The new Mac mini is almost certainly coming

[jpietrzak8]

I suspect it begins with Jony Ive quitting (his official title has become more and more vague over the years, and he's spoken openly about being near the end of his time), and Tim Cook (keeping the company very much afloat, but desecrating brand image) being 'pushed' out shortly after.

There is nothing really wrong with Tim Cook; I think the problem is much more one of how Apple has been structured over the last couple of decades, and the blame for that can be laid at Steve Jobs' feet.

Any corporation, especially any large corporation, needs to have a raison detre -- a simple goal, that everyone in the company can understand and get behind, and that the leadership can use to plan their future actions, or make course corrections when necessary. For an automobile corporation, that might be "make the highest quality cars in the world", or perhaps instead "make the most affordable cars in the world". For a computer company, you might expect "offer the latest bleeding-edge technology", or "provide a wide range of products so that every customer can get exactly what they need".

In Apple's case, the fundamental goal of the company has been "create the products that Steve Jobs wants". Without Jobs at the top, the fundamental goal has become more fuzzy. Tim Cook has invested in what has been most profitable in the past (and so Apple has continued to make great profits), and in the various research efforts (and so Apple research has continued to proliferate wildly); but the soul of the company was not its historic product line, or a wide group of talented technicians. The soul of the company was Jobs, and without him, the company has simply lost track of where it was going.


This company still needs a Cook, and even an Ive. These people are extremely talented. But those people need to be focussed in a direction that will keep the company alive a decade from now, rather than in a direction that will keep the company alive next fiscal quarter. I think that's all that's really missing here...

 

[576316]

This company still needs a Cook, and even an Ive.

It's need a Cook and Ive. But it doesn't need Tim Cook and Jony Ive.

 

[ScottishCaptain]

It's need a Cook and Ive. But it doesn't need Tim Cook and Jony Ive.

Don't you mean it needs a Jobs and Ive?

Jobs seemed to be the only thing maintaining control of Apple, and more specifically Ive. Cook doesn't strike me as a leader who points in a direction and says "we're going to do this and we're going to do it well", but rather someone who lets all the departments run off and do whatever they want, whenever they want.

-SC

 

[masterbaron]

" But those people need to be focussed in a direction that will keep the company alive a decade from now, rather than in a direction that will keep the company alive next fiscal quarter. I think that's all that's really missing here..."

That could be dangerous hedging bets on the next 10 years in terms of desktop computing ... I think it would be more beneficial to imagine what will, or could, replace the keyboard because one of the most limiting aspects of interaction with technology is, in fact, our love with this device. Mobility is here to stay thus a more interesting question is what would truly enhance and improve our desktop experience to make it irreplacible in the next 10 years. If sitting deeply glued to your system with precision input is needed then it needs be offered in new and immersive way that supersedes our current methods because basically the slowest link in our computing today is the keyboard. Basically, faster, thinner, higher resolution and clock speeds is getting pretty boring except for those who exceed common thresholds ... the geeks and such.

 

[Crosscreek]

" But those people need to be focussed in a direction that will keep the company alive a decade from now, rather than in a direction that will keep the company alive next fiscal quarter. I think that's all that's really missing here..."

That could be dangerous hedging bets on the next 10 years in terms of desktop computing ... I think it would be more beneficial to imagine what will, or could, replace the keyboard because one of the most limiting aspects of interaction with technology is, in fact, our love with this device. Mobility is here to stay thus a more interesting question is what would truly enhance and improve our desktop experience to make it irreplacible in the next 10 years. If sitting deeply glued to your system with precision input is needed then it needs be offered in new and immersive way that supersedes our current methods because basically the slowest link in our computing today is the keyboard. Basically, faster, thinner, higher resolution and clock speeds is getting pretty boring except for those who exceed common thresholds ... the geeks and such.

You forget my friend who made those simple devices conceivable and a reality. The geeks, creators, designers, engineers and on.
I think the require keyboards and mice and large displays and faster bigger processors and gpus and on and on for your simple view of what the company needs and the people working for and with them.
This is how your iPhone iPad exists.

