Mac Mini Receives First Overhaul in Four Years; New iPad Pro With No Home Button Announced (venturebeat.com)

Apple is turning its attention to a range of devices it has not upgraded in recent years. Alongside the new MacBook Air that the company unveiled on Tuesday, it is also upgrading the Mac Mini for the first time in four years, and also has a new iPad Pro in the offering. Regarding the new Mac Mini: It has Intel's 8th generation processors -- in four- and six-core i7, i5, and i3 flavors -- and 60 percent faster graphics. The processor's paired with up to 64GB of RAM (8GB comes on standard) at 2666MHz and up to 2TB of SSD storage -- double the capacity of previous Mac Minis. Overall, it's up to 5 times faster than the previous-gen models, Apple claims, and can drive 4K and 5K Thunderbolt displays and output in three formats. In terms of ports, there's plenty to go around: two USB-A, HDMI 2.0 video, four Thunderbolt USB-C, an audio out port, and a Gigbabit Ethernet port (you can add up to 10 Gigabit Ethernet, if you so choose). Also onboard is Apple's T2 chip. It's a 64-bit ARMv8 chip -- a variant of Apple's A10 -- that runs Apple's custom BridgeOS 2.0 operating system (an Apple watch derivative). The new Mac Mini starts at $799. Regarding the new iPad Pro: After months of rumors, Apple has today announced a completely redesigned iPad Pro with slimmed-down bezels, Face ID, a USB-C port, and far more powerful specs than its predecessor. Just like prior years, the new iPad Pro comes in two screen sizes: 11-inch and 12.9-inch. The 11-inch model has essentially the same proportions as the prior 10.5-inch model. And the 12.9-inch model puts the same-sized display into a much smaller form factor. The new iPad Pro starts at $799 for the 11-inch and $999 for the 12.9-inch. Preorders begin today and it ships November 7th. The new Pro is the company's first iPad not to include a home button, which allowed Apple to extend the screen vertically for a much more immersive experience. The bezels have been downsized on all four sides. [...] But something else has been removed, too: the headphone jack. There's no 3.5mm port visible on any of the device's sides, meaning that buyers will need a USB-C-to-headphone dongle to listen to music through wired headphones. The 11-inch iPad Pro starts at $799. The 12.9-inch version starts at $999. It goes on sale today and ships on November 7.

Comments

"32GB Comes Standard"

[willaien]

What? No. 8GB is standard. 32GB is $600 more - almost the full price of the base model.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[alvinrod]

Apparently the RAM is user upgradable, so why you'd want to pay Apple's obscene markup to install a few DIMMs for you is beyond me.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[willaien]

Sure, if I were buying it and wanted 32GB, I wouldn't be paying $600 for sure. Just complaining about the inaccurate article (or summary) that claims 32GB is "standard" on the product. If that were the case, then the $799 price point wouldn't actually be that bad.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[alvinrod]

Fair point, but still doesn't change the fact that if you can upgrade the memory yourself there's no point at all to pay the Apple tax. I haven't checked recently, but you should be able to get 32 GB for well under $300.

Apple always makes the entry tier for their products crappy so push people into the next product wrung where they charge an extra $200+ for components that cost them maybe $20, so that it's pretty much pure profit. Then they've got the high-end model that's even more expensive, but isn't that much better so you feel like you're still getting a hell of a deal. It's a pretty well known marketing gimmick to get people to upgrade.

However, here there's no need since the user can just buy their own memory if they want it.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it "user upgradeable" as in the original Mac Mini, as in glued shut and requiring a spattle or two to get the latches to finally release the top cover?

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[Octorian]

Many years ago, when I bought an Apple laptop, I ordered my extra RAM stick separately from Crucial. (way back when you could still do this)
Much to my surprise, the "much cheaper" RAM I got was the SAME brand and part number as what Apple was shipping the machine with!

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully that's an upgradable NVME drive in there as well.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[singularity]

I worked Apple retail before going on to work at two different Apple Specialists (the highest level of AASP - Apple Authorized Service Provider). I now work for a another company and one of my tasks is the occasional job of taking Apple machines in for repair.

At this point, the number of Apple machines I have dealt with that were going through the AppleCare repair process number in the tens of thousands, I would guess. In all of that time, I have not once seen an AppleCare coverage denied because of third-party RAM installed by the end user. Not a single time.

Your statement is verifiably incorrect by the thousands of other people who have had the same experience as mine.

Re: "32GB Comes Standard"

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually not a surprise at all. Typical for apple.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[Anonymous Coward]

I put an SSD and different RAM in my Macbook Pro from about 4 years ago. Nobody at the Apple store cared and it didn't affect the warranty at all.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[Anonymous Coward]

The warranty won't cover the upgraded part and any damage you cause doing the upgrade. That's it. For everything else, the warranty remains valid. Anyone who tells you any different is lying to you, probably because they're being lazy and don't want to do the paperwork. People suck, but that's not an Apple thing.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[b0s0z0ku]

Magnuson-Moss Act -- aftermarket parts can't void a warranty. If you're in the US, voiding a warranty for this is illegal. Not to mention, just keep the original RAM and put it back in when returning to the store for service. No need to be honest when dealing with thieves.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[mark-t]

Pray tell, what was I supposed to say to them that I would have been able to get my computer back, and in particular, would not have required me to call a lawyer, which would have cost me even *more* money? Thankfully, the repair was not that costly (it was a network adapter issue), but it was enough for me to decide to not deal with Apple again. Not that it really matters, as I said... this was three years ago now, and it's not like it's still under warranty anymore now anyways.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[Strider-]

Yeah, doesn't quite work that way.

Back when my MBP was under AppleCare, they were fine doing motherboard/screen/battery repairs under the warranty, even though I had modified my laptop about as much as you can... Maxed the ram, gone dual storage (SSD + mechanical disk).

They never batted an eye, except when the hard drive crapped out. At that point they wouldn't replace it when it was in the CD->HDD carrier, so I moved it back to the HD bay and they were fine dealing with it.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[hawk]

> there's no point at all to pay the Apple tax.

The reason that you *consider* paying apple memory prices is that apple's specs for memory are something like a half a standard deviation higher than other good memory.

I don't find it worth it, but the reality is that meeting apple's specs is more expensive.

Then again, a few years ago when I brought my iMac in the third time for crashes, they returned it with my bank of aftermarket memory in a bag--with the offending stick labeled . . .

hawk

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably because knowing Apple opening the machine would void your warranty. Apple is completely against right to repair.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[thegarbz]

The reason that you *consider* paying apple memory prices is that apple's specs for memory are something like a half a standard deviation higher than other good memory.

Except you get basically zero performance benefit for it, so no.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

What? No. 8GB is standard. 32GB is $600 more - almost the full price of the base model.

This is correct- for the cost of an "upgrade" to 32GB you could buy 2 or 3 fully-loaded Samsung or Lenovo tablets, which would come with Micro SD card slots and normal, industry-standard headphone jacks.

Sorry Apple, I've already switched to a Samsung Tab A 10.1, and I'm not going back. The problem is that your gear is devoid of of standard features like memory card slots, headphone jacks, and affordable prices.

Apple's pricing has always been high, but these new models push the pricing into stratospheric-stupid territory.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[Megane]

It's the same push-and-turn lid that they've been using since the Unibody era. It looks like they've even gone with standard SSD modules, since they say "all-flash PCIe-based storage". And now that external GPUs are finally a thing, you could (theoretically) even play actual games on it.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[Megane]

"Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act"?

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I just got a Galaxy Tab A 10.1" tablet with 32GB for $205 off of eBay (Amazon sells the same thing for about $250).

It comes with a micro SD card slot (expandable up to 2TB), a standard headphone jack, Bluetooth, micro-USB, wi-fi, and a gorgeous 10.1" screen, 1900x1200.

I just can't see any reason why I would pay close to $1000 for the Apple device.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd pay a pretty large premium just to avoid Android. Android is a complete clusterfuck and is only getting worse.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[The Original CDR]

Hopefully that's an upgradable NVME drive in there as well.

Nope. That's not upgradeable. However, the Mac mini works fine with external storage. I usually keep a clean Mac OS install on the internal drive, clone it to an external drive, and boot off the external drive for day-to-day usuage.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[squiggleslash]

Then again, a few years ago when I brought my iMac in the third time for crashes, they returned it with my bank of aftermarket memory in a bag--with the offending stick labeled . . .

Which they probably wouldn't have done if it was Apple's memory and that had failed... given third party alternatives fail from time to time, it's incredibly easy to pretend you have much higher standards by highlighting third party components when they fail, and just ignore the issue when it's your own.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[dgatwood]

Pray tell, what was I supposed to say to them that I would have been able to get my computer back, and in particular, would not have required me to call a lawyer, which would have cost me even *more* money?

Ask to speak to the manager. If the manager maintains that position, pick up the phone and call 1-800-SOS-APPL. Press zero repeatedly until you are connected to an operator. Ask to be transferred to Apple Customer Relations.

Refusing warranty coverage for third-party RAM, unless the RAM is faulty, is a violation of Apple's policies, and is also illegal, at least in the United States (Magnusson Moss). Customer Relations will make things right.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[Anonymous Coward]

PCIe can be on proprietary connector or more likely now, on-board. Macbook Pro has PCIe storage too.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[Anonymous Coward]

OEM PC vendors played that game too. They tricked you into buying Compaq RAM.

I think Mac did use different RAM 30 years ago. They used 8-bit SIMM while PC used 9-bit SIMM (or perhaps socketed chips on the motherboard if your PC was backward)

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you could have used the hard drive manufacturer's warranty :)

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[mark-t]

As I said, this was more than 3 years ago now... and the Applecare on my computer has now long since expired. I can only speak to my experience. The fact that I apparently got modded as a troll for doing so only suggests that people think I had an agenda for saying what I did.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[rthille]

You needed to say, "I need to speak with your manager, because this is BS and you're violating the law here."

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[TheFakeTimCook]

Apparently the RAM is user upgradable, so why you'd want to pay Apple's obscene markup to install a few DIMMs for you is beyond me.

Because if you don't, then you forgo your extended warranty.

And before you ask, yes, this actually happened to me, about 3 years ago now. I made it clear to them that I will never buy another Mac again... their reaction was as about as indifferent as one might expect.

Liar.

Apple didn't even void warranty when people had to PRY them open (before the cranial screwtop lid).

Their position is: "As long as you don't break it upgrading your own stuff, there is no reason to void the warranty."

You must be thinking of Dell.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[TheFakeTimCook]

I worked Apple retail before going on to work at two different Apple Specialists (the highest level of AASP - Apple Authorized Service Provider). I now work for a another company and one of my tasks is the occasional job of taking Apple machines in for repair.

At this point, the number of Apple machines I have dealt with that were going through the AppleCare repair process number in the tens of thousands, I would guess. In all of that time, I have not once seen an AppleCare coverage denied because of third-party RAM installed by the end user. Not a single time.

Your statement is verifiably incorrect by the thousands of other people who have had the same experience as mine.

Exactly.

I hate LYING Apple-Haters. If you're gonna hate on Apple, at least don't LIE to do it.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[TheFakeTimCook]

As I said, this was more than 3 years ago now... and the Applecare on my computer has now long since expired. I can only speak to my experience. The fact that I apparently got modded as a troll for doing so only suggests that people think I had an agenda for saying what I did.

You're not trolling; you're simply LYING.

Otherwise, prove it.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[TheFakeTimCook]

Probably because knowing Apple opening the machine would void your warranty. Apple is completely against right to repair.

