Apple have updated the Mac Mini. It now sports an aluminium (no, I am not going to spell it “aluminum”) enclosure, an HDMI port, an internal PSU (no power-brick!) and oddly, an SD card slot in the back. There’s also an access hole on the bottom to change the RAM easily.
The base speed has been bumped to 2.4 GHz, and default RAM to 2 GB. A 320 GB hard disk is now standard with option for 500 GB; The server model sports twin-500 GB drives (lacking the CD drive). Prices begin at $699 / ^Alb649 (!) / ^a‘not799 for the standard model and $999 / ^Alb929 / ^a‘not1’149 for the server model. A far cry from the days when the Mac Mini was a cheap PC (I paid ^Alb320 for my G4) but its success, even at these prices, is still grounded in its popularity as a quiet, well-balanced PC that has no real competitors of equal size for the power.(haters gonna hate)
Apple have increased the footprint of the device, whilst making the device shorter (the loss of the power brick however probably also makes for a lot less “real” volume). The previous generation Mac Mini was 2 inches tall (5 cm) and 6.5″ square (16.5 cm). The new Mac Mini is 7.7 inches square (19.7.cm) at 1.4″ tall (3.6cm)
The graphics chipset has been updated to a GeForce 320M, the newer version of the 9400M found in previous generations. Apple claim speed improvements of up to 2x with their usual vague charts. Expect benchmarks to start appearing as carputer users, modders and HTPC enthusiasts start getting their hands on the new models.
Speaking of which, the addition of an HDMI port seems almost un-Apple like as they have avoided on their main professional and consumer models.
It’s easy to connect Mac mini to the biggest screen in the house ^aEUR” your HDTV ^aEUR” courtesy of a built-in HDMI port. Plug in one HDMI cable and start enjoying content on your Mac mini in brilliant HD. Like films and TV programmes from iTunes, the Internet and your photo library. Like home movies, the Internet and your photo library. There’s also a handy control that lets you easily adjust the output on Mac mini to fill even the biggest HDTV screen. And when you just want to listen to music, you can play your entire iTunes collection through your home entertainment centre, or stream it to a set of speakers in any room via an AirPort Express Base Station.
However, the “main sell” of the new Mac Mini doesn’t seem to be as a HTPC, but as a regular computer. Are Apple still cautious about the TV market? Just as with the Apple TV, the new Mac Mini screams HTPC, but Apple don’t seem to be behind this idea with their full might, more “testing the waters” still. Their iTunes-centric view of media (as obvious from the quote above) is what’s keeping Apple behind here in my opinion. Google’s clear view to embrace the ‘Web as the big, messy shopping mall of choice is more in tune with a large part of the consumer market. Not that the MacMini can’t browse the web (it is after all a regular Mac OS X desktop machine), but that Apple see the web as the web, and HT functionality as iTunes–and ne’er the twain shall meet. Users in Europe want to use Spotify, and the Apple TV can’t do that (out of the box, for the average user), where the Mac Mini could, and where iTunes doesn’t compete.
What does this update imply for the Apple TV, I wonder. It’s buried under the iPod section on the store, out of harms way.
It now sports an aluminium (no, I am not going to spell it “aluminum”) enclosure
It doesn’t really matter how you spell it, but pointing it out is just asking for trouble.
It’s an Apple article. Trouble is guaranteed
Oh I think it matters given this site if frequented by many users outside of North America
Would anyone have really noticed it if it wasn’t pointed out, was, I believe what the OP meant. It’s more baiting people from the North America than anything else. Personally I don’t care, it’s like using a ‘u’ in ‘colour’, we all know what’s meant, but that smugness is what’s being commented on.
We Japanese fixed that years ago by just saying “alumi”.
Makes sense, right? Use the non-American spelling, make a point of it, then give prices and measurements primarily in US Dollars and inches, respectively?
It’s worth noting that the man who first isolated that particular element, Sir Humphry Davy, spelled it both ways.
Aluminium was a British discovery, so I spell it the way that is predominantly used here. Personally, it^aEURTMs not the spelling that^aEURTMs the problem to me, it^aEURTMs the pronunciation!
Since it^aEURTMs an American product I listed in dollars first, and inches are used because the UK is not metric, as most would think, we intermix the two systems for everything (I measure long distances in miles, and short ones in Metres, for example).
aluminium.. is that like platinium or molybdenium?
