5 Wishes For A New Mac Mini
You, as an astute observer of all things Mac, know that the Paris Expo is just around the corner, September 20th to be exact. Naturally when an event like this occurs people crave new, or at least substantially updated, hardware. So what is going to be eliciting gasps of “Mon Dieu!” at this year’s European Exposition? Updated iPods are being treated as a given but, and this is more interesting to the iPodless among us (they live, they walk, they breathe. Who knew?), rumors are starting to waft about that a major change to the Mac Mini. Specifically the speculation is that the Mini will be revised and now feature a low power version of the G5 chip. With that possibility in mind let us delve into 5 improvements for the Mini (who doesn’t love a list?)
1) It may be the rumor of the moment but a G5 powered Mini, at the same price point, would be very tempting. And, with a lot of folks holding off buying until Macs ship with Intel Inside, Apple needs to make their computers very tempting indeed. Though one wonders just why anyone would buy an iMac when you could drop 1400 bones and get a G5 Mini with a 20” monitor. Surely Apple will keep the specs of G5 Mini below those of the iMac but unless they really hobble the thing most people will probably opt for the Mini over an iMac.
2) Improved video card. The Mini is a fantastic computer, more than enough for most folks but it isn’t quite enough to fully handle Tiger. That’s right you’re missing some eye candy goodness when you take the quick trip to Mac Minidom. Mini user don’t get the ripple effect when they drop a new Widget into Dashboard. Admittedly the “ripple effect’ is just a cool looking way to let you know that you’ve dropped a Widget into the Dashboard screen and absolutely adds no functionality whatsoever still any shipping Mac should probably be able to handle all the features of the most hyped system improvements. So bump up the video card just a bit Apple.
3) USB 2.0 port on the front of the Mini. A ton of people decried the lack of an audio in port on the Mini when it was first released. Really the omission wasn’t a big deal, after all there are a ton of USB microphones available. The larger oversight was the lack of an easily accessible USB port for all your digital lifestyle needs. Slapping one on the front should make the digital photographers and podcasters weep with joy.
4) A slightly faster hard drive. It is no secret that one of the biggest bottlenecks in the Mini is the hard drive (like the iBook the drive spins at 4200 RPM). If Apple slaps a G5 processor in the diminutive computing marvel the bottleneck will only become more apparent so a bump in the hard drive speed (not the size) seems like a must have.
5) Bluetooth and Airport standard. Sure most people probably won’t take advantage of these features (they make more sense for a laptop) but if they are standard on the iBook (they are) they can’t cost too much and make the feature list that much longer.
Would said Mini make me run right out and buy one? Well, in my case, I’m lucky enough to have a G5 PowerMac so the answer is: Hell Yes! Who could pass on a package like that for only 500 dollars! I’d buy one now and justify the purchase later.
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If you so permanently need to attach your camera to your mini, why don’t you just
- keep the cable connected
- use the USB on your keyboard (assuming this useful feature also sees at least some spread on non-Apple keyboards)
instead of wanting to deface the front?
Nevetheless, an optical audio out would be nice. The mini, even with underpowered graphics and G4, makes perfect sense as a music-server, and since its front is not defaced with ports and the like, you can happily integrate it into your stereo setup. Put up a big HD in a matching enclosure and you are set. Not everyone wants or needs an APX though, so it should come with an optical out so you can hook it up to a DAC.
Yay to all your other ideas as long as they match two things:
- the mini does not get any louder.
- the mini does not get more expensive.
Number one thing to improve on AppleMatters:
When I come to AppleMatters.com I am logged on, when I proceed to this article I am logged out and cannot comment. Why in the world does your site keep coming up with such a variety of annoyances?
Of course it would be nice if most keyboards had USB ports but, right now, that isn’t the case. Since the Mini is designed to work with generic keyboards the USB port on the front (for easy access) is a little more important. The Mini is not overburdened with USB ports so one on the front wold be nice for folks who want to swap out cameras, microphones, usb drives and the like.
Oh and I would definately not want the Mini to get any louder.
As for the log in log out deal, I suggest you post the question in the new forums
http://www.applematters.com/index.php/forums/
(It happens to me too)
Chris, you beat me to it!
Bad beaver, if you wouldn’t mind posting the issue in the forums I’ll get right on fixing it. If you could detail exactly what happens that would be great.
We just updated the software that the site runs on so things may be a little funky, but with everyone’s help we’ll get there.
thanks!
I disagree just a little on one point here, I’d scrap my current 1.42GHz Mini for one with an audio-input just to take advantage of Garageband a little more. I’ve played around with the low-end USB audio inputs (Griffin iMic, etc.) and they’re practically worthless for most audio creation just because of severe latency. This is a must as far as I’m concerned though I’m sure many others probably couldn’t care less.