Bullshit.

Then why does the new Mac mini revert to SO-DIMMS and perhaps even PCI Memory?

Why does it have an easy to remove bottom-panel?

Fucking LYING HATERS.

FOAD.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[TheFakeTimCook]

What? No. 8GB is standard. 32GB is $600 more - almost the full price of the base model.

This is correct- for the cost of an "upgrade" to 32GB you could buy 2 or 3 fully-loaded Samsung or Lenovo tablets, which would come with Micro SD card slots and normal, industry-standard headphone jacks.

Sorry Apple, I've already switched to a Samsung Tab A 10.1, and I'm not going back. The problem is that your gear is devoid of of standard features like memory card slots, headphone jacks, and affordable prices.

Apple's pricing has always been high, but these new models push the pricing into stratospheric-stupid territory.

Or you can just buy the base model (maybe with a CPU upgrade) and UPGRADE THE MEMORY YOURSELF?!?

Dumbass.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off with your "prove it" bullshit.
You never have any proof to back up the crap you spew about apple.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[Anonymous Coward]

Nooooo its only ok for shills like you to LIE FOR apple
Hypocritical sack of shit.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[Skuld-Chan]

That might make sense, but these are essentially intel pc's and my windows machine's memory cost 4x less - and it's the same cpu/chipset.

Re: "32GB Comes Standard"

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds horrible. Insane DPI guaranteed to ruin your vision. Unless you think thatâ(TM)s a retina screen and everything is rendered as if itâ(TM)s half the resolution

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[mark-t]

And how, exactly, do you think I am supposed to do that three years after the fact?

Not your problem, right? Then stop fucking calling me a liar, because when you do, you are damn well making it your problem.

It's one thing to suggest that my experience should not have happened, but it's quite another to accuse me of making shit up. Had I been aware at the time that I would be recounting this story three years later and had my credibility questioned, I would have probably acquired such proof at the time, but alas, I did not.

Re: "32GB Comes Standard"

[Anonymous Coward]

Your statement is verifiably incorrect by the thousands of other people who have had the same experience as mine

Or the statement is true and the particular technician was just poorly trained, or being a dick. Without the full picture you cant really disprove the claim.

I am certain there are dick technicians servicing Apple gear. There are definitely dick ones everywhere else, even if the majority are good.

Re: "32GB Comes Standard"

[tepples]

Galaxy Tab A 10.1" tablet [...] 1900x1200

Unless you think that's a retina screen

Android does in fact scale up text and images on high-DPI displays, just as macOS and iOS do through Apple's Retina displays. My guess is that applications see 1280 by 800 CSS pixels, which get zoomed 150% to make 1920x1200. (A CSS pixel is defined as a nice round number of device pixels closest to 1/2700 of the viewing distance.)

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[Waccoon]

Is it the memory or the bus?

When I bought my first Mini, I couldn't get any of my DVI-D monitors to work with it and had to settle for a DVI to VGA adapter driving an ancient CRT. I found out later that everyone else was having the same problem. Turns out, Apple's DVI-D connector did not run at industry spec, so almost all monitors on the market (other than Apple's own Cinema Displays) wouldn't work with the Mini. You had to run an aftermarket utility to reclock the DVI port so it actually worked correctly. Oh, and Apple never acknowledged the problem or released a firmware patch.

Just one of MANY problems I had with my Mini (and all my other Macs). I don't buy Apple crap anymore.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[TheFakeTimCook]

And how, exactly, do you think I am supposed to do that three years after the fact?

Not your problem, right? Then stop fucking calling me a liar, because when you do, you are damn well making it your problem.

It's one thing to suggest that my experience should not have happened, but it's quite another to accuse me of making shit up. Had I been aware at the time that I would be recounting this story three years later and had my credibility questioned, I would have probably acquired such proof at the time, but alas, I did not.

You must admit that it flies directly in the face of several other posters, not to mention the Magnuson-Moss Act. Plus, I have read words directly published by Apple back when the Mac mini required prying it open with a paint-scraper, that Apple would not void a warranty unless it was obvious that the user caused damage themselves with a ham-fisted repair attempt.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[TheFakeTimCook]

Nooooo its only ok for shills like you to LIE FOR apple
Hypocritical sack of shit.

Sorry. Not lying nor a shill.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Or you can just buy the base model (maybe with a CPU upgrade) and UPGRADE THE MEMORY YOURSELF?!?

And pay 5 times the cost. Brilliant. Now I see why you're so frequently modded down.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[TheFakeTimCook]

Or you can just buy the base model (maybe with a CPU upgrade) and UPGRADE THE MEMORY YOURSELF?!?

And pay 5 times the cost. Brilliant. Now I see why you're so frequently modded down.

Pay 5 times the cost of what?

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[AmiMoJo]

Apple are using the same CPUs (and thus memory controllers) as everyone else, so there should be no need to use more expensive RAM. If they really cared they would use ECC (and maybe switch to Ryzen that supports it) like they do on the workstations.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[AmiMoJo]

It looks like they've even gone with standard SSD modules, since they say "all-flash PCIe-based storage".

10 bucks to your favourite charity says it's soldered down.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[mark-t]

You must admit that it flies directly in the face of several other posters

I'll have to admit that much, certainly... and honestly, until I started seeing people suggesting that should not have happened, I did not know that my experience was not typical.

I was speaking only from my experience. What baffles is me is why you would think I was lying when I clearly had no reason to.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[TheFakeTimCook]

You must admit that it flies directly in the face of several other posters

I'll have to admit that much, certainly... and honestly, until I started seeing people suggesting that should not have happened, I did not know that my experience was not typical.

I was speaking only from my experience. What baffles is me is why you would think I was lying when I clearly had no reason to.

Sorry. I really DO apologize for my ill-temper.

Too many Slashtards and Apple Haters (and, quite frankly, many of them DO LIE). It just makes one "Trigger Happy" after a while...

It's just a shame you didn't bitch louder at the time; perhaps you would have found some ammunition to hurl at whoever the asshole was that DID LIE TO *YOU*!!!

So, now you can buy that most-excellent new Mac mini, and know that you won't be denied warranty repair if you Upgrade the Memory yourself... ;-)

Re: "32GB Comes Standard"

[Jahoda]

Lol, so we're clear - you installed after market memory, had crashes, and required Apple to diagnose a failed DIMM for you, and further more you believe that Apple's magic memory would have been different, so we should all pay $600 for 32 GB of RAM? Lol, k whatever you say bro. And this is what counts as Slashdot insightful commentary in 2018.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[hawk]

It's not about performance, but failure rate.

If the machine crashing brings your entire business to a halt for hours, a couple of hundred dollars extra to make this less frequent is nothing.

If it's just a couple of minutes, it may not be worth it.

hawk

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[hawk]

>Is it the memory or the bus?

Given that after the supplier replaced the chips, it has run for over seven years without this, rather than once or more a day, I'll go with the chips :)

hawk

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[hawk]

They're not even generally more expensive chips before apple starts with them.

Component failure is a statistical issue; passing apple's specs/testing means they're essentially hand picking chips that are less likely to fail.

As a starting point, seeing how far out of spec the chips runs before having issues gives a proxy for how likely it is to behave *in* spec.

hawk

Re: "32GB Comes Standard"

[hawk]

There was a time, long ago, where such comments that demonstrate you either hadn't read or hadn't understood the post to which you replied would have been mocked and flamed mercilessly . . .

Even today, though, for most people, "I don't find it worth it, but the reality is that meeting apple's specs is more expensive." doesn't even vaguely suggest that ", so we should all pay $600 for 32 GB of RAM? "

hawk

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[thegarbz]

It's not about performance, but failure rate.

Then I will double down on that it is horseshit. Go buy the cheapest shittiest RAM available. If it works out of the box the odds of failure are down the same as every other component in your PC.

If the machine crashing brings your entire business to a halt for hours

Then you likely wouldn't be using MacMinis and instead something with ECC memory and massive forms of redundancy rendering the entire discussion moot.

Sorry but I disagree that there's any value at all in "premium RAM" unless you're getting paid for the instruction and need the absolute tightest timings, or are paying for buffered ECC, neither of which applies to the Mac Mini.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[hawk]

Again, you're missing the point.

There is no claim of higher performance, just lower failure rates. It is *entirely* about failure rates.

Most regular chips will never have an issue.

I don't have the specific numbers, but it's more a matter of going from 99% chance of no problem to 99.9% chance of no problem.

For most people and applications, it isn't worth the cost.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[AmiMoJo]

I really doubt that they are picking them based on probability of failure, because that is hard to measure. You can measure tolerances for stuff like timing and you can measure what its true limits are, but predicting reliability over time... You are in to stuff like x-ray inspection and electron microscopes.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[thegarbz]

There is no claim of higher performance, just lower failure rates. It is *entirely* about failure rates.

And you missed my point. There are no high failure rates. They do not exist. It's like enterprise HDDs show no difference in failure rates compared to consumer drives. And even if there was a concern about failure rates then you wouldn't be spending useless money on RAM in a shitty machine fully of otherwise relatively low end junk components.

There simply is no justification for it.

Unless you're making a beowolf cluster of these.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[mark-t]

For what it's worth, I'm definitely not an Apple hater... just someone who experienced what I thought at the time was that the so-called claim that it wouldn't void warranties was just lip service to the consumer protection laws, but when it came down to brass tacks, they could decide rather arbitrarily to discount the warranty if home repairs had actually been done, leaving me with little recourse unless I wished to bring a lawyer into the matter, which would have been even *more* expensive than the work I needed to get done, not to mention time consuming.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[TheFakeTimCook]

For what it's worth, I'm definitely not an Apple hater... just someone who experienced what I thought at the time was that the so-called claim that it wouldn't void warranties was just lip service to the consumer protection laws, but when it came down to brass tacks, they could decide rather arbitrarily to discount the warranty if home repairs had actually been done, leaving me with little recourse unless I wished to bring a lawyer into the matter, which would have been even *more* expensive than the work I needed to get done, not to mention time consuming.

Well, as much as I (obviously) like Apple, an experience like that would have left me hopping-mad, too...

As I said, too bad you just walked-away mad, instead of escalating it up the chain, which (as I think we can both agree on at this point) would have most likely had the desired effect.

Well, at least you know NOW not to be mad at Apple, per se, about this anymore. One less piece of emotional baggage; always good for improving your lifespan, LOL!

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[mark-t]

I was never actually *mad* about it, to be honest... I felt just mostly disillusioned, to be perfectly frank. This happened to me within the last couple of months before my Applecare was actually about to expire, and I wanted to get one final thing addressed with the wifi adapter that had been bugging me already for some weeks prior, originally anticipating I might be able to get the work done for free when was told I would have to pay.

Re:"32GB Comes Standard"

[TheFakeTimCook]

I was never actually *mad* about it, to be honest... I felt just mostly disillusioned, to be perfectly frank. This happened to me within the last couple of months before my Applecare was actually about to expire, and I wanted to get one final thing addressed with the wifi adapter that had been bugging me already for some weeks prior, originally anticipating I might be able to get the work done for free when was told I would have to pay.

Understood. Kind of like the broken keycaps on my 2012 MBP (my fault. Dropped something heavy I was holding onto my keyboard, cracking a couple of keytops. Keyboard still works fine, but if I ever want to sell that laptop...). It is about to go on "Vintage" status (which means Apple would normally refuse to repair it. But they have given it a temporary reprieve, it seems).

But I still would have been pretty upset if I were you...

