[MagSafe]

Hey

I don't normally post these kind of threads, but I was just thinking earlier on...

Don't you think if you were wanting to use an external monitor and wanted to by a desktop machine like the Mac Mini or Mac Pro that you've got a limited choice? Well, I don't mean you don't have much to choose from, but I think something in between would definetly be a nice addition to the Mac family.

The reason I was thinking about it was when the time comes of replacing my Mac Mini (in the next couple of years probably) I'd rather not get an iMac and would have to decide between the Mac Mini or a Mac Pro. The Mac Mini has a great price tag, but even if I was to go for the top spec version like I have now it isn't exactly the fastest PC around, so if I wanted something better I'd have a massive jump up in price to get a Mac Pro, which to be honest I'd find hard to justify.

I suppose the iMac is the "in-between" option, but for people who don't want to be limited to having either a 17" or 20" monitor with the computer directly behind it (with it offering limited upgrade options) then I personally think there should be something else on offer.

[Ghost2]

Here we go again.

[Robo]

Yeah, we've been over this a lot. And really, whether or not we think Apple will/should introduce it doesn't have any bearing on whether Apple actually will. So we'll just have to wait and see.

[Miko]

yawn. I think I'll check my CPU temp in the meantime.

[Luca]

I posted this in another thread:

Originally Posted by Luca I'm sure there are many people who would love to have the iMac minus the cost of the display. It would only cost about $1000. The one thing that might be holding Apple back is that they can't really compete in the crowded consumer desktop segment. Their consumer desktop offerings are unique and difficult to compare to your plain old Dell Dimension tower. The Mac mini is tiny and the iMac is an AIO. If they crank out a midrange tower, it'll probably look pretty bad in comparison to their main competition from a price and performance standpoint, and it won't be able to fall back on clever design the way the Mini and iMac can. And if they do, will they even bother offering full BTO customization? Or will it just be exactly the same as every other Mac (save the Mac Pro) - supposedly customizable, but disappointingly limited in reality? Maybe start the thing off at $700 with a Core Duo and shared graphics, get rid of that silly overpriced $700 Mini, and allow the buyer to customize features to his heart's content just like on the Mac Pro. Maybe they could offer two or three different configurations, but you should be able to include or exclude ANY feature you want.

I really do not understand what could possibly be keeping Apple from trashing their silly love affair with the AIO form factor. Some people like it, but many people don't, and most people aren't used to it at all. Why do they so stubbornly cling to it? Is it just Steve Jobs dragging his heels as he did with the two button mouse? Hopefully Apple will have another wake-up call and get around to killing off the AIO and replacing it with a sensible tower. And I stand by my request that they make a compact, stylish mini-tower with 2-3 PCIe slots, two hard drive bays, 1-2 optical drive bays, and a low starting price.

[psmith2.0]

Well I don't think they need to "kill off" anything (maybe those iPod socks). Certainly not the iMac!



They could, simply, ADD something in that $799-1,199 space that is basically iMac-type power, with the modest, sensible expansion and upgradeability Luca suggests.

Then, all bases would TRULY be covered!

1. Mac mini for budget-minded or first-time buyers and Switchers
2. Mac maxi , which you can think of as a Mac mini on steroids, OR an iMac sans display + some reasonable tower-like expansion/upgradeability (a slot or two, a couple of drive bays, removable graphics card, etc....not as much as the Pro Mac, of course, but perhaps half in number or so?)
3. iMacs for those who like AIO and the sleek, space-saving design and have no interest in adding drives, cards, etc. (people like me, for instance). Plus it's a flagship product...AIO or not, it's iconic, it says "Apple" to the entire world and it's not going anywhere for a long, long time, period.
4. $2,499 (and up), pro-level, balls-out towers for those truly needing the muscle

Surely, somewhere in those four distinct product lines is a desktop Mac option for everyone?

Nobody is left out...from $599 to $2,499 (and beyond), there's a Mac to suit just about any kind of user, any sort of monitor-owning scenario, user level, budget, etc.

[chaos123x]

If they do it they should make a gaming rig with AMD.

[Luca]

Originally Posted by chaos123x If they do it they should make a gaming rig with AMD.

No.

First of all, no one who's serious about games should even consider a Mac. A midrange Mac tower (the "headless iMac" that people have been asking begging Apple for since shortly after the original iMac came out) may be the best deal for gaming, but it's still not going to be as good as a PC from a price-performance standpoint.

