Along with the iWork productivity suite (“Pages”, a word processor with style) and the Shuffle Flash-based iPod, Apple introduced the Mac Mini: a small Mac Cube: 1.25/1.42 GHz G4, combo drive, 40/80 GB drive, fw/usb/ethernet/modem ports. This is the most affordable Mac ever, starting at $499. My Take: Very nice product, but I am dissapointed because it does not have Line-In and Mic connectors! The Mac Mini web pages advertise the product in conjuction to iLife big time but GarageBand feels pretty useless without such connectors! There is always the iMic of course, but hey.
Apple Introduces the Mac Mini
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Hmm, really? That’s odd. Why are they having so much trouble making a G5 laptop, then? confused :
Maybe not 1Gbit, but you can certainly get a faster transfer rate than 100Mbit, which is the exact point at which a 1Gbit interface becomes useful. It doesn’t need to go full speed to be better than the alternative.
If it doesn’t have what you want, instead of ragging on it…
Try reading the thread before commenting. People aren’t ragging on it for not having what they want. People are ragging on people who are claiming that, with the Mac Mini, Apple can now sell them what they want. The whole reason this price thing came up is because some Mac folks tried to spin the Mac Mini as a product to dispell concerns about Apple’s pricing. For what you get in terms of hardware, the Mac Mini is still expensive, end of story. It might still be a good value to you if you want iLife, OS X, etc, but that doesn’t change the fact that for people who don’t care about those, the Mac Mini isn’t a good value.
It might still be a good value to you if you want iLife, OS X, etc, but that doesn’t change the fact that for people who don’t care about those, the Mac Mini isn’t a good value.
That’s the whole deal! Look, for instance, I don’t care about having anything else for portable music than MiniDisc, so I find all MP3 players heavily overpriced.
However, someone who *wants* an MP3 player, will NOT find them overpriced, since he WANTS one and therefore he is willing to spend more money on the thing.
You’re basically saying, someone who doesn’t care about the whole Mac thing, will still find the Mac mini overpriced. DUH! But does Apple care about those people? Did apple aim the Mac mini at people who do not want a Mac in the first place?
I hope you get how, sorry to say, rather ridicoulous your claim is. No offence.
i doubt that it really would take mor than a g3 600 to record that.
mi sgi octane could and i would say that a g3 600 has a faster cpu than my sgi did.
i would guess that the quality of the soundcard matters more if you have a slow cpu.
I’d agree that Apple is not an inexpensive computer, and this doesn’t change this. For the record I don’t think Dell is particularly cheap either. I’ve always chose to build my own, which is not realistic for many people.
This computer is significant, because it is a low end headless model. I’ve wanted apple to release one for a long time. I have all my boxes on a kvm, some headless servers on shelves. I have a 21″ CRT monitor I’m happy with. I don’t want an emac or imac taking up shelf space to try out apple. And I don’t want to spend $1500 just I can get my apple headless. This option works for me. And when tiger is out, I’ll probably get one. I also like that if I get tired of OSX on this, it should make a pretty cool gnu/linux or bsd box, as that is what I use on my other machines.
Also, I’d recommend this to average non-tech home user looking to replace their pc (but they are happy with their monitor). I won’t have to reinstall or clean their viruses for them every 6 months.
No, Apple didn’t turn into emachines. Did you expect them too? This box just filled a whole in their lineup, and happens to be pretty damn cool.
Your hopelessly tied to x86 and windows? fine. I’m hopelessly tied to *nix.
-b
@Rayiner Hashem
Try reading the thread before commenting.
I did, have you?
People aren’t ragging on it for not having what they want.
They SURE are… Especially Eugenia, who’d like an Audio Input Jack.
People are ragging on people who are claiming that, with the Mac Mini, Apple can now sell them what they want. The whole reason this price thing came up is because some Mac folks tried to spin the Mac Mini as a product to dispell concerns about Apple’s pricing.
That’s not spin.
For what you get in terms of hardware, the Mac Mini is still expensive, end of story.
In what way? This is an INEXPENSIVE entry-level Mac.
Comparing it to lower specced and cheaper made x86 boxes with no software, isn’t fair or honest.
It might still be a good value to you if you want iLife, OS X, etc, but that doesn’t change the fact that for people who don’t care about those, the Mac Mini isn’t a good value.
I don’t care a FIG about iLife, and you need an OS to run it. It’s STILL cheaper than ANY of the competing PPC system boards out there, and HALF the price of fully configured systems (Pegasos 2, AmigaONE).
And oddly… I like Macs BECAUSE of MacOS. Otherwise, I’d buy a Pegasos 2 or AmigaONE…
You miss all my points…
And STILL denigrate a system that’s got nice features at a nicer price.
Some people pay the price of this system JUST FOR A VIDEO CARD or a P4 Processor.
For what you get in terms of hardware, the Mac Mini is still expensive, end of story.
Sorry but that isn’t so. Rephrase it to ‘hardware power‘ and you’ll be correct. But there’s more to hardware value than just the raw power specs. In this case, just the packaging is worth the cost.
For every product on Earth,
Cost := brand name + design + assembling quirks + longevity + power.
‘Power’ still includes packaged software.
Just because everyone is used to machines with little or no design, that doesn’t mean it’s right.
You’re in a certain way warranted to discount the value of the software included in that in practice it costs Apple zilch. But at least the trouble you go to install equivalent free software is worth additional bucks.
The weak gfx card is maybe due to packaging / heat constraints? I have no idea. It’s hard to believe it’s there to keep costs down.
Considering this machine won’t be easy (socially more than technically) to upgrade, I think it should have had:
1. 512 ram minimum
2. Better gfx
3. DVD burning
Because then it’d have all an only PC needs, even if that meant a higher entry price. Believe me, CPU speed is the least problem when talking about this market. Whoever needs more than that should not go for an entry level machine.
