The new Mac mini is almost certainly coming

[Count Blah]

Yeah but you paid people other than Apple for the upgrades. It would stand to reason that Apple would want to maximise the cost paid per unit.

Consider a company that made beautifully built products designed and built by engineers who were finished when the product was right - the product was then sold at a premium price with marketing to match. Then a decade later, accountants took over and demanded the next generation products be built to hit a price point.

Customers purchased the new products based on the good will built up by the golden generation of earlier products but then you start seeing reviews on the new products being less satisfying than the older products despite there being a continued focus on technology and invention - due to penny pinching and compromises.

Despite this, the image of the golden generation remains for years afterwards, maintaining a halo effect which is barely diminished but there are competing products by rival firms which are better in some ways, less so in others.

Spoiler: Guess who I am talking about?

I am, of course, talking about Mercedes circa 1970s-80s vs the 1990s models. I'm not saying that Apple will keep going for decades, though. Just ask Blackberry.

Of course Apple wants their taste. But in doing so, they have reduced the usefulness of their computers. They have alienated long time fans. And they have turned these long time fans from proselytizing the Mac, to deriding the Mac to their friends and family.

Apple now gets their taste. But I know lots of LONG time Apple fans who have had enough, and are looking elsewhere. Greed has ruined a long standing relationship. And leave it to a bean counter like Tim to ruin it in this way. Thanks Tim!

 

[philipma1957]

I will not rant against Tim Cook. I just pray for him every day to see the error of his ways.

 

[masterbaron]

No error of the ways - intentional profit by strangling development, product extension, product execution (dongles), service ability and building an enormous spaceship and campus that feeds their perceptions, focus and desires.

"Essentially, lets take a few years off and take the money and run without delivering the "true Apple Brand" - disgusting and pivotal for me as I refuse to play the game any longer.

 

[Crosscreek]

No error of the ways - intentional profit by strangling development, product extension, product execution (dongles), service ability and building an enormous spaceship and campus that feeds their perceptions, focus and desires.

"Essentially, lets take a few years off and take the money and run without delivering the "true Apple Brand" - disgusting and pivotal for me as I refuse to play the game any longer.

RESIST lol

 

[masterbaron]

Ultimately ... since my life requires the resources and ecosystem that Apple has provided - resistance simply means "no new purchases". I'll keep these 3 Minis going as long as possible - then, hopefully 2 years and beyond I'll deal with Apple and that ultimate decision.

 

[jpietrzak8]

Ultimately ... since my life requires the resources and ecosystem that Apple has provided - resistance simply means "no new purchases".

I have to admit, Apple pushing me back towards Linux has been beneficial to my life. It's been almost a decade since I put any serious effort into setting up a Linux box, and I was afraid I'd have to sacrifice a lot to use it. But Linux now does a fine job as an HTPC, has first-class web-browsing available, and can run many high-end commercial games natively. (And, as it always had, continues to have excellent support for software engineering.) Even the GUI provided by major distributions is starting to become usable; I've been trying out Ubuntu, and I very rarely need to even touch the command line at all. (If I bothered to learn all the ins and outs of Ubuntu, I might never need to touch it.)

In any case, I have to say that Apple is in severe danger of losing the original advantage of OS X over its competitors -- the other desktop operating systems are closing the gap very quickly...

 

[opeter]

Since Apple is more concerned with watchbands and thinbooks, I would happily pay for the OS that I could safely install on a professional machine like a Boxx, a RADAR, an HP-840z, or even the new Dell Towers. I need Powaaaahhhhh!

It is already there/here: it's called Windows. Oh, for these, who want opensource, there is also Linux.

 

[masterbaron]

But we are thinkers, tinkerers, interweavers and masters who "think" and don't mind cracking the nuts on things to make them better, faster and more personal. Apple doesn't dance to our tunes ... they orchestrate profit to those who don't want to think or deal with certain "PC-centric" hassles (got their own=dongles). I just think it's time to rethink my computing aspirations into cycles of meaningful gain and right now I really don't have a dire need to do anything I can't already do.

