You were never required to use Mac Monitors with any of G-series towers.
Where does this “last chance” stuff come from? The company has close to $5 billion in liquid assets, and is making loads of cash already off the ipod. They’re actually one of the few computer makers today that posts healthy profits anymore. Dying? Last gasp? Permanent niche, quite possibly, but they’re so far from death I simply cannot understand this persistant perception of immenent demise. All the available facts refute it.
Now, having said this, I find the $499 figure to be a crock. One is NOT going to be able to run OSX.4 and iLife satisfactorily on this machine with only 256MB of RAM. 512MB is the absolute minimum for comfort, and you really want a gig. Plus, what’s the point of iLife without a SuperDrive? I mean, really, people don’t want to record movies using that cool software and burn their own DVDs? I think not. And look at the thing: It screams wireless digital hub. You’re not going to want Bluetooth and Airport capability? Bah, I say, BAH. So let’s build a reasonable Mac Mini:
Base Model 1.25GHz: $499
Upgrade to 1GB RAM: $425
Upgrade to SuperDrive: $100
Internal Bluetooth+Airport Extreme: $125
Applecare (one-year warrantee, 3 years support): $149
Total: $1298
without a monitor or a keyboard. To me, this is a decent system. Considering you can get a 1.33 GHz 14" iBook with the wireless, Superdrive, and 768MB of RAM from MacMall for only a couple-hundred more, I’m not sure why anyone would opt for this. Of course, you can scrimp on all the features, but then you’ve just got an expensive ripper for your iPod, and the PC with iTunes can do all that for you.
It’s a nifty toy, sorta like the Cube of old, but, really, the Mac Mini gets a bit of a “meh”, from me. Either it’s cheap but so under-equiped as to defeat the purpose, or approaching the price of a base portable, and hence the less-desireable option, unless I really don’t have a couple hundred extra bucks to spare.
Ubiquity is certianly part of the reason of Windows malware, but not the only reason.
Apache is by far the most popular webserver, but is a LOT less issues than IIS.
There was a good article on this recently, can dig up if needed.
Apple extra RAM has always been badly overpriced. Rumor has it an authorized Apple tech will do it for $50 (+ about $250 for a gig of RAM)
I think this appeals a lot to “adders” - People who have a PC but want an Mac to fool around with.
Brian
I think they really could have scored with this thing if they’d built in a PVR and a DVD burner. That, and a handheld remote for media playback.
The world needs a little box that can do it all, and do so over a network. That doesn’t exist right now in any convenient form.
For a biologist, I have a lot of experience on computers, and bar-none OS X 10.3 is the best OS I have ever used. It has the expandability of the X Windows/Unix architecture and things like Photoshop and Microsoft Office so that I can use pretty much any file in the whole world. If they sold this for an Intel platform, I would convert all of my computers to it in a heartbeat. Since I don’t hack kernels, I have no real need for Linux (my primary home OS) and since I don’t play much computer games, OS X does everything (for me) that Windows does. Apple has made a bunch of concessions to make it a very easy to deal with system. They use standard PCI and AGP busses and ATAPI drives: I stuck a $50 DVD burner into my G4 with little issue over the weekend. Obviously USB has made it easier for everyone, as the keyboards and mice all are interchangeable (and OS X supports more than one button mice!). The memory is the same DDR as on most PC motherboards. This has made it easy and relatively cheap to upgrade their towers.
I am still a little puzzled by the MacMini, though: the G4 cube failed pretty hard for Apple (although it is still bitchin’ design-wise). I suppose that now, even many PC users are buying USB 2.0 and FireWire hard drives or hard drive enclosures to expand rather than opening the case up and dealing with IDE ribbon cable, power, and cooling. Since expansion is far less of an issue, such a computer may make more sense.
Companies make tiny margins on Intel/Athlon computers. I’m sure the same is true of the iRiver/Creative/Dell cheaper mp3 players. They offer IMHO superior products at a premium, and so far it is working. Their laptops, their MP3 players, the desktops are priced around 20-30% more than equivalent PCs. The MacMini in this respect makes sense; it is a play for the same market as the $500 Dell and HP computers, at their same 20-30% markup.