So I’m afraid it’s not suitable for a general purpose main (only) machine, and that’s a pity because there’s a market for that. Probably the biggest one.
OTOH, for a second machine, it’s not the least underspeced. I just won’t be buying one so soon simply because right now I don’t have the time to play around with it.
someone may have already asked this but i dont feel like reading through 400 comments…whats the bus speed on this?
@Al Hartman
In what way? This is an INEXPENSIVE entry-level Mac.
What about “For what you get in terms of hardware” do you not understand? The thing has a P3-class 1.25GHz CPU and 256MB of RAM for $500. In this day and age, that’s a lot of money for that kind of hardware.
@bleyz
In this case, just the packaging is worth the cost.
I’m sorry, but I’m not going to redefine the word “computer hardware” to include packaging, just to appease you.
‘Power’ still includes packaged software.
No it doesn’t. Power = gigaflops.
Just because everyone is used to machines with little or no design, that doesn’t mean it’s right.
Just because some people are willing to pay extra money for flash doesn’t mean that those who do not are being unreasonable.
Let me tell you about ordinary folk. At the small business where I work I use an Emachine T1400 1.40ghz Athlon, 256 Mb RAM, 40 GB HDD. For doing what we do, mail order, email, updating our database, price checking online, it’s perfect for the job. Granted SP1 slows things up, but it’s paid for itself many times over. Now I’m no Mac lover, quite the opposite. I think they’re overpriced in general too, but the specs on this Mini Mac are the same as my machine, minus the headaches of malware and the constant need for patches. So when some of you are talking about the common folk needing 3ghz, real computing power, etc. I can’t help wondering which common folk you’re talking about, because the only people I know who can’t do just fine with a machine like this are PC gamers (apparently for them, money is no objective to play Unreal Tournament). For the rest of us, the real common folk, this Mini Mac would be a perfectly fine machine.
For all those who dont believe that mac is expensive
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=2316&p=13
$588 u get a dvd dl burner , monitor, twice as much hdd and ram end even keyboard and mouse, better cpu, all quality branded components and u can upgrade it some time in future.
Software is not an issue on pc anyway.
” What about “For what you get in terms of hardware” do you not understand? The thing has a P3-class 1.25GHz CPU and 256MB of RAM for $500. In this day and age, that’s a lot of money for that kind of hardware.”
I mostly agree with you, except that I would say you buy a Mac for the software, not for the hardware (despite what many would suggest). I don’t think anybody is buying this for the hardware specs. Is iLife and OS X worth it? I guess I’ll be finding out.
AMD 1.5 GHz Sempron Vs G4 1.25 = mac mini wins
A 1.5Ghz Sempron is a lot faster than a 1.25Ghz G4.
Stop talking trash. If you dont like, dont buy it. And again, 2.9 pounds, I need to open one and see how they did it.
FFS. It’s a 12″ iBook (or Powerbook) without a screen. It’s about the same volume as a 12″ iBook (or Powerbook) without the screen. Why, exactly, do you consider this amazing ?
What’s amazing is how much Mac fans harp on about how “incredible” *completely mundane* computer hardware is. Certainly the overall software+hardware package of a Mac is pretty good, but the hardware itself is generally not particularly exciting.
Is all the time you spend harping on a 500$ computer.
Really man, think of your patients.
You’ve almost got it, take that thought just one step further. Remember, my claim isn’t that nobody will find the Mac Mini valuable but rather, that those who didn’t find Macs to be worth it before won’t find them to be worth it now, because the Mac Mini doesn’t change the basic value proposition of Apple machines.
That’s hardly a ridiculous claim, especially considering that the Mac Mini has all the Mac people excited about how it’s going to cause a whole new category of people to buy Macs, or how it’s going to hurt the Linux market.
A Mac is not just a computer. It is an architecture (if I may use the word allegorically). It is a combination of hardware and software designed by the same vendor (apple). It is not a PC where you have the software designed by one company and a processor designed by another company put together by yet another company (get what I mean?).
Comparing a mini Mac to a PC only by speed is not really a fair comparison. All I can say it will be fast enough for most people. And then you have the intangible benefits of security, usability…..and yes; eye candy
Graphics card
What is it with the cult of “home users” around here? Let me explain something to you. There aren’t just two markets: “common folk” and “geeks”. Home users are just one segment of a computer market that contains a whole lot of different people, not just “geeks”.
Also, I think you overestimate just how suitable this thing is for home users. If you don’t have a lot of money, then you’re not going to buy a $500 Mac over a $500 PC, because it’ll likely be your primary machine. That means it has to run not only grandma’s recipe program, but little Timmy’s games too. So nearly all sales of this thing will be either as secondary machines, or primary machines for older folks who don’t have children. That makes the potential market a whole lot smaller than home users in general.
‘That means it has to run not only grandma’s recipe program, but little Timmy’s games too. So nearly all sales of this thing will be either as secondary machines, or primary machines for older folks who don’t have children.’
This is funny; most of the Mac users I know have children. I don’t see them complaining about the choice of software available for the Mac!
Most Geeks tinker with Linux or BSD not Mac OS X (which by the way is built on BSD).
Ray,
Your really wrong in your assessment. A lot of the people that will be buying the Mini are people who have never owned a Mac before. Just look at the number of posts that this article is generating. Hell man, even your excited about talking about the Mini. A majority of these poosts aren’t even from Mac users but future Mac users. Their’s like 5 PC funboys putting out the same complaints.
The Mini is not for the person that has a G5, iMacG5 or PowerBook. All of these systems are better than the Mini with exception to the space they take up. Its a perfect complement to an iPod and for some people just the fact that is DOESN’T run Windows is a huge plus.