The additional power I could use is better battery life, more Bluetooth gain and improved standards for IoT - other than that there's a world out there...

 

[DesertSurfer]

Apple made more money from selling computers than from iPads or from "Other" which includes the watch and those lovely watch bands, and as much as from Services. Perhaps this will have even the bean counters rethinking their disdain for Apple computers. Perhaps not. But in any case, the new mac mini is almost certainly coming.

 

[Miat]

But in any case, the new mac mini is almost certainly coming.

I feel a techno-apostasy coming on.

Just can't wait for it.

Got the taste for it.

Oh yeah, I can feel it (almost certainly) coming on!

 

[JamesPDX]

It is already there/here: it's called Windows. Oh, for these, who want opensource, there is also Linux.

Nope, not until Linux can run Avid and VSL. I wrote about selling the Apple (sorry, macOS) operating system for installing onto powerful PC hardware.

 

[tubeexperience]

Apple doesn't care about the Mac: not anymore.

It wouldn't even do the minimum which is to buy an Intel UNC kit and slap the Apple logo on it.

 

[sleconte]

When I first turned 18 and was able to buy lottery tickets, I have a strong feeling that I was going to win the big one! And save myself from years of university! It didn't happen. But it almost did - I got 3 numbers out of 7 on that try.

Suddenly I feel a premonition even stronger - that a new mini will be announced at a March Apple event.
A premonition - just looked that up - "a strong feeling that something is about to happen, especially something unpleasant. "he had a premonition of imminent disaster"

Ok, I think I have covered my bases here - there is going to be a disaster!
A disaster is definitely coming in 2017 with our favorite little computer.

 

[jedisaga]

Wait, isn't the new Mac mini is almost certainly coming?

 

[DesertSurfer]

Wait, isn't the new Mac mini is almost certainly coming?

Almost certainly.

 

[Micky Do]

Almost certainly.

Among the cynics, dilettantes, naysayers and general know alls, who have been predicting the demise of the Mac Mini for seven or eight years through several iterations, it is good to see some keeping faith in a product that fills a niche. One that I have owned and used as the mainstay for my humble needs since I took home my first computer in 2005, the base model Mac Mini original. The new Mac Mini is indeed almost certainly coming…..

The Mac Mini has been with us for a dozen years now, and new generations will almost certainly continue to come in some form or another, albeit at a slower rate than in the past. Time was that computers were where it was at for folks' IT needs. Nowadays smartphones and tablets do it for many, and can now do much of what computers did. The role of the desk top and the laptop is changing, and with that there has been a decline in the mass market, but they will still remain with us for some time.

 

[JamesPDX]

When I first turned 18 and was able to buy lottery tickets, I have a strong feeling that I was going to win the big one! And save myself from years of university! It didn't happen. But it almost did - I got 3 numbers out of 7 on that try.

Suddenly I feel a premonition even stronger - that a new mini will be announced at a March Apple event.
A premonition - just looked that up - "a strong feeling that something is about to happen, especially something unpleasant. "he had a premonition of imminent disaster"

Ok, I think I have covered my bases here - there is going to be a disaster!
A disaster is definitely coming in 2017 with our favorite little computer.

Well, yeah! That's when Genisys goes live.

 

[Cape Dave]

Among the cynics, dilettantes, naysayers and general know alls, who have been predicting the demise of the Mac Mini for seven or eight years through several iterations, it is good to see some keeping faith in a product that fills a niche. One that I have owned and used as the mainstay for my humble needs since I took home my first computer in 2005, the base model Mac Mini original. The new Mac Mini is indeed almost certainly coming…..

The Mac Mini has been with us for a dozen years now, and new generations will almost certainly continue to come in some form or another, albeit at a slower rate than in the past. Time was that computers were where it was at for folks' IT needs. Nowadays smartphones and tablets do it for many, and can now do much of what computers did. The role of the desk top and the laptop is changing, and with that there has been a decline in the mass market, but they will still remain with us for some time.

