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My Next Mac Mini

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Re: My Next Mac Mini

#231

Post by microtonal »

zymhan wrote: post #20
rwmj wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH I've never understood what Apple gets out of selling the Mac Mini. It cannibalizes their own low-end laptops/desktops, and at the same time must be quite a marginal product mainly sold to a small number of hackers who probably put Linux on them.

Why would anyone buy a Mac Mini and put Linux on it?! There are a million other small PCs that are far better for that. If I was going to buy a Mac Mini, it's to have an affordable Mac that I can stick somewhere in my house to run occasional OS X software. I already have a few other computers, plenty of them running Linux. A Mac Mini is a great way to get a cheap OS X setup going. Also, it's not low margin, they char…

Also, it's not low margin, they charge $200-$400 for each upgrade you make. So if you only want a 1.8GHz box with 5400rpm spinning rust, then you're still paying $500 and Apple can't be out more than $300 in parts and costs.

I still have a Late 2012 Mac Mini. The CPU is almost as fast as the 2014 and I put in 16 GB RAM when I bought it (you could just pop off the bottom without a screwdriver). Later I also added a 500GB SSD. It still runs great.

Still selling the 2014 Mini is even a bigger offense than if they'd sell the upgradable late 2012 flavor.

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#232

Post by [deleted] »

zymhan wrote: post #20
rwmj wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH I've never understood what Apple gets out of selling the Mac Mini. It cannibalizes their own low-end laptops/desktops, and at the same time must be quite a marginal product mainly sold to a small number of hackers who probably put Linux on them.

Why would anyone buy a Mac Mini and put Linux on it?! There are a million other small PCs that are far better for that. If I was going to buy a Mac Mini, it's to have an affordable Mac that I can stick somewhere in my house to run occasional OS X software. I already have a few other computers, plenty of them running Linux. A Mac Mini is a great way to get a cheap OS X setup going. Also, it's not low margin, they char…

[deleted]

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#233

Post by nextos »

lobster_johnson wrote: post #230
nextos wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are brands that build absolutely awesome fanless cases on top of Intel NUC boards. I recommend those: http://www.aleutia.com/computers/ http://www.cirrus7.com/produkte Intel is a bit lazy. Many manufacturers are selling cheap fanless devices for a lot less money. Their Core m3 is a fanless CPU. They should release a fanless NUC themselves. I love NUCs because their hardware just works on Linux and they are rela…

Last year I got a fanless box from Atlast to use as a headless Linux server running Plex Media Server. Really excellent little box. Quad-core i5, 120GB SSD, 8GB RAM, Ubuntu preinstalled. $600 plus $50 shipping to the US (they're in the UK): http://www.atlastsolutions.com/fanless-mini-itx They Atlast guys are also very friendly, and they know Linux.

Cool. Seems they are using Akasa cases?

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#234

Post by dunham »

pledg wrote: post #25
coldtea wrote: post #10

> Well, perfect except that six years in this machine is very creaky. It needs a reboot every week or so (otherwise it will refuse to launch anything). That sounds totally unrelated to the age of the machine, and totally related to what's installed, the mini running out of disk, etc. Maybe do a clean install of the OS? Aside from the mechanical parts (CD ROMS, Hard Disks, etc), the "digital" parts of a PC do not age…

My mini was basically unusable due to the hard disk. Switched it out recently for an SSD and it is a decent machine now.

I have the same problem with my iMac (the last couple of revisions of MacOS seem to be unusable on hard disk), but it's bit more difficult to swap in an SSD on the iMac.

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#235

Post by [deleted] »

figers wrote: post #215
benologist wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has stated they think the iPad Pro is the next computer for everyone. I would bet Apple is quite far along making tools for the iPad Pro that let you create apps for the iPad Pro and iPhone. They released a first foray into this kind of tool last year with their Swift Playgrounds, a language they designed to replace old things, using all-new APIs like Metal. The computers we like all stem from what we call Appl…

Allow a mouse to connect to it and as a developer I would agree with you...

[deleted]

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#236

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

dba7dba wrote: post #209
fowlerpower wrote: post #157

Someone here needs to explain it to me because I just don't understand. We have the largest computer company in the world, a shit load of people work there, supposedly smart people. Yet they can't put together a refresh of many of their desktop machines. Why the fuck not? What do all those people getting paid all that money do all day? I can only imagine the conversations, "it takes years it has to be super innovativ…

It's the management, not the product managers, designers or engineers. With the management led by a logistics/operations man, you end up with products that are UNinspired. It's a pity Mr. Jobs picked Mr. Cooks to be the successor.

If the share holders didn't like it could they vote him out of that position?

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#237

Post by lobster_johnson »

nextos wrote: post #233
lobster_johnson wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last year I got a fanless box from Atlast to use as a headless Linux server running Plex Media Server. Really excellent little box. Quad-core i5, 120GB SSD, 8GB RAM, Ubuntu preinstalled. $600 plus $50 shipping to the US (they're in the UK): http://www.atlastsolutions.com/fanless-mini-itx They Atlast guys are also very friendly, and they know Linux.

Cool. Seems they are using Akasa cases?

I believe so. There's no logo or any markings on the case, however.

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#238

Post by pjmlp »

jclardy wrote: post #152
gurkendoktor wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no data, but I'd wager that iOS developers who sell directly to end users are rare nowadays. Most of us are paid good money to build apps for bigger companies that make their money outside of the App Store. Often we don't even use our own Mac for that, so as a first step, we might use a Mac at work and Windows/Linux at home. If we left the ecosystem, the cost of native iOS development would increase, and compa…

Paid apps are essentially dead on iOS and Android, thanks to both of their terrible policies. Both search algorithms for each platform place way to much weight on volume (downloads, ratings, reviews) over other attributes which they could track (like user retention.) This means a well polished, but expensive app can be easily ousted out of a top search result spot by a rushed clone at a lower price point, even if peo…

App stores are just a digital version of any physical store.

Honestly when I go any store, I sometimes wonder how all those companies with products on the shelves, manage to sell enough goods to keep the engines running.

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#239

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

newscracker wrote: post #225
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had whatever the latest iPhone was for the past 8 years. But at some point I realized a whole Huawei/HTC/LG/whatever Android phone could be purchased for the price of an iPhone screen repair and it's pretty much adequate for what I want to do. So now I'm using a Nexus 5X. It's okayish, but costs 1/3 the price of the iPhone 7 that would also be relatively ok. Phones are just phones these days. The awkward part is th…

> Phones are just phones these days. I disagree with this. Most Android phones have a bad track record of getting OS updates (which may not be extremely important with Play Services not being part of the OS) and security updates. Depending on what one buys, it may be a phone with an outdated OS and no security updates or something that gets by for two to three years (on average). Apple provides updates for four years…

I'm tech savvy, but I can have 3 very decent non-flagship Android phones (eg Oppo F1S) for the price of a similar sized iPhone.

That's a massive deal breaker.

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