An earlier article that expressed some users’ disappointment with Apple’s Mac mini’s soldered RAM and lack of quad-core CPU options has prompted us to write a brief open note to Apple:
You are missing something between the Mac mini and the Mac Pro. A Mac minitower — a really short “tower,” let’s call it the “Mac mini Pro” — with user-swappable RAM more processor options starting at $799 would go a looong way here (especially with the Mac’s rejuvenated growth). You are leaving money on the table.
Are we right or wrong? More specifically, is there a significant enough market out there to justify and support Apple’s investment (seems like a minimal bit of R&D to us – most of it is already there in the Mac mini) in a new “Mac mini Pro?”
So, is there a market for a ‘Mac mini Pro’ starting at $799?
Works for me!
How many that means, I have no idea.
Emphatically YES.
There’s also a market for unicorns and free beer, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to see either in your lifetime.
Don’t get me wrong, I would love to have the option of this type of Mac but Apple has steadfastly avoided this exact kind of MacPro mini you are talking about for over a decade! We thought the Mac mini would fill the gap but it…
1. Never used 3.5″ HDs–much cheaper, bigger and faster
2. Never used real video cards
3. Always had very limited memory slots.
And forget any kind of PCI card slots. That will NEVER happen again on any Mac.
I am thinking of a Mac Pro, with only one GPU, a lesser variety of the Xeon range and maybe SODIMM instead of the larger sticks. That could reduce the height by half maybe and still be powerful.
I’d vote for a range of more powerful MacMinis.
I’ve got a great Apple 27″ display that doesn’t need to be replaced. I could use the more powerful MacMini to replace my 21″ iMac from late 2009.
Wrong Question. The Mac mini goes from:
$500 with 1.4GHz 2 Core to
$1200 with 3.0GHz 2 Core
Question to Ask:
Does a new lineup with an $800 machine need to exist? No.
There is the place between the $1200 Mac mini and the $3000 Mac Pro.
You might, if you’re lucky, get a headless machine from $1500 to $2500.
Something that looks like a 1/2 a Mac Pro.
Call it a Mac Stubby. 😉
Sir Jonathan Paul “Jony” Ive would go crazy…
I hope you mean the old 2013 trash can Mac Pro.
There simply aren’t that many users who think that it’s a great feature to be forced to buy more cables & external boxes to do the upgrades & expansion that used to be simple and internal. And as we all know, Apple continues to completely miss the professional rack-mounted gear market, because mounting Apple’s round cans in a rectangular rack is just stupid packaging. It’s as though Apple is actively trying to push pro mobile users to Linux.
Wierd, first sentence got mangled in translation. Was supposed to say “old 2012 and earlier Mac Pro, not the new 2013 trash can Mac Pro”.
Agreed. I want a new Mac Pro with four drive bays, a video card slot, USB 3.0, the latest killer processors from Intel and a built-in Blu-ray drive.
Me too!!! I just grabbed the previous gen i7 2.6GHz quad AFTER they released the new mini because I thought it was a better machine than any of the new models. I understand the desire to have a low priced entry level Mac, but I want a mini that do some work and has a little room to grow.
Hopefully they do not do what IBM and other companies have done – cripple products to prevent competition between lines. You should be your own best competition!
The only problem with the previous generation i7 Mac mini was the crappy graphics card.
I vote yes. I would buy one in a second. It’s the gap that needs to be filled. Yes I say.
Ditto. I’d buy two or three.
O yea. I would love to have one.
Yes i7, ram slots upto 32gb, two HD/SSD bays, 4 usb and SDxc slot. Option for graphics card. Price $800-1200.
Get Macs on formerly windows desks.
Rp, with that config, we’d happily pay more than the new iMacs just to have a properly cooled and internally expandible Mac. Built with proper quality, there’s no reason to start off at $800.
Ability for USER to replace:
RAM
HD
CPU (low on my list honestly, but ability to order preconfigured with multiple CPU choices? yes)
And i’d buy one.
My problem, i have a 27″ iMac as my main.. so even with the Mac Pro, i have to add a $1000 to the price to get a great 27″ screen. (will not buy a smaller screen now.. i’m spoiled)
Don’t forget at least one PCI slot for an upgradable graphics card.
Basically you’re taking the guts of the 27″ iMac / Retina iMac and putting it into a minitower & upgradeable to 32GB RAM. That’s a great idea. For people who value desktops, this minitower in combination with a 5K TB Display would be a more popular option than an iMac, I think.
That way, when it comes time to upgrade, you only have to change the tower and not the entire display. Plus, you minimize overheating issues.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
I think that’s a winner!
Even better, if Apple frees itself from its self-imposed constraint of making new devices as thick as a sheet of paper, then a new mid-range desktop Mac could use standard durable well-cooled desktop-class components instead of the mobile components the iMac uses. A new mid-range Mac sans display could offer users better upgradeability and performance while giving Apple better margins. Manufacture and shipping of a new Mac tower could be way more efficient than an all-in-one computer for Apple.
What would be decent sales and money for some companies, would likely be a distraction for Apple. As a shareholder I want them to concentrate on Apple Watch and perhaps Apple TV update rather than a Mac mini pro.
Mac mini pro would take very little “concentration”
After all, apple used to sell it this way… just not as powerful as the iMac.
As noted above, i think Apple could price the iMac and a user-upgradeable midrange tower at about the same and the new Mac tower would still sell like hotcakes. Lashing mobile components to the back of a display is simply not what everyone wants. Those who need configurability — not to mention the many aftermarket PCI card makers that Apple has shat on for the last 5 years — would embrace having a machine that they can INTERNALLY tweak to meet their exact needs. No current Mac allows this anymore.
