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Tim Cook Confirms the Mac Mini Isn't Dead (macrumors.com)
Apple has refreshed just about every Mac product within the last couple of years -- except for the Mac Mini. Naturally, this has left many analysts questioning whether or not the company would be phasing out the Mini to focus more on its mobile devices. A MacRumors reader decided to email Apple CEO Tim Cook to get an update on the Mac mini and he received a response. Cook said it was "not time to share any details," but he confirmed that the Mac mini will be an important part of the company's product lineup in the future. MacRumors reports: Cook's response echoes a similar statement from Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller, who commented on the Mac mini when Apple's plans for a new Mac Pro were unveiled. "The Mac mini is an important product in our lineup and we weren't bringing it up because it's more of a mix of consumer with some pro use," he said. Positioned as a "bring your own peripherals" machine that comes without a mouse, keyboard, or display, the Mac mini is Apple's most affordable desktop machine. The current version is woefully outdated though, and continues to use Haswell processors and integrated Intel HD 5000/Intel Iris Graphics. It's not clear when Apple will introduce a new Mac mini, and aside from a single rumor hinting at a new high-end Mac mini with a redesign that "won't be so mini anymore," we've heard no rumors about work on a possible Mac mini refresh.
That which is dead cannot die.
My faith in the veracity of Tim Cook's claims remains dead.
Put up or shut up. Apple has reached a level of credibility that I though was reserved for Microsoft.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Tim Cook has shown he doesn't care about the Mac in general, let alone the Mac Mini. After launching the iPad Pro he asked, "Why would you buy a PC any more?" He believes the future of computing is tablets and smartphones and doesn't understand people have actual work to do.
To a large extent this shows why he shouldn't be running Apple. Since he took over they haven't managed to introduce a single new product line that has had any major impact on the market, but he has caused the Mac to lose about a third of its users. His whole plan for Apple seems to be "lets just keep releasing increment improvements to the iPhone".
The difference between Apple under Steve Jobs and Apple under Tim Cook is astounding. Under Tim Cook it is doing nothing, and he could easily be replaced by a block of wood and you would see no impact on the company. Just what is he being paid for?
The way Apple talks about the Mini makes it sound like they completely neglected to work on that line of products, as if they were overwhelmed by the rest!
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
World's most profitable company can't afford to release new models of their hardware!
Somehow all those other manufactures skimming by on thin margins in the race to the bottom manage to crank out new models...
If they hadnt glued to a stick it would be pushing up the daisies.
I hope they come up with something soon. I've two family members with 7 year old imacs that really do need refreshing but the current price of imacs is a total turn off. A reasonably well powered mac mini paired with some decent and compatible peripherals would be more than sufficient and get them back into support.
The two WORST SELLING Macs on Apple's lineup - the Mac Pro and Mac Mini.
And they always have been that way, before the Mac Pro became the trash can style computer - back when it was the super expandable computer with expansion slots and everything.
Neither of them are technically "dead" since Apple will sell you a new one that's years old and due for refreshes, but they're not stunning sellers that Apple finds worthy of putting more than the minimal amount of engineering effort into.
The Mac Pro does have a future - a tiny one for the tiny population of people who really need the power it has. The Mac Mini has always been more vague since other than a small desktop PC, it was always in a weird spot - did Apple position it as a living room computer driving the big screen TV, or as a regular desktop PC?
Anyhow, both have historically been poor sellers for several models now - both Mac Pro and Mac Mini owners have wondered for several generations of hardware - prior to the trash can design and even back wen Minis had optical drives.
So, the price will go up (again) or it won't fit its niche anymore?
I want a full sized tower. It should use all 110 volts coming out of the wall for high availability duty cycle for the whole warranty period and beyond. It needs room for a lot of internal drives for low latency high volumes of data. It should be pushed hard and be able to take it, no thermal throttling. I want a desktop unit, not a laptop in a desktop shell.