Then their is this argument that Linux is just as good MacOSX which is totally not true. Give a basic computer user a Mini or a Linux box and lets see who can get things done faster with quality work.
‘For all those who dont believe that mac is expensive
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=2316&p=13
$588 u get a dvd dl burner , monitor, twice as much hdd and ram end even keyboard and mouse, better cpu, all quality branded components and u can upgrade it some time in future.
Software is not an issue on pc anyway.’
Haha more stupid comparisons. Did you forget to read the rest of the article that states that it doesn’t come with an OS and that you have to put it together, that with 20 diferent parts you have to contend with 20 different warranties. Smart. Some people like to buy things that work out of the box. Do you buy your refrigerator in parts?
Its like comparing two cars with close to the same price but you car is better than mine but your car doesn’t have an engine.
These rationalizations are amusing.
Your really wrong in your assessment. A lot of the people that will be buying the Mini are people who have never owned a Mac before.
Bingo, that’s me
I’ve been posting on here a couple of years now. I use Gentoo and OpenBSD for all home computing except gaming. I’m a web programmer and sysadmin at work (unfortunately on Windows).
And I plan on trying this box. It will be my _first_ apple. But apparently according to the MS-propoganda machines who post on this site, I’m a moron. Considering this is coming from people who support a company that is pushing the trusted-computing initiative, I can accept that.
I don’t want to agree with them anyway.
I just bought one, can’t wait to get it home.. This will be my first mac
That’s all speculation on your part, and you don’t offer any rationale to support your claim. The Mac Mini is going to sell to a few “on the fence” geeks, a few college students, but mostly as a second machine for households that already have a primary PC. Only time will tell, but I doubt the Mini is going to budge Apple’s marketshare numbers significantly.
With regards to Mac households you know having children — all the people I know who have children have a PC. Why? Because nearly all of them play computer games, and the Mac just isn’t a good gaming platform. If you look at the numbers (what with Apple’s tiny market share), I’m going to hazard a guess and say that my experience is more common than yours.
They will sell several million of these little books.
Everyone who consistently whines about iPods will consistenly whine about this system.
They’ll still be pissed when the system sells millions.
The iPod is a boutique MP3 player aimed at people with money to burn. The Mini Mac is a boutique PC aimed at the low-end market. There is an enormous difference between the market potentials of the two products.
What, so compiling large c++ code is a more common experience than most users? What planet are you from?
Hardware-wise, I agree that you can get a no-frills PC for less money. When you count in the software tha you are getting though, I tend to think that this little machine is a very good value. If you don’t care about the software because (a) all your software collection is pirated and therefore “free” or (b) you are an OSS zealot who will not use any program that is not GPL’ed then this computer is not for you. But it will do just fine for the 95% of people who just need a computer to browse, check email, type a document, listen to music, burn a CD and feel secure that your computer is not spying on you.
the boat.
I wanted to build such a machine myself. Have been checking out various hardware on the PC side of things.
You cannot build it at the same speed with the same price with a similar amount of power consumption and almost or totally fanless.
Face it, on the PC side of things, it is either C3, then you are much slower, now finally there is an Efficeon mini ITX system which the board alone is 300 and has major problems with USB2 (and no firewire), the next step and that one is in the same league is Centriino, then you are even with the board and processor already way about that nifty machine.
Add on the PC side of things RAM harddisk etc… and you are even with a C3 system already on 400 bucks ore more.
Now there is this system, 500 bucks (mostly a few more but not that much more)
A good processor which is fast, not the fastest there is but fast.
Small, lots of connectivity, and noiseless. The ideal machine for file/printserving,dragging around with you in a suitcase, you name it. You even can dump it into a cardboard and forget about it until you want to see it physically again, and it given my experience with a used old world G3 I have next ot my PC, it just will run and run and run.
Sure you can get a 300-500 dollar PC at a shop like walmart. You will get a GHz monster, loud as hell, draining energy like the next E-Motor and add to that a questionable quality of components used to reach that price (not talking about the processor here, that usually is the only part which shines in those systems)
Sorry to say that I already have a PC which is loud and power hungry and which I want to keep shut off as long as possible, but cannot yet because it runs several important server tasks.
And now Apple comes with this box, which is exactly what I wanted to build myself but always shied away because the components on the PC side most of the times either were too slow or too expensive.
So all you can get a PC for that criers, think about my words…
2 things:
Customers: now have in mind that a Mac costs $500. Not the thousands they thought it would cost. Forget it’s not the most powerful machine. What matters is the price band set in customers mind. Customers will now include the Mac in their purchasing decision, whereas before, it was excluded as naturally far too expensive.
PC manufacturers: Most PCs are sold with a screen, keyboard and mouse, Frankly, I have a monitor I like, a comfortable mouse, and a good keyboard. Should I buy a new PC, I would not want to be forced to buy new peripherals, and I would not like to have to throw the new ones away. Manufacturers (most of them) will have to unbundle their offering, which will increase price transparency and competitivity in the overall computer market.
With regards to market potential, it’s interesting to note that Apple’s low-end product lines (iMacs and eMacs) were their only product lines to see a sharp downturn (to the tune of 16%) in sales last year. In all, they make up only about a quarter of Apple’s total Mac sales by volume, and a lot less by revenue. This is rather unusual in the computer market, where the $800 to $1900 segment (which the eMac and iMac occupy), is the real volume segment. I don’t know why everyone is so irrationally optimistic about this thing. Apple is playing catch-up in the low-end market, this is their first ultra-low end offering, the hardware is lacking, the software barriers remain, and yet everybody thinks it’s a grand-slam???