And it matters not how anyone spells it regarding the mini. I’m quoting Apple here “A sleek aluminum enclosure hides a powerful, full-size computer.”
SD slot should be on the front, or at the very least the side. If you want to use it as an HTPC just whack Plex (www.plexapp.com) on it, all the fun and games of iTunes plus anything else you want to use…
Preference for front or back for the SD-Card slot would depend on the frequency of use…..Anyhow, after a few times, it becomes more a by-feel insertion of the card than really looking for the slot.
Aiming at the HTPC use would require having a Blue-Ray drive…..I did not note such option. Maybe it’s kept in reserve for the second generation of this design?
The easier access to the RAM slots is welcome – not everybody is skilled at prying things open with putty knifes!
I think Apple are waiting for Blu-Ray to go away so they don’t get involved in making an expensive machine more expensive. They support it in various, less direct ways but won’t sell it.
$699 / ^Alb649 (!)
Yes, that price completely sucks. $699 in pounds with 17.% VAT is about ^Alb555. But Jobs previously said we should blame our government for this, and lobby them instead.
Sorry, Steve, who precisely do I call to complain that poor Apple are being forced to make even more outrageous margins than usual on the back of its UK customers?
You complain by not buying. It’s that simple.
I can choose not to buy AND complain it is too expensive.
If the product suck or is too expensive, I don’t buy it AND I open my mouth to let other people know it sucks or is overly expensive and that I don’t buy it. I complain loudly so that everybody can hear, both the seller and the potential customers. The only way to stop me is either to lower the price, make product that don’t suck or just hire me in the PR department and pay me good money to shut up.
^a‘not799 is outrageously expensive. It’s well over twice the price I expect to pay for a mini computer without a screen.
Edit: I did a (very) quick google check. In 10 seconds, I found the “ACER Aspire Revo R3610-VFYZ Seven Home Premium” for ^a‘not315.11 with 4GB of RAM, 500GB hardrive, HDMI, SD card reader, 6xUSB, etc.
Edited 2010-06-15 12:49 UTC
You are right, you can not buy and complain about the price, but again WHY? Why complain that a Bentley or a Lear Jet is expensive? You wont be accessing one anytime soon. So its a moot point at best. Is Apple forcing you to purchase any of their products? I dont think so. So good sir, is your point to solely to troll? Apple, like any other product releases items for sale, you have the inherent freedom to plunk down your hard owned or socially donated govt funds over to them in exchange for the product. But comparing a Ford Ka to Bentley Continental GT on the basis of price, accomplishes exactly what you are doing; missing the point. Look! Over there! Could it be?!?! It’s a bridge! You know what to do with that don’t you?
People who say that Apple hardware is over-expensive compared with other similar computers are often accused of missing some hypothetic point. However, I think I’ve never seen somebody explaining seriously and without introducing a pure troll or some kind of false information what said point is…
Edited 2010-06-15 13:42 UTC
Apple doesn’t update its product line very often, so this is what happens and how they maximize their profits.
Phase 1: New product introduction
=> Product is usually priced at a small premium over competing products.
=> Apple touts the superiority of its hardware over the competition. May or may not be true.
Phase 2: six months later
=> hardware prices drop across the industry, competitors lower prices and increase hardware specs.
=> Apple doesn’t change pricing or specs. Now a really deal
=> Marketing doesn’t change still compares hardware and price to that at time of launch ignoring new pricing and hardware of existing clients.
That’s because you suffer from TAC.
The Techie Apple Conundrum (TAC)
The TAC arises often on sites such as OSAlert because the attraction of Apple products, and hence Apple’s huge success as a company, is dependent on features and aspects of product design invisible to almost all Techies. Thus Apples success is mysterious, vexing and ultimately challenging.
Techies for example often focus on feature lists and technical specifications and compare one such list to another and look at comparative prices and cannot understand that someone would pay more for an “inferior” spec.
This of course misses a critical aspect of Apple product design, one of the keys to the success of Apple in the consumer market, which is that for many (perhaps most) consumers having fewer technical features is a positive thing. This seems paradoxical to Techies but this is because they fail to comprehend what the actual experience for the vast majority of consumers of hi-tech products actually is – which is bad.