Heck yeah!
Definitely, build it like the Cube. I like the Cube’s design even though it was underpowered.
I was going to buy a Mac Mini when they released the update. They basically trashed the ability for me to upgrade it to a great Graphic Design work station that could be easily carried to & from work. If they left it like it was previously, where we could add RAM etc., then i’d be in the market for one…but as the sell them now, well they are at best a expensive weight.
I think Apple would be worried that it would cut into their iMac sales. But, I’d also buy one.
That’s the whole point. I don’t have any hard numbers but I’m sure many people who buy the iMac, especially the 27″ model, would prefer to upgrade only the CPU box as opposed to always having to upgrade the entire computer along with the monitor when they get a new machine.
That’s EXACTLY what I want!
ABSO-FREAKIN-LUTELY! Nobody likes to buy junk, your computer needs to be able to be “refreshed” after two years. The easiest way to do that is to max out your RAM. If you can’t do that, then you pretty much bought junk.
Nothing’s worse than updating your OS once and have your computer slow down to a brick.
Having all Mac mini’s with upgradable RAM–YES.
Having a Mac mini Pro for more voom–YES YES YES!
I vote no. Just make the current one decent for a decent price like it used to be. Keep the ultra-low end one for those that want it, but give back the upgradeability and quad processors. Boy did they ever screw up.
AMEN!!!!! I was hoping the refresh would be an improvement instead it was a step backward. The Pro is priced too high, I don’t want an iMac with the built in screen. I would totally buy one.
If it would have a dedicated, replacable GPU, I’d be allready sold on it !
Yes.
yes, apple needs to let this latest mini go. it was not a good idea. with all these possible hackintoshes, it doesn’t seem that it would require much research to do a much faster mac mini, not to mention the faster macs. ok, that’s not apple, how about, … the apple world is round these days …, so how about a mini that’s round, a disc. also how about dropping intel’s i5 all together. how about i7’s desktops versions up to 3.5 ghz and six cores and throw in pro-graphics chips. some people love the all-in-one design some don’t. apple is not dell, no need to sell every chip intel produces. i say they should keep being selective and sell those faster, more productive chips. yes the faster chips would cost more but it would make the mac mini worth buying, plus, it would help keep intel moving forward, AMD doesn’t seem to be able to add any pressure… yes, yes, by all means allow the user to add memory… why not?
Apple seems to only be interested in increasing profit margins, so if some Mac Mini Pro can’t provide those profit margins, you might as well forget about it. I’m glad I already purchased an i7 quad-core Mac Mini in 2013 and it should last me a long time to come. The only thing that taxes it is encoding DVDs or MKV files and I simply batch them for overnight.
There’s no way in hell Apple is going to build some low-profit margin Mac Mini Pro. With the money Apple has returned to me, I could simply buy a high-end Mac Pro and run everything in my house off of it. I’d really like to have a central computer and get basically gigabit ethernet terminals for the rest of the house instead of having multiple computers except for emergency backup.
I would like to see something between the Pro and mini. The small form factor is nice and practical. I just updated my mini to Fusion Drive, which is nice for booting apps and opening large files. I have it maxed out at 16GB RAM. Performance is improved, but a faster CPU and faster bus would be nice. Maybe multiple monitor support too. I’m actually thinking of getting an older Mac Pro, maybe a 2011 or 2012 model tweaked out with an SSD and GPU Card and 32GB RAM. You can get some good deals on older Mac Pro’s. The fact they’re so expandable is really nice. Not so crazy about Apple’s new Pro design.
Yes, it should be called simply Mac. Back in the day, this middle-tiered computer was the Macintosh II. Today’s version could be called Mac Plus. Apple, please bring back the Macintosh!
Along with 99% of other Mac users who do more than social networking, YES.
As others mentioned above, please allow user-upgradeability of GPU, RAM, and hard drive. Allow internal expansion with a couple PCI slots so the user can add additional ports for things like SD drives or special audio cards. And PLEASE offer room for dual internal drives. At the very least, that allows the home user the ability to dedicate one drive to Time Machine, or to move one’s media library off the startup volume. Apple needs to offer the user some real options for desktop computing, because not everyone can or wants to use a laptop or iMac for home use, and the Mac Pro doesn’t even come close to what the typical home user wants.
Apple. with the extra pocket change that you can’t seem to use, why don’t you also release a trio of 4K retina thunderbolt displays with it too: about 21″, 27″, and 30″ sizes would be great.
I can see a headless Mac fitting in-between the mini and the Pro, but believe it would probably be closer to some mid-point between the two – price and power wise.
I did see the Mac Pro in the Apple Store last week and it does generate a lot of lust. I would look to moving down from the base Mac Pro (not necessarily in the same form factor) rather than moving up from the mini.
Apple could call it the Dullahan Project
No one has mentioned it, but Apple needs a small business server and Pro Mini would do the trick. The Pro Mini could consist of:
– Current Mini box
– Fast processor, probably i7
– Upgradable RAM
– Fusion drive with a quality, fast HD
– A couple Thunderbolt ports
– Lots of USB 3 ports
You could then hook this baby up to a multi-bay RAID storage device, add Yosemite Server software, and presto, you have yourself a great server for a small business. Plus, you don’t have the licensing costs that come with a Windows server and you don’t need some Windows IT geek to manage it.