Lot of people saying “it doesn’t have this or that”, “PC in the same config is cheaper”… THAT’S NOT THE QUESTION… Many people who never had a MAC because it was VERY expensive have now a chance…
I know that most of you are americans and have a completely diferent reality, but in Brasil Macs are really expensive…
For example:
e-mac 1.25 GHz (sold for US$ 799 in USA) costs R$ 5390 (US$ 1925)
Mac Mini (499 Model) Legaly imported in Brasil: US$ 845 +
MY MONITOR –> 0 (zero)
+ USB KEYB + USB Mouse + USB Hub (Essential) + USB Mic –> About US$ 100
Total: US$ 945
It means: I Save about US$ 1000!!!
And I will have a Mac, use Mac OS X, Safari, and so on…
I do not yet have a Mac myself. I will be purchasing a Mini soon, if for no other reason to better familiarize myself with OS X. I do believe that OS X is superior to Windows, both in capability and inherent SECURITY. Comparing a shop-around-and-you’ll-find-a cheap-windows-machine-that-will-blow-the-doors-off-your-mini to a Mac Mini, simply based upon price, misses the point that it is the most affordable computer available with OS X, not Windows! There is a huge segment of the population which does not have the overwhelming software/expandability needs of the average OSNews reader, but would benefit from the more intuitive interface AND inherent security of the OS.
“You cannot build it at the same speed with the same price with a similar amount of power consumption and almost or totally fanless.”
Rubbish. As I said, I did it just last month (as a Christmas present). Antec Aria case, ASRock K7S41GX motherboard, 256MB no-name RAM (gonna update this when I can), 80GB Seagate hard disk, Sempron 2400+ CPU. (Yes, I know there’s no operating system – we’re talking about hardware here). Came to $450 Canadian after tax. Add a CDRW for $30 (didn’t need one for this build, I already had a spare) and buy a Thermalright ALX800 and a decent quiet 80mm fan to satisfy the sound issue (the stock AMD fan is a tiny bit whiny) and you’re still comfortably under US$500. Note to bashers – I’M NOT SAYING YOU SHOULD DO THIS INSTEAD OF BUYING A MAC! I’m saying Werner’s wrong to say that you *can’t*.
ASRock K7S41GX motherboard,
I have yet to find something that is worse than ASRock.
I’ve seen nine i386 boxes with ASRock boards. All of them had problems. (I move across different countries in South America and Europe often) That excludes same models, same manufacture problems. This alone does not mean that ASRock doesn’t work, but if I had to assemble an i386 box, I’d never use ASRock.
That problem is unlikely to happen on a Mac where there’s no board choice. (fortunately).
Just because some people are willing to pay extra money for flash doesn’t mean that those who do not are being unreasonable.
Not what is unreasonable is trying to tell everyone that not wanting flash is better.
A product = More Performance + Less Flash + Less Functionality = $X
B product = Less Performance + More Flash + More Functionality = $X
Some people prefer A some will prefer B. What is unreasonable is telling every one that A is the better product because it has more performance.
For example, it telling a person who wants a luxo-sport 4 door sedan that a Corvette is better than a BMW 545i because the price performance ratio is better.
You are right the mac mini won’t make die hard PC users suddenly want to buy it. But it does lower the cost threshold of buying an apple product much more than any product in Apple’s history. I think that is what the Mac users have been trying to say.
It’s like the BMW 1 series is supposed to lower the price barrier of BMW ownership.
Hopefully when this comes to fruition people will stop whining.
http://www.articasemi.com/page1.html
Not what is unreasonable is trying to tell everyone that not wanting flash is better.
Who the hell ever said that? Can you people not read or something? Go read the first 15 comments on this thread, including the Linux one that was moderated down. Unless your LD, it’s quite obvious that all my ranting was directed at the people who tried to spin the Mac Mini as the answer for your “type A product” people.
You’re missing Firewire, Modem, DVI, CDRW (Having one sitting around, doesn’t count), warrenty, and a commercial operating system.
I don’t doubt that someone will come out with a package that does what the Mac does for less money. Good for them. The key is that Apple appears to be somewhat competitive on their base package. Start adding accessories and the Mac gets expensive, quickly.
There’s several microATX motherboards in the same price range, I chose that one as I have reasonable experience with Asus products in general and it had the features I wanted. The system’s sitting in the other room working fine – it’s a little slow compared to a more loaded box, of course, but I’ve had no problems at all with general operation or reliability so far.
bill: please, please, please learn to read. I was responding to a poster who said you couldn’t build a powerful PC for the price. I proved that you could. I was not attempting to feature match the mini Mac. (I could equally argue that the Mac mini is missing 40GB of hard disk space, an AGP slot, a memory card reader and three PCI slots, but that doesn’t get any of us anywhere now does it?) The case has a firewire port, I didn’t happen to choose a motherboard with firewire as the application for the system doesn’t require one. The box didn’t need a modem, it sits behind a router. I explained the lack of an OS *in the original post* and I also factored in the cost of a CDRW drive ($30).
Hopefully when this comes to fruition people will stop whining.
Okay, I give up. What is it, and what is it’s significance?
All you “I’d get a Mac if it was cheaper people” better go out and get one of these now… it’s awesome!
This is what Bascule said in the first post.
Unless your LD, it’s quite obvious that all my ranting was directed at the people who tried to spin the Mac Mini as the answer for your “type A product” people.
I don’t think “if a mac was cheaper” is the same class as the “price/performance ratio” people. The later would be the “Type A product” people. You are defending the later.
You are conflating the two.
I read the first 15 posts and all I read was predictions being right, a cheaper mac and this is cool. You obviously red something else. Based on the response you are getting I would say you are reading wrong. After all you are getting frustrated trying to defend your views.
how good is the built in speaker gonna sound??
> Apple’s market share has been dwindling steadily; dwindling down to 3%. It is only a matter of time before it disappears altogether like the grinning Cheshire cat.
Apple is dying! Apple is dying! People have been saying that for years, and Apple keeps becoming more and more profitable. Witness today’s astonishing quarterly earnings.