Secondly, if you're more of a casual gamer, any of Apple's computers (other than the MacBook and the Mini) will do fine. They may not be gaming-oriented, but they will all do a fine job of running most modern games at acceptable settings. What's the point in offering an AMD processor? It might increase your overall framerates by a tiny percentage, but it would cost a ton of money to design a second motherboard just to accommodate an AMD chip. And besides, anyone who's serious enough about gaming to even care whether they have an Intel or AMD processor isn't going to consider a Mac.

And finally, Apple is not going to stake their reputation on Boot Camp and Windows. Face it, anyone who is serious about gaming shouldn't be booting into the Mac OS to do it. The option is there and I'm really happy about that, but Apple will not advertise a computer by saying "boot this into Windows if you want to play games." They may as well say, "Go buy a PC."

I don't understand why people always bring up how Apple needs to make some kind of a gaming computer. No, they don't. They won't. Macs are computers that can play games. They are not gaming computers, and they never will be.

[Chinney]

I put in another vote for something "in between" - maybe a Cube . Hey, didn't I already vote for that last year? And the year before that?

[MacConvert]

I'm looking hard at the Quad 2.0GHz. I'd rather buy the mid-range since upgradeability is the only reason I don't want an iMac. I'm trying to talk myself into waiting until MWP to buy, but I have the bug. I don't know that I'll be able to wait a month for a computer that will probably never see the light of day. Plus, Dell is runnung a sale on their displays right now.

[Luca]

My thoughts on the 2.0 GHz:

It seems like a token gesture to say, "See, we didn't actually raise the base price of the Power Mac by $500! Only by $200." By downgrading the processor, you spend 88% as much for just 75% as much power. It seems like a rather bad deal to me. Normally I advocate going with the lowest available processor since the little bumps you normally see aren't worth it (2.0 to 2.13 GHz in the MacBook Pro, for instance), but we're talking about a 666 MHz difference here.

You can always downgrade the hard drive from 250 GB to 160 GB in order to save $75, though. With that $75 you could buy a second 250 GB hard drive to use in addition to the 160 GB one. But I'm not so sure about the 2.0 GHz option. You're giving up a lot and I think most people who get that option will regret it in the long run.

Also, I calculated that if you buy the standard model from Amazon (free shipping + no sales tax), you'll get the 250 GB hard drive and pay less than if you get the same model with the smaller hard drive direct from Apple. It depends on your state, of course, but $2424 + tax is going to be more expensive than $2499 + no tax/shipping unless the sales tax is just 3% or less.

[mjteix]

I always thought Apple's prices on the Mac Pro were odd.
The 2.66 feels like a bargain and the other options overpriced.
If you take Intel's bulk prices for the Xeon processors (and we all know Apple isn't paying that much, you get this (I've simplified to make it more easy):
2x2.00GHz = $600 (real $632)
2x2.33GHz = $900 (real $910)
2x2.66GHz = $1400 (real $1380)
2x3.00GHz = $1700 (real $1702)
Now if you use $2199 as the base price for the 2.00 model, it goes like this:
2x2.00GHz = $2199 current price
2x2.33GHz = $2499
2x2.66GHz = $2999
2x3.00GHz = $3299 current price
Then if you use $2499 as the base price for the 2.66 model, it goes like this:
2x2.00GHz = $1699
2x2.33GHz = $1999
2x2.66GHz = $2499 current price
2x3.00GHz = $2799
It looks like Apple is paying the 2.33GHz price for 2.66GHz chips, they may have bought 100,000 2.66GHz units and a lot less of 2.00/3.00GHz chips.

[Robo]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 Well I don't think they need to "kill off" anything (maybe those iPod socks). Certainly not the iMac! They could, simply, ADD something in that $799-1,199 space that is basically iMac-type power, with the modest, sensible expansion and upgradeability Luca suggests. Then, all bases would TRULY be covered! 1. Mac mini for budget-minded or first-time buyers and Switchers 2. Mac maxi , which you can think of as a Mac mini on steroids, OR an iMac sans display + some reasonable tower-like expansion/upgradeability (a slot or two, a couple of drive bays, removable graphics card, etc....not as much as the Pro Mac, of course, but perhaps half in number or so?) 3. iMacs for those who like AIO and the sleek, space-saving design and have no interest in adding drives, cards, etc. (people like me, for instance). Plus it's a flagship product...AIO or not, it's iconic, it says "Apple" to the entire world and it's not going anywhere for a long, long time, period. 4. $2,499 (and up), pro-level, balls-out towers for those truly needing the muscle Surely, somewhere in those four distinct product lines is a desktop Mac option for everyone? Nobody is left out...from $599 to $2,499 (and beyond), there's a Mac to suit just about any kind of user, any sort of monitor-owning scenario, user level, budget, etc.

