I think this thread needs to be changed to: Apple needs to charge for Mac OS X and make a "legitimate" or "official" Hackintosh Version. Instead of spending time to make new mini's and whatever, they should just make the drivers, and release OS X to everyone. I mean it's kinda stupid. I have read other threads, and there are talks of 4 CPU systems with 144 cores and 1TBs of RAM etc. There are THOUSANDS of options now days, and for Apple to sit there and keep saying "You can only use the worlds best OS" on THIS, THIS, and THAT, that's all. Is like wtf? If there is some really great hardware, then let people load Mac OS X on it what the hell, for crying out loud...
It's just seems really dumb. I know it would cannibalize mac sales, but if there not going to make the machines, why should the OS die? They just have blinders on or something, or tunnel vision.
I mean the market share just ain't changing. We're at ballpark 15% right? Well that's the way things have been for 10-20 years. Free the OS!! I'd love a new mini, but just make an ARM version and an any x86_64 version.
Times are changing. Linux is growing just because people want a NIX, but they have limited App and ecosystem options, quite a few would install Mac OS X instead of Linux.
I honestly just don't want to do Hackintosh, I could... but it's always missing some support for something...
My reply possibly needs copying to the Mac Pro thread too but what the heck.
I listened to a radio interview with the president of Ford Europe a few days ago, and he said that despite the fact that the
Ford Fiesta is Britain's top selling car (it's what Brits call a super-mini which sells at between $10k and $17k including tax in the UK - and according to the linked Wikipedia it's been on sale in the US since 2010), it's Ford of America who is the most profitable wing of Ford Motor company because they sell a lot pick up trucks retailing at roughly $40k per vehicle. There's simply more profit per unit in the pick ups.
In the UK, a pick-up truck would be a niche like the Mac Pro, but over in the US they're very popular like - say - a
Ford Focus which is also a big selling car which is slightly more expensive. The highest spec Focus car can reach effectively $40k but more generally will sell for a lot less depending on the spec.
What's happening now in the UK car market is we're seeing a wave of SUV interest which is making some manufacturers a lot of money. The list of top 10 selling cars in the UK is now seeing SUV cars make appearances, and these generally make slightly more profit for car makers because of a higher retail price.
It's a rough comparison but you wonder how much profit a Mac Pro makes per unit vs how many Mac Minis need to be sold to match that.
Apple don't want to have to support lots of different hardware configurations because they like to have small teams. This has led to them saving development costs and skipping the odd year equipment wise. It's even happened with the iPad which saw the iPad Air 2 not get an update as expected last October until we had a 9.7" iPad Pro launch earlier this year.
And if you want to go into comparisons about how the Mac Mini hasn't been updated since October 2014, consider our poor chums in the Mac Pro forum who haven't seen an update since effectively December 2013.
One thing which car manufacturers do to justify their small inflationary price increases year on year is to add small pieces of formerly optional extras as standard. It keeps people buying cars year on year between the 3-4 year cosmetic Facelifts or the 5-7 year gaps between entirely all new models.
Apple don't appear to do inflationary price increases, sticking to the same price point throughout the life of a model except in overseas markets when the exchange rate changes. It makes new Mac models better value for up to 6 months after launch but sales must drop off while people start to expect a new model up to a year later. And we're here nearly 2 years later with many people on this forum knowing roughly the 4 or 5 times of year when Apple will do updates, hoping next time it's the turn of the Mini.
What I have seen a lot of teeth gnashing on in the Apple eco-system is how they manage to sell a Mac Mini from 2014 with no spec bump or price cut (or even sale unless it's with a 3rd party) for upwards of 2 years when you've seen the likes of Dell and HP introduce a new model or do price cuts or spec bumps a couple of times in the interim. This surely must translate into sales boosts for them when that happens and in effect we've had that happen with the 13" Macbook Airs which all come with 8Gb of RAM now but no Skylake chip.
If Apple had just boosted standard RAM, introduced standard Fusion Drives even if with a 24Gb flash portion, and/or cut the price of i7 upgrades in a 2015 Mac Mini it might just have boosted sales and stopped some grumbling in here.
There's a steady stream of Mac Pro users leaving to buy Windows workstations because they can get so much more for their money, and now with the Intel NUC coming up soon with a half decent Windows 10 OS I wonder if Apple are taking notice of this given the fact that they've been running roughly the same kit in a 15" Macbook Pro for years? Do they want people to buy a 21.5" Retina iMac instead?
