Correct -- They've done so little in fact that the the Mini is still plagued by relatively mediocre WiFi and Bluetooth reception and performance.
It's really disappointing that they've never truly addressed this with a design and/or materials tweak
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Mac mini and studio comprise 1% of Mac sales
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Correct -- They've done so little in fact that the the Mini is still plagued by relatively mediocre WiFi and Bluetooth reception and performance.
It's really disappointing that they've never truly addressed this with a design and/or materials tweak
Sure. And often needlessly.
At my local doctor's office recently - all part of a big non-profit medical establishment which employs thousands of people and many hundreds of doctors - and each front-desk person has two Lenovo monitors and under their desk Lenovo boxes.
All because of legacy software, from what I could gather. One can tell from the UI, looks very 1990's era Windows-inspired design.
Said medical establishment likely buys stuff from Lenovo in the count of thousands, millions of dollars in each procurement cycle.
Thing is, functionally it's all unnecessary. The software is simple database tracking, and could be run on a NUC, or even an AIO with no problem at all. Even a smartphone has the processing capability to do all of what is necessary.
But the business is stuck in old days of doing work. And medical establishments like other large institutions do not like to change.
The boxes are energy guzzlers, needlessly warming the room.
As the transition away from fossil fuels continue all these wasteful practices will have to come to an end.
The base Mac Mini costs $499 on the discount stores.
Most of the cost for the Mac Mini is in running the business of Apple Inc., not in the parts or manufacture of the physical unit.
Exactly.
The Mac mini was originally intended in part to be for lower-income people to be able to afford a Mac (hence Steve Jobs giving it a starting price of $499 and his "BYODKM" ("Bring Your Own Display, Keyboard, and Mouse") tag line), so they could use their old/obsolete Windows PC's peripherals with the Mac mini. So considering how much Tim Cook behaves like he hates poor people, it wouldn't be surprising if he cancels the Mac mini.
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Apple claims that the user's battery needs replacement after 1000 cycles and that's about 5 years for most people on average (I expect to own and use my computer for at least that long). Not all batteries swell when they need replacement but many do. If they swell, they can damage the insides of a laptop by the swelling and are also very dangerous.
If you keep your laptop plugged in (use it mostly as a desktop), that's even worse on the battery as far as eventual swelling.
It would be nice to see some documentary evidence of the swelling of batteries and the conditions that cause it, particularly with constant power rather than regular charge/discharge cycles.
As far as that latter is concerned, the battery chemistry doesn't work best with constant power, which degrades the lifespan of the battery, but that's why Apple use algorithms in macOS to drop charge levels and reduce input voltage. I suspect then that the degradation is likely worse for those of us who use older laptops which don't have these voltage/charge state controls either hardwired or in the OS.
Importantly however, current and recent versions of macOS do have these controls.
As far as the former is concerned, these battery chemistries are not particularly known for swelling in comparison to previous packs, but that the swelling is significantly heat related. It may be useful to read through the paper at https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2021/cp/d1cp00359c - it's clearly not a simple issue of 'time on charge' for example.
wild, I’ve never had any interest in laptops. Always desktops and every company I worked for had iMacs and now we have studios
IMO there is not "the problem apple has at the moment with the desktop form factor" with the Minis and theStudios. They each fill their respective desktop roles beautifully just like the MBAs and MBPs each fill their respective laptop roles beautifully. Desktops are superior for sessile work and laptops better for mobile, and MBPs can do both but not as well at desktop (ports!).
Exactly.
-Apple mostly only cares to iron out faulty and inefficient internal design and faulty hardware components whenever the product gets a full design overhaul.
I.e., if you're buying a new Apple device that shares it's external and internal design 1/1 with a previous model, like whenever Apple releases a new SE, mini, or just resorts to spec bumping a popular product but offer no other changes, the "new" device will inherit all of the design faults of the device it's based on.
iPhones SE 2020 and 2022 suffer from several faults that were already present in iPhone 8. And why the M2 mini's bluetooth and wireless is still seeing many of the same issues that a lot of users were experiencing back when the current design launched in 2011.
This is why, in my experience, you can't even just compare specs and release date when deciding on what Apple device to buy next.
The low-end devices, like Mac mini and iPhone SE, are far more buggy/faulty and therefore way lower value per dollar than the mid-tier and high-end devices than even just looking at what they're missing on the spec sheet.
