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?
What would be the angle for Apple? Apple already sells the Mac mini. Based on its relatively modest cost in comparison to other Macs, a reasonable expectation is that most buyers will pair the Mac mini with a less expensive, non-Apple monitor. But a “higher end” Mac mini Pro, as conjectured by MDN, would seem to compete too much with the existing iMac lineup. Apple might end up cannibalizing iMac sales for no apparent benefit to the company. And how many would buy a mid-range headless Mac positioned between the existing Mac mini and Mac Pro? I have no doubt that there is a market, but is is big enough and lucrative enough for Apple to expand its Mac lineup and divert resources away from other products?
I always try to keep in mind the Jobs mantra for innovation – say “no” to many good ideas so that you can say “yes” to a few great ideas (paraphrased, but the spirit of it is in there). I don’t think that I would buy this mid-range headless Mac. It would have none of the grace of the current iMac and would not be much, if any, less expensive if paired with an Apple display. You could save some money by pairing it with a good third party monitor, but then you get the old school wires and such. And I doubt that Apple would include the flexibility and expand ability that some are hoping.
My Dream, 2 3.5 internal drives, 4 core fast Processor, 2 Tbolt-3 ports, 32g RAM, 6 USB 3 ports, Good graphics card. YUM. The last 2 Minis I have purchased have been the server version to get the second internal drive. I think it would fit in an enclosure less than 2x height of the current mini. I will probably do a maxed out mini.
My Dream: A Mac with 3 PCIe slots, 8 DIMM slots, TB/USB ports.
No 3.5″ disk bays, use NVMe SSD card(s) or external TB RAID array. No DVD bay, use USB BluRay disk.
PCIe slots have power/cooling to support highest performance GPU cards (up to 250W).
I’ve been in bed with Apple since the Apple II days. I was one of the top Mac consultants in Dallas-Ft. Worth for years until I retired. I’ve got more invested in Apple than Doan’s has pills. But the latest rev of the Mac Mini sucks, hands down. I was waiting on the rev to buy a Haswell-generation quad i7 Mac Mini with ThunderBolt 2. Not to be. And I’m definitely not buying a $3,000 Mac Pro when Apple is the only source of a 1-TB SSD for it. Don’t even get me started on the new kext-signing requirement in OSX 10.10 so that aftermarket TRIM support is officially unsupported. All of that has made me decide to simply build a comparable PC (to the Mac Pro) and run Windows 10 on it. Since I can do that for 1/3 the price of a Mac Pro, that’s a heck of a lot of power-savings ratio. I have no allegiance to Apple any longer since they have absolutely no memory for loyalty to who got them this far and no respect for anything but dollars.
I bought a fully tricked out 4-core i7 minis prior to the latest update, thinking I’d get one of the new ones when they came out. No chance. I couldn’t care less about a super thin iMac and the Mac Pro is a ridiculous price, so for the first time in some 20+ years I found myself wishing that MS would get its act together.
Frankly if they took a serious look at Windows and rewrote it from the ground up to create a robust, secure, Unix style OS with a decent UI, they’d clean up.
My own feeling is that the problem at Apple is Jony Ive. The Mac was once a solid tool with a good design ethos, but under his regime it’s now mostly bling with increasingly less substance.
As a professional photographer looking to dip my toes into video, I need an upgrade path from my 13″ MBP + 27″ display. My display is already one of the best money can buy, and Apple’s displays, though good, lack integrated calibration and are not class-leading in terms of color accuracy, so I don’t want an iMac. I already have lots of external storage, so don’t need internal drive bays. I have no use for PCI cards, either. Expandability is not the issue. Horsepower is the issue. I was looking at a quad-core i7 mini, but now it’s gone. The only way left for me to get more CPU & GPU power is a faster MBP or a Mac Pro, neither of which fits my needs. What I’d like to see is a small headless mac with 500GB+ of SSD storage (a Fusion drive’s SSD cache is too small), 32GB RAM and iMac-level horsepower with a graphics card capable of light editing of 1080P/4K video in FCPX. Practically every pro photographer I know is in the same boat. So, yes, at least in the pro photography market, there is huge pent-up demand for a small mid-range headless Mac. Tube, cube, or mini form factor, I don’t care, as long as I can connect two large displays.
The New Mac Pro won the “Best of the Best” Red Dot award 2014! And just recently the Grand Award for Innovation 2014!
This is a “Masterpiece Machine”!!!
Go grab one if you really are a “Pro”!
Late to the party.
Just upgraded my 2011 Mac Mini Server to a new Quad Core 2012 Mac Mini AFTER the 2014 Mac Mini’s were introduced. Both of my Mac Mini’s cost more than $700. Would be one of the first to buy a semi-upgradable Mac Mini Tower.
Actually I am okay with the built in memory. Apple is charging only a hundred more for the memory. The lack of a quad core and the option for a second HD were the BIG disappointments for me.
I have a big problem with the new Mac Mini. The lack of user upgradeable ram cannot be forgiven. Rumor is that apple went to soldered on ram so they could hit the $499 price point. I think that they should have removed the Thundebolt connectivity instead. It is expensive to include and due to the high costs of thunderbolt peripherals, I doubt many Mac Mini owners are in the market for one. For the Mac Mini demographic, USB3 makes far more sense. Removing thunderbolt seems a much better option.
I just found this old thread. Count me in for a bridge product between the Mini and the Pro. Apple needs to offer a bit more product range for its code and content developers. The Pro is solid for video editing, and overkill for audio, photography and graphic design.
Another commenter describes an ideal machine, essentially half a Mac Pro with 1 GPU and up-to-date CPU, storage and I/O standards; and reasonable ability to upgrade, e.g. RAM. A single quad CPU like the 2012 is essential for this customer segment.