What if Apple discontinued the Mac mini?
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Jul 23, 2007 at 6:04am
In Friday’s column we played “What if?” with the rumor that Apple plans to release an ultraportable. Today we’ll speculate on the talk that the Mac minis days are numbered. If that happened, what might Apple whip up to take its place?
First, let me say that I don’t think Apple plans to discontinue the Mac mini, as I think Jobs & Company realize that there’s a need for a (relatively) inexpensive, entry-level Mac. There may be some overhauling of the baby Mac, but I think it will be around for awhile.
However, if Apple did ditch the Mac mini and really wanted to think different they might look at the Zondu PC, a tiny Linux-based PC that runs on low power, is silent and has no hard drive or optical drive. The catch? You have to rent online storage.
According to CNET, the Zonbu PC easily fits in your hand, and initially costs $99—with a two-year subscription for online storage that costs between US$12.50 and $19.95 each month.
You can buy just the PC for $249 with no storage agreement—and no storage. And you can cancel the subscription at any time. The Zondu PC has six USB ports, 512 MB RAM + 4GB flash-based local storage, graphics up to 1400×1050 (16 million colors), hardware graphics and MPEG2 acceleration, PC-compatible ports for keyboard and mouse, and built-in 10/100 Mbps Ethernet. It’s about the size of a modem and weighs about two pounds.
Do I think Apple will ever release a sub-$300 Mac? Naw. But imagine revived Cube (the Cube mini?) with a Zonbu PC-like set-up using a revamped .Mac for the online storage. Such a system would only run basic apps for tasks such as word processing, surfing the Net and email. It wouldn’t even come with iLife; for that you’d have to buy a beefier Mac. In other words, the Cube mini/Mac mini mini would simply be a “starter Mac.”
Hey, it could happen. I just don’t think it will.
random8r Says:
I reckon it’d be sweet if Apple started going down the “build it yourself” route of computing… by this I mean they start with just a processor cube, and then like lego, you build on all you need. Lock them all together. The beast won’t start up until all the bits have been locked in. Build it in a really cool way so that you can effectively create whatever machine you want… for instance, if you want a machine with 16 GB of RAM, and 32 dual core processors, you could build it by blocking processors core “slabs” together… I know it’d be difficult to engineer such an architecture, but I think if anyone could do it, Apple could.
Wanna drive 100 monitors in a monitor wall? Bung together 100 graphics card blocks, and plug ‘em all in. Whats more, you could enable some kind of “extenda” kit which means you could fibre-channel them together a-la-XRAID and then you’d have a supercomputer for cheap. You could make a totally redundant failover machine so that if some cores went down on your machine, you could hot-swap them while they were running… it’d be great for servers.
You could build insane machines for games… even cooler ones for things like Logic or Final Cut render farms…
Or… you could just build a really cool home computer that had multiple terminals all around the house, “extended” by piping video and keyboard through airport to various terminals… using H264 so that you essentially had as many “computers” as you needed, all running on the same actual machine… like VMWARE - slices of one computer… that way, you could have a multiple striped, multiple redundant RAID at home made out of USB or Firewfire drives and make hard drive dying a thing of the past and no need for backup… imagine a machine so cool that you could watch any of your movies wherever you were in teh house, watch tv, surf the net, whatever, and control it all from any point in the house - each person logging in as they would.... yay :)
Posted on July 23, 2007
roger Says:
Random8r: Waaay to geeky. Apple will not get into just supplying components for built-it-yourself units.
Mjteix: I don’t think Apple can (or wants to) economically build a machine like you describe. Besides, I still haven’t seen any data about whether people need a headless unit (Mini) or an all-in-one (iMac). Lots of space filled in forums with opinions, usually by advocates of one or the other, but no good survey of actual needs out in the real world. It must be close, or one system would have become the predominant one already.
Posted on July 23, 2007
ken Says:
The Mac mini was designed as an entry level Mac for PC users who wanted to give the Mac World a try, without too heavy an investment. It also allows those on a very tight budget to use a new Mac instead of the 7 or 8 year old one they were currently using.
Did Mac mini sales increase because of the halo effect of the iPod? Sure. Will the same thing happen with the iPhone? Probably, if Apple keeps the mini at the same tech level as the entry level MB.
