Filip Brož "The Mac mini is a powerhouse at a good price, which concentrates the entire Mac experience on an area of less than 20 x 20 centimeters. Just connect the display, keyboard and mouse you already have and you can get to work." That's the official slogan that Apple uses on its website presents your smallest computer.
An uninitiated person who comes across this slogan might think it's a hot new thing. Although the texts are modified to match the latest operating system and available applications, the machine itself has been waiting in vain for its update for more than two years.
Will we see a new or updated Mac mini model this year? Already a traditional question that many apple users ask themselves. Apple last updated its smallest computer on October 16, 2014, before presenting a new version on October 23, 2012, so many expected that we could wait for the next update again after two years, in the fall of 2016. But nothing like that happened. What's happening?
Looking back at history, it is clear that the waiting time for a new Mac mini model used to be not so long. The two-year cycle didn't start until 2012. Until then, the Californian company improved its smallest computer regularly, with the single exception of 2008, every year.
After all, Apple has been forgetting about most of its computers in recent years, except for the new MacBook Pro and the 12-inch MacBook. Both iMac and Mac Pro deserve their attention. For example, the iMac was last updated in the fall of 2015. Everyone was hoping that last fall we would see a lot more news than just MacBook Pros, but that's the reality.
A short excursion into history
The Mac mini was first introduced on January 11, 2005 at the Macworld conference. It went on sale worldwide, including the Czech Republic, on January 29 of the same year. Steve Jobs showed the world the Mac mini as a very thin and fast computer - even then Apple tried to create the smallest possible body.
In its current form, the Mac mini is still 1,5 centimeters lower, but again a slightly wider block. In any case, there were more changes during those years, for all of them we can name the most obvious one - the end of the CD drive.
The latest Mac mini in the range is also understandably more powerful than all its predecessors, but there is one major problem holding it back in terms of speed. For the two weaker models (1,4 and 2,6GHz processors), Apple only offers a hard drive, until the highest model offers at least a Fusion Drive, i.e. the connection of mechanical and flash storage, but even that is not enough for today.
Unfortunately, Apple has not yet been able to bring a faster and more reliable SSD even to the entire range of iMacs, so it is honestly and unfortunately not too surprising that the Mac mini is also doing so badly. It is possible to buy additional flash storage, but it is available in some models and in some sizes, and then you are attacking at least the 30,000 mark.
It's not the Mac that gets you into the world of Apple, but the iPhone
For such sums, you can already buy a MacBook Air or an older MacBook Pro, where you will find, among other things, an SSD. The question must then be asked, what role has the Mac mini actually played so far and if it is still relevant in 2017?
Steve Jobs claimed that the point of the Mac mini is to drag new people to the side of Apple, i.e. from Windows to Mac. The Mac mini functioned as the supremely most affordable computer, with which the Californian company often lured customers. Today, however, that is no longer true. If the Mac mini used to be the first step into the apple world, today it is clearly the iPhone, i.e. the iPad. In short, a different path leads to the Apple ecosystem today, and the Mac mini is slowly losing its appeal.
Today, people use the smallest Mac more as a center for multimedia or a smart home, rather than betting on it as a serious work tool. The main attraction of the Mac mini has always been the price, but at least 15 thousand you have to add the keyboard and mouse/trackpad and the display.
If you don't have any of these, we're already between 20 and 30 thousand, and we're talking about the weakest Mac mini. Many users will then calculate that it is more profitable to buy, for example, a MacBook or an iMac as an all-in-one computer.
Does the Mac mini have a future?
Federico Viticci (MacStories), Myke Hurley (Relay FM) and Stephen Hackett (512 Pixels) also talked about the Mac mini recently on the Connected podcast, where three possible scenarios were mentioned: the classic will lose a slightly improved version as before, a completely new and redesigned Mac mini will arrive, or Apple will sooner or later completely cut this computer.
There are more or less three basic variants, one of which the Mac mini will somehow wait. if a classic revision were to come, we would at least expect the aforementioned SSD and the latest Kaby Lake processors, and the port solution would certainly be very interesting - would Apple bet mainly on USB-C, or would it leave at least Ethernet and a slot for such a desktop computer, for example to the card. However, if numerous reductions were necessary, the price of the Mac mini would automatically increase, which would further destroy its position as the most affordable Apple computer.
However, Federico Viticci toyed with other ideas about a kind of rebirth of the Mac mini: "Apple could reduce it to the dimensions of the last generation of Apple TV." This would make it an ultra-portable device.” I thought about his vision for some time and I will allow myself to elaborate on it a bit because it intrigued me.