Apple is in no immediate danger of disappearing. They do seem to be changing, though: morphing one of the world’s best-recognized computer brands into an emerging consumer electronics giant.
Someone will eventually buy Apple — Sony, maybe. But the brand will likely continue into the foreseeable future, giving the “Apple is dying!” crowd ample reason for histrionics another decade or two or three or …
typing this right now on a 1.25 G4 at work. Fantastic system. For those who want a Mac mini but are unsure of the G4 performance: rest assured, the G4 is will serve you well. Plus OS X is a phenomenal OS.
I can assure you- you wont regret it
HAHA yeah, Apple has been dying for years and years. Apple just had their best quarter EVER. How ya like them Apples?
In other news IBM sells their PC division, you forgot to say goodbye to them. Cisco and Oracle deploys XServe internally.
http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/general/2005/01/11/generalma…
http://news.com.com/Oracle+uses+Apple+storage+gear/2100-1015_3-5480…
If your an Apple hater this year is going to be a miserable.
You can’t compare desktop system with this mini. For all you know your desktop mobo is faster or ram is faster, etc. I find it amuzing that folks just jump at this mini without reading any reviews. I got some bridges to sell.
Apples phenomenal year is mostly due to their music business (read ipod). Even Apple lovers cant deny that it is loosing market share on the pc market.
In the past it had Wintel to contend with now, as the desktop Linux matures, it is only a matter of time before Apple throws down the towel.
It’s not really comaring Apples with Apples, if you’ll excuse the pun…
You had to put it together yourself so the cost of your labour would equal $40-50 an hour. Plus a “my granny could operate it” OS preinstalled and ready to fire.
This is not a dig at you so please don’t get me wrong.
I think it would be worth analyzing the cost comparison between Mac Mini and a stytem with all the same specs, complete with an operating system and ready for my Mum to plug a monitor and a cheap USB keyboard and mouse into. No need for her to get her screwdriver out…
Do they look to be about to throw in the towel?!
It is only a matter of time. Especially as Linux continues to mature.
It is only a matter of time. Especially as Linux continues to mature.
Happily maturing since 1989.
Like blue-vein cheese really… Still stinks…
Linux is killing UNIX on the server side. Desktop Linux has come of age only recently. Its progress in the past 2 years has been very impressive. Give it another year to go toe to toe with OS X. God help apple then!!!
‘Like blue-vein cheese really… Still stinks…’
There are hundreds of linux distros, some stink, some don’t.
I think he’s already helping Apple…
“Oooh, help?! Watch out for the nasty Linux! Ooh no. The nasty Linux is coming to get me!! Ooh, I can’t take it, it’s too much, far too much..! Protect me!!!”
I’m a bit disappointed at yout reply. I reasonedly pointed out, and need not repeat, that:
1. Hardware value is more than hardware power
2. ‘Power’ is more than speed, however you dislike tha fact – it means ‘abilities’ and speed is just one ability. The exclusive ability to run certain software is another and the fact that you don’t even have to buy it a third one.
3. Next time you equate ‘design’ with ‘flash’, think twice about claiming UNIX or LISP have any kind of design.
Anand wrote in his blog at anandtech.com, I quote:
“Honestly I think the CPU is powerful enough, but where Apple really dropped the ball is on the amount of memory. After extensively using the iMac G5 I found that even on the 1.8GHz 20″ model the system is basically bound by memory size more than CPU performance (it only ships with 256MB). The move from 256MB to 512MB in OS X 10.3.7 results in a tremendous reduction in disk swapping, which is very important to the overall user experience and one area where the cheap PCs generally fall behind in.”
I didn’t want to enter such a discussion, but….
Linux is killing UNIX on the server side. Desktop Linux has come of age only recently. Its progress in the past 2 years has been very impressive. Give it another year to go toe to toe with OS X. God help apple then!!!
Except for HW support and SMP performance, I’ve seen nothing in the Linux world evolve much towards such maturity. Rather, it’s been walking in circles. As user experience goes, Mandrake 7 felt much better to me than anything since.
Can’t people look at themselves and see how ridiculous it is to claim every year for 12 months a year that the next year will be ‘the year of linux’? It’s beginning to sound like vapourware. At least remain silent when MS announces the next Longhorn postponement, rather than make any ultimately self-derising remark…
If and when the ‘year of Linux’ comes, it will make itself noticed in advance, and not by such preaching.
Linux is (for good and evil) already in wide use in a number of scenarios. Its share on the personal computer is just one more part of it.
Mini Mac $494 with free Keyboard and Mouse + free shipping
The offers will only get better
http://www.macmall.com/macmall/families/macmini/
This is great to see the number of comments on this story. I am suprised at the amount of positive reaction to this.
First page is nothing but praise, I skip to page 451-461 and I see the typical linux nerds bragging about how cool their OS is. Is it just me or have linux users been bragging about this “revelation” for about 6 years now.
Linux is cool, and easy to use (sometimes), and alot better than Windows.
The fact will always remain that linux (at least no where in the near future) is going to have the slightest chance of dominating the print industry like apple, not to mention their recent growth among video and web professionals.
Congrats to Apple for fixing everyones complaint. This is going to be a “robust” compact affordable machine.
2 Mac minis will be joining our G4 933 & Powerbook 1.25 in a few weeks if the shipping on these isn’t backed up to far.
OSX took 3-4 years to get to where they are now and Linux is all of a sudden going to be as good in a years time?
Tell me, what do you use in Linux to do wordprocessing? OpenOffice? I just booted up Ubuntu, one of the newest and best distro on the scene, and OpenOffice took 9 seconds to load on my 3200Xp computer. That’s not good enuough, and speed has been an issue that hasn’t been fixed for the past 2 years still not addressed.