When you get that done, we'll talk about replacing the MacBook Pro 17 inch.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Apple makes desktops!? I thought they were a phone company!/s
What the "market" will actually decide is something different.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
I wouldn't take that reply to mean that it is dead or not. This isn't because we're dealing with Apple it's because we're dealing with a company. By comparison if Chevrolet announced this afternoon that they are canceling the Camaro again, Chevy fans would be up in arms over the brand abandoning them. If they instead coyly said they were "committed" to it and then gradually reduced production over the next few years until dropping it entirely by 2020 they could say it was "market pressures" and "consumer demand", without there having been any company plans for it before then.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
but it is underpowered and a little dated, they need to up the specs to a quad core i7 and 16 gigs ram, with some newer video gpu,
i like the new Mac Pro, the black round one that looks like a waste basket, they look well built, and for 3000+ bucks they damn well better be
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Sorry Tim, I can't hear those words without thinking of the Monty Python bit from "Holy Grail"
"A Little Song, A Little Dance, A Little Seltzer Down your Pants" -Chuckles The Clown
We wanted a Mac Mini, so we bought an Intel NUC and turned it into a Hackintosh. It works great. We ended up spending almost the same amount of money, but the result was something vastly more powerful.
There are a few shortcomings, though, so if you're thinking of taking this route, you should do your research on the process and limitations first.
Among the iSheep. Among the rest of us, utter indifference.
And still uses a 5400 RPM HDD. You Windows and Linux users have no idea how slow macOS is on anything but SSDs.
The whole macOS development team should be forced to use the low-end model of the least powerful Mac. Then either macOS would run fine on it (and fly on anything else) or they'd be able to put enough pressure internally at Apple to upgrade the damn thing to SSD.
#DeleteFacebook
Apple is waiting to release the new Mini at the same time as OS 11. And then say, "Sorry older Mini users. You'll just need to upgrade."
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Its not dead... its just sleeping
... it certainly looks neglected. How long has it been since the last real upgrade to the Macmini hardware?
It should use all 110 volts coming out of the wall
maybe you should try using an outlet, it works better
Went to an Apple store recently while waiting for the wife. A year or so ago they had at least four tables or more of MacBook Pros, MacBooks, and iMacs. A few days ago? Only one table out of about twenty had a couple of iMacs and Macbook Pros. Literally the whole store had nothing but iPhones and various tablets. It was like I walked into an AT&T store. Apple is pushing mobile devices, they apparently don't give a rats butt about desktops or laptops.
Lets assume I'm an Apple Fan Boy because that is probably more true than false.
Tim is a huge fuck up. He could have at least $20,000 more of my money than he does.
If he would have offered a good MPB three years ago, I would have bought it and would have probably purchased another MPB this year.
If there was an updated Mac Mini, I would have bought one within the past twelve months.
If there was an updated Mac Pro -- especially if it could be upgraded -- I would have bought one of those within the past two years.
If I had not been teased with the iMac Pro, I would have bought an iMac a few months back.
Sure... I probably would not have purchased ALL of those but I bet I would have purchased more than just a couple. I can't predict. But the point is that Apple treats the Mac like a red headed step child and that is driving revenue down. Instead of being able to have a need and immediately fill it with a solid viable Mac, I search and surf, get frustrated, and decide that my need isn't that great after all and go back to just watching porn.
The plus side is that I still have the $20,000 in my pocket and, of course, technology is getting better and cheaper. My needs keep changing. So my room full of junk to sell on eBay is only half full instead of flooding over.
Why not Linux? Because I'm possessed by the Adobe hordes. Yea, there are open source wanna be's but I'm addicted to the Creative Suite with its 15 or so applications and the way they are all integrated.
Why not a Hackintosh? Mostly because I have yet to have a true need that is real. The machines I have are able to do the work I need. My first Hackintosh I assume will be a non-trivial journey. Ten years ago, I would have enjoyed it. Now I just want to go buy something that works. I can afford it and I've lost the key curiosity that would make such an adventure fun. Its basically "been there, done that" and I'm not anxious to do it again.
