Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston • Hacker News Board

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

#451

Post by mikepurvis » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 5:04 AM UTC

jajuuka wrote: post #353

mikepurvis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even to this day there aren't really a ton of options for a non-devkit, non-router arm64 machine that you can use as a desktop workstation.

I was happy to see that x64 mini computers have really come along. Some of the units from China are really impressive with some exposed full PCI-E buses. Arm64 is still limited for sure, but with Snapdragon and Windows finally committing to ARM I think the future is bright for that. Just not here yet.

A thunderbolt 3 connector is 4 PCIe lanes, isn't it? I know there can be compatibility gaps, but there are definitely TB-connected enclosure boxes available. NVMe connectors are also 4 PCIe lanes, and I believe any of those can be broken out and used for whatever (m.2 cellular data modems for example).

Are you thinking of plugging in actual consumer expansion cards, or are you wanting the lanes broken out on some kind of riser where they can go to hardwired stuff on a carrier board?

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

#452

Post by henrikschroder » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 5:05 AM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #390

hamandcheese wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there was really true 'progress', then you wouldn't need a one-party system that suppresses all dissent. This makes no sense. It is possible for a totalitarian government which is threatened by dissent and concepts like "democracy" to also work in the interest of improving overall quality of life.

If things work so well that everyone's quality or life is improved, why would there be dissent large enough to worry about. It's the same category as: Why would a company with happy well paid workers be worried about unions and try to stop them forming.

> If things work so well that everyone's quality or life is improved, why would there be dissent large enough to worry about.

Have you met people?

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

#453

Post by f33d5173 » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 5:10 AM UTC

ijustlovemath wrote: post #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

I don't know what the topography of houston is like, but here in toronto, a few hundred meters would move you from the bottom of a deep river valley to the top of it. I would imagine they made sure they could get insurance before building and wouldn't have picked any place with a significant risk.

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

#454

Post by dangus » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 5:12 AM UTC

hn_acc1 wrote: post #238

dangus wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get fatigue when everyone claims that all these Chinese businesses are state sponsored. Do we not recognize that western governments do this too? Do we not recognize that western banks and VC firms are quasi-state institutions? Do we not see western countries continually subsidize businesses by lowering corporate tax rates and giving out cheap loans? The US government was giving out $7500 per car to buy EVs and the…

China is not state-subsidized / running at a loss on materials so much (although they probably get cheaper rare earth minerals) - they're running at a loss on wages. There's no "loss" there - the state doesn't have to buy labor and sell it to the companies to put into the product at a loss - the companies simply pay less overall in terms of labor, because that's the prevailing rate. Even if you paid 5% more for mater…

Factory wages in China are almost $2 more per hour than factory labor in Mexico.

I don't buy this argument.

Sure, labor protections in China are weak, but let's use our mirrors: the US has no guaranteed paid time off of any kind, it has unions on paper only, 1 in 10 Americans have no health insurance, and it's nearly the only country where medical bankruptcy exists as a concept. The largest employer in the US runs a scheme where their workers are intentionally kept part-time with low enough wages to need SNAP assistance and other social safety net programs, as well as avoiding any obligation to provide health insurance, effectively subsidizing their corporate profits with tax dollars. America's middle class has been shrinking via housing, healthcare, and education cost inflation while China's middle class has been growing as its industries have continually moved further up the value chain.

"China is just cheap labor" is a last-Millennium viewpoint. China is a manufacturing ecosystem where you can walk into a physical marketplace and find rows of vendors with skilled technicians who all know how to work on electronic or machinery or other manufacturing skills, where they offer services like chip-level NAND upgrades where they solder on storage upgrades to your iPhone while you wait.

China is now a country where you would pay a price premium to buy their products over competitors.

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

#455

Post by TimorousBestie » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 5:16 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #236

gigatexal wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha very telling that this is what you find laudable. Onshoring manufacturing … it’s a low margin low skill (relative) industry compared to the services and things of the modern economy. We import goods made cheaper in other countries and benefit from it in consumer surplus… that the educated here on HN can invert a tree or whatever the latest leet code garbage is being asked in interviews but never took and economi…

If you were correct, it would be trivial for Apple to reshore the manufacturing. But it’s not. Because what China has proven is that, when you outsource the “low margin low skill” stuff, everything going up the chain will follow. China used its low-margin low skill work to bootstrap the rest of the stack, and now they can make air to air missiles with range exceeding US missiles: https://militarywatchmagazine.com/art…

> China used its low-margin low skill work to bootstrap the rest of the stack, and now they can make air to air missiles with range exceeding US missiles: https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/china-first-close-...