Yes! (How come in any other thread, people attack me for thinking Apple should make a New Cube. )

A $999 "Mac Cube" (a headless iMac of sorts, with reasonable upgradability) would probably be Apple's bestselling desktop. And they don't sell it!

They seem to have the extremes covered (Mac mini and Mac Pro), but not the middle. Yeah, there's the iMac, but not everybody wants an all-in-one...

[rasmits]

Originally Posted by Roboman Yes! (How come in any other thread, people attack me for thinking Apple should make a New Cube. ) A $999 "Mac Cube" (a headless iMac of sorts, with reasonable upgradability) would probably be Apple's bestselling desktop. And they don't sell it! They seem to have the extremes covered (Mac mini and Mac Pro), but not the middle. Yeah, there's the iMac, but not everybody wants an all-in-one...

I think making it a cube would be a bad idea, and defeat the purpose of having a midrange tower. Some people care more about expandability then aesthetics.

The Mini would be a great computer if Apple would just make it a couple inches taller and leave room for some standard desktop parts. Who cares how tiny their desktop is? Obviously not 90% of computer shoppers.

[Robo]

Originally Posted by rasmits I think making it a cube would be a bad idea, and defeat the purpose of having a midrange tower. Some people care more about expandability then aesthetics.

I think a Cube is probably the design Apple would choose, though. It'd be a nice fit between the tiny Mac mini and the larger Mac Pro. Jobs and Ives are probably frusterated that the PMG4 Cube didn't take off - when they discontinued the original Cube, they even hinted that we might see it again in the future. I could totally see them bringing back the Cube, only this time aluminum instead of white plastic, and this time, it'd just sit on a desk (no clear casing required). A Cube would allow a reasonable amount of upgradabily - more than the Mac mini or iMac - and it could use desktop parts.

Your logic doesn't make sense. You claim that 90% of computer shoppers don't care how tiny their computer is, but the design you propose - a Mac mini with a few more inches for desktop parts - is smaller than the one I propose!

[Luca]

Let's just hope it's not a repeat of the Cube's design. While beautiful and unique, it wasn't very functional. There was no airflow, so it was always overheating. The heat caused the touch-sensitive power button to trigger, so the computer would often shut down without you asking it to. The ports were all on the bottom so you had to stuff all the cables through a little hole on the side and tilt the machine up every time you wanted to plug in another device. The graphics card was technically upgradable, but the lack of space required a graphics card with a removable faceplate and a narrow profile (not to mention a low heat output, since it was so hot inside without a fan). There was enough room for a graphics card but there were no PCI slots.

I'd far prefer a nicely designed standard minitower. Something close in size to the MicroATX form factor, or perhaps a little smaller, like a Shuttle SFF PC. But it's gotta be functional! I want DIMM slots (SO-DIMMs are an acceptable compromise, but they're still a compromise), a plain tray-loading optical drive, room for at least one 3.5" hard drive (preferably two), and at least two PCIe slots (one for graphics). There's nothing that says a computer like that can't look good. Apple would never stick to a PC standard form factor anyway, which is half the reason even the best-looking PCs still look generic.

[MagSafe]

...didn't think this thread would get so many replies, cheers

Personally I wouldn't necessarily be looking for upgrade options in a Mac, just something that offers better capabilties than the top end mini. Offering a large selection of different upgrade options when your buying it might be an option and just keep the Mac Mini?...or even call it the Mac Mini Plus / Mac Plus

For example I can only get 64mb shared graphics and at most a 120gb hard drive with a mac mini, I know the limitations are down to the size of the actual unit but surely a nice little earner for Apple would be to offer a slighty larger case but when your ordering it you can have virtually any hardware configuration you want.

People could say "yeah, but thats what the Mac Pro is" but really its not, even when you completey downgrade the options on the Mac Pro it's still a massive price to pay for it.

Anyway, Unless Apple do ever realise a mid-size model then my next mac will probably have to be the Mac Pro as the mini simply won't cut it.

[Chinney]

I am in the same position Magsafe, although my compromise will likely be another iMac. That's fine, but I would prefer an 'in-between' non-AIO.

