What's the point of the mac mini in 2014?

Combat squirrel · 19 Oct 2014 at 21:19

Ok direct question here, what's the point in a mac mini? OK it's essentially a low end computer. Which limits it to Web browsing, office work, maybe some photo editing, but not proper extensive photo editing. Recently the new Mac mini is even lower specs than the previous, apple are saying in a way they want it to be even more limited.

However Web browsing is easier on tablets these days, quicker, less hassle.

Office work, yeah plausible but any sensible person would spend half the money on a pc if you just want work?

Some photo editing is possible, but not at a professional level consistently, you would go for higher spec machines.

Games, video editing etc, no, not powerful enough.

What is the place of low spec machines these days? Specifically apples situation, low spec high priced machines? Education would buy low price low spec pc's?

Xbmc box iv seen some being used, but surely and conversely over specced and priced? Also most people stream these days, Netflix etc.

Any input welcome, I'm just struggling to see their place now and in future.

nolimit · 19 Oct 2014 at 21:49

It makes a good computer/media device for posh Hotels.

deusexlumina · 19 Oct 2014 at 22:21

no idea really. They appealed to me as a moderately powerful pc in a compact form factor that i could attach my own screen to. Now, i may as well get an intel nuc which is even smaller,cheaper and will use SSD storage without much hassle.

Somnambulist · 19 Oct 2014 at 22:48

A lot of people's first Mac tended to be Mini's, at least in the past - if you wanted to try OS X but didn't want/need a whole new monitor/keyboard/mouse, you could just hook the Mini up to those and it was/is still the cheapest option for those wanting to jump ship. It's how I got started and while eventually I'd like to get a rMBP and display to make my computer 'mobile', and relegate the Mini to a fancy media box, as a general use computer it's perfectly adequate, not to mention small, quiet and low power.

Caged · 19 Oct 2014 at 22:51

They are perfect for education environments where faculty staff are more familiar with the Mac as a platform, and they see a lot of usage in music when combined with packages like Sibelius.

They are also great little boxes to run Caching Server on if you have lots of iOS or OS X devices as it's like a one-click WSUS, to manage system preferences on Mac clients in an AD network, or to strap to the wall behind a display.

The aggressive pricing of the iMac has made the Mini less appealing as general office machines, but they still have their uses. Really it's a £400 device to try out OS X and then sell 8 months down the line and lose very little money.

Let's also not forget that a Mac is the only computer that can legally run OS X, Windows and Linux-based OSes, my computer science labs at uni were exclusively filled with Macs.

Skyboat · 20 Oct 2014 at 20:43

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=20142427#post20142427

Admit it, you read all of that in Jony's voice

v0n · 20 Oct 2014 at 21:04

Ever since Apple discontinued XServes mac mini's were great as small servers, for mail, for web, for load balancers, basic encoding or quick time/compressor container repackaging clusters etc. Tiny footprint, easy to stack on rack shelf, often better choice than blades (i7, TB or FW HDD expansion).

Now that memory is not user upgradable and basic i7 with 16Gb will cost you nearly a grand, they are absolutely pointless.

ginger_pat · 20 Oct 2014 at 22:44

The mini being lower specced and lower price I think is to lure in the recent newly adopted recent apple fanatics.
With Yosemite now a perfect companion for any iPhone/iPad user now people have really experienced the simplicity and intuitiveness of Apple, they will be looking to explore the computers, what better way to start then a £400 machine, the same price as an iPad.

Ok we all know how big the changes are in the new releases and how we feel robbed of what we were all hoping a powerful machine, but for the majority of people who this machine is now marketed at it does the job, does this new audience know the difference between Haswell and Broadwell or that the old model had a different CPU in it or even care?

Look at the shift with the iMac aswell and how the RAM is not upgradable it's not aimed at computer fanatics it's aimed at new adopters, lower price, lower specs.
When we look around we all know how many new adopters to Apple there is, I was thinking before how many people who have iPad's and iPhone's now would have seriously considered a mac 6-7 years ago compared to today.
Apple is now for the masses and they will continue hitting the masses, they were Think Different, now it's Think Apple.

DanF · 21 Oct 2014 at 11:52

well it's £350 if you or your other half is in higher education. It's not possible to get a new NUC with similar specs + windows license for this amount, and the mini is nicer made. You can bootcamp it with windows or linux anyway while still having the ability to play around with os x. Heck the gpu on it's own in my current PC almost cost this amount.