Consumers constantly encounter products that don’t work as advertised, products that squeeze so many functions into an item that using it for its main purposes is dreadfully complex, products that even when their function should be simple (i.e. to play music, to play a DVD, to surf the web, to write emails) require a thick user manual (many of which which are often written by engineers and are thus unhelpful).
Most hi-tec products are user-unfriendly for most consumers. But not to Techies because they have technical knowledge and so can cope with poor/arcane design. In fact Techies like such products because they find technical challenges fun and because it makes them useful (they are always helping people solve their technical problems) and thus boosts their self esteem.
Some kit, almost all non-Apple desktop computers for example, are not just difficult and poorly designed but are positively scary for almost all consumers. Many non-Apple desktop computers seem very complex to operate, go wrong for no clearly understood reasons and worst of all seem to be under constant attack. Watching someone move from a non-Apple desktop computer to a Mac you can often see them slowly losing their awful, and most of the times paralysing, fear of infection and attack. As the fear fades the pleasure of using their computer increases dramatically and people start to love their computers rather than secretly hating them. Thus another mac-head is born.
The emblematic product for TAC is the iPad. Here is a product that comes on instantly, looks and feels gorgeous, feels fast, is easy to operate and does (in a fantastically convenient form factor) most of what most people do most of the time on their computer (ie browse the web, send emails, watch movies, read stuff and look at and share photos). Plus it has two huge benefits for most consumers. First it doesn’t feel like a computer – this is a good thing for most people because most people’s experience of using computers has been bad. Secondly it feels very safe because of Apple’s curated computing model, and most users of computers have previously felt unsafe most of the time.
The very reasons that make the iPad such a huge success are the very reasons that Techies don’t get it. If one product above all induces TAC its the iPad. Techies say “but Apple has an iron grip and is killing our freedoms” (people want safety much more than some obscure technical freedom), “the iPad doesn’t have [insert any number of features that consumers don’t care about]”, “its not a real computer” (exactly).
So the continuing, relentless and accelerating success of Apple seems almost inexplicable to most Techies, “how could such products be so successful?”
The answer Techies come up are fairly predictable:
– Apple’s voodoo marketing: Apple is pulling the wool over the consumer eyes (sometimes this is blamed on media hype).
– Apple’s evil lock in: Apple has a locked down and closed platform, once sucked in people can’t leave.
– Apple consumers and users are idiots: Fooled by marketing and glitzy packaging the sheep can be sold everything.
Because Techies believe that these are the real reason people buy Apple products (other than the more obvious reason which is that they actually like them a lot) Techies also believe that this state of affairs cannot possibly last and therefore the final piece of the Techie response to Apple falls into place. Deranged by TAC Techies often come up with the most delusional statement of all – Apple is doomed.
Ah, finally some explanation above the “interesting” level
Well, there seem to be written in the Universal [Mac|Linux|Windows|Nintendo|Xbox|Playstation|Nokia|Whatever] Fanboy Manual that it’s always a right thing to do to start by explaining to the reader that he’s an idiot. Go and figure out why so much Apple topics end by flamewar… Well, let’s ignore it and read what’s next.
Continue insulting behavior while explaining that objectivity (ie using real and non-obfuscated data about a product) is a wrong method. Start to get tired. When does some non-laughable stuff begin ?
Okay, less is good. Life is short, pay more. And then ?
Ah, finally ! Let the show begin. So for you, user experience is not a feature ?
Let’s see…
feature (plural features)
<…>
2. An important or main item.
<…>
5. (computing) A beneficial capability of a piece of software.
<…>
6. The cast or structure of anything, or of any part of a thing, as of a landscape, a picture, a treaty, or an essay; any marked peculiarity or characteristic; as, one of the features of the landscape.
* 1911, 1911 Encyclop~A|dia Britannica:
The most prominent feature of the New England land system was the town grant, which in every case became the territorial basis of a group settlement.
<…>
8. (engineering) Characteristic forms or shapes of a part. For example, a hole, boss, slot, cut, chamfer, or fillet.
Ease of use and good user experience totally is a feature, and the beginning of your post hence is crap. Just a little precision.