I hope, however, that this has restored some faith back; since it was OBVIOUSLY some bastard (that I hope eventually got fired!!!) that just wanted to "deny" you, rather than a heartless, greedy Corporate Policy...

will changing the ram void the warranty?

[Joe_Dragon]

will changing the ram void the warranty?

it does have so-dimms

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[willaien]

Legally, no. https://www.ftc.gov/news-event...

Will apple claim it will? Probably.

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[Joe_Dragon]

will they try to lock the ram to the T2 chip?

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[alvinrod]

Why would they bother making it user upgradable if they were going to lock it down like that?

If they were going to do that, they'd just solder the RAM to the board so they could shave an extra .5 mm off the height of the product.

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[Anubis IV]

Given that the RAM is user upgradeable, just as it was in many of the previous generations (though not the last gen or two), I'm going to go with a resounding "no".

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet it's user upgradable as in "you can take it to the Apple store and have them upgrade it." They're going to claim anything else voids the warranty.

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[mark-t]

Will apple claim it will? Probably.

For values of probably synonymous with "yes".

What else is a customer supposed to do, other than not buy Apple in the first place?

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[b0s0z0ku]

Illegal to void warranty in the US. See the Magnusson-Moss Act. If Apple voids warranties for this, they're ripe for legal action.

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would they bother making it user upgradable if they were going to lock it down like that?

Makes it easier and cheaper for the techs at the genius bar to upgrade. Apple doesn't want end-users monkeying around inside their computers, because end-users are usually really fucking stupid.

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[Strider-]

For values of probably synonymous with "yes".

This would be a radical departure for the way that they've operated for the last 30 years. I have never once seen them deny warranty service like this, unless the part itself is the likely cause of the fault. I've brought in my MBP with all its mods and so forth, and never had an issue despite it being about as heavily modified as is possible (it's prior to the current crop of Retina machines).

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather not spend the next decade in court fighting one of the richest companies in the world. There are plenty of other computer companies that aren't as hostile to upgrades and user repairs.

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[Anubis IV]

Upgrading the RAM in my 2011 Mac mini was as simple as rotating the bottom plate to unlock it, swapping the RAM, then replacing the bottom plate. A novice user could do the whole operation in less than a minute. Likewise with the PowerBook G4 I had when I started college, which only required that I press two release switches at the top of the keyboard in order to gain access to the RAM. Likewise with the iMac my mother had on her desk for years, which hid the RAM behind a small plate that could be removed using a standard screwdriver. Likewise for the MacBook Pro my father currently uses, which hides the RAM behind the laptop's bottom plate, which can be removed in about a minute using a standard screwdriver.

When Apple says components are user serviceable, they've always been genuinely user serviceable. I sincerely doubt they'll start requiring people to come into the store to upgrade such components.

This stands in contrast to parts that they don't advertise as being user serviceable. They'll oftentimes solder them in or engage in otherwise user-hostile designs that make replacing those parts an exercise in frustration. For instance, that Mac mini I mentioned earlier? It had space and hookups for two 2.5" drives since some of their build-to-order options offered multiple drives, but I opted to purchase a version with just one HDD. Upgrading it later with the addition of an SSD in the empty bay was a sub-millimeter precision operation that probably took me the better part of two or three hours and involved basically tearing the entire thing apart.

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[barc0001]

> Why would they bother making it user upgradable if they were going to lock it down like that?

The cynic in me would suggest they'd do that to teach their customers an expensive lesson. Like their Genius Bar currently does with small repairs they no longer bother diagnosing and just lie about the cause and recommend a new unit instead.

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[willaien]

If you have to replace a motherboard under warranty for the iMac Pro, IIRC, they consider that to be a complete unit with the CPU and RAM, and thus won't touch the board if you have replaced the memory or cpu.

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[TheFakeTimCook]

will changing the ram void the warranty?

it does have so-dimms

No. Never has. Never will.

And for all the Haters that have posted hand-wringing bullshit about Apple "not listening": Well, witness the result of Apple listening!

(MUCH!) Better CPU (up to a SIX core i7)? Check!

Upgradeable RAM? Check!

Up to 64 GB RAM? Check!

Upgradeable SSD? Possibly (PCI-e Based)

Up to 2 TB SSD? Check!

10gigE Option? Check!

USB-A AND HDMI (plus FOUR USB-C/TB3 Ports)? Check!

And it STILL has a 3.5mm Headphone Jack...

This is one FANTASTIC Upgrade!

But I'm sure the Haters will STILL find SOMETHING to bitch about...

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[TheFakeTimCook]

Will apple claim it will? Probably.

For values of probably synonymous with "yes".

What else is a customer supposed to do, other than not buy Apple in the first place?

Howabout you just STOP LYING!

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[TheFakeTimCook]

For values of probably synonymous with "yes".

This would be a radical departure for the way that they've operated for the last 30 years. I have never once seen them deny warranty service like this, unless the part itself is the likely cause of the fault. I've brought in my MBP with all its mods and so forth, and never had an issue despite it being about as heavily modified as is possible (it's prior to the current crop of Retina machines).

Exactly.

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[TheFakeTimCook]

If you have to replace a motherboard under warranty for the iMac Pro, IIRC, they consider that to be a complete unit with the CPU and RAM, and thus won't touch the board if you have replaced the memory or cpu.

You must be thinking of Dell.

Otherwise, PROVE IT.

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[TheFakeTimCook]

I bet it's user upgradable as in "you can take it to the Apple store and have them upgrade it." They're going to claim anything else voids the warranty.

Haters gotta Hate.

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

Overpriced and runs apples shoddy software CHECK!

Yet blind apple izombies will try and convince everyone how great it is.
apples greatest mac mini yet!!!!

Just go buy one and shut the fuck up.

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[mark-t]

How about you stop suggesting that I'm lying just because the experience is inconsistent with what you think reality is.... you weren't there. I was. Done and done.

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably soldered RAM was too much bullshit even for Apple.
Too many RAM sizes : 8, 16, 32 and 64 (more are possible if you lose dual channel)
Many SSD sizes, perhaps 128, 256, 512, 1024 and 2048
This would be up to 20 different motherboards, for a lower volume product. Then even more motherboards with i3 vs i5 vs i7 but not all as there shouldn't be an i5 with 128GB SSD, likely not an i7 with 8GB RAM... but now my worst case is 57 motherboards (mostly identical with a few different things soldered)

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

And shills gonna shill.

Re:will changing the ram void the warranty?

[TheFakeTimCook]

Overpriced and runs apples shoddy software CHECK!

Yet blind apple izombies will try and convince everyone how great it is.
apples greatest mac mini yet!!!!

Just go buy one and shut the fuck up.

If it cost $10, there would be some Slashtard calling it "overpriced". So that hardly fucking matters.

Shoddy software? Compared to WHAT, exactly?

Fucking Anonymous COWARDS. Login and fight like a man!

I risk my (Excellent) Karma every single day on Slashdot, while EVERY SINGLE HATER hides behind Slasdot's RIDICULOUS AC system.

FOAD, motherbucker. Seriously. Get in a near-fatal car crash and get burned over 60% of your body. Just enough that you will (eventually) recover, but you'll never be the same.

An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[rsilvergun]

seems a bit high even for Apple. And it's probably a laptop chip version of the i3 based on the form factor...

Re:An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[willaien]

It's probably this one: https://ark.intel.com/products... it's the only 8th generation i3 that runs at 3.6GHz stock.

Re:An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[aliquis]

.. and for gaming a Ryzen 3 2200G would work better and cost $100, add B450-motherboard, I don't know what a decent motherboard for the cpus with integrated graphics cost but let's be generous and put it at $120, 8 GB of ram easily below $100, if we call it $80 that's $300 for those parts.
And then there's case, PSU and SSD, say another $200 and we're at $500 all in all (Windows optional .. =P)

Re: An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[AvitarX]

Your analysis makes $800 for a system with a nice case and non FOSS OS seem like a reasonable deal.

Not great, but reasonable. Add $100 for the OS and you have a 33% margin for assembly.

Re: An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure apple gets their parts cheaper than retail prices.

Re: An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to go that route, your precious Google overcharges for their junk pixel devices as well.

Nearly the same cost as an iPhone. The tabtops they are hawking now are even more overpriced.

It's only bad when Apple does it right? Typical anti apple bullshit that I've come to expect from the shit that Slashdot has become.

Re:An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[The Original CDR]

Except you're not doing an apple-to-apple comparison. An Intel i3-8100 processor for $129, a small form factor (SFF) motherboard with sodimm slots is $200, and 8GB DDR4 2666 sodimm is $60. That's $389 and doesn't include the SFF case, PSU and PCIe storage. Don't forget Apple's profit margin. The $799 base model price is quite reasonable.

Re: An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[Mspangler]

Why is it an i3 if it really has four cores? Did intel outsource marketing to Sirius Cybernetics?

Re: An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[willaien]

Looks like their 8th generation Core series are 4-cores for i3, 6 for i5 and i7's. At least for their non-mobile/laptop offerings.

Re: An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[willaien]

As for why desktop i3's have quad-cores now, I guess it's just a situation where last-year's bleeding edge becomes this year's standard.

Re:An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[TheFakeTimCook]

seems a bit high even for Apple. And it's probably a laptop chip version of the i3 based on the form factor...

Nope. They spefically said the CPUs are NOT Mobile versions!

Re:An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[Anonymous Coward]

This. I'm sure with all the ryzan shit coming out and all the older amd servers becoming uneconomical there are a bunch of young kids who wonder what kind of performance their favorite games will get out of a 16 potato plopteron server being practically given away on cragislist if they toss in a 80 dollar gtx960 (or should they splurge saving their lunch money so they can get a rx480?). Probably better and cheaper than buying a ps4.
That's a gaming rig that someone could buy in two weeks working half time at mcdonalds. (or in 2 months if they're making 50k in san jose). Given that so many gamers foresake career development so they can dedicate themselves to pwning noobs you'd have a large underserved audience.

Re:An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[Anonymous Coward]

$200 for a SFF motherboard??? WTF that must be an awesome high end one. Obviously you have not looked at SFF motherboard prices lately.

Re:An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[Anonymous Coward]

apple lies almost as much as you do.

Re: An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[Anonymous Coward]

I put a hypothetical 2200G DDR4-3000 system together on PC Partpicker for ~$360. I could still shave some dollars, but I went with nicer case that's hopefully better built.

From what I understand, you don't actually have to pay for Windows. Oh, it will pop up a message on the screen saying it isn't activated, but it won't do anything. It apparently works just fine from everything I've heard.

But it doesn't matter. You can buy an an i3-8100 from Dell for $420. I've seen a Ryzen 2200G on Best Buy for $380.

On top of that, there are some quad i3 laptop chips coming. They'll probably pop up in some ~$400 laptops.

I know Apple doesn't compete on price, but they could have at least one product that gets people into the ecosystem. And they could have had a Mac Pro usable for professionals.

Re:An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an i3-8100B. The "B" is apparently for BGA. So I guess it's soldered onto the motherboard and everything is slimmer to fit into that form factor.

If size is no problem, you can buy an Acer i3-8100 off NewEgg or Amazon for $360.

Re:An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[aliquis]

I didn't took the i3 8100 because it's a bad choice of CPU.
$100 for 2200G: https://www.newegg.com/Product...
$160 for 2400G: https://www.newegg.com/Product...
$110 for MSI B450I GAMING PLUS AC: https://www.newegg.com/Product... mini-ITX board.
$54 for cheapest 8GB DDR4: https://www.newegg.com/Product...
$64 for cheapest 2x4 GB DDR4: https://www.newegg.com/Product...
100+110+64 = $274 without case, ssd and psu for the reasonable setup.