The older one will make more sense for a power user, but then you'd probably be looking at something much more beefy anyway.

v0n · 21 Oct 2014 at 12:44

DanF said:
The older one will make more sense for a power user, but then you'd probably be looking at something much more beefy anyway.

Which is exactly the problem most power users have. If you are video editor, media encoder, music producer etc, Apple no longer have any suitable machines for you. Mac Pro (the iBin) might be marvel of design but it's everything power users never wanted (ATI cards instead of Nvidia's CUDA, all storage needs to be external, shape impossible to stack together or with storage solutions etc). Since all data must be hanging on small connectors and cables from the back of the machine, a lot of people hoped they might be able to skip 10 grand bill and buy several i7 mac minis instead, but since the new mac mini was gimped (it has thunderbolt but the highest option is mere 2 core i7 for a grand vs 4 core i7 in previous version and it can't be self upgraded now), the only option is awkward iBin or hackintosh.

As ginger pat mentioned, Apple is really set hard on first time users/bedroom devices, they do everything to alienate the market that made them what they are.

Quartz · 21 Oct 2014 at 12:50

Does the Mini support the new 5K display? Or 4K displays?

DanF · 21 Oct 2014 at 13:29

looks like it's

2 monitors at 2560x1600

or

HDMI video output

Support for 1080p resolution at up to 60Hz
Support for 3840x2160 resolution at 30Hz
Support for 4096x2160 resolution at 24Hz

nothing other than the imac supports 5k due to the bandwidth?

AbsenceJam · 21 Oct 2014 at 13:58

DanF said:
nothing other than the imac supports 5k due to the bandwidth?

That's right, we'll need DisplayPort 1.3 for 5k.

Not a great time to be buying displays, etc.

glenimp617 · 21 Oct 2014 at 14:53

I've done contract work within the edu

They simply don't buy mac minis. Nearly ever art and design classroom has imacs.

The only place for the mini is sat in a server room running os x server and casper

DanF · 21 Oct 2014 at 15:52

http://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/20/mac-mini-2014-teardown/

yeah it looks like their strategy is more and more locked down hardware forcing rip off prices for upgrades. Luckily I don't care for my use-case but I can see how it's a disappointment for others especially in a work environment.

TheLegendOfMart · 21 Oct 2014 at 16:45

Combat squirrel said:
Ok direct question here, what's the point in a mac mini? OK it's essentially a low end computer.

Someone who wants a Mac who doesn't want to spend £1000+ on an iMac and doesn't want a laptop or tablet?

£400 aint too bad for a machine that is going to be used for web browsing, music playback and video consumption.

You are talking over £400 for similarly specced machine with core i3 dual core and Windows 8.1 with similar footprint.

Somnambulist · 21 Oct 2014 at 16:53

Apple tend to steer customers into buying certain products rather than throwing mud at the wall and reacting to what people choose to buy. We've seen the iPod Touch get left in the dust and now it looks like the iPad Mini is going to go the same way (thanks to the Plus, no doubt)... on the Mac side of things it wouldn't be surprising if they're doing the same to the Mini.

Journey · 21 Oct 2014 at 17:08

I highly doubt that a £600+ phone is going to displace a £300 tablet.

It might stop a few folks buying one, but a 5.5" screen is still pretty small.

Somnambulist · 21 Oct 2014 at 18:20

The Mini went from being like for like with it's bigger brother to only getting Touch ID and the gold option and missing out on numerous upgrades - you don't tend to do things like that without a reason. Of course people will still buy them, but large screen iPhones will only get cheaper as future models come out and there have been a lot of articles about small tablets losing out to phablets in market share:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer...rst-quarterly-decline-due-to-rise-in-phablets
http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/small-tablets-losing-to-phablets-ipad-mini-sized-models-getting-hit/

Like the Mac Mini, they'll keep selling the iPad Mini, but if it's not considered a flagship product by Apple (like the iPod Touch), updates will become more infrequent, less people will buy them and eventually they no longer become relevent.

Skyboat · 21 Oct 2014 at 20:35

Keep in mind the iPad Mini 1 had similar hardware specs to the iPad 2 yet it was released at the same time as the iPad 4. The iPad Mini 2 took everyone by surprise really, I think most people expected it to have the specs of the iPad 4 instead it was neck and neck with the iPad Air.