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Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

macrumors.com

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Re: Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

#331

Post by Danox »

vadansky wrote: post #191
ololobus wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was looking at $10k Mac Studio with M5 Ultra and 256 GB for local experiments, but then struggled to find what really good modern model I can fit into it. Yes, it can run a good dense 27B at Q8 with plenty of context, but what beyond that? IIUC, some Deepseek flash variants at Q4 are also feasible, but I am not sure if the quality will be good. They also don’t run that fast, like about 30 t/s So if I stay within 35…

Sounds like it's worth waiting for M7 anyways, no point investing too much right now https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48676795

At least wait until someone gets one in hand and post a review, and if it does work decently well there probably is going to be a long backlog.

Re: Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

#332

Post by wolvoleo »

pizza234 wrote: post #140
jasode wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I realize I’m somewhat limited (16GB RTX 9070), but still, it seems really far off from the kind of experience even a basic $20/month subscription gets me. I just ordered a new Mac Studio M5 Max 128GB $5899 ($6400 with tax) to be able to run the bigger "consumer size" models in the 70B parameter range (~96 GB). That said, I have no illusions that this expensive setup with a Qwen Flash coding LLM will be comparable t…

> Why did I initially spend the extra $1600 if I knew ahead of time that it wasn't as good as cloud AI? Because I thought I could use some local LLM for the easy tasks or when I hit cloud rate limits. The maths don't check. With Deepseek Flash one goes a very long way with 1600$ - even 10$/month, for easy jobs, are more than 13 years, and at a higher quality.

Oh no doubt. But one does have the guarantee that no bits left their home and that's a big one for some.

The low hanging fruit stuff for me is more something I use it for because I have the local LLM setup running anyway. It wasn't the reason I bought it, but now that it's there I might just as well use it as much as I can.

Re: Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

#333

Post by InterviewFrog »

HDBaseT wrote: post #309

Apple was also allegedly "caught off guard" by the Macbook Neo demand. I don't really see how they couldn't see the Local AI demand or demand for a cheaper Macbooks. This just reads like marketing imo.

I have a strong suspicion its because of openclaw mania that happened like 3 to 4 months ago.

Basically you can have your own 24/7 AI Employee. At-least thats the appeal and folks were buying mac minis massively.

Just my gut feel. Everybody moved on from that now. But it was a big deal back then.

Re: Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

#334

Post by CrimsonCape »

InterviewFrog wrote: post #333
HDBaseT wrote: post #309

Apple was also allegedly "caught off guard" by the Macbook Neo demand. I don't really see how they couldn't see the Local AI demand or demand for a cheaper Macbooks. This just reads like marketing imo.

I have a strong suspicion its because of openclaw mania that happened like 3 to 4 months ago. Basically you can have your own 24/7 AI Employee. At-least thats the appeal and folks were buying mac minis massively. Just my gut feel. Everybody moved on from that now. But it was a big deal back then.

If you use OpenClaw now can you tell us how it's going?

Re: Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

#335

Post by wolvoleo »

apparent wrote: post #136
adastra22 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the $200/mo plan I have never hit a five hour limit, and I struggle to use my full credits each week. $200/month is vastly cheaper than owning and operating comparable hardware.

You're right that $200/mo is much cheaper than comparable infrastructure. OTOH, you don't get to have a computer that can also be used for other applications, or which works when the internet is down. Also, you remain tethered to whatever pricing the AI companies want to charge. If AI pricing goes like Uber/Lyft did when the VC cash ran out, then we'll be paying much more in a few years' time. We could look back and…

Ohhh trust me we're going to pay a hell of a lot more. It'll be nothing like Uber's VC running out. Someone has to be make back all those trillions.

What we're paying now is just akin to the drug dealer's free starting shot.

Re: Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

#336

Post by wolvoleo »

limewedge wrote: post #310
adastra22 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the $200/mo plan I have never hit a five hour limit, and I struggle to use my full credits each week. $200/month is vastly cheaper than owning and operating comparable hardware.

[dead]

Well it's not just text to text. It's text to code, text to images, research. For me 200 is too much but my 20€ sub yeah I do find that worth it.

If I actually made money with it (I don't and I don't want to) the 200 one probably would start making sense. If I were using it all day I'm sure it would save me more than that 200 by simply being able to do more work.

Re: Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

#338

Post by tom_ »

flyingshelf wrote: post #160
scrumper wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I need a new little Mac for my music studio, currently an M2 MacBook Pro. I thought I'd be fun to experiment with some local models as well. Well, let's price up an M5 Pro. $3,019 with 64GB RAM and a 1TB HD. Three thousand American dollars for a Mac Mini. Beefy spec for sure but not comically so. Frankly even the entry price is a bit high - I remember buying one for my son a few years ago (M1 mini) and it was a few h…

Kinda sad that in 2026 1TB and 62GB of RAM is considered "beefy". We had 1TB iPhones for 5 years. The only reason for this huge speedbump is that chip makers have been dragging their feet for the last 10 years with "just enough" memory.

How long have we had 15-core iPhones with 64 GB RAM and active cooling though?

Re: Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

#339

Post by wolvoleo »

Larrikin wrote: post #188
jmalicki wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They also have enough power to negotiate contracts with strong privacy provisions. What privacy provisions would you want to add to AWS? Most of the reasonable strong privacy provisions you'd want are already there and/or available if you want to sign up for it, even including US Govt Top Secret data if you meet some approval.

If they decide to ignore the contract and violate the privacy provisions, the US government can punish them, can the company from future contracts, throw executive in jail. If they violate their privacy agreement with me there's effectively no punishment I can get that they will actually feel. There would have to be a class action law suit and they always just settle those for some small amount and admit to no wrong…

> If they decide to ignore the contract and violate the privacy provisions, the US government can punish them, can the company from future contracts, throw executive in jail.

To be honest, they'll just send a few million and some gold plated trinkets to the right people and it'll go away. You know that's how things work now in the US. Even if you're an actual convicted drug dealer you can have your mother say a few nice things and whoop there's your get out of jail free card. This stuff is peanuts compared to that.

If not they'll just stall in court and settle for peanuts after everyone is exhausted battling it out. That's what they've always done before the current government made it even easier. Fines are not a penalty, just a business expense.

Nobody important is going to do any time for this. Not in this America.

Re: Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio

#340

Post by InterviewFrog »

CrimsonCape wrote: post #334
InterviewFrog wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a strong suspicion its because of openclaw mania that happened like 3 to 4 months ago. Basically you can have your own 24/7 AI Employee. At-least thats the appeal and folks were buying mac minis massively. Just my gut feel. Everybody moved on from that now. But it was a big deal back then.

If you use OpenClaw now can you tell us how it's going?

I used it initially. It was great and useful but the api costs were pretty high..

Now, I use claude code directly on my machine with the remote control flag.. so its like open claw exactly. I can be outside and give commands to it via mobile app

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