We’ve got to get you some better sources, mate. This is a straight-up Russian propagandist pretending to operate out of the UK while having a mailing address in South Korea.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/military-watch-magazine-bias/

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

#456

Post by wtallis » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 5:17 AM UTC

mikepurvis wrote: post #451

jajuuka wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was happy to see that x64 mini computers have really come along. Some of the units from China are really impressive with some exposed full PCI-E buses. Arm64 is still limited for sure, but with Snapdragon and Windows finally committing to ARM I think the future is bright for that. Just not here yet.

A thunderbolt 3 connector is 4 PCIe lanes, isn't it? I know there can be compatibility gaps, but there are definitely TB-connected enclosure boxes available. NVMe connectors are also 4 PCIe lanes, and I believe any of those can be broken out and used for whatever (m.2 cellular data modems for example). Are you thinking of plugging in actual consumer expansion cards, or are you wanting the lanes broken out on some kin…

Thunderbolt isn't literally four PCIe lanes; Thunderbolt can encapsulate and carry PCIe traffic, and Thunderbolt controllers are typically connected with four PCIe lanes, though the amount of PCIe traffic a Thunderbolt link can carry is not necessarily as much as four PCIe lanes.

Directly exposing literal PCIe signals cuts out the pair of expensive Thunderbolt controllers.

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

#457

Post by georgemcbay » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 5:18 AM UTC

logotype wrote: post #296

hn_acc1 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, um.. Forgive me for not being in the market for a showerhead in the last few years and / or not knowing about this one company that I didn't see at Home Depot/Lowes when I did buy a couple of them? I admit I'm probably an outlier, but in terms of durable goods, I'd pay 30-50% more for lots of things if they were "made in the USA" or "made in Canada" (any western country) and it meant something - like, better pa…

You’re not alone. I’m a self-funded startup founder and I still buy Made in USA goods (clothes, appliances, tools, supplies, equipment, etc). For me the price isn’t the main factor, it’s simply that I want to support the countries I like. Been doing this for 10 years now. Based in London so I also buy Made in England things too. Never ever support authoritarian regimes!

> I still buy Made in USA

> Never ever support authoritarian regimes!

(Speaking as an American)... you sure about that?

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

#458

Post by shiroiuma » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 5:20 AM UTC

bmurphy1976 wrote: post #330

adamgordonbell wrote: post #84

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 term for China's manufacturing advantage is agglomeration. The US is never going to be successful with these manufacturing initiatives until the US government gets its act together and starts rebuilding all the infrastructure that has been destroyed over the last 50 years. That requires more than just tariffs. It requires actual investment. Investment in infrastructure, people education, power, everything. It's a…

>Investment in infrastructure, people education, power, everything.

This isn't going to happen. The US government these days does not care about investment in things like infrastructure or education.

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

#459

Post by solidsnack9000 » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 5:20 AM UTC

whynotmaybe wrote: post #209

vsgherzi wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, US didn't lose it, we collectively decided that whenever we buy something, the price was the most important aspect. It's like everybody forgot that their neighbour's job depend on them. We're repeating the same pattern with online shopping, malls and stores everywhere are closing because of our collective actions, we're not losing them like I lost my keys.

Choosing the lowest price is rational for the consumer. Setting the trade policy that allowed that lowest price -- the USA has less protection for the semiconductor industry than it has for textiles -- was the mistake.

Free trade does result in the best prices but it has other, negative effects, and it is when we think as policy makers -- as citizens, not consumers or business owners -- that we are accountable for those effects.

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

#460

Post by wtallis » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 5:21 AM UTC

bigyabai wrote: post #413

wtallis wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bought the 5800h last year , and provided last year's price paid for it. That makes the 2024 Mac mini more relevant than the models that weren't being made or sold last year. Unless you'd like to dig up what that 5800h system cost back in 2021, to put that into context against a Mac mini from back then?

The Beelink mini PC I bought MSRPs at $600, but it comes with a 500GB NVMe drive. In Apple's pricing scheme, that puts it equivalent to a $800 Mac Mini configuration. To reiterate, this is absolutely a comparable machine to the Mac Mini in terms of performance. Maybe not your ideal configuration, but I had $300 and a limited patience for Asahi development.

> To reiterate, this is absolutely a comparable machine to the Mac Mini in terms of performance.

Reiterating is not the appropriate response after someone has already detailed many ways in which the performance a 5800h is not in the same league, none of which you have even attempted to refute.

The more truthful claim you could have made is that you don't need the extra performance (far more plausible, given that you bought a new machine with a four year old chip), or that you needed storage capacity more than you needed performance.