Anyway philosophy corner over, here's a little bit of hardware chat:
I think Apple don't want to get too involved with the Skylake chip series because implementing USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 means they have to accommodate a third party Alpine Ridge controller which takes up space and probably is a power drain/source of heat. Kaby Lake is notionally the successor to Skylake coming at the very end of the year and early into next year and most people will just dismiss that as a small speed bump but that comes with USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 native on the 200 series chipset. Apple will just want to be able to claim loads of big 'increases' along with Thunderbolt 3 when they launch, see below:
The new Mac Pro has only just got the Broadwell E chips, so that means another 12 months wait until Skylake-E which will come with the possibility of using the Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports. By that time we might have some Polaris based workstation graphics card which would fit nicely into the same case if Apple choose to do a full refresh of CPU/GPU and connectivity. It'll also have been roughly 3.5-4 years since launch...
Apple had to pick the Skylake chip for the iMac 27" series to get a 4Ghz top end model but you'll note that they stuck with Thunderbolt 2 on that and the graphics portion is irrelevant because they need AMD graphics on every model to drive that 5k screen. Again AMD Polaris makes it possible to use a more powerful graphics card in the same thermal envelope (see below with the Macbook Pro) or they will be happy they get fewer thermal worries going forward.
They also went with a Broadwell R CPU with Iris Pro 6200 in the Retina iMac 21.5" model rather than any Skylake model because the corresponding R series Skylake hadn't been announced yet (
it has now seemingly appeared) and the socketable C version for system builders won't be appearing.
More relevantly for the Mac Mini forum users, the 15" Retina Macbook Pro has eschewed the possibility of using the Broadwell Iris Pro 6200 which was available last year and instead stuck with Haswell (+AMD 370X where applicable). The AMD Polaris launch will make the 470X far more powerful than the 370X while using a fraction of the power due to process shrinks like Intel went from Haswell to Broadwell.
And the 13" Retina Macbook Pro only got updated to Broadwell Iris Graphics 6100 earlier in 2015 when Skylake U chips with Iris 550 were around since 3rd quarter last year.
Let's not forget that Apple could have chosen
15w Iris Pro 540 powered chips as of 3rd quarter last year for the Macbook Air.
And finally, the Retina Macbook did get a Skylake update but its USB-C port crucially isn't a Thunderbolt 3 port. It's more proof that Apple don't want to use the Alpine Ridge controller but would rather wait for official on-board support with Kaby Lake and 200 series chipsets.
All in all, this is looking like a bar graph at a produce launch where Phil Schiller says the graphics capability (from outdated stuff 2 generations old) is 2x-3x faster than before when he shows up on a stage to push the latest and greatest Mac stuff possibly at WWDC this year in the case of the mobile stuff and then in October when he pushes the desktop stuff. It's also a good year for Apple to use Intel leverage to get early Kaby Lake chips to suit their own schedules this year. It's all pointing to WWDC for Kaby Lake ranges that are available that early with the rest in October.
The Mac Pro will just have to wait until next year in its present state.
And, for more Mac Mini relevance:
We might not need a truck any more, but a compact SUV would be nice Apple. If we pick a $1499-1999 price point can we have the best bits of the 2016 Retina Macbook Pro in a headless case with superior cooling for silent running? This price range is in at the 27" Retina iMac and 15" Retina Macbook Pro end and should be more profitable for Apple.
i7 6770HQ at 2.6GHz and Iris Pro 580 (same as Skull Canyon, and yes it's Skylake unless they get their hands on a Kaby Lake i7 7770HQ in October)
2 slots for user upgradable RAM
2 USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 (using Alpine Ridge controller if they have to)
4 USB 3 ports
1 optical audio out
Gigabit Ethernet
1 HDMI 2.0a
1 PCIe X4 socket for M.2 NVMe SSD
Optional AMD 470X mobile graphics
Tall mini Mac Pro style case with big heat sink and large diameter fan for better/quieter cooling and AC Wifi aerials, and if you use a bigger cylinder and can get it silent under load for hours I think we'd be seeing a lot of press from the Silent PC and home cinema brigade. It's also surely a good replacement for the bottom end quad core Mac Pro, especially if Apple feel they can sell a version of the above with an AMD 470X GPU. When Skylake-E appears on the scene next year the Mac Pro mid and top of the range should see a massive core count boost so this should provide enough of a boost for the people who don't see fit to have dual GPUs or want to pay thousands more for many more cores or 6 Thunderbolt 3 ports in one machine. Horsepower wise it's far below everything in the price bracket from Apple but it's incredibly niche if they think it's going to attract home cinema pc users, gamers, and people who don't think a Mac Pro is value for money.
I wonder if they could actually make a 45w CPU plus 50w optional GPU and a (hot running?) SSD and RAM silent in a Mac Pro case for hours on end?
And don't forget that Apple now have mobile Xeon chips, they could (the they wanted) make the 15" Macbook Pro range really professional by using the
E3 1515m V5. That's a chip at the bottom of a range that would go down very well in a Mac Mini Pro.