Re: An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[AvitarX]

The closest prebuilt system I can find at a glance would be something like this:

https://www.newegg.com/Product...

Sure, it's less, but not so dramatic.

Nice small cases are quite expensive, though it's prebuilt at essentially the price GGP suggests.

Re:An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. But Thunderbolt? Maybe that's so expensive and rare, so you need an expensive mobo, if it's available at all.

But I like his estimate, it's not too bad at representing SFF hardware.. I'll add $100 for the case and PSU, $70 for the SSD. This gets to $559 with some rough margin in it. Say, $649 for the base Mac Mini might still be a good buy..

Re:An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hey look at me, I'm not even comparing the same parts to make Apple look bad!"

Re:An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[aliquis]

The intention was never to estimate the cost of Apples part.

My original claim was ".. and for gaming a Ryzen 3 2200G would work better and cost $100"

The point was never to tell what an i3 8100 cost or what the Apple system should cost or what building one yourself would cost.
The point was to say that I thought it was a stupid choice of CPU (specifically said for gamers) and that one could get a better system for less.

The reason the i3 8100 is a bad choice for gamers is that the Vega 8 or Vega 10 integrated graphics in the 2200G and 2400G have a higher performance. The 2200G would have a slightly lower performance as CPU as the i3 8100 but for gaming on integrated graphics that wouldn't be the problem but the problem would be the weak graphics performance of the i3 8100. The i3 8100 could had been a better choice for games if one used a discrete graphics card together with it but I doubt that's the case for the Mac Mini.
The 2400G adds SMT as in 2 threads per core and a bit larger GPU but since it cost 60% more it may not be worth it. Up to each and every one to decide but you'll getting into a territory where something like the i3 8100 + GT 1030 could be bought instead where the graphics part would be just about the same though you still have to spend more money on the i3 8100 + GT 1030, add even more money and get the 1050Ti instead and you're above the performance of those two Ryzen APUs but I doubt the Mac Mini have that.

As a cheap compact system my choice would definitely have been the 2200G or possibly 2400G instead, maybe both as options for the customer to decide. The i3 8100 is a stupid choice.

Sweclockers, https://www.sweclockers.com/te...
BF1 720p low, average fps:
2400G: 83
2200G: 77 (150% faster)
8100: 31
BF1 720p low, 1% low FPS:
2400G: 66
2200G 55 (110% faster)
8100: 26

CS:GO 720p high, average FPS:
2400G: 148
2200G: 137 (110% faster)
8100: 64
CS:GO 720p high, 1% low FPS:
2400G: 105
2200G: 105 (210% faster)
8100: 34

Dota 2 720p high, avg:
2400G: 84
2200G: 83 (130% faster)
8100: 36
lows:
2400G: 46
2200G: 46 (100% faster)
8100: 23

Fallout 4 720p low, avg:
2400G: 56
2200G: 52 (130% faster)
8100: 23
lows:
2400G: 48
2200G: 44 (130% faster)
8100: 19

Fortnite: Battle royale 720p low, avg:
2400G: 124
2200G: 111 (180% faster)
8100: 40
lows:
2400G: 93
2200G: 82 (170% faster)
8100: 30

Sweclockers also include 1080p results but that likely hurt the 8100 even further if anything since it's the weaker one. So the 2200G which is cheaper than the i3 8100 perform 100-180% better in games or 2-3x as good.

Cinebench multi-core:
2200G just below i3 8100 in performance, 2400G more than 1/3 faster.
x264 encoding:
2200G slower than i3 8100, 2400G faster.
7-zip compression:
2200G a tiny bit slower than i3 8100, 2400G faster.
Blender:
2200G a bit slower than i3 8100, 2400G faster by 30% of the time.
Photoshop Lightroom Export:
i3 8100 a bit faster than both the 2200G and 2400G
Veracrypt:
Both 2200G and 2400G beat the i3 8100, the 2400G beat it by 70%.

So as can be seen for a small system with integrated graphics there's not even a contest; the AMD chips are way better. For gaming so much that the i3 8100 doesn't belong in any system whatsoever. For non-gaming tasks the 2400G still beat the i3 8100 by a decent margin so that chip should had been avoided.

Re: An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[aliquis]

Throw in the Ryzen 5 2400G in there instead and you'd still be at a lower price but have better performance all around together with 2-3 times as high gaming performance.

Re:An i3 with 8 gigs and 128 gig SSD for $800

[TheFakeTimCook]

apple lies almost as much as you do.

So sez the ANONYOUS COWARD...

Login and risk your Karma like a Man, FUCKER, or STFU!!!

We need less vulnerable SMC, not more

[ReneR]

This T2 chip raises all kinds of security and thirt party OS support concerns here, After all the Intel ME and other backdoor stuff we need less hidden System Management Controler state and attack surface, not more. Especially in such consumer devices where not many use any extra functionality added by those.

Re:We need less vulnerable SMC, not more

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not clear that the Mac Mini is aimed at the consumer, given its price.

be nice to have 10-gig swtichs come down in price

[Joe_Dragon]

be nice to have 10-gig switches come down in price. Small hope for a big roll out of US ISP's to have 1G/1G much less higher any time soon.

Glad to see Apple is making new things again

[TimMD909]

Sadly, though, I'll be waiting for next year's model due out in 2023.

Re:Glad to see Apple is making new things again

[alvinrod]

I suppose there's two sides to that. If you buy now, you don't have to feel like something better will just come out next year, at least not if you're just going to stick with Apple no matter what and not consider getting a PC. And to be fair, given how little Intel has progressed with their CPUs until very recently, there hasn't been a lot of reason to upgrade.

What I'm most interested in is the SoC in the new iPad. It's probably more powerful than what they put in the new Air, so I'm wondering how much longer until Apple ditches Intel entirely. You have to think that they've been planning for it for some time now.

Re:Glad to see Apple is making new things again

[jellomizer]

That is the real problem with Apples Macintosh lineup. Where we use to have a yearly upgrade they seem to fall every 4 years. And their price doesn't seem to go down the next year. There really isn't a good time to buy one. The Air and the Mini, are already under-powered new (About a year old tech). Which isn't bad, but if you are going to keep it for 4 years or 8 years then these will be miserably out of date during your next upgrade. And you can't wait a year or two to get it on the cheap.

Re:Glad to see Apple is making new things again

[R3d M3rcury]

And some of that comes from "design over all else." You make a beautiful machine and then, next year, CPUs change and the thermal system can't handle it without a redesign. Redesigns are expensive, so Apple doesn't do it and keeps cranking out the same stuff as last year.

I'm waiting to see what happens when Intel comes out with the next generation of Xeons and how long it takes for Apple to update the iMac Pro. As I've said before, if I'm spending $5000 for a computer, I expect it to have the latest and greatest.

Re:Glad to see Apple is making new things again

[Papaspud]

get the new mac mini, just a touch over 4000$ after you load it up

Re:Glad to see Apple is making new things again

[TheFakeTimCook]

get the new mac mini, just a touch over 4000$ after you load it up

Yes, but you can save on the RAM by buying aftermarket.

And that gives you :

3.2GHz 6core 8thgeneration Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 4.6GHz)

64GB 2666MHz DDR4

2TB SSD storage

10 Gigabit Ethernet (Nbase-T Ethernet with support for 1Gb, 2.5Gb, 5Gb, and 10Gb Ethernet using RJ45 connector)

Not bad for a computer the size of a ham sandwich.

Re:Glad to see Apple is making new things again

[Kjella]

What I'm most interested in is the SoC in the new iPad. It's probably more powerful than what they put in the new Air, so I'm wondering how much longer until Apple ditches Intel entirely. You have to think that they've been planning for it for some time now.

They might just be waiting for better capacity and higher yields, the A12 and A12X are still relatively small and max out at four high performance cores. It's impressive for a tablet but to replace the whole non-pro Mac line they'd probably want at least an 8-core and more GPU to drive big external monitors. They have the building blocks but when you look at the iPhone/iPad prices it might not be the time for an even more expensive SoC. Once AMD/nVidia are able to make big GPUs though the door is open for an A12XXL.

Re:Glad to see Apple is making new things again

[Anonymous Coward]

The next Xeon is Cascade Lake, and there is no platform change. It should just go into new model iMac Pro with nothing more than a firmware upgrade.

It's a minor update with a Spectre fix, a Meltdown fix and 14nm++ instead of 14nm+, details taken from here
https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/microarchitectures/cascade_lake

Pretty expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

for a toy computer.

and storage locked to the MB is bad !

[Joe_Dragon]

and storage locked to the MB is bad !

Re:be nice to have 10-gig swtichs come down in pri

[0100010001010011]

If history of Apple including things has been any indication, they will.

USB hubs and devices used to be rare and expensive, until Jobs rolled out the iMac and told Apple users to deal with it.

The computer I took to college in 2001 had a gigabit port and switches finally came down in price to use the full gig.

"Airport" was pretty revolutionary at the time, now there's 802.11 everywhere. Prices for PC components started coming down, most using the same Atheros(?) chipsets as the first airport devices.

Face ID

[Anonymous Coward]

iPad Pro with Face ID announced. No home button is required. Silly msmash and her inflammatory titles.

I've been awaiting a mac mini refresh

[Anonymous Coward]

But the price is a bit high for my tastes.

Re:be nice to have 10-gig swtichs come down in pri

[guruevi]

You can get a managed 24 port 10G switch sub-$8000. Unmanaged 4 ports are ~$500. If you want to go cheaper, Huawei has some decent gear for less than Netgear.

Mini vs. Hackintosh

[crow]

I wanted to buy a Mini a few years back, but for the same money, I could buy a much higher spec Intel NUC box as a Hackintosh, so that's where we went. The Hackintosh has worked well, though it has a few glitches, and I'm afraid to install upgrades in case it breaks something.

It looks like with this upgrade, the equation stays the same. If you're willing to do a Hackintosh, you can get something much better at a lower cost.

Re:Mini vs. Hackintosh

[Anonymous Coward]

If you just want to play around with a Mac then probably. If you want to use it as a development machine then probably not. You really need to upgrade to the newest version of MacOS as all the better Mac development tools are tied to Xcode and Xcode is tied to a MacOS version. If you are messing around anything with iOS then you need to be targeting the newest iOS SDK you can (which goes back to having the newest version of MacOS).

If work is paying for it then what does it matter the cost? If you are trying to be a hobby developer but don't have $1k for hardware then you probably aren't making it anyway.

Re:Mini vs. Hackintosh

[ilsaloving]

Maybe a lower monetary cost, but you've already pointed out the other factor: you're time and stress. How much is that worth to you?

For me, if I wanted to be afraid that my whole computer would be bricked because of an update, I may as well just use Windows 10. Then I'd at least be able to play the latest games on it too.

I thought the same thing

[dknj]

Mac Mini just releasing hardware with Intel NUC specs that's been out for some time now.

Maybe I'll just buy this NUC8 beast instead for half the price and dualboot both.

-dk

Re:I thought the same thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you come up with 'half the price'? It's $799 (same price) although it has a better processor, but is listed as a 'kit', which presumably means that you need to add RAM, HD (or SSD) and OS.

Re:I thought the same thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Your facts are getting in the way of his narrative.

Re:be nice to have 10-gig swtichs come down in pri

[0100010001010011]

At those prices you're almost better off just building your own router/switch.

You can pick up off lease 10GB 2 port cards for $20.