I find that the M2 Mini is considerably less buggy than the other higher end devices I have.
YMMV.
YMMV.
Replacing an iMac means you have a screen that you can no longer use. Replacing a MacBook means you have a screen, keyboard and trackpad you can no longer use.
Replacing a Mac mini when it no longer receives software updates (7-8 years worth of use), results in just replacing the computer, provided the peripherals still work... which in our case, they all still do.
Yup, that's a huge market - but one in which Apple has never really been a player. Most of those basic PC boxes are sub-$500 retail, less when bought in bulk by large organisations. What is happening away from the "front desk" as more people demand flexible working (for which a laptop - even if its a PC - makes sense) is another question. The corporate desktop market isn't going to go away any time soon, but its not exactly a growth area you'd want to invest in right now.
I don't know that Cook hates "poor people" - just that he thinks he can make more money out of "rich people". Sounds better to me than making money out of poor people...
The original point of the G4 Mac Mini was certainly to win people over to Mac (yes, "BYODKM" was a big thing) but even then it was still expensive c.f. a basic PC. You don't have to be "poor" to look at a $600 BYODKM Mac Mini vs. a $600 complete PC system and still wonder if you really need the Mac (hint: Macs are nice but PCs have changed beyond recognition since the clunkers of the 1980s, and somehow 90% of the computing world seems to scrape by with them...)
The evidence against "Tim Cook hates the Mini" came in 2020 when the first 3 Macs to get the new M1 chip were the MacBook Air (probably #1 big seller) the low-end MacBook Pro (probably #2 big seller) and the Mac Mini (what? - and with $100 knocked off the price, too). Then we got the Mac Studio - obviously a Mini-inspired design - and after that what was effectively the "Mac Mini Pro" with M2 Pro chips. Current evidence is that Apple rather likes the Mini - although it's always going to be behind the MBA and MBP in the queue for upgrades (and it's not like the M3 Air was "on time").
My guess was that Apple saw a lot of demand for the Mini-like Developer Transition Kit for other than its intended purpose (giving developers a month or two head start on testing their apps on ARM) and revised their opinion of the Mini.
What were the comparable numbers for the iPhone mini? Surely more than 1%? Both the Mac Mini and the iPad Mini seem to be low sellers but are kept around. I know it's a beaten-to-death topic but it's difficult to see the logic in Apple's decision here.
Part of the equation is: What is the alternative that the customer is likely to choose instead? For the iPhone, the customers were most likely to just choose a larger iPhone and just be unhappy. For the Mac mini & Mac Studio it was more likely the customers would just switch to a Windows machine.
Finally, in the 1% of something! Long live the Mini. I am cautiously optimistic that as Windows 10 machines die and are not upgradable to windows 11 more people will try an iMac or a Mac mini…
this whole win11 fiasco will mark a new chapter in the rise of the Mac I hope
this whole win11 fiasco will mark a new chapter in the rise of the Mac I hope
Here ya go.
macOS Sonoma 14.4: Reasons Not to Update
Since Apple unveiled macOS Sonoma 14.4 on March 7, the transition to the latest software update has not been entirely smooth for everyone, and a number of issues have been reported by users that significantly impact their daily workflow. This article lists the most prominent challenges users...
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Ah, thanks!Here ya go.
macOS Sonoma 14.4: Reasons Not to Update
Since Apple unveiled macOS Sonoma 14.4 on March 7, the transition to the latest software update has not been entirely smooth for everyone, and a number of issues have been reported by users that significantly impact their daily workflow. This article lists the most prominent challenges users...
I can't say I have experienced any of those issues on my M1 MBA or iMac, or the M3 MBA, all three updated to 14.4, but a couple of them wouldn't apply to my use anyway.
Glad to hear it.
As long as people are proactive about making sure their apps and plugins are working under Sonoma from the developers, I would have no hesitation in recommending it. Especially after an update or 2.
My Mac Mini M2 16/256 just showed up last Wednesday and I absolutely adore it! I came from Mac Mini (2012) and iMac (2011) so even this low end with 1 upgrade to 16gb feels like it was in the 1990's being on a Silicon Graphics from PC! 😆
(I keep putting my hand on top of it, absolutely amazed at how cool/cold it is!)
I'm saving up for an M3 Studio when those are announced!
(I keep putting my hand on top of it, absolutely amazed at how cool/cold it is!)
I'm saving up for an M3 Studio when those are announced!