Well written, logical, on the money. Except the issue is that IF a new mini comes out, it will likely be something that none of us here would be interested in buying. Am I wrong? We will almost certainly find out. Sometime.

 

[jpietrzak8]

Ok, let me float a new theory: Apple now fears the small-form-factor PC.

My rationale: a decade ago, packing all the electronics needed for a full-fledged PC into a box as small as the Mini needed a great deal of engineering skill. After all, you needed to have a totally custom motherboard, a totally custom case, and the engineering knowhow to arrange ports and drives and fans and antennas in such a way as to fit together neatly and keep everything sufficiently cooled. There were very few manufacturers, other than Apple, who had all the key elements to successfully pull this off. Moreover, the sacrifices in performance necessary to accomplish all this could be forgiven, as the mere fact of a decent SFF machine at a decent price was enough of a miracle to start with.

But today, things are different. SFF cases are fairly easy to come by; standardization of very small motherboards is now common; Intel now has a wide range of SFF options all the way from machines suited for basic office work to HTPC needs to high-end power users. Other companies have SFF options dedicated to gaming, or for other more specialized tasks.

In short, there is now no reason why an SFF machine couldn't compete -- and win -- against any iMac. In terms of performance, in terms of price, in terms of functionality, you can today find an SFF box that beats any given iMac in one or even several of these categories.

I'm pretty sure Apple stopped producing any desktop tower machines simply because that market overlapped with that of the iMac. Well, now the small-form-factor market also totally overlaps the market for the iMac. So there's no point left in continuing the Mini at all; their desktop mac is now going to be the iMac, the one size that fits all consumers.

 

[fokmik]

i think the new codes on the latest macos beta...show that the new mac mini are been prepared...they wouldn't release new updated macbook pro after just 5-6 months. And since mac mini always used mobile cpu, i think this is it. I think Apple before, never upgrade a mac line,like mac mini or mac pro, they at least do just 1 more update with the latest I/O tb3/usb-c,just for everybody to at least can use them with latest and future accesories

 

[sublunar]

Ok, let me float a new theory: Apple now fears the small-form-factor PC.

My rationale: a decade ago, packing all the electronics needed for a full-fledged PC into a box as small as the Mini needed a great deal of engineering skill. After all, you needed to have a totally custom motherboard, a totally custom case, and the engineering knowhow to arrange ports and drives and fans and antennas in such a way as to fit together neatly and keep everything sufficiently cooled. There were very few manufacturers, other than Apple, who had all the key elements to successfully pull this off. Moreover, the sacrifices in performance necessary to accomplish all this could be forgiven, as the mere fact of a decent SFF machine at a decent price was enough of a miracle to start with.

But today, things are different. SFF cases are fairly easy to come by; standardization of very small motherboards is now common; Intel now has a wide range of SFF options all the way from machines suited for basic office work to HTPC needs to high-end power users. Other companies have SFF options dedicated to gaming, or for other more specialized tasks.

In short, there is now no reason why an SFF machine couldn't compete -- and win -- against any iMac. In terms of performance, in terms of price, in terms of functionality, you can today find an SFF box that beats any given iMac in one or even several of these categories.

I'm pretty sure Apple stopped producing any desktop tower machines simply because that market overlapped with that of the iMac. Well, now the small-form-factor market also totally overlaps the market for the iMac. So there's no point left in continuing the Mini at all; their desktop mac is now going to be the iMac, the one size that fits all consumers.

I think there's still niches out there - the most energy efficient Mac Mini could be entirely based off the 15w Iris equipped CPUs from the non-touchbar Macbook Pros. As mentioned, though, PC manufacturers can match that spec for spec now but Apple could make a smaller form factor device with SSD only to one-up the PCs.

The other niche is being the best built silent machine. Too many people never attach a value to the quality of life benefits from that kind of spec.