Non-Removable SSD = Disposable Product

[BrendaEM]

SSDs do go bad. Now, with Moore's law gone, those machines could have lasted longer than they will now. If Apple cared about the environment more than their money, they would make them repairable.

I create content, and 10% of my Samsung 850 SSD life is used up.

Re:Non-Removable SSD = Disposable Product

[Gilgaron]

That makes me think of my Samsung 850... what's the easiest way to check the estimated lifespan? Haven't made it a habit in a long while, used to use SpeedFan to check SMART info but that's not a thing for SSDs, right?

Re:Non-Removable SSD = Disposable Product

[Anonymous Coward]

Annoying to be sure, but you can plug in external SSDs and boot off of those if that ever becomes a problem.

Re:Non-Removable SSD = Disposable Product

[TXJD]

Have you tried Samsung's own SSD Magician software? it gives a lifetime estimate. https://www.samsung.com/semico...

Re:Non-Removable SSD = Disposable Product

[thegarbz]

SMART is definitely a thing for SSDs. The only quirk is NVMe drives, they don't access the drive controllers in the same way so some SMART software doesn't work with them.

SSDs report metrics such as total read, total written, unexpected power loss, power loss protection failure (if an SSD has it), or the one of interest to the GP: 231 - Life Left, 231 - Endurance Remaining, or 233 - Media Wearout.

My NVMe drive reports two temperatures, the controller (which should stay cool) and the NAND (which should stay warm).

Re:Non-Removable SSD = Disposable Product

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have a source for this info? I can't believe they changed their mind about user upgradeable RAM, but embedded the SSD when M2 exists. Tim Cook is an idiot.

Re:Non-Removable SSD = Disposable Product

[barc0001]

> If Apple cared about the environment more than their money, they would make them repairable.

thatsthejoke.jpg

Re:Non-Removable SSD = Disposable Product

[Anonymous Coward]

Then don't buy a Mac, dipfuck.

Why are you implying that your edge case represents Apple's target market?

Re:Non-Removable SSD = Disposable Product

[Anonymous Coward]

I have upgraded the RAM and HD in every Mac I have owned.... until my 13" MBP.
And I only bought it because my old laptop (2011 15" MBP) went the faulty GPU route.

Upgrade is a green option
Repair is a green option
buying a new one and recycling the old one is green washing, it's a bad choice only second to throwing it into the trash.

Engineering is all about choices and compromises and Apple has fallen over the line to bad choices and bad compromises.
I have NEVER bought a phone , tablet, or computer because it is slightly thinner than last years model, and I never will.

Re:Non-Removable SSD = Disposable Product

[Anonymous Coward]

Can this Apple boot from a Thunderbolt SSD when the internal SSD is dead? Or USB 3.1 SSD?

Told you in another thread, "SSD life" is kind of a placeholder number. But it's possible for it to drop dead for reasons unrelated to worn out flash cells.
It'd be cute for SSDs to die of old age and still work, just become read-only.

USB-A

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm happy to see that they kept some (2) USB-A ports, though I'd prefer 4 of them because I like the older USB-A keyboard better than what they now have pictured - (I use a wired mouse and wired keyboard and would like an additional open USB-A or two) - the wireless keyboard they show with the new mac mini looks a little scary (happy halloween!), kind of like the disastrously thin keyboards of recent Mac laptops -- that said, I'm glad that the Mac OS has something nice to continue on and I'll look into buying some of these as the need and available money arises

Re: USB-A

[Anonymous Coward]

Both USB A ports will be used up with the keyboard and mouse.

Re: USB-A

[b0s0z0ku]

Easy enough to use a splitter/hub, and cheap unlike USB-C.

Re: USB-A

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy a keyboard with a build in USB-hub. Connect the mouse to one of the ports and have the other one free for USB-sticks. That leaves you then with still one free USB port on the Mac itself.

Re: USB-A

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought a USB-C to USB-A for 1 euro, although I don't use it for anything at all (there's a brick and mortar store that sells random shit at China-like prices, like they're partly functioning as a surplus store)

It's a small plug-in dongle, no cable, probably USB 2.0 which would be great in that case. You can then use inexpensive C-to-A plugs for low bandwidth device (keyb, mouse, game controller) and save the high bandwidth of the USB-A ports for USB drives, ironically.

Re: USB-A

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy a keyboard with built-in USB hub, then plug a keyboard with built-in USB hub into it, then plug a keyboard with built-in USB hub into it. Now you can always use the keyboard even if you sit to the left, center or right of your desk.

iPad Pro update is what I hoping for

[SuperKendall]

I really liked the Mac mini refresh, but what I really loved was the iPad Pro update.

I had the first larger 12.9" iPad Pro before, which I liked quite a lot for photo editing.

Now though, the newer one has FaceID - was nicer with a device you can hold in any direction than trying to find the home button. And the power seems really impressive, the demo they gave showing editing a 3GB PSD was the most impressive thing I saw at the Apple event.

The USB-C connection also is great for connection to external monitors and other things I already have accessories for... and the redesign of the pencil to simultaneously clamp onto an edge (I think any edge?) and charge at the same time is a great touch.

Also if you look at it from a pure travel standpoint, the new MacBook Air is 2.75 lbs - but the largest iPad Pro is just 1.25lbs or so!! That is a huge difference in what you have to lug around, as long as what you need to do can be done on the iPad Pro. For photo editing when traveling this device is pretty much perfect now.

Perhaps finally Apple will bring Xcode to the iPad Pro...

Re: iPad Pro update is what I hoping for

[Camembert]

I agree - I like editing photos in the evenings of a holiday trip, glass of wine nearby, I use the previous ipad pro 10.5 for that, and the new one seems to give a big boost in power.

ipad pro processor looks impressive

[Camembert]

I thought that the new processor in the new ipad pro seemed very convincing (traditional speed test to confirm). I have the previous model ipad pro which is already pretty quick, and this is a step up, plus it has a co processor for machine learning apps as well.

Re:ipad pro processor looks impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

plus, you are a stupid n1gger shill. Die.

Much better only in performance (maybe)

[SuperKendall]

If you're willing to do a Hackintosh, you can get something much better at a lower cost.

I kind of question much better.

Are you going to have much better storage speed for a lower cost? I'm not sure about that. Also much better connectivity? I don't think so. Much better fan noise? Also not too sure on that front.

Re:Much better only in performance (maybe)

[jedidiah]

If you're doing a Hackintosh then you can ditch the whole low profile thing entirely and have a MUCH better range of available options.

Even with a NUC, you probably still have a much better range of available options.

The limiting factor is the small subset of the available PC options that MacOS will actually support.

Re:Much better only in performance (maybe)

[SuperKendall]

I agree if you want to abandon the low profile aspect you can absolutely get more, because decreasing size increases price... but to me and a lot of others, there is a ton of value in a very small form factor box. Especially a PC that is built with pretty high quality parts you know are going to last a while and work well together as a system.

That's why I'm saying I'm dubious you can really get "more" than the Mac mini offers at a lower price by building it yourself. It will me more in some ways, and less in others... if that is all that matters that is great, but Apple is pretty good at finding a good balance where most people are satisfied with the mix. Apple recent moves to support very quiet fans (first in the iMac Pro, now in the Mac mini) is especially welcome to me.

Hopefully the beginning of the end of Lightning

[LynnwoodRooster]

That abomination of a connector needs to die a slow, painful death... And with it, the $2+ that the Lightning Apple Tax costs accessory makers.

Re:Hopefully the beginning of the end of Lightning

[ilsaloving]

I don't know why you say that. IMO the lightning connector was a brilliant design. Fully reversible and very hard to ruin. It was, in every aspect, vastly superior to the existing USB connectors.

The only problem is that Apple kept it to themselves. If they had offered it to the USB standards group it could have become the next USB connector.

Re:Hopefully the beginning of the end of Lightning

[Anonymous Coward]

Not exactly "very hard to ruin". The center finger-contact has gradually burned out on every single Lightning connector I've ever bought (genuine Apple or shonky knock-off special, makes no difference). After a while, the gold finger is so eroded that I have to "flip" the connector over to get it to work. Google around, and see that it's a common problem. Apparently there's a small amount of arcing as this finger - the power delivery line - makes contact with the socket pin upon insertion. The consensus out there seems to be that this is a normal and inevitable part of how plug-in connectors work - which is laughable and deluded, IMHO. I still have USB A-B cables from the late 90s that are working just fine.
So no, I'm afraid Lightning isn't universally seen as a "brilliant design". It's typical modern Apple - shiny and impressive, with dreadful long-term durability.

Re:Hopefully the beginning of the end of Lightning

[LynnwoodRooster]

Putting pins in the phone is the WORST thing you can do, you want the pins/wipers (those are the parts that wear out) on the cable, since that is cheaper to replace. Pads go in the phone, pins in the cable. Not the way that Apple did it, which is backwards.

Re:Hopefully the beginning of the end of Lightning

[ilsaloving]

That is a fair point. However, all the USB connectors are made the same way, and I've found lightning to be infinitely more reliable a connector than any of the USB ones, so again I question why you you are singling out lightning.

For example, USB-C is virtually the same as the lightning connector except that it has a shield around it.
  https://www.anandtech.com/show...

Re:Hopefully the beginning of the end of Lightning

[LynnwoodRooster]

USB-C has fixed contacts in the middle plane of the jack; the plug (the cable) has the sprung connectors.

They are repairable

[SuperKendall]

SSDs do go bad. Now, with Moore's law gone, those machines could have lasted longer than they will now. If Apple cared about the environment more than their money, they would make them repairable.

What makes you think they are not repairable?

At least by Apple they will be. But on the iMac Pro the SSD chips are removable so I don't see why that would change on the Mac mini.

Also the systems are fully recycled by Apple, no it's meaningless to complain about caring for the environment because the system might die.

I create content, and 10% of my Samsung 850 SSD life is used up.

That's kind of an older SSD drive (I have one as well). At this point I would say lots of other system components are going to go before the SSD chips do.

Re:They are repairable

[b0s0z0ku]

Recycling takes energy and has environmental concerns of its own. The best form of "recycling" for the environment is the ability to continue to use the hardware for a longer time. Swappable SSD and RAM help this immensely -- if one fails, you're recycling a 1 x 2 inch board, not the entire fucking computer.

Yes,but does the 11-inch iPad Pro starts at $799 ?

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to be told. AGAIN and AGAIN.

Slashdot Editors never fail to impress with their inability to edit.

Lol

[ledow]

$799 for an i3 with 8GB and Intel HD graphics.

Ahhhhahahahhahahahahhahahahahahhahahaha....

Re:Lol

[ledow]

Well, I thought I'd better check my initial reaction, just because it was knee-jerk and I don't keep up with prices.

I literally googled "$799 i3 8Gb Intel HD" and got a bunch of things (so literally, whatever junk people are pushing, not even the best value thing at that price-range).

Turns out I can get a laptop for that price that out-specs the low-end Mac Mini. Or I can spend half and out-spec it on everything but the SSD (1Tb HD instead)... and still get a laptop. If you go desktops, hell, I can go down to a third of that price and still win. And almost always along the way, putting a few dollars more in (which I have PLENTY of scope to do given that I'm spending 1/2 to 1/3rd the price) and you can get a Geforce card, and easily beat out the SSD no problem at all.

Given that a Mac Mini needs a monitor...and a "4K" one if you believe the nonsense....this is possibly the most laughable thing I've seen since... the Mac Mini that is sitting on my desk that was a "server" for many years because nobody realised that it wasn't actually turned on and doing anything (it was supposed to be managing a suite of Macs but they've been under LDAP even since I started this job).