What do you use for photo editing? Gimp? Just checked the interface, and it’s the same geek-only unusable interface since it first came out. Fixed next year? I don’t think so.
What about doing your taxes? Emailing? Playing movies? I could go on, but the simple fact is other than the most basic tasks Linux is still mostly a geek only OS which takes a lot of setting up eg. multimedia.
It doesn’t matter how fast a computer you run it on, you will still lose productivity. The loss of productivity navigating and trying to learn a bad interface will not be offset by higher processer speed. Just compare Gimp to Photoshop.
what about illustration apps on linux… no illustrator or freehand
no flash
no painter
no photoshop
no motion
no final cut or premiere
no quark or indesign
no dreamweaver or golive
no toonboom
no garageband
no iphoto
no imovie
further supporting my argument. . .
linux is for geek hobbyists (myself included) and corporations wanting servers less expensive than Win 2k. The only other market linux has a chance of taking is home consumer, but I don’t see that happening until things are EASY to use.
MY mother in law couldn’t open a quicktime attachment via email today (Macmini clip so she will get rid of that dumb dell). Unfortunately the majority of people using comptuers at this time are still on that level.
I can’t image the majority of consumers even beginning to understand how to do something as simple as type ‘sudo apt-get update’ in terminal or even understand the difference between user and root accounts. You guys have ALOT of work to do.
Why is it that Linux zealots feel so threatened when another OS (or company that produces an OS) has a good product? This just shows an inferiority complex. You feel the need to attack others to prove to yourself that you are not inferior.
I use Linux at home and OS X at work. OS X is much better, period.
In truth I can see Linux getting better, but to suggest it will be toe to toe with OSX in a year’s time is fanciful. It will always be playing catch up to OSX in terms of usuabilty, mainly due to the unfocused nature of their GUI development.
I have read an article recently about someone getting really excited at the XFCE graphical installer! And with OSX, a lot of apps don’t even need an installer, just drag and drop into the application folder.
Linux has a LONG way to go yet.
I don’t know why I bother writing half of what I post, honestly I don’t. I’ve already written at least three times in this thread that I *know* and *understand* that this box is not in competition with self-built PCs. I carefully and precisely qualified in my post that I was NOT comparing this system to the Mac Mini but simply refuting someone else’s contention that you can’t build a powerful PC for $500. Yet you STILL manage to write a reply saying ‘but it’s not a fair comparison to the Mac Mini!” Sheesh.
This thread is not about Linux, shut the hell up now, all of you. Mod me down and mod the ten posts above down too, kthxbye.
I think the point is that this is a Mac mini article.
If you are not trying to make a comparison of your $500 PC to the Mac mini, then what is the relevance of your post with respect to the article?
I don’t think comparing Mac to Linux is irrelevant after all the sub $200 pc’s are Linux based computers. I don’t think the posts should be moderated. No rules were violated.
‘Linux is killing UNIX on the server side. Desktop Linux has come of age only recently. Its progress in the past 2 years has been very impressive. Give it another year to go toe to toe with OS X. God help apple then!!!’
Linux has actually had more time in service than MacOSX and it’s still not toe to toe in useability. How long do we need to wait? You say at the end of this year? Next year? When 10.6 or 10.7 ships? SHEESH Is it just a matter of time? Its just a matter of time til the Sun burns out but hardly relevent at this time.
I am not discounting Linux but it was never meant to be a consumer or multimedia oriented OS.
Yeah, I’m aware of the irony
. At least mine was part of a sort of ongoing thread that developed from the Mac Mini topic, though, whereas the ‘Linux sucks / linux rocks!’ thread doesn’t appear to be related to anything much.
Well, you know. As long as the topic is technical merit of different OSs I’m really not going to dis Linux. I haven’t seen much of it so I can’t speak confidently or authoritatively about it, but I’m absolutely prepared to accept that it has great strengths as far as customizability and stability is concerned. I wouldn’t use it myself, but that’s not to say that it’s useless.
But when the tune AGAIN changes to the… wait for it, you might just see it happen, tantalising demise of Apple… come on. Apple has been making a profit year after year now. They make products that are recognised as cultural phenomenon, they have recognised that, sadly, their own OS was never going to convince anyone serious about an industrial environment and they’ve embraced UNIX with style, pizazz and a crazy beautiful UI that is elegant, uncluttered, rock-solid and trustworthy. Something which the largest software company on the planet is still having serious problems with, although it’s their core business.
I know you don’t take a computer seriously unless it looks like a child was molested making it and anything that looks THAT sexy just can’t be trusted to add up two integers correctly. Forget the fact that people go crazy over being able to buy something that fulfills their computing needs that also happens to be gorgeous, stylish and darnright powerful. Forget the fact that a hardware manufacturer has built a safer environment [I didn’t say:invulnerable] than a software company whose products everybody desperately wants to use if it means it’s going to get them swamped with entire libraries of malware. Forget the fact that Apple has been aware of the fact that money is in short supply and resisted taking the easy way out AND has profit, PROFIT to show for it.
There are more people now using Macs than ever, but the market is increasing. As a percentage that will seem lower, although the current offerings might just reverse that trend, but it’s not exactly as if there’s 9 Apple users desperately trying to keep the show running all by themselves, is it? It’s not as if development of the system has stopped, as if there are no more new applications and devices being developed and brought to market.
I don’t know the local phone number of 1 Infinite Loop, but if you’re in the area, can you do me a favor and give them a call to tell them their on the verge of dying? I don’t think they’re aware of it yet.
