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My Next Mac Mini

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Re: My Next Mac Mini

#111

Post by MrTonyD »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #53
finstell wrote: post #34

Nowadays, I kind of enjoy seeing posts about people abandoning Apple ecosystem. Although it's painful, I myself have been yet another avid fan of pretty much Apple offered, it feels like this is not going to last forever. When they do the math, iPhone might seem the most lucrative (they seem not to care about anything else) but since they are killing the ecosystem with no Mac Pro, no Mac Mini and with so called pro M…

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…

Funny. I recently got a new position and I couldn't find the terminal on the company mac - and a fellow came by and said "you obviously aren't an Apple person". I didn't tell him that I was a Mach kernel engineer at NeXT and that I'd worked on code that is probably still in the OS - or that I've been in way too many meetings with Steve Jobs. Instead, I just quietly nodded and agreed with him.

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#112

Post by slfnflctd »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #53
finstell wrote: post #34

Nowadays, I kind of enjoy seeing posts about people abandoning Apple ecosystem. Although it's painful, I myself have been yet another avid fan of pretty much Apple offered, it feels like this is not going to last forever. When they do the math, iPhone might seem the most lucrative (they seem not to care about anything else) but since they are killing the ecosystem with no Mac Pro, no Mac Mini and with so called pro M…

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…

I had an iPhone for several years as well. On my first attempt to switch to Android, I went swimming with my new phone in my pocket a few weeks after I got it. Very frustrating.

I finally switched permanently last year, and man has it been worth it. I can actually browse my own files on my own phone, and it does virtual reality better than any current Apple product! I grew up with Apple around me and I used to love them, but they have fallen behind and made terrible choices and I won't feel bad for them if they fail.

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#113

Post by peatmoss »

windexh8er wrote: post #103
peatmoss wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd love to drop Intel from a pure privacy standpoint. Are you referring to the Intel Management Engine? I was under the impression that AMD was as bad if not worse than Intel in that regard: https://libreboot.org/faq/#amd Or is Ryzen expected to be better in that regard?

TBH I hadn't looked at AMD in that regard for quite some time since they hadn't been on my short list. Thanks for pointing this out, likely doubtful Ryzen will be any different unfortunately. sigh

I feel like AMD is missing an opportunity here. They aren't able to compete completely with Intel on performance now, and probably won't ever. Ryzen should be better, but I doubt they'll achieve parity with Intel.

If AMD wanted to compete on something they could compete by being the chip provider that was security-friendly. The failed Talos secure workstation proved that at least some people are willing to spend lavishly on truly open, user-controlled hardware. My supposition is that there could be pretty solid demand if the price point weren't ~$10k.

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#114

Post by protomyth »

mobiletelephone wrote: post #77
jmkni wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thinking more about what people use Mac Mini's for. Apple clearly aren't interested in the Mac Mini anymore, so why not license macOS on a superior machine in the same category instead? Similar to how they no longer make their own monitors, and now recommend an LG 5K monitor. For example, I use a Mac Mini for Xamarin. When it dies, I don't want to spend money on a new one because they are really overpriced, would…

The mac mini just works because apple put the effort into making it work. If they were to license macos for the nuc then they would have to put the work in there too. If they are not interested in working on the Mac mini, why would they be interested in working on the nuc?

I once believed that, but it really isn't true anymore. Intel made quite the effort to kill third party chipsets. We are not living in the early 90's. Intel decided (quite differently than ARM) that it would have a set of configurations and take over almost every aspect of it chips.

Look at the NUC, it is a stock Intel everything design. It would be rather easy to support from Apple's perspective.

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#115

Post by rz2k »

CydeWeys wrote: post #37
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…

There is one factor that heavily affects performance that you haven't addressed though: Software demands on hardware increase over time. MacOS today is more demanding than the MacOS of six years ago. Even if the hardware is in perfect condition, you can't run all six-year-old software, so it's going to be slower.

Differences in hardware matter in subtle ways too with new versions of MacOS. For example, AirDrop or Handoff work seamlessly on the latest hardware, but frustratingly work one day then not the next at random on older hardware. The difference is Bluetooth versions 2.0 compared to 4 or 4.2, but one wouldn't likely even realize what version of Bluetooth a computer has.

The NUC he describes sounds perfect for what he wants. Kaby Lake might not have many noticeable improvements over Skylake for most uses, but the integrated graphics for streaming high resolution content are significantly better. Furthermore I don't think there is any Mac that has HDMI 2.0 necessary for sending 4k video to a regular television at greater than 30Hz.

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#116

Post by alsetmusic »

MrTonyD wrote: post #111
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…

Funny. I recently got a new position and I couldn't find the terminal on the company mac - and a fellow came by and said "you obviously aren't an Apple person". I didn't tell him that I was a Mach kernel engineer at NeXT and that I'd worked on code that is probably still in the OS - or that I've been in way too many meetings with Steve Jobs. Instead, I just quietly nodded and agreed with him.

Sounds like you are a NeXT person and not an Apple person, so wasn't he right? No snark intended.

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#117

Post by cronjobber »

mobiletelephone wrote: post #73
finstell wrote: post #34

Nowadays, I kind of enjoy seeing posts about people abandoning Apple ecosystem. Although it's painful, I myself have been yet another avid fan of pretty much Apple offered, it feels like this is not going to last forever. When they do the math, iPhone might seem the most lucrative (they seem not to care about anything else) but since they are killing the ecosystem with no Mac Pro, no Mac Mini and with so called pro M…

I don't buy this argument. Developers will work on platforms that have users with money to spend, even if the development hardware is poor value. In this sense, Apple has us hostage!

I could by an argument it may cause the Apple ecosystem to have mostly "ports" and few original/exclusive apps.

Would that turn into a downward spiral? Don't know.

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#119

Post by sunstone »

For friends and family I've been building a few Zotac CI323's running Ubuntu 16.04 for this purpose. Not expensive even after adding a 80gig ssd and 8gigs of ram, passive cooling, between Chrome, Kodi and VLC it handles a lot of content.

Re: My Next Mac Mini

#120

Post by sams99 »

I have a skull canyon NUC and love it. I work in a co-working space. At the end of my day I can disconnect it and put it in my locked drawer. It is tiny and super fast. Caveat though for those thinking they can hackintosh this thing, it is going to be tricky and incomplete https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/intel-nuc-skull-canyon-sk...
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