Even that Mac Mini is headed straight for the bin, but I'm sure I can con a few hundred out of some Apple fanatic for something that is basically outclassed by a Raspberry Pi nowadays.

Re:Lol

[Megane]

Even that Mac Mini is headed straight for the bin, but I'm sure I can con a few hundred out of some Apple fanatic for something that is basically outclassed by a Raspberry Pi nowadays

If it's one of the more recent ones with 4GB of soldered RAM, it's not really good for much of anything serious. I ended up with one (some moron had erased the internal drive and I had to set up an optical drive to re-install an OS) that I use as a MythTV client. My other mac minis with socketed RAM are doing actual useful things. And if I wanted a laptop, I wouldn't get a mini. I still don't know yet if the new MacBook Pro will have socketed RAM.

Re:Lol

[Anonymous Coward]

4GB is starting to suck balls as a desktop, but there's linux and the LXDE desktop still actively developed. That's a good RAM saver, it runs on 128MB RAM.

Mac Mini At 799 quid, not so competitive in the UK

[niks42]

... but I might be tempted to spend some of my Christmas money on one all the same ;-) ... very excited by it. And love the colour.

Why so many Apple ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't get "updates" from Samsung, Dell, whoever, so why all the Apple bs

No Love for Mac Pro

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the Mac Pro desktop is moribund at this point. I'm holding on to 3,1 until it's no longer hackable for updates.

Re:be nice to have 10-gig swtichs come down in pri

[Anonymous Coward]

Unmanaged 8 port $429 @ https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-QS...

Unmanaged 12 port $574 @ https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-QS...

IPad 4x3 looks 90's

[GodWasAnAlien]

The iPad was made 4x3, because the original iPhone was 4x3, so it could run the same applications, scaled.

Now, the iPad stands alone, rockin' 4x3, like it's 1999.

Especially, with a keyboard attached. It looks like an obsolete laptop that you can watch videos with those glorious black bars, reminding you the long gone CRT's.

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbo...

Re:IPad 4x3 looks 90's

[jimbo]

I love 4:3 and hope there'll always be a 4:3 version available, for me it's perfect. But then I never watch videos (apart from the occasional youtube) on my iPad. I understand your viewpoint though, it's just not mine.

Re:IPad 4x3 looks 90's

[qzzpjs]

Now, the iPad stands alone, rockin' 4x3, like it's 1999

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S2, S3, and S4 are all 4x3 as well. It really is the best aspect for reading web pages and doing work. 16x9 was only good for video and nothing else.

Re:IPad 4x3 looks 90's

[Merk42]

Meanwhile phones have gone in the other direction, 2x1, solving nothing.

Re:IPad 4x3 looks 90's

[Stormwatch]

4:3 is just plain better for most uses.

Re:IPad 4x3 looks 90's

[Anonymous Coward]

It's made for being used vertical and have useful width.

This existed way further ago : Xerox Parc and portrait CRT monitor for Macs.

Re:IPad 4x3 looks 90's

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't used one yet, but that might help with the goddamn keyboard covering input fields and submit buttons.

Re:IPad 4x3 looks 90's

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike the earlier versions, Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 resolution is 2560x1600 which is 16:10 aspect ratio which makes it good for video and, um, ... nothing else?

Apple: this ain't 2008 no more & Cook is not J

[Anonymous Coward]

In 2008 lots of people bought a mini to develop iOS apps. No longer necessary. There's great hybrid app frameworks and OSX CI/CD platforms as a service. So devs can stay on their Windows or Linux dev box and still churn out iOS or watch apps. Or stay with an older mini just for that purpose.

Only downside: Apple has removed OSX support for Mac Mini 2011 and lower and with that probably for XCode. But I leave that for the CI/CDs to deal with.

Besides, Apple continues to ignore its loyal users' needs and primarily sees them as cash cows to spend too much money on subpar hardware. So that Cookie and his cronies get more bonus? WTF

Adding RAM does not void warranty

[sjbe]

Because if you don't, then you forgo your extended warranty.

Yeah that's not true. If someone told you that then they were either lying or misinformed.

More efficient than mining

[SuperKendall]

Swappable SSD and RAM help this immensely

Which the Mac mini has (for sure the RAM, maybe the SSD). But they do not "help immensely" if they are never done during the life of the device. As I said, I think with newer chips the SSD will probably outlast most other components in the system.

Recycling takes energy and has environmental concerns of its own.

I think you are confusing what Apple is doing with the way others "recycle". Apple is reclaiming all minerals from recycled devices so they can use them in new ones, the stated overall goal of Apple is at some point to cease mining and use only recycled materials. You saw yet another step along the way with that in the new Mac mini and MacBook Air, which both use recycled aluminum for cases. Some of that comes from Apple devices you turn back into Apple (and which Apple gives you credit for when buying a new device).

Re:More efficient than mining

[b0s0z0ku]

And melting things down or leaching minerals from ground up ICs doesn't take energy or produce toxic waste?

Re:More efficient than mining

[b0s0z0ku]

We're not comparing mining de novo to recycling. We're comparing recycling to continued long-term usage.

Re:More efficient than mining

[Anonymous Coward]

You think you're going to melt a flash or RAM IC and get nice silicon, copper and random shit in nice sorted piles? Easier to crush rock.

Apple craps on education and music again...

[greenwow]

They're forgetting that education made the company originally and music saved it later. Dropping headphone jacks will be a huge pain and expense for education. I teach a high school comp sci class twice a week, and it's already a huge pain to keep the iPads charged. There's no way the school will be able to afford BT headphones and deal with the hassle of keeping them charged. Also, the best headphones are all wired.

Re:Apple craps on education and music again...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you use ipads for computer science? It sounds like the problem isn't Apple, but its idiot users still latching on.

Re:Apple craps on education and music again...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a couple of friends that do audio with their iPad Pros. I guess they're going to have to switch to another brand now.

Re:Apple craps on education and music again...

[bananaquackmoo]

Because someone has to build apps for the ipads to run?

Re:Apple craps on education and music again...

[ledow]

I work in a school that had 1:1 (i.e. individual pupil) iPads.

We ditched them all this year, after four years of my warning against them.

Apple have ZERO interest in education. None whatsoever. They don't even comply with some basic UK law (i.e. a proper complaints process, provision of a head office address, DPA and now GDPR compliance, etc.... these things are all an uphill battle and you can NEVER get a actual statement saying they're compliant*). We stopped doing business with them not because of the kit, or the expense, or the lack of proper manageability or the technical side (which were my objections), but because they have no interest in education customers and don't have a complaints process and have zero interest in helping us resolve problems which stem from their services and their kit.

People think we get "educational discounts" on it... they aren't worth the effort. People think we can "talk to Apple education department"... there isn't one... literally they didn't exist for the four years we tried (but there is now some semblance of education products, so maybe they have one, but they didn't last year). Support consisted of taking things to an Apple store or phoning them up and going through the "little old grannies" support line who have no idea about managing them en-masse ("Can I have the serial number of the iPad?"... "Actually 400+ of them are affected by the same issue"... "Okay, can you give me their serial numbers..." "Are you fucking kidding me?")

There are apps on the app-store, rating "suitable for all", which are sold as "bypass your school proxy" which pipe all web access through a proxy server. Yet Google Chrome is rated 18 for allowing you to go on websites. And I complained, and Apple *couldn't give a shit*. They literally responded that it's "up to the app creator to set an appropriate age on them". Bang... all the app / parental controls are worthless because you can't limit to just the suitable apps.

After I was able to document and present my history of contact with Apple to my bosses, it was instantly decided that we cannot do business with them. They lost every device we have on-site that's Apple and they were all replaced with cheaper alternatives that are easier to manage and which have responsive companies behind them (Chromebooks, and Google for Education have a WONDERFUL support response, for instance).

Sorry, but Apple have NEVER cared about education in the modern era. The only schools in my country that champion them big are secretly Apple shops that get free service and specialised support in order to promote the brand... but they don't actually care about anyone else.

Honestly, I've NEVER done business with a worse company than Apple, and I've threatened many companies with court action. Apple honestly have never cared one jot about their education customers. I've never used them personally, so I couldn't comment on personal support. Maybe that's good, who knows?

To the point that I filed a formal written complaint to their head office, and they refused to even acknowledge the complaint in writing, the guy who phoned who was the *Irish* "Head of Written Complaints" refused to give me his name, confirm anything in writing, or literally do anything but refer to their support line, who did the same as ever and bounced me around Singaporean, German and American call-centers, with no passing of context of the call in between, and no progress after hours of bouncing around with quite-a-simple problem. There was no follow-up. There was no diagnosis. There was nobody even CAPABLE of answering the question. And that was their only response to a formal written complaint about how bad their support had been to a customer buying hundreds of their devices.

Honestly, I would never have done business with them personally at any point in my life. I certainly wouldn't now. And from a business point of view I will actively reject anything from them. I will never work in another school that uses them as anything other than non-critical touch-toys for tiny kids.

Re:Apple craps on education and music again...

[ledow]

* Google, Microsoft, etc. will tell me outright that they are GDPR compliant, and did the same for DPA.

Apple make some good noises, but they have ZERO official confirmation of that. They have a "tool" so you can download your data and inspect it. But that's not compliance, it's just a single solitary feature that you happen to need.

Their own website only ever says "working towards". You cannot get a statement out of them to say they are GDPR compliant. And that's because things like iCloud are - as featured in a Register article once - just AWS, Azure and Google cloud instances couple with their own servers. They have zero idea - or care - where your data ends up.

Re: Apple craps on education and music again...

[Anonymous Coward]

Programming and comp SCI are not the same thing. Just like automotive repair, automotive design and ICE design are three very, very different fields.

Everything new got a decent Apple tax

[Anonymous Coward]

Yikes, definitely Apple working on the profit margin stuff. Even with less sales they make more money per sales. Raised prices and in some cases lowered specs. Bet you a older Macbook Air i7 maybe even a i5 is faster then new core 5Y or similar to m5 series. Test will confirm but certainly disappointing in my opinion hardware wise. Even Mac Mini only gets a core i3 for base model not i5 and those most likely are mobile chips as well. Nothing to see here of value folks, move along, most disappointing Apple event in awhile.

Re:Everything new got a decent Apple tax

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes the new Core i3 is faster than the old i5. CPU looks good in the Mini, I suppose the SSD is fixed and un-removable and that's about the worst point there, buy one and be stuck with 128GB internal. In fact I have a scoop, I went to the effing Apple website https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/ and found out in the pretty pictures that the SSD is part of the motherboard. RAM slots instantly makes it one of the best or sole good Apple computers.
Too bad ; the Mac Mini seems nice to carry around, you don't even need to carry a power supply, nor dongles unless you'll need DVI, VGA, DP. You'll need to carry a terabyte hard drive with it or external SSD if you need some data.

CPU seems the best thing, looks like Mac Book Pro hardware (which itself isn't anything special). I don't know what I'm doing defending a damn Mac but would I like it?, sure, it's overpriced by $100 or $200. It doesn't come with an Apple keyboard! That's the best feature.
I'd like it, as an affordable luxury (doesn't run up the power bill at least) and because this kind of shit is what we need for people to go back sitting at a desk with a real keyboard. It's quite portable too. Even if I end up wiping the drive and not running OS X.
Most hilarious is it's quite similar to the Mac Pro on many accounts yet much smaller and cheaper.