I’m in the camp that believes that Apple should keep upgrading the mini as an entry level desktop - it’s lets the halo effect work for many people. But then, I’m in the group that believes Apple should have a headless Mac between the mini and the MP so these new users have a good upgrade path when they want to use their existing displays.
Posted on July 23, 2007
Mark Says:
Why in heck would I want to “rent” storage?
Posted on July 23, 2007
THEj Says:
I think (hope) Apple will update the mini AND/OR release a mini tower like the cube. Personally, I’m waiting for a Cube replacement. The Mini is too weak, the iMac has a screen I don’t need and the Tower is overkill.
Here’s what I’m hoping for in the new “Cube”:
-PCI-E graphics card
-Gigabit ethernet
-eSATA connector (not a big thing but it would be nice)
-More RAM slots
My Ideal use for this machine would be many fold as it would support many of my other Macs and PCs.
-Connected directly to my Hi-Def TV for watching videos, playing video games (X-Plane and racing games are my weak spot)
-It will be my DVD player (Blue-ray player too !! One can dream...and upgrade)
-Connected to an external 4-Drive chassis, it will be my file, music and video server
-Running X-Grid it will be additional processing power
Apple really has a BIG whole to fill in their desktop product line and with the latest games coming from EA, they need something that will be flexible for gamers and anyone who needs decent graphics performance.
Posted on July 23, 2007
Lantz Says:
Apple is becoming the new Electronic gadget company. Why not just take the mini, add the AppleTV’s ports, software and a trial version of EyeTV software and market it as the AppleTV 2.0 and dump the mini altogether? People who bought the ATV 1.0 want a DVD player and DVR capabilites. They have hacked it to become an OSX mac. Apple could sell a lot of these inexpensive device and it could be the first Mac in many a Windows users homes. There next computer purchase just might be an iMac or MacBook. Having this full blown set top box would be a great idea.
Posted on July 23, 2007
MacManic Says:
I agree Lantz.
AppleTV = MacMini.
Posted on July 23, 2007
Akie Says:
I agree with the last few comment. Add the AppleTV ports, HDMI etc. Also extend FrontRow to give file access outside of iTunes using the Apple remote. This will allow the Mac Mini to play file types not supported in iTunes, such as DivX, FLAC, RealAudio Internet Radio etc.
Posted on July 23, 2007
JuggerNaut Says:
You can actually get a PowerPC-based small form factor desktop machine for about $99 and no monthly service fee to add to that low low price. Supposedly the Amiga cloned OS called MorphOS 2.0 will be released soon, which actually has its own browser based on webkit called Sputnik and is Amiga OS compatible up to version AOS 4.0 (for the most part).
http://www.pegasosppc.com/efika.php
Posted on July 23, 2007
nick giammalvo Says:
I use mini for my graphic design service, running Quark and Photoshop at same time with no problems while printing. Added the most memory, duo processors. Not entry level in my case, had many macs before.
Simple, fast, space saving, quiet, dependable.
The mini is a solid choice at great price.
If they upgrade, I would certainly take a good look.
Posted on July 30, 2007
Roberto Says:
I agree with Nick. The Mac Mini for DTP/ Illustrator work is not entry-level. My small design studio is still chugging along on a Power Mac 800MHz G4 (Quicksilver) and a 1.33GHz G4 Powerbook. The new Core 2 Duo 2GHz Mac Mini would be faster or equal to the Power Mac G5 Dual 1.8Ghz I used to have.
The integrated graphics chip is not a problem—I’m doing pro work for clients on a significantly lesser Radeon chip with “just” 32MB. If you’re getting a Mac Mini for graphics work, load it to the max with RAM, though, and use a fast external Firewire drive—that often makes more difference than processor speed.
Posted on August 31, 2007
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
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mjteix Says:
But if this PC has USB ports, can’t it boot/use storage from an external USB drive?
Maybe Apple should do something like this with the 17” iMac: put just the essentials behind the display (no optical drive, no hard drive), boot from flash, and include the usual ports. Bring the price down to the Mac mini range ($499-999, depending on the configuration: RAM/CPU/Flash), and there you go, the perfect machine for regular tasks (email, internet, word processing...). Software updates via Internet, and if you need more storage or CD/DVD playback/recording, there are a lot of 3rd parties solutions… I would preinstall iLife, iWork and the Office trial (I know...) so the computer is ready to go from the start.
Posted on July 20, 2007