The only good thing I can say about Tim is, for whatever reason, the stock keeps going up. The $20K I keep mentioning I used to buy Apple stock with and its now worth $30K. Attaboy Tim!
I think everyone is being too harsh, it's not like Apple has hundreds of billions of dollars on the books and money to spend on maintaining product lines other than the iPhone. He is just one man after all, how can you expect Tim Cook to focus on more than a couple of product lines each year. He'll get to it when he has time.
Sheesh, people these days.
"The current version is woefully outdated". It may be "outdated", but my 6 year old Mac mini runs circles around just about every Windows desktop I touch (and I touch 100's of them a month). A CPU and SSD refresh would make it a competitive machine again.
Yes, but that's not the solution - that's one of the problems. OS X (MacOS now, sigh) and the applications that run under it are a huge part of why people use these machines. It's not as simple as just offering non-Mac upgradable hardware. When that offer includes "abandon everything you have and start over", then it's not the same proposition at all as "buy a new Mac." If it's "make an unsupported 'Hackintosh'", it's still not much better because the potential for things to go much more wrong without recourse remains.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
After launching the iPad Pro [Tim Cook] asked, "Why would you buy a PC any more?"
When did he announce availability of Xcode on the iPad App Store?
Under Tim Cook it is doing nothing, and he could easily be replaced by a block of wood and you would see no impact on the company.
That's racist against Pinocchio, Tommy Timbertoes, and other wooden people. #triggered
That crusty old Evinrude outboard isn't going to run forever.
The Mac Mini died for us when they removed the ability to expand the RAM and the Kensington lock port, making them utterly unsuitable for deployment in labs and classrooms. With the MacBook, one might have (falsely) tried to argue that such moves were "necessary" (nope) to make it thinner (even though nobody wanted it thinner) but with the Mac Mini, the thing is the same damn size. This proved that the move to eliminate expandable memory served no other purpose than to screw over users and ensure they have to buy a whole new computer when all they need is more RAM. It's abhorrent, because the Mac Mini originally was ridiculously easy to add RAM to (removing the 2.5" HDDs, on the other hand, while possible is kind of a PITA).
But as other have stated, Apple has stopped caring about making real computers for a while now anyway. The Macs are on a trajectory to become just like iPhones and iPads: overpriced, impractical fashion/status statements with a forced 1-2 year replacement cycle.
The Mac Mini really shines with kids.
Hey, I give my kids a laptop, even AppleCare won't cover the damage they do. (One of them tried to water my laptop once! Apparently it worked for the plants...) Any laptop I give them would be dead in a matter of days. (Daddy, how do we put the screen back on?) A Windows laptop, we'll get drive-by malware off the first website they visit...
But Mac Mini, aside from being a lot cheaper, well I can put it up high, where drinks and God know's what else won't spill on it. The monitor's like $100, replaceable when I can't get the crayon marks off. A keyboard and mouse are like $10 at Walmart. Very easily, and quite frequently, replaced!
Don't sell the Mac Mini short! And no, my kids don't need the latest and greatest chipset. Just so long as it handles Steam, Chrome, Roblox, Guild Wars, Netflix, etc.
I remember when the Mac Mini came out and everyone on Slashdot was saying how it would sell like crazy. Over a decade later the product is nearly abandoned. When will Slashdot learn that Apple does not care about computer literate customers? They only want to sell their overpriced phones to suckers.
Until they say so, it isn't dead.
When you think about it. Using older hardware longer and keeping the original price makes for a steady increase in margin. Obviously older hardware get's cheaper. If Apple never passes this along in discounts. It simply makes more per unit as it ages. This is brilliant wouldn't you say? Yes, I supposed you could argue the advancements in hardware isn't leaps anymore. Hazwell is probably not so much outdated as it is simply not current. But it doesn't say much for Apple being cutting edge anymore.
Our iMac just died and big, high-res screens are cheap so the best solution is a Mac Mini. How hard would it be to just update the processor? Come on Apple!
