I built a similar system about 2 weeks after the last iMac update. None of the available Apple options suited my current needs so I switched to a PC and Windows 10. It's fast, stable and well priced. All Office apps load in about 1 second, hard to time as it's so fast!
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The new Mac mini is almost certainly coming
- Thread starter GabrieleR
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I built a similar system about 2 weeks after the last iMac update. None of the available Apple options suited my current needs so I switched to a PC and Windows 10. It's fast, stable and well priced. All Office apps load in about 1 second, hard to time as it's so fast!
The builder doesn't install OSX, the person who buys it does. The builder just makes sure that it can run OSX.
What I was thinking of is boxes that are accidentally Hackintoshable. It doesn't say anything on the website, box, in instruction manual. Just a few hundred people register on various Mac forums to report "wow, I managed to Hackintosh this Asus VerySmallBox PC veeery easily". And one or two of them publishes an easy installer, -Beast style. I don't think Apple can sue anyone for accidentally using components that can be hacked.
This is the key to it. Never mention anywhere that they can run Apple's OS. But only offer builds that can run any common OS, more or less straight out of the box, with minimum tweaking.
Describe them as Optimised for the modern computing environment.
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Also, make sure there is no public statement of what you plan to do. Just keep it a secret here, where no one can find out about it.
I gotta say, the whole reason I was interested in the Mac in the first place was the ability to run a Unix-based desktop PC that had support from commercial hardware and software corporations. It seemed like the best of both worlds.
Resorting to a "hackintosh" invalidates this concept. Sure, I could spend time and effort trying to cheat and bypass Apple's control over their own OS; but better than that, in my opinion, is to just go back to Linux and spend time and effort supporting a Unix-based OS that runs entirely legally.
I'm still hoping for new Apple desktop products; I'm still willing to purchase Apple hardware that serves my needs. But yeah, Apple has pretty much turned away from people like me, so there's really no reason now for me to stick with them.
Resorting to a "hackintosh" invalidates this concept. Sure, I could spend time and effort trying to cheat and bypass Apple's control over their own OS; but better than that, in my opinion, is to just go back to Linux and spend time and effort supporting a Unix-based OS that runs entirely legally.
I'm still hoping for new Apple desktop products; I'm still willing to purchase Apple hardware that serves my needs. But yeah, Apple has pretty much turned away from people like me, so there's really no reason now for me to stick with them.
Well I think it's time to pull the trigger and build my windows desktop. Seems apple has actually forgotten about their desktop computers. Come on... siri on mac? That's completely useless **** upgrade. I don't even use siri on my iPhone... why the hell would I use it on my mac. I don't want more snapchat-like text messages or a stupid new Apple Watch face... wow big upgrade. I want an upgraded desktop.
My whole take away from the keynote yesterday is that IOS is the prefered OS and as Tim said the future PC platform of Apple.
That's enough said for me.
That's enough said for me.
Fair enough, I now get what you say. From my own experience, almost any gigabyte board is already compatible. Someone using components from tonymacx86, will give you a 100% success rate.
I managed to build a few without even installing custom drivers or any hack.
Soundcard:
- I never had issue with built-in card but had to install drivers for it
- My secondary internal HT Omega card never worked.
- External USB sound card (or USB DAC ie Dragonfly, Emotiva,...) won't require any specific drivers, so if you have problems with the internal SC, this is a good solution
- external web cam (will give you a mic+camera) for facetime
Board:
- gigabyte : works without any hacks
- asus: had to patch my bios but didn't require anything specific after
Video:
- GTX 680 works! can also install Nvidia's drivers. Late 1070 or 1080 may not be supported at this moment
- integrated GPU for i5: worked out of the box, no drivers
Ram :
DDR3 2166mhz : no issue
Wireless: not tested
Bluetooth: working via 10$ dongle adapter
Network card:
- Built in NIC worked
last time I checked my system was beating the biggest fully loaded iMac..
Don't give up yet, it might be actually good news that we did not hear anything this WWDC. Because not only did we get no mac mini news, but there was no news about any update to the other long overdue models either. This might actually mean that we could get a serious upgrade to the mac mini (and other models) in the apple event specially for hardware that is often held in October (sometimes September). Yes this means we have to wait a while, but it might actually be more worth it than if we had gotten a small update at the WWDC, but this only holds true if we get indeed a mac mini update this year...
I would not be surprised to see the whole lineup updated. I also think they will add something to the mac (fingerprint scanner) to enable us to unlock the machine or apple pay without an iOS device.
The one and only problem my Big Hac has is the Gigabyte MB – after a few cycles of sleep/wake there's a memory leak somewhere and the thing reboots. I've read on the Tonymac forum that it's the fault of the motherboard, and someone with a newer model got Gigabyte to make a BIOS update. My MB is too old I guess – they won't do anything, just told me to remove all stuff from my computer except for the HDD and one stick of RAM. It takes about 5-8 days for my system to reboot, so apparently their support imagines I can use the computer for a week without keyboard, mouse, video card, external hard drives, soundcard, etc.
Anyway. The new Mac Mini is almost certainly coming, and if it isn't, I'm hoping for that accidentally hackintoshable build from Asus/Dell/whoever. I'd like to be able to recommend a Mini to my friends, I just can't do that with the 2014 model. The 256 GB SSD/16 GB RAM model costs €1369 FFS.