I agree that feature overflow is a horrible and alas very common defect in the industrial world. However, I’m eagerly waiting to read how you’re going to demonstrate that Apple, inventors of iTunes and the iPhone/iPod Touch, are insensitive to that defect…
Again, push forward sentiment of personal superiority to ensure that you get grilled and can then tell that you’re being persecuted because you’re telling the truth (or because the reader is too near-sighted). Your “techie” stereotype gets more and more unlikely as you give him the superpower to master poor design so much that it doesn’t matter to him and that it’s even close to a child’s play. But it doesn’t matter as long as you’re deeply convinced that such people DO exist.
To get a better picture of real-world techies, you’d have to meet the SLR (Single Lens Reflex). Photographs buy one because they want to go at a picture quality level that the average compact camera can not reach. Weight, volume, and complexity are drawbacks of SLRs, not advantages nor a necessity. As compact cameras get more and more powerful and start to do better and better pictures, more and more people who would have bought a SLR some years ago will buy one now.
Everyone wants to get things done as good as possible. But we do not do things the same way, because we make different compromises. Those who are ready to overcome a higher learning cost for the final benefit of higher-quality photographs go dSLRs. Those who are more in the mind of grabbing their camera and shooting pictures without caring about how it works prefer compact/phone cameras. I’m an advocate of the latter myself, but my mother is a heavy argentic SLR user. There’s room for every compromise in the market.
Who’s wearing a blindfold here ? I give macs the benefit of still being extremely bug-free compared to competitors, but in the area of the simplicity, I’m afraid to tell that the simpler mac desktop has become more and more of a myth lately.
Here’s some real-world data :
1/I’ve seen one of the worst computer users I know using Windows 7 without a single issue. I hate its messy UI myself, but one has to admit that it’s sufficiently good for everyday computer use by a non-technical people. Really. No blue screen of deaths everywhere, no crashes, no random behaviors, and even popup emission has been reduced. It’s perfectible, sure, but it’s not the nightmare you’re describing at all. Have a better look around you.
2/Due to my generally bad experience of Windows, and due to her talent at finding bugs in software, when my girlfriend’s parents offered to buy her a laptop for her 18th birthday, I suggested her to get a MacBook. I supposed, after hearing the daily praise of Apple computers as better tools by my parents, that it would somehow magically improve her computing experience, in a way like the one you’re describing. Well, you know what ? Miracles don’t exist. She first endured pain due to the stupid over-sensitive multitouch trackpad which mistakes “scroll” for “zoom” in word processors. Then due to the difficulty to manage several windows which look pretty much the same when you don’t have very good eyes. Then due to the low quality of freeware on the mac platform. Then due to the lack of usual media files support. Overall, she got used to it, like anyone finally gets used to a product given sufficient motivation. But you must agree that this is not impressive. Mac OS is not so bad that it’s hardly usable on a daily basis by people who have a good knowledge of it or who get helped by someone who has such knowledge. But it’s nowhere exceptional. Linux is not that much of a nightmare either in such conditions. Nor is Windows 7.
And those products have the additional benefit of not having to sacrifice basic things like computer security to work. Unlike OSX which gives you a false sense of security to make you feel better, and a strong need to identify yourself as a Mac user in order to compensate its unimpressive characteristics. And continue to give money for nothing to Apple…
Okay, it’s a beautiful piece of hardware, we agree. I wanted an iPad myself before I learned that it would be packed with iPhoneOS crap. And then ?
In other words, Apple is using trickery to lure consumers into buying their products, because advertising them as what they are would help people understand how crappy iPhone0S on a 7-inch device is. A computer is a computer, meaning a machine which is good as processing large amounts of information, no matter how you call it. And it seems rather unethical to call it otherwise in order to benefit from past failures of the competitors.
Again, it “feels”. You don’t like to use rigorous reasoning, do you ? So bad, it would help you to understand that the sole *feeling* of safety, without something solid underneath, is also experienced when someone made tiny holes in your condoms without you knowing it. Feeling safe without being so is actually even worse than not feeling safe at all, because you’re taking more risks that what you’d usually do.
Also, I’d like to hear more about that “curated computing model”. Sounds fun.
Which the iPad does not provide. It only provides a false sense of safety. Ever heard about iPhoneOS not actually deleting mails when you press “delete”, leaving room for a huge security hole ? About Apple being able to kill an iPhone 4 through its internet connection, leaving room for future exploits of this backdoor ?
