Slightly OT: Apple Event Mac updates

[fhturner]

Posted these comments over in the Mac mini section, but since this is my main MRF stomping ground (applicable part below in bold), thought I'd share my take on it here and see what y'all thought. Mods, if not acceptable to double post, please feel to remove:

Event was a bit of a yawner. They TRIUMPHANTLY presented glorious new MacBook Airs and Mac minis...oh, which they'd let wither on the vine since (essentially) 2010 and 2014, respectively. Woohoo, Apple!! And even then, they seemed about 1/10th as excited about the Mac updates as the iPad Pro. And we didn't get any more Mac news than that. No hint or preview of Mac Pro or expected iMac updates.

Mac mini looked good to me at first...until I looked at the pricing. Storage pricing is UNREAL. NVMe SSD "gumsticks" packing 2500MB/s are cheaper every day, with 1TB for under $300 now, but to upgrade from 128GB (seriously?) to 1TB on the mini costs EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS. And I'm sure it's Apple-proprietary, soldered stuff. I'm really curious about why we cannot have non-proprietary-connector, socketed SSDs in any Apple products these days. M.2 is tiny and is everywhere now, yet we have locked-in storage in Apple-land.

Anyway, the tech and potential performance is exciting for Mac mini, but when a base 4-core is configured w/ what I'd consider a reasonable complement of 16GB RAM and 256GB SSD, the price skyrockets to $1200. Or $1400 for a more useful 512GB. And even the base price is $300 or 60% higher than the traditional starting price point for the "economical Mac" of $500.

I'm glad to see updates to Mac mini and MacBook Air finally, but they act like it's the Second Coming and charge accordingly.

What are your take-aways from what you saw, oh Mac Pro forum brethren?

 

[phoenix-mac-user]

I love the new Mac Mini. Have been waiting for a new Mac Pro but this is fine for me and I will probably get one.

Would love to know whether the SSD is upgradable. It sounds like the memory is upgradable which is not the MO with recent Apple products, so maybe the SSD is too? Too much to wish for?

Even still, will probably go with a 512GB and put everything else on an external drive, upgrade the memory myself and go with the 6 core I7 model and consider it my "Mac Pro" replacement for my 2009 upgraded cheese grater. I have to think it will get better benchmarks.

I understand a lot of people on this forum don't consider that an acceptable solution, but all of that is roughly $1599 vs double (or more) for the current Mac Pro. And I hated that design anyway which is why I kept my desktop.

I am very happy today.

 

[ssls6]

What makes the cheese grater special to me is that it can run wide open and keep its cool. It's not clear to me that the mac mini can.

 

[mcaswell]

I know Apple said a year or so ago that a new Mac Pro would be coming... but I got the distinct impression today, with how they presented the Mac Mini, I got the distinct impression that they were strongly implying IT was the "new Mac Pro".

 

[Zedcars]

I was excited by the Mini announcement today, and was going to buy one. Then I thought about that soldered on SSD, the price per performance ratio, and probably loudish fan of a spec’ed out Mini running at full pelt and I decided to wait for the Pro. I would hate to plunk down a ton of money only to see better and cooler (both senses of the word) MP’s released in a few months time.

As I use my Mac for audio production I need a powerful but quiet machine. My 2011 Mac Mini Quad server has served me well, but is pretty loud now, and showing its age.
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I know Apple said a year or so ago that a new Mac Pro would be coming... but I got the distinct impression today, with how they presented the Mac Mini, I got the distinct impression that they were strongly implying IT was the "new Mac Pro".

I certainly hope not. I don’t think you could call the Mini a Pro device, more Prosumer.