It’s nifty, but I agree, the $499 tag is a bit of a crock. It ships with no keyboard or mouse. Excuse me? I can see why the stock dropped $4+ today.
Edwino, I think you have the right take: this is the Cube Redux. A box everyone will agree is nifty, and almost nobody will purchase. I could be wrong, but it just doesn’t seem like a good fit.
I dunno. Like I said above, this thing is only going to be about usable if you jack up the price at least two or three hundred bucks; and again, that’s without a keyboard or monitor, no DVD, no wireless, nothing. In reality, it’s more like a 50-100% markup over the PC counterparts, and you can’t even upgrade it yourself without voiding the warrantee, in all probability. Plus, the processor and GPU are likely soldered-in. That means the whole unit is a paperweight in about two years. It’s a paperweight today with only 256MB RAM; and the $499 model has only got a 1.25GHz G4, for goodness sake. Why anyone would switch because of this I haven’t a clue. Clearly this thing is aimed at the switchers, and I just don’t see how it could succeed. Like the Cube, it’s spiffy, but what more has it really got going for it?
Actually, I think that’s a smart move. By now, a lot of people already have extra keyboards and/or mice. And of those who don’t, a lot replace their stock keyboards and mice with wireless keyboards, optical mice, trackballs, etc. So why not leave them out, lower the price, and let the customers choose?
Or would it be better if they marked the machine with a keyboard and mouse for $599?
Well, the keyboard and mouse thing is less of an issue, but I don’t know too many people with decent displays just lying around. Yeah, I’ve got an old 14" CRT monitor collecting dust somplace, but hooking that up to the Mini would almost be a crime. These $500 PCs this thing is going up against sometimes come with keyboard, mouse, and a 17" LCD monitor. Plus, you don’t void your warrantee if you want a decent amount of RAM and find paying $500 or it a bit nuts.
What LoopyDude said.
I also note that the very lowest end display to be had in the Apple Store is a 20" LCD panel for $1k. Apple couldn’t have rebranded some kitsch 17" model for the Mini?
I would (and might) get it for the iLife suite of programs. I need a good DVD authoring tool and something that makes setting up & burning photo slideshows a breeze. There is no program for the PC that I have come across with as intuitive and easy an interfact as iMovie. That program alone is worth $500 to me.
Knowing close to nil about Macs, I have a couple of questions.
#1 - Will it hook up to a CRT?
#2 - What’s the deal on Mac specs Vs. PC specs? I’ve always heard that lower numbers for Macs were equivolent to big PC numbers. For instance (and I’m completely pulling these numbers out of thin air), a 733mhz Mac CPU would be equal to a 1.2Ghz PC CPU. When I checked the World of Warcraft system requirements to see if this thing would play it (you see what’s on my mind ;)), I noticed that the reqs for Mac were actually higher. What gives? Why does Mac charge twice as much for half the specs and the specs that you’re getting half of aren’t even as good?!
Well, it needs to be worth more than that, I’m afraid. OS10.3.x needs pretty much all of that 256Mb of RAM just to run. The idea of editing video on a 1.25GHz G4 with no L3 cache and 256Megs is almost painful. You’ll need an extra 256Mb of RAM at very least, but that’s pretty much wasting the one RAM slot. The next option seems to be to put a full gig in there, which will set you back almost the price of the unit itself. Plus, you need the SuperDrive to burn DVDs, and that’s another $100 (easily worth it, though). Absolute minimum for what you want is another $200 or so.
Is that what Apple charges for RAM? I bought mine for less than 1/4 of that price, and the Apple support people talked me through the installation (not that I needed it, but the first chip I bought was bad, and they figured it should be removed, so…)
I’d also ditch the 3-year warrantee. Totally not needed for any device, but that’s just my opinion.
I figure you have to look at what the market needs now. Most people are probably still using machines they bought in 1999 because of the Y2K scare (at least, my parents are) but they’re looking to get something new. Since they’re not power users, they’re unlikely to care much about upgrading.
Throw in the hefty software suite (iMovie, iTunes, iPhoto and Garageband are excellent) that comes with the MacMini, and I think they’d be sold on the switch.
While burning DVDs is nice, do you really think that the average home user is gonna start burning hour-long home movies?