I canâ(TM)t be the only yearning for the days when I could carry around a full-featured 8â device. Iâ(TM)m typing this on a 10.5â iPad Pro, and Iâ(TM)m still having trouble getting used to how big it is.
Apple like many companies has fallen to the bean counters which eventually put out successful companies to pasture. Not to die, but to become a zombie that barely resembles it's former self that feeds of the market: eating brains and following the herd of mutual funds.
Tim is another money man who has transformed a company into a kind of mutual fund; the kind of thing that he was good at within the company helped him rise to power to the point where the core purposes were overtaken with the sole purpose of increased profits from their capital investments. Having him on the board may have helped Steve protect himself from another coup but it's a deal with the devil that risks the "soul" of the company (no matter how nice Tim may be, he is a bean counter.) Steve's ego was such that to promote Tim, so his company would live on forever.... was probably the plan: a dead but immortal monument to his success, unlikely to eclipse him and whose soul he probably thought was himself... so without him, it may as well be a tome (many think this as well.)
Do not think Apple is above killing the Mac, they killed the iPods (which still were profitable, just a tiny tiny slice... to a bean counter, it was a waste because it didn't make enough profit. innovate means growth in profit for those type of people. )
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Apple like many companies has fallen to the bean counters which eventually put out successful companies to pasture. Not to die, but to become a zombie that barely resembles it's former self which feeds off the market: eating brains and following the zombie herd (mutual funds.)
Tim is another money man who transformed a company into an investment fund. The very kind of thing that he was good at within the company helped him rise to power to the point where the core purposes were overtaken with the sole purpose of increased profits from their capital investments. Steve's ego promoted Tim so his company would live on forever.... was probably the plan: a dead but immortal monument to his success, unlikely to eclipse him and whose soul he probably thought was himself... so without him, it may as well be a tome (many think this as well.)
Do not think Apple is above killing the Mac, they killed the iPods (which still were profitable, just a tiny tiny slice... to a bean counter, it was a waste because it didn't make enough profit. innovate means growth in profit for those type of people.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I have no inside information or anything, so take this at face value .... just an educated guess by a guy who follows the industry.
But all of the recent rumors about what the next Mac Pro workstation will be lines up nicely with a new Mac Mini. Basically, the next Mac Pro should be a very modular system that allows you to build it with as much or as little as you need.
It makes a lot of sense that you could start such a machine with a "base" that's essentially a Mac Mini. You could design the case so the expansion modules stack, almost like LEGO bricks. Need 3D graphics? Buy the add-on block with the latest video GPUs in it. Need more drive storage? Snap on the storage expansion unit that holds 4 hot-swappable drives in it. Need more CPU power than the base has built into it? Again, fine. Buy the multi-core, multi-processor expansion box that snaps on top and disables the original CPU in the base unit.
IF Apple has anything in mind remotely like this, it makes sense why the Mac Mini hasn't gotten an upgrade for so long. It has to wait for everything else, so it can be launched along with everything else to cover the whole range of needs.
For the more purist Mac devotees, Apple will also be releasing the more Apple Mac than an Apple Mac, Mac Tini: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
Apple HAS the resources to aggressively work on ALL fronts. An investment manager will put most his eggs into the high growth investments and skip the lower growth ones; it's warped priorities. The Mac department makes plenty of profit to fund their own progress but instead they are funding stronger products with that money. They'd be doing better if they just isolated money from the two.
They should just serve their own customers; forget about innovation on the Mac line, just keeping up with their existing customer needs would be enough. They've not done anything to progress Macs in many years; it's all been steps backwards outside of tech updates which are too slow.
Pro Desktop:
If you want to innovate and serve pro developers of iDevices... A rack mountable tower that makes NO SOUND. Like the old cheese grater but EVERYTHING can be swapped out... more like a PC. Sell motherboards and cpus finally. If Apple can't upgrade often they could at least make it easy to upgrade the parts... just subcontract with ASUS or something. If they want to "innovate" they'd make nice little plastic lego blocks out of everything; including the CPU and RAM. Sure I could buy ram and take apart your lego... but for a little premium a lot of people would just buy your lego brick and pop it in/out.