 

[now i see it]

Apple will be the next Sony. It's only a matter of time.

 

[jpietrzak8]

Apple will be the next Sony. It's only a matter of time.

At the rate things are going, Apple might just be the next Nokia.

 

[fischersd]

You forget my friend who made those simple devices conceivable and a reality. The geeks, creators, designers, engineers and on.
I think the require keyboards and mice and large displays and faster bigger processors and gpus and on and on for your simple view of what the company needs and the people working for and with them.
This is how your iPhone iPad exists.

Hmm. No. A better interface would be using our voice and our hands. Your code's in front of you. You touch/point/gesture where/what you want to change and say it. The "rub" is the speech recognition isn't perfect enough yet. (of course, the dev environment would need to know which language you're coding in, so braces, etc. were automagically put in, understanding the structure of the surrounding code).

The problem with Apple is that there isn't a visionary at the top anymore (and doesn't appear that there is in the senior leadership). Jony can design (wish he wasn't SO obsessed with thinness though), but to take the company to new products and services that keep it ahead of the competitors, the best companies have the idea guy at the top. That's what Jobs was. (again, see: https://steveblank.com/2016/10/24/w...allmer-and-why-he-still-has-his-job-at-apple/)
As long as Apple keeps making gobs and gobs of profits, the board and shareholders will keep Tim in his job. The rub is that, by the time things become unprofitable Apple will likely be too far gone to be saved....and all of the best and the brightest will have long since left as they know all too well where this is heading.

 

[jpietrzak8]

Hmm. No. A better interface would be using our voice and our hands. Your code's in front of you. You touch/point/gesture where/what you want to change and say it.

Hmm. Do you, like, actually write code? Here, take a look at this infrared controller app that I wrote a long time ago (and I need to get back to!):

https://github.com/jpietrzak8/Pierogi

This thing has I-don't-know-how-many lines of code distributed among hundreds of source files. Maybe not the best way to structure a program, but it works for me. The key here is that no, the code is not in front of me. There is no screen available that will allow me to read all of it at once. In order to manage and upgrade it effectively, I need to keep an idea of what code is where in my head, and be able to quickly reach the code that needs to be changed.

There are several good ways of doing this. Speech is not one of them. Speech is, by its nature, a one-dimensional, one-way transmission of information. (Attempting to talk and listen at the same time is very frustrating!)

Pictures of files on the screen is better; you can point at what you want, or perform some gesture to enact a command (like open/close/delete). Still, you can only deal with maybe dozens of files at once, and perform only a handful (literally ) of commands on them.

With a command line, though, I can pick one file out of thousands with just a few keystrokes. I can perform innumerable actions on those files, again, with just a few keystrokes. I can see which keys are being pressed as I type (so, immediate feedback from my actions!), I can log all the actions I have taken (for review or to undo a mistake), I can even automate the process of making commands with ease (shell scripts!).

tl;dr: If you're noodling around in a small program or with a few files, you can use any old input system. If you're doing serious coding, you really want the ease of control only provided by a keyboard and a command line.

 

[masterbaron]

"If you're doing serious coding, you really want the ease of control only provided by a keyboard and a command line." -- There you see ... we are victims of our linearity ... control is perceived as incremental steps in 2-dimension ... this is the constraint ... somewhat like being limited to starting a sentence from the beginning as opposed from the end or from the end and beginning simultaneously or even devising communications that are 3-dimensional that can be read in many directions with content in each array.

 

[jpietrzak8]

"If you're doing serious coding, you really want the ease of control only provided by a keyboard and a command line." -- There you see ... we are victims of our linearity ... control is perceived as incremental steps in 2-dimension ... this is the constraint ... somewhat like being limited to starting a sentence from the beginning as opposed from the end or from the end and beginning simultaneously or even devising communications that are 3-dimensional that can be read in many directions with content in each array.

I don't think you're quite understanding the problem here. People seem to think that, in order to manage a project, you need to visually represent all the interconnections between all the substructures of that project. Certainly, that's what we've been taught with the windows / icons / mouse (or, today, finger) idiom -- if you can't see an object, you can't manipulate it.

