Mac mini Turning 3.5 Years Old
It’s an opportune time for a reminder that the Mac mini hasn’t been refreshed in three-and-a-half years as of April 16. 1,267 days ago as of today, according to our MacRumors Buyer’s Guide. We asked Apple for a comment, but it’s unlikely they’ll break silence.
Last year, the Mac Mini was upgraded from “a product in [Apple’s] lineup” to “an important part of [Apple’s] product line going forward”; Panzarino made no mention of any status change indicated during his Mac Pro briefing.
And that’s weird. Half of the Mac models Apple ships are stale. It isn’t just me who finds that strange, right?
Meanwhile, it’s been 2 years since Apple released a new 4-inch phone, almost 3 years since it updated the iPad mini, 5 years since it updated the AirPort Extreme Base Station, and 8 years since it raised the MacBook Pro’s RAM ceiling.
Previously: Apple Comments on AirPort’s Future, New MacBook Pros and the State of the Mac, An Important Part of Our Product Line Going Forward.
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I’m pretty sure their angle is that the mini gives at least an adequate macOS experience as is. And, as a mini owner, at least once I put in an SSD (which they really should provide stock, even at $500), I’m pretty sure they’re right.
That is to say, I think there’s a legitimate market for this thing as is. Who, past Mac mini colo, would benefit substantially from a mini upgrade? People who Apple would prefer was using a different box anyhow.
Ruffin,
I understand the point, but a $500 desktop with 3.5 year old parts???? That's appalling. Seems like I can get an i5 NUC, then add 8GB RAM, and an SSD for just about that much. Apple with their buying power should actually be cheaper than little old me getting a single system, some RAM, and an SSD. I'm ignoring the cost of the OS, I do realize that sticking point, but since Apple doesn't sell an OS anymore anyway, I'll just substitute a free Linux distro for this comp.
Absolutely, whatever experience the current Mini provides, selling a 3.5 year old piece of un-upgraded hardware for full price is absolutely insulting.
Apple is one of the most ludicrously successful tech companies on Earth, with billions upon billions of dollars cash at their disposal. Them not being able to, *at minimum*, keep their computers updated with spec bumps if they're going to keep them at full price is ludicrous and just shows contempt for their customers. And I say this as somebody who's been a Mac user full-time since '98 - I'm no hater. I'm just getting fed up with how they're treating their computer line. They don't want to make computers anymore, it feels like.
I think that no matter how large the Mac business is compared to most other things out there, it's simply not the iPhone. Which positively dwarfs everything else Apple does....combined!!!!
I probably could be classified as a hater these days, even though I was a Mac user from 1992ish to 2012ish. With some legacy use filtering out until last quarter 2015. I think the only Mac I have left is a 2008 MacBook a family member uses with Linux on account of 10.7 being an appallingly awful OS that's far of date. 10.6 was my other choice for the hardware, but while not awful, it's likewise completely unsupported. So I'm not really using a Mac in any real sense. I've dropped iPods and Airport routers out of my lineup too over the last few years (not like either segment has seen any updates in years anyway). No iOS devices at this point either, so I'm mostly just wistful of the days of yore.
Look, if I was Apple, I do get that iOS, specifically iPhone is the everything business right now, but nearly $7 billion in a quarter is hardly chump change. Seems like Apple could bother trying with that kind of revenue. Then again, Apple is so successful with regular people buying far too expensive phones (not a knock solely against Apple, top end Android phones are expensive too....), why would such a successful company ever bother listening to the chorus of high demand, high support users like us?
Nathan,
I've actually recently made my first non-Apple computing purchase in twenty years, and am currently typing this from a Surface Laptop. Nobody is more surprised than I am about how much I genuinely like this computer.
I've got a 2010-gen Mac Pro still up and going handling a lot of needs, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't considering replacing it with a PC tower at some point with the way the Mac is going.
Kevin,
Yeah, my daughter's Surface Pro 3 has worked well enough. I have an account on it too for basic computer use and it's definitely a platform I need to familiarize myself with to support my clients. I don't love everything about Windows, but it basically works. More times than not it just hums along fine. I did setup a rsync based backup instead of the normal Windows backup.
There have been some bugs, some oddities, some things I'm just not use to, but I have managed well all things considered, never having used Windows for any length of time in my personal or business use. I have supported clients with Windows for years, but never would I call myself a "user". Like dive in and get stuff done with the system as a day in and day out thing, or even use it more than once a month really. Definitely a Mac guy, with a dabbling of Linux since October 2004 or there about....shifting to primarily a Linux guy with a dabbling of Macs (2012ish)....before settling on primarily Linux guy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_version_history#Ubuntu_4.10_(Warty_Warthog)
Linux is still my comfort zone, if I can really call it comfort with any given computing platform.
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