Schools: mini... bring back emac as weak mini.
have little need of Apple anymore, except legacy. Mac mini's do not serve them anymore... no security ports. Too expensive to not have upgradable. iMacs too much to service. Innovation here would be to amortize costs to ease the school funding problems--- pay $200 per mini per year. Get a new one every couple years, quick replacements. Hell, operate parts of the service at a loss and take the PR and tax write offs. Contracts for the bond-funding schools deal with-- so pay upfront for X years being an option. Mac management used to be cheaper, now it's more work than windows. Virtual Box management like integration (or other VM.) since schools have old software needs.
Mini for headless uses:
if there is a niche to fill that a weak cheap mini would meet. otherwise I think Intel and some other tiny business PCs are doing great; but the above emac mini would serve that too. Apple TV is supposed to take over the TV niche for the mini; make the leap already. HDMI? a joke.
Laptops:
No MagSafe!@#! Lack of connectivity is too extreme in the consumer laptop. Make it stronger... it shouldn't break from 1 drop like a phone or tablet. It's life is short. tablet+keyboard. and the keyboards suck.
Pro Laptops:
SUCK. Not enough balls to admit the mistakes either. Dongles negate portability. no magsafe. no upgrades. Needs reasonably priced RAM at high amounts, then i wouldn't care. thunderbolt 3 external cases would almost replace towers. PROs need USB-A and have cameras worth $$$$ using SD cards. USB-A and mini are standards that will not go away, people are not going to upgrade their USB-A powered toys. USB-C should have been fixed or disputed not just embraced because it's a total fuckup... 1 plug for everything should make you think lord of the rings... not in a good way either. ESC key needs to be tactile. F1 keys double function has been fucked up for many years... Apple never got it; they didn't need a touch screen to fix it. and the keyboards suck. they don't know buttons.
iMacs:
Servicing is a mess; however, the stores are all over. OS X and software has been slipping for years. My old relatives and neighbors are happy... except extra sharp displays serve them no purpose. The keyboards and mice are horrible for those users... especially the batteries and charging issues for them. and the keyboards just suck.
iMac Pro:
I don't know but I'm only now thinking of replacing my 30" monitor with 5k. It has lasted over a decade thru at least a dozen macs. Tying that quality display to a CPU may not make sense long term unless resale works out well... but it's easier to sell an old tower than a display.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Any plans Apple has for the MacMini will no doubt follow Apple's custom of non-upgradeabilithy and non-repairability---so look forward to having everything soldered in place.
Neither's my great grandma... she's in a nursing home hooked up to a bunch of machines that my dad says make her be alive, but I don't believe that.
If you unplug someone and she immediately dies, and she's never getting better and never waking up, she isn't alive anymore.
And neither is the Mac Mini. It's on fucking life-support, and like my dad, Tim Cook simply refuses to pull the plug.
J/K, my grandparents and their parents are in fact, all dead. Just like the Mac Mini.
Know what else is dead? The TRUTH. I morn her passing.
Apple is a for profit company. High performing products get attention low performing products don’t. Even if the low performing product is profitable. If you have resources and you can use a resource to double your money or use the resources to triple your money the resources will go to where it is tripled.
Apple could put more resources in the Mac but they won’t because it is a slowing market. They are doing just enough to keep the ecosystem in place in case something big happens to its mobile market.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
...but will he return from heaven or will someone else take over Jobs's job?
This is what I want (and need).
But I guess that will never happen. Apple has turned in to the type of company that stops giving the cows food to increase the profit on the milk.
And the word UNIX at this point is just a trademark
A trademark that represents a certification program. A "UNIX" system conforms to the Single UNIX Specification (that is, POSIX). I don't know if macOS does, but some versions of its predecessor (OS X) were certified as UNIX systems. iOS likely does not conform to POSIX because the system lacks a terminal and shell.