Still shitty accessory design

[sjbe]

While the Apple Pencil appears to be a better design, it still is flawed. Apple has a real problem with treating accessories as total after thoughts. Magnetic attachment to the side? That's fine I guess until I want to put it away or carry it or do anything besides gently put on on a desktop and not touch it. Knocking it off the edge will be stupid easy. Even worse if you want to carry it somewhere without worrying about it falling off. How about a design that won't fall off/out with the slightest provocation? The pencil should have a case or a slot in the device itself you can slide it into when not in use. Something that I can put into a bag without knocking the stylus $diety knows where.

For all their vaunted "design" expertise, Apple really sucks at designing accessories for real world use.

Re:Still shitty accessory design

[zenbi]

The render on Engadget shows a camera bump protruding beyond the case! Did they seriously prevent iPads from sitting flat against a desk? *Wobble Wobble*

More efficient than mining

[SuperKendall]

And melting things down or leaching minerals from ground up ICs doesn't take energy or produce toxic waste?

See: Subject line.

You seriously think getting minerals out the earth is way easier or involves LESS toxins than anything in a computer?? Come on.

You've obviously never seen the outside of an old mine... with bright orange streams of water nearby.

Re: be nice to have 10-gig swtichs come down in pr

[saloomy]

Wait, what?

You think a gp-cpu will switch as fast as an switches ASIC? Do you know how many interrupts you need to switch at 10g?

Consumer vs. producer

[SuperKendall]

Sorry Apple, I've already switched to a Samsung Tab A 10.1, and I'm not going back.

Great idea if you are just going to watch movies.

Not so great if you want to actually do anything serious with a tablet - like run Photoshop. Are you going to be editing a 3GB PSD on that Samsung? I think not.

Re:Consumer vs. producer

[Anonymous Coward]

Once we have tablets with 2TB of RAM Adobe will port Photoshop to Java and it will run on Android. Checkmate Appletards.

Re:Consumer vs. producer

[Anonymous Coward]

No he will use a real computer for that.

Re:Consumer vs. producer

[Anonymous Coward]

A Tablet is a toy. You don't do serious things with them anyways. And before you spout Apple's own marketing that says you can, how exactly are you supposed to do be a professional graphic artist on an iPad if it doesn't have a proper dock? You'll want multiple large high res monitors and well as a wacom tablet hooked up. A way to easily interface your camera. The iPad has one port. Yes its touch but capacitive touch screens aren't as precise as graphics tablets and aren't meant for the same job. Those graphics tablets are peripherals meant to be connected to your actual machine.

What about audio? How am I supposed to run all of my various inputs into an iPad? Focusrite makes a lightning compatible interface but not their bigger ones. I know Image Line has a mobile version of FL but it isn't meant to replace the full version, only supplement it. You cant yet be a producer on a mobile device. And it likely wont happen because the investment in hardware means i want ports and I want compatible ones because I have far more in synths, interfaces, amps, guitars, mics etc than i do into the computer. Apple has already lost many musicians and producers because every time they introduce an interface they abandon it in a few years. At least PCs stick with USB. I have an 80's Korg synth that I connect to my PC with a USB to MIDI cable. There is free software for PC that controls it. Nothing in its price range exists to my knowledge for the Mac anymore and definitely not iOS.

Re:Consumer vs. producer

[TheFakeTimCook]

Once we have tablets with 2TB of RAM Adobe will port Photoshop to Java and it will run on Android. Checkmate Appletards.

Hahahahahahahaha!!!!

Re:Consumer vs. producer

[Anonymous Coward]

serious.

photoshop.

tablet...

hahaha. can i buy drugs from you?

Re:Consumer vs. producer

[Applehu Akbar]

Photoshop on Java? Now pull the other one.

To run Photoshop as God intended it be run, you're still going to want an iMac.

Re: Consumer vs. producer

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm, I think you need NVMe to become cheap enough for the race-to-the-bottom Android world first.

Re:Consumer vs. producer

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you'll run it on an iMac, running Windows because your iMac model is from last Thursday and was deprecated.

Re:Consumer vs. producer

[Tough Love]

What kind of loser would run Photoshop on a tablet? Oh I forgot who we're talking to here.

Re:Consumer vs. producer

[Tough Love]

Adobe will port Photoshop to Java and it will run on Android.

Let's just clear up a little misconception here. Not all Android apps need to be in Java. You can develop Android apps in any language you like. Native Android apps use the same common Android libraries as Java apps.

Re:Consumer vs. producer

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Not so great if you want to actually do anything serious with a tablet - like run Photoshop. Are you going to be editing a 3GB PSD on that Samsung? I think not.

Lol, the only reason anyone would want to do any serious photo editing on a tablet is because they can't afford a PC.

Most people, including myself, use a tablet to consume media, not to create it.

When I edit PSD files or cut video or work with spreadsheets, I use a real PC- a desktop loaded with RAM and a big ol' hard drive. Tablets are for fun and screwing around.

Re:Consumer vs. producer

[AmiMoJo]

You aren't going to be editing a 3GB PSD on your iPad Pro either.

The 3GB file contains compressed image data, so you need more than 3GB of RAM to load it for display/editing.

With only 4GB of RAM and some of that needed for the OS, Photoshop itself, the display/GPU and all the background apps you can't switch off, the chances of you being able to edit a 3GB PSD file is close to zero. Virtual memory might make it happen but it's going to be painful.

More realistically people will use their tablets for lesser editing tasks, sketching and a bit of photo rework. Samsung has the best styli and the best screens. Better cameras too, for that matter.

Re:Consumer vs. producer

[shilly]

Just want to check -- would you consider the work paramedics do to be real work? How about railway engineers? What about retail bank staff?

Because there are significant numbers of paramedics, railway engineers, and retail bank staff doing real work on iPads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

https://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/new...

http://www.sourcingfocus.com/s...

Re:Consumer vs. producer

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point! But the software could be more smart about that. If the PSD file contains a long editing history (for non-destructive editing), perhaps alternate data layers you don't need on hand for everything, then the software should load only what it needs.

Analogy, you're editing a 2GB file in a text editor with many millions of lines (why? I don't know, but I'm generous to keep the file size under 2^31-1 bytes in this example). You can load everything in RAM, but some old text editors will just load a "window" of text or several and work on that and allow you to interact with it. In principle, a 486 should be able to tackle that file (running a suitable editor on Windows 95, NT4 or Linux). Search and replace on the full text may take a while but you're processing gigabytes of data on a 486, anyway (will be done under an hour?)

With only 4GB RAM, a 64bit CPU and an NVMe SSD : you won't have enough RAM to do everything, but you could memory map a 100GB file and work quite fast if the software is well made and the nature of the work plays into it?
At the extreme end, Google Earth works with like 100PB data coming through a slow network and works fine on old hardware... (for the native desktop version)

Too Late Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been working to eradicate all the Mac Mini computers from my workplace for the past several years. We stopped purchasing them when the RAM was soldered and will not be purchasing these new units.

The soldered units tend to fail at over 5x more frequently than the older generation models where the ram and hard drive were both upgradable. Interesting how the non-serviceable models tend to fail much more frequently...

And?

[SuperKendall]

And as I already pointed out, long term usage is not affected on the new Mac mini either, so why you would carry on down that irrelevant point is beyond me.

However you are also incorrect in one regard - even just ruddying yourself of an old device can provide supplies used to build a new one for someone else instead of mining.

I'll let you have the last response since you seem stuck on a track.

iOS app devs, for one

[tepples]

I just can't see any reason why I would pay close to $1000 for the Apple device.

Let me guess the most probable reason: Someone is paying you to port an Android application to iOS to take advantage of the App Store's far greater revenue per user for paid applications and in-app purchases compared to Google Play. For this, you need to buy a Mac on which to run Xcode and an iOS device on which to test.

Re:iOS app devs, for one

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Let me guess the most probable reason: Someone is paying you to port an Android application to iOS

Nope.

Re:iOS app devs, for one

[AmiMoJo]

You could use Xamarin on a Windows PC for that, no need to get a Mac. Xamarin apps run on Windows and iOS, saving you the trouble of doing a separate port for each.

Re:iOS app devs, for one

[tepples]

Since when can a non-Mac sign apps for testing on a physical device or for submission to the App Store? The free provisioning instructions require Xcode, which is Mac-only.

Re:iOS app devs, for one

[AmiMoJo]

Huh, well that's shitty. Didn't know that, thanks.

Define "consumer"

[tepples]

It's not clear that the Mac Mini is aimed at the consumer

How I'm supposed to feel about that depends on what you meant by "consumer", which isn't quite clear. Which of these did you mean?

One who buys "consumer products" US product safety law, 15 USC 2052, defines "consumer product" such that a consumer means roughly someone who buys products "for use in or around a permanent or temporary household or residence, a school, in recreation, or otherwise". One who views works created by others The entry for "consumer" in a GNU style guide discourages its use while defining it as someone who is limited to viewing works created by others, as opposed to exercising control by participating in creation of works. Other Feel free to reply with your definition.

As long as Apple keeps making Xcode for it

[tepples]

as I already pointed out, long term usage is not affected on the new Mac mini either

That depends on how long Apple will continue to make new versions of Xcode compatible with this Mac mini model. Someone who doesn't need an Xcode license could probably just buy an Intel NUC and install GNU/Linux.

No headphone jack...

[Anonymous Coward]

...NO BUY

Apple did not drop wired headphones ...

[perpenso]

Apple and 3rd parties sell wired headphones with a lighting connector. Apple did not drop wired headphones, the replaced the standard audio connector with a lightning connector.

I'm sorry

[Weaselmancer]

But only photogenic models in commercials actually try to do real work on tablets. Nobody else does.

It's not possible. They want you to think it's The New Thing, but it simply is impossible to do anything meaningful on a tablet. The ergonomics are all wrong. There will be of course one response to this post about someone who writes assembly code for his neural network on a tablet, but for 99.999% of humanity, the ergonomics of tablet-work are not possible.

Holding a tablet with one hand means you have to do all your input with another hand. And if you get a tablet stand - well guess what? You just reinvented the laptop computer. Actual work requires a real keyboard and a real mouse/trackball/Wacom pad, and both hands free.

Nobody in reality does anything much more with a tablet than Netflix and Facebook and app store candy games. Desktops are for creating content, tablets are for consuming it.

Re:I'm sorry

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

But only photogenic models in commercials actually try to do real work on tablets. Nobody else does.

It's not possible. They want you to think it's The New Thing, but it simply is impossible to do anything meaningful on a tablet. The ergonomics are all wrong. ...
Nobody in reality does anything much more with a tablet than Netflix and Facebook and app store candy games. Desktops are for creating content, tablets are for consuming it.

Exactly, and thank you. That's exactly what I said above: tablets are for consuming media, not creating it.

Real work is what I do on an iPad Pro

[SuperKendall]

But only photogenic models in commercials actually try to do real work on tablets. Nobody else does.

That is totally wrong. I was on a three week trip and brought only an iPad Pro and external HD. I edited and reviewed a ton of DSLR photos on the trip, saving me lots of time when I got home. You can already today do full featured editing with Affinity Photo, I can edit large 16 bit TIFF files directly...

I know more and more people that travel just with iPads. I know even some business people moving more and more just just using iPads, since the full Office suite is on them...

The days when tablets are not good replacements for laptops is way over except for some specialized uses.

it simply is impossible to do anything meaningful on a tablet. The ergonomics are all wrong.

Why do you think that? I prefer editing on an iPad because of the Pencil. I find writing text to be just as easy on an iPad with a keyboard cover as I do on a laptop.

And if you get a tablet stand - well guess what? You just reinvented the laptop computer.