With the vision of an ultra-portable "desktop" computer in your pocket, the idea that such a Mac mini could be connected to an iPad Pro via Lightning or USB-C for example, which would serve purely as an external display to display classic macOS, sounds interesting. While on the road you would work on the iPad in a classic iOS environment, when you arrived at the office or hotel and needed to perform some more complex task, you would pull out the miniature Mac mini and launch macOS.
You would already have a keyboard for the iPad anyway, or it could somehow replace the keyboard and trackpad of the iPhone.
It is clear that this idea is completely outside of Apple's philosophy. If only because it probably wouldn't make sense to only display macOS on the iPad, which, however, for more comprehensive control touch interface is missing, and also because Cupertino is increasingly trying to favor iOS over macOS.
On the other hand, it could be an interesting solution for many users and could ease the journey from macOS to iOS many times, when a full-fledged desktop system is often still missing. There would be more questions about such a solution - for example, whether it would be possible to connect such a miniature Mac mini only to the largest iPad Pro or other tablets, but so far it does not seem that such a thing would be at all realistic.
Maybe in the end it will turn out to be the most realistic option that Apple prefers to discontinue the Mac mini for good, as it generates only minimal interest, and will continue to focus mainly on MacBooks. This year can already show it.
Wait a minute, are you waiting in vain for over two years or about 3 months? ☺
I expect more articles: iPod and its future, iMac and its future, future
And finally, the future and its future...
I would be for the iPod and its future. For example, the iPod shuffle is great. Just increase the storage space.
A huge shame and the inability to use the great potential, what else do we want when it doesn't even have a display anymore. ?
Attention, from the beginning the Mac mini was conceived as a Mac that you connect to your PC peripherals, it was originally presented that way in advertisements :-) This does not mean, however, that removing the Apple monitor was a mistake in my opinion and I am really sorry :(
The Mac mini is (was) brilliant precisely because it didn't force me to buy a very average, hideously shiny and therefore unusable Apple display, as is the case with the iMac. Of course, this is also problematic as a flat all-in-one concept... ;)
I'm used to working with a Thunderbolt display and I don't find it disgusting... On the contrary, it's still sufficient even after years.
exactly
Aside from the nastiness of it being uncontrollably shiny (a problem with ambient light), I have the same bad luck whenever I try to do professional work with photos or graphics on it - the glossy display (Apple) cannot be calibrated. I preferred not to examine the long-term color stability. So, rather than an overpriced and hardly average shiny glass "beauty", I'd rather have a really professional display worthy of this designation (EIZO, etc.)... ;)
On the contrary, the glossy display is great, I also have a matte one and I would never buy such crap again.
I also have matte ones (Apple Cinema Display) and glossy ones (Apple Thunderbolt Display), and I would never buy glossy ones again - it's like a mirror in the bathroom, everything is reflected in it, it's terribly annoying while working and it tires the eyes... Matte it's absolutely great, it works beautifully on him.
For me, it is an absolutely unbeatable entry-level, which should remain in the menu if Apple wants to continue selling other Macs. To anyone who is not sure whether to go for a Mac, I recommend a used Mini. It can be found in the 2012 super configuration for up to 10k, and nowadays everyone has a monitor and a keyboard somewhere. Ideal for such a first acquaintance, and besides, there will certainly be crowds for whom it is enough even in the long term...
I used to have a Mac Mini as a multimedia center, today I have it as my main work tool. But it is a fact that I am missing the SSD repair. Although I have 16 GB of RAM, I still see the rainbow wheel too often... :-(
I have a Mac mini 2 x 2.7 GHz Core i7, SSD. Although only 8 GB of RAM, it works beautifully, quickly... Even when I have Parallels, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Xcode, Safari and Word running, I hardly see the rainbow wheel at all. Android Studio is terribly slow, but it will probably be slow everywhere...
I also have an i7. But I'll probably have to replace the disk. I did a clean reinstall over the weekend without recovery and yesterday I had to restart it again because it was horribly lazy.
SSD will help a lot, yes. I have 10.11.6 there, maybe it wouldn't be so fast with macOS Sierra, but I don't know, I haven't tried.
The Mini (2012, 16GB, SSD) is great with macOS Sierra as it is with all other systems. And I also had VMware ESXi there... ;)
Definitely replace the drive, I have a Mini 2012 i5, 16GB RAM and a 500GB Samsung SSD. First I changed the RAM, yes it was faster, but only after replacing the SSD did it start to run great???