's great for video processing. I just watched another YouTube that showed how great the base M4 is for anything involving video. And I have no reason to doubt that.
But for my use case the there are better CPUs. A Ryzen 7845HS is entirely fast enough, and the PCs that use that come with equal or more RAM and a TB of Standard M2 NVME and most of them have a slot for a second NVME.
For laptops the low power consumption of the M4 is an advantage, but not so much on a desktop. That brings up a thought, if Apple took the M2 and shrunk it down to the new 3 nm process would the increased power efficiency make for an even better MacBook Air? This M1 has all the CPU performance I need, but more battery efficiency is always good.
That's obviously what is happening. I'm not sure Apple care about 'poor' people though, so much as covering a wide market with each product. They accept less profit for the base model, but tightly restrict the spec, so people who need / can afford to go higher don't get any ideas about saving money.
Complaining about high upgrade costs is missing the point. They obviously have nothing to do with the BOM, and it's not like Apple would sell the base model at $600 if the upgrade pricing was lower. It would then just start at $800. They are just segmenting the market, the same way airlines do.
Most of these peak bandwidth figures are meaningless anyway. They only apply to streaming multiple large files simultaneously. Most of the benefit from SSDs comes from their low latency; in many circumstances you'd be hard pushed to notice the difference from a SATA SSD.
Completely agree. 256 GB is unreasonable and the upgrades cost way too much
This would be more excusable if you could upgrade yourself but Apple makes it next to impossible
This would be more excusable if you could upgrade yourself but Apple makes it next to impossible
Erm, the 2012 MacBook Pro would like a word. Pop the bottom off that, and you can pull the SSD, RAM and battery straight out. The MBA has long had soldered RAM, but until at least the 2012 model you can swap the SSD and replace the battery without much hassle. My 2015 MBP has a swappable SSD, though the battery admittedly looks like a pain to remove. Proprietary SSDs, whilst petty and stupid, are at least easily adaptable to standard NVMe drives with a $5 adaptor.
Whilst it's somewhat understandable that thin laptops have soldered RAM (especially if they come with 16 or 32GB from the factory), replaceable storage is nice for a) data recovery / laptop repair, and b) because storage costs plummet whilst requirements tend to grow.
What's less excusable is desktops lacking this expansion. The mini could easily fit an NVMe blade, at no performance loss; the only reason it doesn't is to protect Apple's pricing structure. It even has replaceable blades - just in a proprietary format; a middle finger to their users.
You were complaining that Apple rips you off. Of course they do. Mac users by and large won't go to Windows, so they're a captive market. If only one company is supplying a platform, they'll take advantage.
If you don't want to be ripped off, you have the option of the PC market - which is where you're drawing your comparison prices from. It's no use complaining about Tim Cook; he may be less dynamic than Steve Jobs, but the latter wasn't above overcharging either.
My point was that rather than demanding Apple be torn apart, you can just buy a PC. Aside from putting your money where your mouth is, it's the only language Apple understands.
Yeah, but only the GPU cores need that kind of bandwidth, and regular VRAM has similar performance (it's the same stuff).
Sure, unified RAM has benefits in certain scenarios (e.g. AI training), but it's mostly a consequence of the SoC approach. The downside is that all RAM has to be VRAM spec, which is very expensive. It removes the ability to use low end discount RAM, which is otherwise perfectly adequate for CPU cores. It's swings and roundabouts.
You’re probably right, but also it doesn’t matter what their feelings or motivations are but rather what they’re doing. It’s like they donate millions to charity and help lots of people. Do I think Apple or Tim are genuinely doing this out of some warm feeling in their hearts? Absolutely not. Do I think the people on the receiving end of these generous donations care? Absolutely not. I don’t think people that buy a Mac mini for $600 care how Apple does it but just the fact that they get it.