[chris e boy]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 Well I don't think they need to "kill off" anything (maybe those iPod socks). Certainly not the iMac! They could, simply, ADD something in that $799-1,199 space that is basically iMac-type power, with the modest, sensible expansion and upgradeability Luca suggests. Then, all bases would TRULY be covered! 1. Mac mini for budget-minded or first-time buyers and Switchers 2. Mac maxi , which you can think of as a Mac mini on steroids, OR an iMac sans display + some reasonable tower-like expansion/upgradeability (a slot or two, a couple of drive bays, removable graphics card, etc....not as much as the Pro Mac, of course, but perhaps half in number or so?) 3. iMacs for those who like AIO and the sleek, space-saving design and have no interest in adding drives, cards, etc. (people like me, for instance). Plus it's a flagship product...AIO or not, it's iconic, it says "Apple" to the entire world and it's not going anywhere for a long, long time, period. 4. $2,499 (and up), pro-level, balls-out towers for those truly needing the muscle Surely, somewhere in those four distinct product lines is a desktop Mac option for everyone? Nobody is left out...from $599 to $2,499 (and beyond), there's a Mac to suit just about any kind of user, any sort of monitor-owning scenario, user level, budget, etc.

That would be truly awesome. I'd buy a Mac Maxi™ in a second. The only thing stopping me getting a mac mini is the poor graphics support.

[rasmits]

Originally Posted by Roboman Your logic doesn't make sense. You claim that 90% of computer shoppers don't care how tiny their computer is, but the design you propose - a Mac mini with a few more inches for desktop parts - is smaller than the one I propose!

What I sort of meant was, Apple has a tendency to follow form over function, and the Mini (along with the Cube) is a prime example. If Apple were to make a midrange tower, I wouldn't want them to stifle it's potential by making another huge form/function design error like the original cube (See Luca's post), or the Mini (Who cares how small your desktop is?). The Mini could easily fill the gap of low and midrange, but by design it's limited to the low end.

I'm thinking of something along the lines of Luca.

[Bryson]

As suggested elsewhere, the best name for such a device would be simply: Mac.

[psmith2.0]

Yep. I mocked something up a year or two ago, and just called it The Mac (or yes, Mac). Not mini, not i or Pro. Just regular ol' Mac.

Or: MacXTreme iCube Core2 Duo XL Special Edition



j/k

[Bryson]

Or: MacXTreme iCube Core2 Duo XL Special Edition

....Express. Surely?

[Anthem]

The cube's not a bad idea; it would allow you to use standard 3.5" hard drives and a full-sized graphics cards. I'd also like it if the power supply was internal instead of the external mess it has now.

Ideally, though, a mid-sized desktop would have the same footprint as the Mac Mini so that it could share in the universe of add-on units (port replicators, external hard drives, or the hoped-for media breakout box).

[psmith2.0]

I found the thing I mocked up a year ago (and talked about in the other thread). Forgive some of the dated (or iffy) specs...drew it about a year ago, maybe autumn '05...has a 4G iPod ). But the idea, IMO, is still sound. Essentially a mini, oriented vertically (or a Cube that's been put in the Death Star trash compactor).

This is the one that my alarm clock reminds me of (vertically oriented, integrated iPod dock, etc.) that I talked about in that other thread in Purchasing Advice.

Not sure if its design allows for the expansion many are wanting from this mid-level thing (probably not?). But maybe with some tweaking...

I still like it, and I think - silver OR white (or two-toned, as the mini) - it would look nice sitting on any desk, beside an Apple display.

It's certainly clean: as my little notated specs say: if you're using AirPort and Bluetooth for you keyboard, mouse, printing and Internet access, all that would be connected would be a single power cable. And with the iPod dock built-in (ships with plastic adaptor inserts to snugly hold the various dock-compatible iPods), there would be NO wires or clutter coming from this if you should choose such a look.

[Banana]

When I saw that, I almost thought I could hung it on the wall.

Would be an interesting concept; a computer hung on a wall.

[Bryson]

Pedantry:

If using Airport, Airport Express and Bluetooth, the only cable attached would be for power

And video, surely?

But nice design. I like it.

[psmith2.0]

Originally Posted by Bryson Pedantry: And video, surely? But nice design. I like it.

Yes, video...oops! Kinda important...

"Pedantry"?

[Banana]

British term for "nitpicking"

[Windowsrookie]

A cube sized computer would be perfect. Just not witth the cracking cube case.