Probably too busy building the god damned sexiest OS in the known universe. Too pre-occupied building something people actually want to use at a price point that is laughably cheap [if you’re not hell-bent on cramming some circuitry and wiring into a styrofoam box and ripping the cpu out of your shaving machine to run the l33test version of Debian on it, With room for supercomputing to spare as you’re playing Halo in the background]. Too busy building something downright sexy to serve as the next cultural icon instead of using technology the Russians would have deemed burn-before-you-read-shoot-yourself-through-the-head-before-viewing classified, in 1927.
“Apple just released a fantastic new machine, great apps and there’s a screamingly beautiful OS in the works, aching to be released”. “yep, that’s it. They’re history. Let’s drive to Cupertino and see what we can pick up from the sell-out after they’ve gone tits-up. As long as they don’t expect me to cough up $5 bucks for one of those dual 2.5 gig pieces of crap…”
Am I the only person to notice that mini’s power requirement is 85W? Most “DIY” box are equiped with 400+W power supply to feed up the over-heated intel/amd CPU, for gentoo style re-compiling the system 7 times a week. I mean don’t people know that it damages the enviroment to build power dam; it generates nuclear waste to use nuclear power plant?
“Linux is killing UNIX on the server side. Desktop Linux has come of age only recently. Its progress in the past 2 years has been very impressive. Give it another year to go toe to toe with OS X. God help apple then!!!”
OSX is a lot more than a theme and a dock. Linux cannot *ever* be an OS that is ever as pretty and usable as OSX.
Some things to think about:
– Clean and consistent look and feel – to *every* application and tool
– Hardware accel. desktop. Expose – having twenty windows on screen (some with streaming video) and pressing F9 with NO slowdown. Simply amazing.
– Professional and POLISHED GUI development tools.
– Apple APIs: CoreImage, CoreAudio, Quicktime… fully utilized in apps. Allow for consistent and powerful application creation. I’m amazed at the apps people are creating.
– Applescript interfaces into existing apps.
– Incredible GUI tools for configuration.
– True plug-and-play – add new Airport card… network pulldown from menu, pick detected network, password, viola.
– Extemely easy to use – even for the non-computer users
– Commercial software/support
– New features every release that blow the doors off the competition… spotlight… sweet.
– The list goes on and on.
Ha,
The Mac mini is close to claiming the OSNews post count crown!
”
Am I the only person to notice that mini’s power requirement is 85W? Most “DIY” box are equiped with 400+W power supply to feed up the over-heated intel/amd CPU, for gentoo style re-compiling the system 7 times a week. I mean don’t people know that it damages the enviroment to build power dam; it generates nuclear waste to use nuclear power plant?
”
85Watts is certainly very modest. The form factor will definitely play a huge role in it. Not very many components, there just isn’t any room for a big fan, it just doesn’t need the energy.
The high-end PowerMacs on the other hand merrily suck 600 Watts of juice ouf of the wall, I wouldn’t shut down the nuclear powerplant just yet
.
WOW! Building the power supply outside of the system was a great idea and I am sure will be copied for good reason.
I have a few gripes with the Mini but non are show stoppers.
I wish that only one model was offerred at G4/1.4 speeds. It is easier to stock one SKU. I just hope Moto can deliver these processors in massive quantities or it will be a disaster for Apple.
The 40GB is OK but why bother. Just stick us with the 80 or a 100GB drive. It is a 2.5″ drive I believe?
The inability to not upgrade memory without voiding a warranty is a joke. Fortunately this will be a boon for Apple repair shops.
I think the system should come with a keyboard and a 2 button scroll mouse OEM’d from Microsoft or Logitech.
256MB of RAM is such a waste. Why not ship it with 512MB? The RAM ceiling of 1GB is OK. MacOSX will run lots of apps comfortable with that.
I am getting mine after Tiger is uncaged to hunt Longhorn!!!
Copied? Shuttle have been doing it for a while now with their Zen systems. Actually, there’s a Japan-only company who customise Shuttle systems, and they had a system with the same idea even before Shuttle. Certainly not Apple’s idea.
The rating of the power supply (apart from being notoriously arbitrary in any case) isn’t that important, as if the system only draws 100W, that’s all your ‘400W’ power supply will deliver. What draws power in a PC anyway? CPU, graphics card, drives. The CPU in this draws about as much as an Athlon XP-M, we’ve established. The optical drive is industry standard, as is the graphics circuitry. They probably save some more power by using a 2.5″ hard disk (as I’m guessing this system does), but there’s no reason you couldn’t use one of those in a PC too.
Your right about the power just looked it up.
The optical drive looks to be the same drive used in the iBook and PowerBooks. not exotic but not common in a PC either and certainly not a standard 5.25″ bay drive.
I would argue that the 2.5″ drive actually costs them the same as a 3.5″ drive but with the 2.5″ they are getting lower capacity and heat.
Overall I like the thoughtfulness that went into creating the Mini. Now we have to see how many lemons in the 1.0 version their is.
Worth reading at
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/13/apple_ipod_futures/
the g4 is very nice in this respect compare to the x86 monstrosities. That was actually one of the selling points of the PowerPC architecture, but it seems that power requirements are going up…G5 has much higher power requirements than G4 and G4 had higher power requirements than G3.
So perhaps the mini could be testing the waters towards a media center type of machine, the size and styling of the machine would cirtainly work in the living room.
I checked this thread yesterday, and there were about 50 posts. Wow!
Anyway, I didn’t read all of them, but many are whining about the lack of this and that, mostly peripheral related.
As far as I know, you can get docks, cables, wireless stuff, that cover all your needs.
USB can be daisy chained, if the device is so equipped. Apple claimed over 50 devices on a 233 mhz G3 iMac through 2 USB ports.
Monster and Belkin make USB cables for microphones, guitars, home theatre centres, audio, video, you name it.
Home builders shouldn’t have a problem with this, they all have boxes of parts and cables, so they claim.
As for the video card, it’s probably good enough Mr and Mrs average, and besides, the Mac is geared toward graphics, and is probably a little more efficient in that respect.