The word clutching and straws comes to mind. So you are now reduced to 'no news is good news' as a basis for keeping the faith.
Sierra only supported for Mini's from 2010
I (late2009) have lived without AirPlay without too much bother but am certainly dissapointed I won't get further updates, the file sharing looked interesting and neater than trying to use google drive / dropbox / iCloud etc
Have to say I never expected any new Mini annoucements as WWDC is more a software event I think
I (late2009) have lived without AirPlay without too much bother but am certainly dissapointed I won't get further updates, the file sharing looked interesting and neater than trying to use google drive / dropbox / iCloud etc
Have to say I never expected any new Mini annoucements as WWDC is more a software event I think
re: Hackintoshing
I don't want to Hackintosh. I will if I have to, but I don't want to.
I would happily pay quite a bit for Apple's Mac OS, if they would let me legally run it on non-Apple hardware.
Even a licence fee of $100 a year would be be well worth it, in my books.
(Though don't know how that pricing would hold up in the market. May not be viable.)
I don't want to Hackintosh. I will if I have to, but I don't want to.
I would happily pay quite a bit for Apple's Mac OS, if they would let me legally run it on non-Apple hardware.
Even a licence fee of $100 a year would be be well worth it, in my books.
(Though don't know how that pricing would hold up in the market. May not be viable.)
Read my mind. Mini is a bit old and a bit slow, iMac has a screen I don't need (a nice screen though), Mac Pro, enough said. I'd happily pay to run macOS on my own hardware. Ain't going to happen as Apple aren't geared up for testing and fixing issues on all the combinations of hardware out there.
So what you are saying is that in the absence of a revamped Mini then in a years time you will buy either new or second hand hardware that's way past its sell buy date?
You should instead read it as: No news is better than a small upgrade, or disappointing news.The word clutching and straws comes to mind. So you are now reduced to 'no news is good news' as a basis for keeping the faith.
I am not grasping, the fact that we had no hardware announcements at all, even though there are good rumours out there that suggested we would have gotten a macbook (pro?) upgrade at WWDC means that we will most likely get a special event solely based for hardware, or, less likely, that it will get mashed in the iPhone 7 event. This of course does not mean that a mac mini will be announced at that special event, but it makes it more likely that if it is announced the upgrade will be bigger than if it would be announced as an extra at WWDC.
I would have agreed with you if we did receive any hardware announcements at the WWDC, but we did not get any.
There are or have been rumours that Elvis is alive and well and living on the moon. What is needed is hard evidence i.e. that an all new hardware crippled non user upgradeable Mac Mini is definitely coming.
[doublepost=1465998375][/doublepost]What's sad is that with iOS10 and MacOS just how many of Apple's older devices will no longer be supported. A lot of the older Mini's will be left out in the cold.
^I have no clue what you tried to say with that quote, I don't have any evidence, except for the two year upgrade cycle of the mac mini, which does not mean that we will see a mac mini upgrade this year, but only makes it likely. But nor do you that there won't. But this is not the intent of this topic anyway, I am merely stating my thoughts about there not being an announcement of the mac mini at the WWDC. And I speak out of experience that a small mention of a new mac mini can be really disappointing (2014 mac mini announcement).
I agree with your last sentence, however on my early 2009 mac mini (which is why I really want a 2016 mac mini) El Capitan does not run fluently (beachballs and slow loading). And to be honest, if it was not for split screen I would have gone back to Yosemite. So it was no surprise to me that the new system would not support 2009 mac mini's.
I agree with your last sentence, however on my early 2009 mac mini (which is why I really want a 2016 mac mini) El Capitan does not run fluently (beachballs and slow loading). And to be honest, if it was not for split screen I would have gone back to Yosemite. So it was no surprise to me that the new system would not support 2009 mac mini's.
Aha! While there isn't much we can do about Apple's growing disinterest in desktop PCs, there's certainly no reason for El Capitan to perform poorly on a 2009 Mini. Beachballs and slow loading can certainly be fixed! In particular, loading time is based almost purely on hardware, not software; loading times for El Capitan are actually about the same as for older versions of the OS. if you are currently using a spinning hard drive, you can switch to a solid-state drive (SSD), which has the ability to access data without waiting for a platter to spin up or a read head to move to and align itself with a track on that platter.
Beachballs are also easy to fix, using the correct tools. If you open up the Activity Monitor (located in the Utilities directory under the Applications directory), you can see how much CPU is being used, how much RAM is being used, how the disks are being used, and a variety of other information. There may be a specific application hogging the CPU, to the detriment of any other programs. It may be that the machine has used up all available RAM, and is spending time swapping to the drives. Once you know who the culprit is, you can take measures to fix the problem.
All I can say for certain is that I've set up a 2009 Mini with El Capitan, and it is currently running with no problems (and no beachballs).
My 2009 machine is still working well enough so why wouldn't a 2012 machine be a good choice. Our 2012 MBP works well esp with SSD now added. A similar vintage iMac is a decent choice or a new 27" 5K. The current Mini's are in my view not worth the new price money. As my 2009 Mini won't run Sierra by late 2017 I'll be two OS behindSo what you are saying is that in the absence of a revamped Mini then in a years time you will buy either new or second hand hardware that's way past its sell buy date?