The "command line" idiom works in a different manner -- rather than attempt to represent all objects or all interconnections, it depends upon you, the user, to retain that knowledge. All that it provides is a simple verb / object parser, such that if you type in a particular verb followed by a particular object, it will attempt to perform the task associated with that verb upon the file associated with that object. This does impose a significant burden upon the user, in that they will now need to retain a memory of what verbs and objects are available; but it also frees the user from the significant constraints imposed by graphical user interfaces.

Honestly, if you're doing significant coding work, it makes all the difference in the world. People who tie themselves too tightly to graphical IDEs always find themselves hitting a ceiling once their projects grow large enough...

 

[navaira]

This thread simultaneously became completely off-topic AND very interesting, dear mods, please don't delete anything!

To me, the difference between Jobsian Apple and Cook Apple is like the one between musicians on first/second album and on the tenth. When you're recording your first album you have everything to prove and you put your heart and soul into it. When you are doing the second, you have to prove you're not a flash-in-a-pan and that you've got more to show. But the tenth album is generally about paying the mortgage on your $3m house, getting more Ferraris for your collection and making sure fans don't leave you. And then at some point they do and then musicians either get desperate to keep them and start rehashing the same songs that gave them success 20 years ago, or become extremely interesting again.

I hope Apple will do the latter. For all the A&R that is supposedly happening there we hardly see anything – yes, there's the Watch that has the potential to be very exciting as a health device in five years, yes, iPhone lost the headphone jack *rolls eyes* and Macbooks became thinner. So they are where Madonna was with Hard Candy and MDNA, where Pet Shop Boys were with Fundamental and Yes, where Sparks were with the unforgivably bad Balls. But all those were followed by truly amazing records. Tim keeps on going about the pipeline. Show us, Tim. Make us doubters fall to our knees. If you're killing off Mac Mini, give us a replacement we'll never be able we could live without.

People keep on saying "xcode can only be written on Macs, therefore Macs will survive". I seriously see no reason why Apple wouldn't one day announce xcode for iPad Pro. What then? We'll have to hold on to hope that Adobe don't make CC for iPad Pro? How bad does Cue have to get before he's fired? How hard is it to update Mini and Mac Pro by a company with 100+ thousand employees and pretty much unlimited cash? Is that pipeline perhaps stuck or something?

"If you're doing serious coding, you really want the ease of control only provided by a keyboard and a command line."
I've never done a lot of coding but I do make websites occasionally and I need to test them in browsers that aren't Safari. And then tweak the code again and again. And test again. I know people used to do that on 13" screens, but it's unbelievable how fast people get used to luxury. I really don't see how the best iOS device in the world could help me with that until it gains a 27" screen, support for Chrome, Firefox, Bootcamp, good keyboard, mouse, at which point it becomes, oh wait...

As long as Apple keeps making gobs and gobs of profits, the board and shareholders will keep Tim in his job. The rub is that, by the time things become unprofitable Apple will likely be too far gone to be saved....and all of the best and the brightest will have long since left as they know all too well where this is heading.

I couldn't agree more. And this time there's no Jobs to return and save the company again.

 

[576316]

Don't you mean it needs a Jobs and Ive?

Jobs seemed to be the only thing maintaining control of Apple, and more specifically Ive. Cook doesn't strike me as a leader who points in a direction and says "we're going to do this and we're going to do it well", but rather someone who lets all the departments run off and do whatever they want, whenever they want.

-SC

In fact I'd even go as far as to say that what Apple really needs, right now, is a Musk.

 

[Gabrielanicolao]

Yes, Apple is out of the standalone display market. The future release of Apple desktop computer is without a built-in or attached display.

I think Apple must review these changes.

 

[navaira]

Yes, Apple is out of the standalone display market. The future release of Apple desktop computer is without a built-in or attached display.

I think Apple must review these changes.