Well, Apple claims to want to be the digital center of your life, so it would kind of make sense…
I am sure that Apple can make a remote control that works 🙂
the g4 is very nice in this respect compare to the x86 monstrosities.
The Pentium M, one of those “x86 monstrosities”, uses less juice than a G4 and provides more processing power.
Right, I think the problem is that by the time you buy all the add-ons the price tag has sky-rocketed…I think most people will buy this devices in standard or nearly standard configurations and use the machines as a cheap computer for virus-free browsing, checking email, etc.
i agree, the dotham architechture is much nicer as far as power consumption, but remember than the pentium m is designed specifically with the laptop in mind to lower heat emission and in general has lower performance than a pentium 4. The g4 on the other hand is the same whether you see it on an apple desktop or laptop.
hmmm, i think this has been a bad thread for eugenia overall. first she decided to throw a fit over a line-in port (i would really learn more about an issue before screaming something people have been working on for years is a huge oversight,)
then she claims around message 300 something that this story would not set a record for comments. guess what? i believe we are passed that record now
I remember that there was a lot of talk of the need for a remote when the Airport Express came out, you could use Salling Clicker I suppose.
Well eugenia said that the previous record was 489 or so so we have passed it. I also don’t really understand what all the fuss about audio in was, if it’s important (say for Garage Band) then get an iMic, if that’s not good enough quality then you should be getting a proper workstation, like a G5, rather than the lowest level Mac and expecting it to be a workstation.
i agree, the dotham architechture is much nicer as far as power consumption, but remember than the pentium m is designed specifically with the laptop in mind to lower heat emission and in general has lower performance than a pentium 4. The g4 on the other hand is the same whether you see it on an apple desktop or laptop.
Which is basically a polite way of saying there aren’t any really powerful G4s
.
Also, the Pentium Ms are up to 2Ghz now, which is about on par with a 2.8Ghz P4. That’s a pretty fast CPU. Expect them to start showing up in small boxes like the Mac mini from places like Dell in the not too distant future. Now that the Mhz wars are over both intel and AMD are going back to maximising the IPC of their architectures and towards things like dual core CPUs.
Incidentally, a revision to the Mac mini in 6 months with a dual core G4 and a better video card might nearly make up for it not being a G5.
drsmithy (IP: —.nsw.veridas.net) wrote:
The Pentium M, one of those “x86 monstrosities”, uses less juice than a G4 and provides more processing power.
You’re correct, and the Pentium M is perhaps one of the greatest acheivements by Intel in the past several years. It is, however, very expensive and difficult to buy for the average home user looking to build an x86 machine similar to the Mac mini. Unless one has a dependency on Windows or another x86-only OS, it is probably more cost-effective to just buy the mini.
I try to see this thing for exactly what it is intended: A low-cost, entry level Mac, to be used as a secondary PC which will (Apple hopes) eventually take over as your main PC, just in time for you to upgrade to a beefier system as your needs outgrow the mini. It’s NOT a gaming machine, it’s NOT a graphics or audio workstation; it’s a hook into the world of the Macintosh.
… if we don’t count the white box PCs.
You’re correct, and the Pentium M is perhaps one of the greatest acheivements by Intel in the past several years. It is, however, very expensive and difficult to buy for the average home user looking to build an x86 machine similar to the Mac mini. Unless one has a dependency on Windows or another x86-only OS, it is probably more cost-effective to just buy the mini.
As I just said elsewhere, expect this to change in the very near future. Also, the low power Athlon64 variants deliver excellent bang per $ and watt.
I try to see this thing for exactly what it is intended: A low-cost, entry level Mac, to be used as a secondary PC which will (Apple hopes) eventually take over as your main PC, just in time for you to upgrade to a beefier system as your needs outgrow the mini. It’s NOT a gaming machine, it’s NOT a graphics or audio workstation; it’s a hook into the world of the Macintosh.
As I also said elsewhere, I was really hoping we’d see a headless iMac. This thing is a gateway drug for people to try, realise it’s too slow (or soon outgrow) and then upgrade to something better.
There is potential here for a minor explosion in easy to setup and manage (both from a hardware and software perspective) “mini-clusters” though, if Apple can make Xgrid better.
“For the record, I have some sympathy for OSX. What I can’t stand is Apple requiring me to buy their stupid hardware in order to use it. The Mini is just another example.”
But when you use OS X, you just have to let it be used by a superb hardware machine. That’s the beauty of it. Of course, if beauty is something to consider while working every day.
Imagine OS X on a PC. That chills me completely.
Mac mini is a great idea for ‘switchers in doubt’
pumping this machine up
(1 Gb RAM, 300 Gb HD, high-end video, 1 Gb NIC, whatever…)
is way beyond the needs of the target audience, consider iMac (which includes a great display) instead or any other mac offering
‘naysayers’ please get a life …
(or do something usefull with your top-notch computer and os)
Way to go Apple: Mac mini and iPod shuffle will just do great !
“Apple is dying”
Seriously, do you live under a rock? Apple announced earnings yesterday (the day of your post).
http://finance.yahoo.com search for AAPL
And do a little research before you post.
-b
Looks like the Mini even in discussions is a very popular topic, even the haters love talking about it. Now the next poll should be…how many osnews readers will get one! I am in!
I’m one of you, dammit, but sometimes I’m ashamed of the postings.
First of all, this box would make a sweet gnu box. That’s part of the reason I plan on ordering. Try out OSx and install ppc gentoo or yellowdog. This solution is for people who can’t handle their own configs, app compiling etc. I use gnu/linux on my laptop and desktop, but some people aren’t there yet.
Finally, the more non MS operating systems are out there, the more open and standard file formats will take hold. This is a _good_ thing for users of gnu/linux and *bsd.
-b