Depending on the CRT, yes. I imagine almost any standard PC monitor will work fine.
This I do not know. It’s really been a while since I paid attention to comparitive specs with G4 machines, because without dual processors, P4 systems leave G4 Macs completely in the dust. With dual processors, how do you guage what you get out of it per MHz? Generally, the PowerPC processors from G4 up get more speed/cycle than the Intel line, but this is a very task-oriented kind of thing. Some things P4s do better, some things PPCs do better. So coming up with a accurate statement like “The Freescale PowerPC 7447a is 140% faster per cycle than the Intel Pentium4” is pretty much impossible. On average, I’d say it’s probably not too far from that number, but I could be wrong. One thing to remember about gaming on the Mac is there’s no sound card, so some of the cycles that would have been dedicated to a seperate dedicated DSP are instead handled by the CPU. So there’s a bit of a performance hit there. GPU and video RAM are also issues to consider.
I imagine, until somebody actually tries to put this thing head-to-head with a reasonably comparable PC, this question will be virtually impossible to answer with any certainty. Keep an eye on Bare Feats, as they probably will be doing just such a test in the near future.
Yes, the Mac will hook up to any display. I have my G4 (an old one, granted) hooked up to Loopydude’s proverbial 14" CRT that I had collecting dust (and a $2 USB mouse). It’s ugly but it works. The MiniMac has a DVI out (for flat panel displays) and comes with a DVI to 15 pin VGA plug. It is expected that these things will be hooked up to whatever monitor you were using on the Pentium II you just threw away. And keyboard and mice are almost free – I recently saw USB wireless keyboard/mouse combinations at the local MicroCenter on sale for $15.
I’m using iMovie to put together DVDs of my baby and GarageBand to do music stuff – they are both very nice programs. GarageBand can serve as a effects rack for my electric guitar although the MacMini hasn’t got line-in so you’ll have to buy a audio->USB dongle. My wife’s second cousin put together a widely-acclaimed movie (Tarnation) using only iMovie. The iLife suite is a very, very good set of programs included for free. Given the set of video editing tools that came with my videocamera, I am very very thankful that I have iLife and a slow Mac. For some, the iLife may be worth the price of the computer alone – a good video editing suite with a passable sound composition suite may be worth $500 alone.
While I still think of this thing as a cheapo Cube that won’t be The Salvation Of Apple (the iPod appears to be that anyway), I still think it is an OK marketing move. The Cube was a high-end thing, a tiny G4 when the G4 first came out and was still classified as a supercomputer. Those buying G4s in the day were the graphic designers and music producers and other guys who needed the processing power. Unfortunately, it is the same set who look to do things like upgrade the video, add different I/O cards and so forth, all of which were impossible on the G4 Cube. It had FireWire, but 2 years ago I seem to remember FireWire being a whole lot less prevalent. So the G4 Cube didn’t sell well – a computer for high-end users not wishing to upgrade anything.
The MacMini has a better chance because it is specifically not targetted to these folks. The people buying the MacMini are novice users sick of the firewalls, spyware, and virus programs associated with running XP, or people who got an iPod for Christmas and are so impressed by the Apple product line that they are willing to give it a try, especially if they have a KVM or an extra monitor lying around.
I dunno. Aren’t all the cheap PCs pretty much coming with DVD-R for about six hundred bucks now? That’s also including more RAM and a monitor.
I admit that it’s light on the RAM, but I’m running OS X (Panther) on a four year old Pismo laptop G3 with 320 Meg and a 400Mhz processor and performance really isn’t an issue except for iPhoto which isn’t really up to managing several thousand 5MB photos with that processor. And the thing about RAM is that people don’t necessarily include that in their purchase decisions – that’s an “I can get that later” sort of thing which makes the initial price more palatable. (I assume that they made at least the RAM user accessible on this device.)
I think it’s going to do fairly well for what they intend it to be – a cheap way for PC users (who already have keyboards and monitors) to either switch or at least experiment with a Mac.
I admit I’m disappointed, though. I’m still waiting for my G5 Powerbook. Or at least my affordable 15" G4 Powerbook.
“Virii” is not a word. The plural of “virus” is “viruses.”