I seriously fail to understand why they did this. What they could have done:
1. Tear Ive from table designing for five minutes
2. Get LG to produce the things
3. Slap Apple logo on
4. Sell with 25% premium

 

[macmikerw]

I have both 2012 and 2014 base minis. Even though the geekbench scores are very close, the 2014 just feels slower….

I have just read the specs on the new MacBook Pro. Now if Apple were to put the innards into a small box with, perhaps, a couple of USB ports it would be a lovely machine.

 

[JoeG4]

"If you're doing serious coding, you really want the ease of control only provided by a keyboard and a command line." -- There you see ... we are victims of our linearity ... control is perceived as incremental steps in 2-dimension ... this is the constraint ... somewhat like being limited to starting a sentence from the beginning as opposed from the end or from the end and beginning simultaneously or even devising communications that are 3-dimensional that can be read in many directions with content in each array.

You're thinking of drag and drop programming. It's a thing and it isn't that good.

 

[Boyd01]

I have just read the specs on the new MacBook Pro. Now if Apple were to put the innards into a small box with, perhaps, a couple of USB ports it would be a lovely machine.

Well it doesn't have the same graphics chip or the super fast SSD, but my 2012 2.6ghz quad i7 mini is just as fast as the top 2016 13" MBP. And it also has all the ports I need.

 

[macmikerw]

Well it doesn't have the same graphics chip or the super fast SSD, but my 2012 2.6ghz quad i7 mini is just as fast as the top 2016 13" MBP. And it also has all the ports I need.

Ah there it is. You have the 2012 version which I was just about to buy to expand but thought the 2014 version would be better. Big mistake

 

[fischersd]

Hmm. Do you, like, actually write code? Here, take a look at this infrared controller app that I wrote a long time ago (and I need to get back to!):
https://github.com/jpietrzak8/Pierogi
...
tl;dr: If you're noodling around in a small program or with a few files, you can use any old input system. If you're doing serious coding, you really want the ease of control only provided by a keyboard and a command line.

Heh. Yes, I've actually written a lot of code, but that was earlier in my career. Yes, I know you have to keep the logic for it in your noggin to be able to handle several thousand lines of code. Sorry, but if we had speech recognition that was as advanced as speaking to another person....let's say a person that's also another programmer, that it could be much more efficient than a keyboard and pointing device. I type very well, but I can still talk faster than I can type. (and it's VERY easy to talk and use your hands at the same time....it's not talking and listening....as you're talking and gesturing, the effects would be on the screen).

 

[Count Blah]

Heh. Yes, I've actually written a lot of code, but that was earlier in my career. Yes, I know you have to keep the logic for it in your noggin to be able to handle several thousand lines of code. Sorry, but if we had speech recognition that was as advanced as speaking to another person....let's say a person that's also another programmer, that it could be much more efficient than a keyboard and pointing device. I type very well, but I can still talk faster than I can type. (and it's VERY easy to talk and use your hands at the same time....it's not talking and listening....as you're talking and gesturing, the effects would be on the screen).

Yes, I'm sure that "Hey Xcode, find all occurrences of someVariableThatIsNamedPerfectlyForMaintainablityButImpossibleForAHumanToSay". Would be really easy to get working in a voice only interface.

 

[DesertSurfer]

"If you're doing serious coding, you really want the ease of control only provided by a keyboard and a command line." -- There you see ... we are victims of our linearity ... control is perceived as incremental steps in 2-dimension ... this is the constraint ... somewhat like being limited to starting a sentence from the beginning as opposed from the end or from the end and beginning simultaneously or even devising communications that are 3-dimensional that can be read in many directions with content in each array.

ideas, I think. These are very interesting

Yes, I'm sure that "Hey Xcode, find all occurrences of someVariableThatIsNamedPerfectlyForMaintainablityButImpossibleForAHumanToSay". Would be really easy to get working in a voice only interface.

For this you would need the lip-reading function.

