Live data from Hacker News

Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

apple.com

91–100 of 728 posts

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#91
Helene survivor here. What's wild to me is that, regardless of the small scale of this facility, it's only a few hundred meters from a 1% flood zone: https://msc.fema.gov/portal/search

The address I found for the facility is 9101 Windmill Park Lane Hudson, TX 77064

This seems ill advised given recent events like Hurricane Harvey

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#92
Is no one else interested in the "assemble advanced AI servers, including logic boards produced onsite, which are then used in Apple data centers in the U.S." in the pictures? Are they using nvidia GPUS? Their own silicon? Is there any data out there on what these servers are like? I don't think we've ever seen a picture of them before.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#93
post #69

Mac minis are sold out in NYC these days because everyone gets them to try out openclaw. Even if this move by Apple is unrelated to the recent demand, it certainly was timed right for the policy and market makers.

why were mac minis so popular for this compared to any other machine, cloud VPS or local VM?

The Mac mini has a very good value for money if you need raw performance in a small silent package. Frequently available for between $399 - $499 discounted.

A VPS that can perform like a Mac mini will likely cost the same as a Mac mini in 12 months time.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#94

Why does the video show them assembling rackmount servers and not the Mac Mini? Is that assembly really in the US? Asking because the woman in the first shot appeared to have Chinese letters on the left side of her uniform.

Interestingly, these exact letters appear to have been removed in the photo after the first two paragraphs: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/2026/02/apple-accelera... EDIT: a screenshot from the video: https://imgur.com/a/X3t4crC

Apple PR did what they could with the art they had available and the need to pander to a gov't administration, but weren't inspired to do it more genuinely?

"Think Different" -> "Think Indifferent"

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#95
post #59

Why does the video show them assembling rackmount servers and not the Mac Mini? Is that assembly really in the US? Asking because the woman in the first shot appeared to have Chinese letters on the left side of her uniform.

I assume Foxconn, etc., have a lot of Chinese and Taiwanese workers on site to help bootup the facilities. But Apple's Houston facility is a real place: https://www.google.com/maps/place/8702+Fairbanks+North+Houst... Foxconn bought it last year: https://communityimpact.com/houston/cy-fair-jersey-village/d...

That's... amusing.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#96

Apple is very tied to Chinese manufacturing in a way that is hard to replicate in US. They will agree to make some high margin simple to assemble thing in the US to appease government, but if it goes as well as last time, they will stop as soon as they can. In china they were often able to iterate on designs and have custom screws and other parts made and ramped up in very short times. Something about having the whol…

Just as manufacturing in China took time manufacturing in the US will take time. The US has lost much of its skilled labor and mom and pop parts shop. If we have any hope of re-invigorating this some large company is going to have to bite the bullet. Chicken and egg problem imo. I'll leave whether this is worth it or not up to the economists.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#97
post #69

Mac minis are sold out in NYC these days because everyone gets them to try out openclaw. Even if this move by Apple is unrelated to the recent demand, it certainly was timed right for the policy and market makers.

why were mac minis so popular for this compared to any other machine, cloud VPS or local VM?

Macs have "unified memory" meaning the GPU uses the same memory as the CPU and minis can have up to 64 gigs. So its a lot faster than running on a CPU and a lot cheaper than any other GPU based rig with similar memory.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#99

Apple is very tied to Chinese manufacturing in a way that is hard to replicate in US. They will agree to make some high margin simple to assemble thing in the US to appease government, but if it goes as well as last time, they will stop as soon as they can. In china they were often able to iterate on designs and have custom screws and other parts made and ramped up in very short times. Something about having the whol…

The press release says they’ve been making their own servers there successfully so it doesn’t seem like there is a reason they would stop Mini manufacturing quickly.

They did the exact same thing with Mac Pro in 2019. I notice they don't say they'll stop manufacturing the Mac Mini anywhere else. This is a political thing and will change with the political winds.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#100
The woman in the pink smock-like clothing:

In the video there are Chinese characters on the clothing above the front pocket area. In a picture of her later on in the news article the Chinese writing is gone.

Has it been photoshopped out for the press release images?

Post reply on HN