Yes, and?? But it's a laptop that's lighter and more powerful than any laptop with the same degree of power. The point is you can use it like a laptop as needed but you can also use it in other ways that are more useful than a laptop.

Actual work requires a real keyboard and a real mouse/trackball/Wacom pad,

I had a Wacom and got rid of it after the iPad Pro / Pencil combo arrived. The combination of the iPad and the Pencil is WAY WAY BETTER.

Actual work can be done in a lot of ways it turns out. Did you also miss that AutoCad is porting the full AutoCad engine over to the iPad for editing?

Nobody in reality does anything much more with a tablet than Netflix and Facebook and app store candy games.

Well, that's probably true of Android tablet owners, because that is all they can do. But it's simply not the case for the iPad, and has not been for a few years now.

Re:Real work is what I do on an iPad Pro

[Anonymous Coward]

Resizing your holiday photos is not quite real commercial photography work.

Re:Real work is what I do on an iPad Pro

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Did you also miss that AutoCad is porting the full AutoCad engine over to the iPad for editing?

Lol, no, I must have missed that exciting announcement.

Seriously, use AutoCad on an iPad? Kill me now. NO ONE who wants to use AutoCad wants to use it on a tablet, no one.

The iPad Pro can have a dock now - USB-C

[SuperKendall]

how exactly are you supposed to do be a professional graphic artist on an iPad if it doesn't have a proper dock?

The iPad Pro has USB-C now so why not use any one of a number of USB-C docking solutions?

It can connect to an external monitor and lots of other devices now.

Yes its touch but capacitive touch screens aren't as precise as graphics tablets

The Apple Pencil is a lot more accurate than other graphics tablets (and has a higher refresh rate). I use to have a Wacom Cintiq which absolutely sucked compared to my older iPad Pro, never mind the new one.

What about audio? How am I supposed to run all of my various inputs into an iPad?

At this point I'm pretty sure you missed it having USB-C...

However even the older version of FL Studio Mobile supported up to 24 audio inputs, and it's at version 3 since then. Do you really have more than 24 devices to connect?

Re:The iPad Pro can have a dock now - USB-C

[lgw]

Here's a nickle kid, get a real computer.

Re:The iPad Pro can have a dock now - USB-C

[SuperKendall]

Here's a nickle kid, get a real computer.

What I'm trying to tell you man, is that at this point the iPad really is a real computer.

And heck it's even running UNIX underneath... which is what the cartoon was referring to after all.

Re:The iPad Pro can have a dock now - USB-C

[lgw]

Nope. It's a tablet, therefore useless for anything but watching video. Simple truth of the universe. I get that you can turn it into a laptop by adding all the other pieces a laptop has, but at that point it's a laptop.

Re:The iPad Pro can have a dock now - USB-C

[SuperKendall]

The very fact it can BECOME a laptop with the addition of a keyboard proves my point absolutely.

The fact that I have used it for a LOT of editing disproves your point further - or am I supposed to imagine that none of that work happened? That presentations I created on the iPad do not exist? It's absurd for you to claim that you can only use an iPad for watching video when so many people are doing real work.

The CEO of a consulting firm I worked for uses nothing but an iPad for all work, he has no Mac. If you cannot understand that - well you can choose to live in delusion, or figure out ways to make the new reality useful to yourself.

I'll leave you the last response as it does not seem fact can persuade you.

Re:The iPad Pro can have a dock now - USB-C

[lgw]

or am I supposed to imagine that none of that work happened? That presentations I created on the iPad do not exist? It's absurd for you to claim that you can only use an iPad for watching video when so many people are doing real work.

The mind-control properties of Apple products are well-established in the literature. You're in "Stage 3", where the hallucinations come. It's probably too late for you once the reality-distortion field has you this far gone.

The CEO of a consulting firm I worked for uses nothing but an iPad for all work

Confirming my point that you can't do anything useful with one.

Re:The iPad Pro can have a dock now - USB-C

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. It's a tablet, therefore useless for anything but watching video.

I have an iPad with Apple Pencil and use it for a drawing pad. I.e. I do real work with it, and it cost less than a Cintiq.

on the Mac Mini 2014 catastrophe

[epine]

Someone mentioned the Mini on the MacBook Air thread, and I responded there forgetting which thread I was on, even though I only discussed the 2014 Mac Mini catastrophe.

Because a small number of people read these threads months later, here's a link:

https://apple.slashdot.org/com...

Idared

[epine]

Funny story.

My wife named her 2008 iMac Idared.

Idared is a type of apple cultivar from Moscow, Idaho, United States. Variety is characterized by a non-uniform skin color.

But it can also be read as iDared.

Re: be nice to have 10-gig swtichs come down in pr

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps he means : have your home server with 2x10Gbe and 1xGbE (perhaps even wifi). Have two desktops (or laptop with T-Bolt dongle) connected to it. Rest of the network on GbE. Forget about 10 GbE for everything else.

Re:be nice to have 10-gig swtichs come down in pri

[Anonymous Coward]

10 GbE hasn't been a stellar success especially the RJ45 variant. 2.5 gigabit has more chance to be seen on consumer and business desktop, perhaps even laptop. (while it's possible servers get a new 25 gigabit Ethernet!)
If anything the Mac Mini could have come up with 2.5Gb Ethernet but Intel may have been slow to add that to their chipset, so that we'll have to wait for another generation again.

2 Little, 2 Late

[Hallux-F-Sinister]

Longtime readers of my vitriol against Apple (and their evil corporate practices,) no doubt asked themselves, how will Hallux shit all over this?

(clears throat)

The 'improvements' Apple has made are categorizable into two broad groups: the too little, and the too late. They seem far more impressive than they really are, because the old version was SO antiquated by the time they finally did this because they waited FOR YEARS before doing it, while the old one, for which they were still asking the same basic price, became increasingly pathetically obsolete. So they've brought it up to somewhere in the vicinity of where it SHOULD now be, without making any real, or revolutionary changes. It's still got most of the limitations the previous generation had when it came out, like a deplorable lack of upgradeability or expandability and without waiting for the iFixit teardown, I'm going to go out on a limb and say I bet it's all soldered together in such a way as to ensure that if you want more memory, a faster CPU, a better GPU (INSIDE THE UNIT,) you had better pony up that bread at purchase time because Apple will be DAMNED if they're going to let someone else make money off you that they could have had.

Also, of course, they reduced the number of USB ports, (real ones, not those C type) and... as big of an improvement as it might be in SOME ways, I can't help but get the feeling that this thing wouldn't exist if the Apple Trash Mac, (or whatever the Mac that looks just like a little trash can is called,) had not been so roundly rejected for the veering off the road of usability, affordability, and good taste that it represented. (Jeeze, they still sell that POS and still for the super-inflated price!)

At Apple, "innovation" takes the form of trailing the pack, polishing the hell out of something to make it pretty and shiny, jacking the price high enough to pay for a massive land purchase and construction on some of the most EXPENSIVE fucking land on Earth, (which you are all helping pay for every time you buy some overpriced thing from Apple,) apparently. This is NOT how Apple was supposed to be. It has lost its way and shows no signs of finding it with the day's announcements.

As for the 'too-late' part... I've grown so pissed off at Apple that I have resolved my current generation of iBullshit will be my last, and when enough of those components need replacing, I will replace the remaining ones and those will not be from Apple, period. They can only try to fuck me so many ways or so many times, before I became an ex -Apple customer. I don't think I'll be going to Android or Tizzen or whatever. I'm just going to buy a cheap dumb-phone, and do my computing at home. It's handy but I've concluded that it's really NOT worth all the trouble, OR the expense. I have other things to waste ... errr... spend my money on, than disposable overpriced shit that's probably coming from the factory with spy-hardware installed, malware-susceptible because they're still using Intel's shitty processors that are built with hidden operating system (malware and spying delivery pathways,) and despite any claims to the contrary, I'm sure are being built by slave-labor or trafficking victims, political dissidents, etc.

Apple's WAY too cozy with people they should NOT be, and I for one won't knowingly and intentionally support that kind of behavior. I'm vaguely aware that one in today's society probably cannot avoid doing so absolutely without moving into a fucking cave, and leaving all trappings of society behind, but... I am certainly not going to pay an arm, a leg, nor through the nose for the privilege.

Apple following Android again

[Tough Love]

So, I-pad home button is gone. IOW, the only way you could tell the difference between and I-pad and an Android tablet from the business side. Took a while, but Apple finally did what it always does: follows Android tailpipes.

Re:Apple following Android again

[Anonymous Coward]

So, they took away what made the iPad easy. But since there's no home button and you can't use headphones I suppose you can use it upside down easily.
If Tim Cook had a wife, he would not care which way she's facing.

$800 for a mini?

[Tough Love]

$800 for a Mac mini? Just no. NUC wins. AMD NUC would win even bigger :)

Re:$800 for a mini?

[samwichse]

Yes, I keep waiting for a nice Ryzen 2200/2400G NUC to come out.

I'd buy that in a second.

Sam

Re:be nice to have 10-gig swtichs come down in pri

[Joe_Dragon]

it can step down to 2.5Gb / 5.0Gb.

But will switches with that show up or just the 10G ones.

But wait for the cable co's to over sub 10g/10g docsis 3.1

I do more than you will ever know.

[SuperKendall]

Resizing your holiday photos is not quite real commercial photography work.

Putting together final images to be delivered to a camera company, however, is. This was partly commercial work, I had a full 50MB camera, a large 150-600 lens I had to lug halfway around the earth, and a 4TB external hard drive I used quite a lot of.

Some of the work was panoramic too, with scenes of 10-20 high res images to combine...

Think before you speak next time.

Not thinking about the ecosystem

[sjbe]

The render on Engadget shows a camera bump protruding beyond the case!

Yeah... Apple is a little too obsessed with making their designs thin even when it's not particularly helpful in the big picture. Thin is great all other things being equal but I think some of the tradeoffs they make for it aren't ideal. (battery life, camera quality, durability, etc) That said I'd be fine with it if they would get their head out of their hind end when it comes to accessory design, particularly cases and styluses. The keyboard option they provide is CLEARLY an afterthought. They designed the iPad and only afterwards thought about keyboard design. IMO they need to start thinking of the whole system as a single design. Make an interface for the cases (not just the lightning/usb port) that allows them to do interesting things without clumsy hacks. Integrate a holder for a stylus into the device or (prob better) case. Make a keyboard that isn't just a slap on afterthought. A few magnets for holding things doesn't qualify as serious attempts at integration.

Re:be nice to have 10-gig swtichs come down in pri

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing it steps down.

There are some switches at 2.5, or 5 or even a mix (seen the " Netgear Smart Switch MS510TX")
I wanted to observe that we should be close to the point of 2.5Gb coming to cheap consumer hardware (maybe 5Gb can be easily supported but if there's 2.5Gb, that'll do). Like, a cheap PCIe 1x board at $10-$20 not a PCIe 4x board at $100, and likewise garbage quality switches with five 2.5Gb ports and no features. As such, 2.5Gb on the base model of a computer would be a thing as well as your grandma's desktop, your receptionist's PC and your uncle's laptop.
But it's slow to come if we ever get it.

1 gigabit fiber Internet is common in my country and town (maybe there are 1000/1000 offers, 1000/100 offers and perhaps something else but if you get hooked then you get gigabit ISPs). I'm pretty sure most people use 802.11n with it, so the LAN is 10x-20x slower than the Internet. Hence I don't think anyone cares about 2.5Gb much. But if we get some "super wifi" like 802.11ax then maybe there will be more interest into bumping the wired speeds as well (while still working on cheap CAT5e cables)