 

[Boyd01]

Ah there it is. You have the 2012 version which I was just about to buy to expand but thought the 2014 version would be better. Big mistake

I wrote about this earlier, but to recap… I was considering the top 2014 mini, a dual core 3ghz i7 with 16gb RAM and 256gb SSD for $1400. That just seemed like a lot of money for a machine that was only slightly faster than my MacBook Air though. Instead I got a used 2012 quad core 2.6ghz i7 Mini with 16gb and 256gb ssd for $1250 from OWC, with a 90 day warranty and 14 day exchange.

Couldn't be happier. Actually a big plus for me that it runs 10.8.5, making it compatible with about $6000 worth of my legacy software. They discontinued the quad core mini in 2014 and my 2012 is almost 50% faster than the more expensive 2014 model I was looking at (geekbench ~12,000 for the 2012 vs ~8,000 for the 2014).

But it depends on what you are doing with the machine. On the plus side, the 2014 Mini has two thunderbolt 2 ports while the 2012 has one thunderbolt and one firewire. That was also good for me since I need to connect a Sony DVCAM tape deck with firewire.

The 2014 has a faster graphics chip. I suppose that might help some software like FCPX that depends heavily on the graphics card, although it seems to run fine on my 2012 anyway.

Then the 2014 Mini has the 802.11ac wifi that is maybe 5 times faster. This is a great feature on my MacBook Air, but the Mini is on gigabit ethernet so I don't need it there.

For me, I was mainly interested in a machine that renders video faster and I got it! A quick test showed it exactly twice as fast as my base 2012 mini and more than twice as fast as my 2013 MacBook Air.

 

[Cape Dave]

This thread simultaneously became completely off-topic AND very interesting, dear mods, please don't delete anything!

To me, the difference between Jobsian Apple and Cook Apple is like the one between musicians on first/second album and on the tenth. When you're recording your first album you have everything to prove and you put your heart and soul into it. When you are doing the second, you have to prove you're not a flash-in-a-pan and that you've got more to show. But the tenth album is generally about paying the mortgage on your $3m house, getting more Ferraris for your collection and making sure fans don't leave you. And then at some point they do and then musicians either get desperate to keep them and start rehashing the same songs that gave them success 20 years ago, or become extremely interesting again.

I hope Apple will do the latter. For all the A&R that is supposedly happening there we hardly see anything – yes, there's the Watch that has the potential to be very exciting as a health device in five years, yes, iPhone lost the headphone jack *rolls eyes* and Macbooks became thinner. So they are where Madonna was with Hard Candy and MDNA, where Pet Shop Boys were with Fundamental and Yes, where Sparks were with the unforgivably bad Balls. But all those were followed by truly amazing records. Tim keeps on going about the pipeline. Show us, Tim. Make us doubters fall to our knees. If you're killing off Mac Mini, give us a replacement we'll never be able we could live without.

People keep on saying "xcode can only be written on Macs, therefore Macs will survive". I seriously see no reason why Apple wouldn't one day announce xcode for iPad Pro. What then? We'll have to hold on to hope that Adobe don't make CC for iPad Pro? How bad does Cue have to get before he's fired? How hard is it to update Mini and Mac Pro by a company with 100+ thousand employees and pretty much unlimited cash? Is that pipeline perhaps stuck or something?

"If you're doing serious coding, you really want the ease of control only provided by a keyboard and a command line."
I've never done a lot of coding but I do make websites occasionally and I need to test them in browsers that aren't Safari. And then tweak the code again and again. And test again. I know people used to do that on 13" screens, but it's unbelievable how fast people get used to luxury. I really don't see how the best iOS device in the world could help me with that until it gains a 27" screen, support for Chrome, Firefox, Bootcamp, good keyboard, mouse, at which point it becomes, oh wait...


I couldn't agree more. And this time there's no Jobs to return and save the company again.

"How hard is it to update Mini and Mac Pro by a company with 100+ thousand employees and pretty much unlimited cash?" It all really boils down to that question.

 

[DesertSurfer]

"How hard is it to update Mini and Mac Pro by a company with 100+ thousand employees and pretty much unlimited cash?" It all really boils down tho that question.

It's the dang drywall.