Iris Pro is disappearing from Intel CPUs within a couple of generations. Although Iris Pro 580 exists (famously in the Intel Skull Canyon devices), Apple chose not to bother with the mobile Skylakes that would use it in the 15" Macbook Pro and went with cheaper (and faster) CPUs with AMD GPU added in.

This puts a question mark over what should be a simple upgrade for the 21.5" iMac unless the next refresh is just a spec bump due to the extra engineering work that went into the Macbook Pros of last year.

What the SFF PCs may be missing is a stronger GPU option, especially if Apple intend folks to consider buying the 4k and 5k LG monitors that have been in the news recently with wifi problems.

So we therefore head upwards into the realms of a quad core Mac with a genuine GPU because Intel will no longer be viable vendors with Iris Pro going forward.

It might also be easy just to stick the guts of a Macbook Pro 15" into the next Retina iMac 21.5" but desktop options are better value if Apple can come up with a cooling solution.

For example, we have a 3.4GHz i5-7500 Kaby Lake CPU that represents an advance over the 3.1GHz Broadwell quad core CPU in the existing Retina 21.5" model. Couple that with an AMD RX 460 and you have the beginnings of a very useful unit. If Apple can cool that they can one-up SFF PCs by being more powerful and silent.

 

[Cape Dave]

I think there's still niches out there - the most energy efficient Mac Mini could be entirely based off the 15w Iris equipped CPUs from the non-touchbar Macbook Pros. As mentioned, though, PC manufacturers can match that spec for spec now but Apple could make a smaller form factor device with SSD only to one-up the PCs.

The other niche is being the best built silent machine. Too many people never attach a value to the quality of life benefits from that kind of spec.

Iris Pro is disappearing from Intel CPUs within a couple of generations. Although Iris Pro 580 exists (famously in the Intel Skull Canyon devices), Apple chose not to bother with the mobile Skylakes that would use it in the 15" Macbook Pro and went with cheaper (and faster) CPUs with AMD GPU added in.

This puts a question mark over what should be a simple upgrade for the 21.5" iMac unless the next refresh is just a spec bump due to the extra engineering work that went into the Macbook Pros of last year.

What the SFF PCs may be missing is a stronger GPU option, especially if Apple intend folks to consider buying the 4k and 5k LG monitors that have been in the news recently with wifi problems.

So we therefore head upwards into the realms of a quad core Mac with a genuine GPU because Intel will no longer be viable vendors with Iris Pro going forward.

It might also be easy just to stick the guts of a Macbook Pro 15" into the next Retina iMac 21.5" but desktop options are better value if Apple can come up with a cooling solution.

For example, we have a 3.4GHz i5-7500 Kaby Lake CPU that represents an advance over the 3.1GHz Broadwell quad core CPU in the existing Retina 21.5" model. Couple that with an AMD RX 460 and you have the beginnings of a very useful unit. If Apple can cool that they can one-up SFF PCs by being more powerful and silent.

[doublepost=1486520106][/doublepost]Please Apple, make this last sentence come true! Small, powerful and silent! Is it too much to ask? I think not! At least not for a company that has the infinite resources that you do. Having lost faith for it happening, I am looking forward to trying out the new Intel NUC i7 with a nice Samsung 960 Pro M.2. will it be silent? Will it run cool enough? Soon I will know!

 

[brendu]

RESIST lol

That's it. We should make a giant banner and hang it from a crane at the spaceship campus that says RESIST with a picture of the Mac mini next to it. That will surely work.

 

[jedisaga]

To quote Bones McCoy... "He's dead Jim..."

 

[masterbaron]

Well written, logical, on the money. Except the issue is that IF a new mini comes out, it will likely be something that none of us here would be interested in buying. Am I wrong? We will almost certainly find out. Sometime.

Well, by ignoring upgrades and new releases for so long it's highly improbable Apple will release something less powerful than the 2014 Mini - which generally means we will all gain something at the great expense of losing much!