The harddrive is another factor. The Mini REALLY suffers here from time to time, where my Powerbook seems to scream in comparison, is the 1200rpm difference really that much? It would seem so, but even my iBook at 4200rpm seems faster, I guesstimate about 30% faster all the time. I’ve wondered more than once if there isn’t something going on in the ATA bus somewhere on the Mini that just cripples performance from the hard drive compared to similar systems. A clean installation of Tiger (my Mini shipped with Panther and was subsequently upgraded) helped a little, but not enough.
Finally, if the “digital home” really is the target of this thing, include a TV Tuner and optical audio output. Make it slightly bigger if necessary, no one will really notice or care, and turn it into the MS Media Center killer that half the folks on the internet seem to think it was designed for. I’ve got mine hooked up to a Panasonic 100” projector and it’s my mainstay for watching movies, view photos, listening to music etc. but when it comes to TV I’m still using Tivo. Yes, I can get an Elgato product and solve this somewhat, but for the price of an EyeTV200 I can get 3 Tivo’s (and by comparison, on a Windows PC a similar tuner is roughly $99-$150 for the same picture quality).
The Mini is a great little machine, far more capable and useful than I initially thought, but it’s true that it needs a little more “oomph” in it. Whether it’s Intel capable or not, well, no one is really going to care. It’s what it will do differently right out of the box that will continue to sell it and keep it popular.
1) [G5 Processor]
My guess is that the Mac Mini will be the first system to go Intel. I doubt Apple will spend the R&D time to shoe horn a G5 in a Mini to replace it with a Pentium M class processor in 6-8 months later.
2) Improved video card.
The Mac Mini could really use a BTO option with PowerBook level graphics card and 128MB of VRAM. The current option is OK for home use, but I’d like to use a Mini to run VJ / Core Image applications. Support for an external monitor, like in the iMac G5 would also be a welcome addition.
My choice for a mini.
1. Dual-Core Yonah as an option.
2. Faster HD
3. HDMI output..covers the audio/video i/o for nextgen devices.
4. Airport/BT 2.0 EDR standard.
5. PS pass through so that external drives can jack into Mm PS saving another power cord.
6. 64mb video card for Core Graphics Goodies.
I’d buy this for $650
I would back item5: Bluetooth
For though the Mac-Mini concept intrigued me, I have been waiting for someone to make a wallet sized, snap-shut, wireless keyboard & screen combo, that will let me browse the harddisk and do some field level computing.
I agree with #6’s posts. But please, 128MB video card. I don’t see that really cutting into anything.
http://www.tigercompatible.com
I agree with #6’s posts. But please, 128MB video card. I don’t see that really cutting into anything.
Core Image, a new feature in Tiger, allows you to process images using graphics cards with programmable vertex shaders. However, before they can be processed, images must be copied to VRAM. A single uncompressed D1 frame of video is about 1MB each. This is in addition to the VRAM Quartz already uses to composite each image and window visible on you’re display. Lack of VRAM can significantly limit the number of images or video sources you can process concurrently.
When Apple enables Quartz 2D Extreme, the entire Quartz Display layer will move to the GPU. Many items that were previously stored in RAM, such as bitmaps, character glyphs, etc., will be rendered on the GPU and cached in VRAM on you graphics card. If you don’t have enough VRAM, Quartz will have to swap this data to standard RAM or re-render the content, causing a performance hit.
For more information about how Mac OS Tiger and VRAM, check out the review of Tiger on Ars Technica.
Specifically, the three pages on Quartz, Quartz 2D Extreme and Core Image.
More USB ports. And I don’t care where they put them. The front, the back, the top, as long as they’re there.
I tried hooking my Ipod up to the USB port on the keyboard, which is the only one I have left, but no go. Not enough juice. So I had to get a USB hub to share with my external drive and the Ipod.
Time to get serious with the mini.
1. Yes, G5.
2. PCI express video in a socket. Standard card can stay the min 64MB core image card but give upgrade options for 128MB, higher end cards that can run cool and quiet. (use the same standard for all powerbooks and iMac G5’s)
3. PCMCIA slot
4. Digital Audio out
So Beeblebrox, you are one of the victims of the terrible “no FireWire cable along with iPod” decision, yes?
Almost. I bought the floor model, so it didn’t come with any cables at all. The BB guy threw in the USB/Firewire cable, so I do have it.
The problem is that I use my Mac for editing, so my camera/deck is almost always hooked up to the Firewire port. That’s actually why my external drive is using the remaining USB port, even though it can do both. I also have the Firewire end of the Ipod cable plugged into the Firewire power adapter, although that’s probably redundant.
Bottom line: not even ports on the Mac Mini. It would really help if the keyboard USB port was adequately powered, since the keyboard does take up one of the only two ports on the machine, effectively leaving you with just one.