What some people do not seem to understand is that safety and technical freedom *are* compatible. They are not opposite. They are two features. You can have one, the other, or both. As simple as that.
Again, you seem to know consumers pretty well. So bad you don’t know more about all those people who visit multiple video websites and play flash games on a daily basis. You should go in an average high school someday and watch what students are doing on their computers when the teacher is not watching, someday, really…
No, wrong. It IS a computer. Just a castrated one. Computers were made to let the user do pretty much everything he wants which involves processing information. iPads restrict this to what Apple lets users do. Which means that it remains a computer, provided that you consider Apple as the user, the one in control of the machine.
Well, let me advocate a slightly different theory for once.
Apple sell dreams. Dreams have immense values. As you said, people encounter countless issues with poorly made computers everyday. Apple pretends to have invented well-made computing devices. People get excited. They see the price tag, and agree that at such a high price, it must be something wonderful. Especially since according to apple’s website, the device does X, Y, AND Z !!! (All that are basic marketing tactics, nothing voodoo in there)
When they’ve finally bought the product, the users split in two categories.
1/Those who admit that they’ve been f*cked. It’s not the most frequent case, because it takes some willpower to say “Well, I bought crap, with that much money I could’ve bought a new bike which would have been much more useful on these days. Truth hurts”. Admitting that you’re wrong is hard. Because of the psychological pain which ensues, such people then get angry and end up bashing Apple for a few months (in an I-know-better-than-you fashion that everybody ignores), then get apathic for some times, and finally buy a product for another brand. And consumerism goes on.
2/Those who don’t want to admit it. After all, all their friends are watching their new gizmos with curious eyes. You can manipulate it with your finger. It does run facebook. So it isn’t that bad, isn’t it. Actually, why would someone expect more than that from a tech product ? Such a denial attitude can be compared with the “everything is right” attitude, which can be seen in a couple when both partners want to stay with each other for some reason, even if they don’t like each other. A real-world example : my girlfriend’s mother bought an iPhone because it sounded so easy to use and had all those applications. She opened the App store exactly once, and downloaded nothing from it. She now uses her iPhone for phoning and sending texts, just like her previous phone. Nothing more. And tries to justify her previous uninformed choice by telling that this phone is so much easier to use that her previous phone. I let people who already used both kinds of devices for those texting+voice call purposes conclude…
Apple doesn’t need to magically blind users who can get blind all by themselves due to a trick as old as the human race, really. They just need to put together the conditions needed to make the trick work.
Only if everyone was aware of the major aspects of what they’re buying *before* buying. Most crap in the high-tech world exists because of the unique fact that in his area, people don’t know exactly what they’re buying before buying it. Apple capitalizes on the aspects of a product which the user doesn’t know before buying and gets used to afterwards.
As an example, notice that you generally can’t try out cellphones before buying them. This allows the most horrible buggy phones which don’t even manage to delete messages from the mailbox to survive (yeah, I’m looking at you, LG), while in a setting where people were fully informed they wouldn’t stood a chance.
As a counter-example, notice that picture quality of TV sets nicely improves with time, due to people being able to actually look at them in the supermarket, and see for themselves what’s better.
Yes, thank you. That is exactly it. The whole hubbub about lack of freedom is not something that just matters to nerds. Apple stifles innovation by disallowing any apps that remotely compete with the Apple ones. They prevent Flash and other cross-platform friendly technologies from running on the system, thus ensuring that only the most well-endowed software houses (those that can afford to support multiple code bases) can release cross-platform titles. These problems are actually big deals for the consumer, but most people simply don’t know about them.
I would argue that stability is as a general rule one of Apple’s strengths. They may make developers’ lives difficult and not always be as magical as they claim, but you can generally count on them not releasing any half-baked features. If it’s not stable, it doesn’t make the cut. I think Apple has earned its reputation in this respect because lest we forget, freedom from bugs is also a kind of usability enhancement in and of itself.
I would argue the opposite. Apple software and hardware is no more stable than its counterparts.
Just read a few of the posts in one of the Macfixit forums: http://forums.cnet.com/mac-forums/mac-desktops-forum/?tag=contentMa…
No half-baked features?
Are you referring to the Iphone’s method for making ellipsis, which requires one to go into a secondary keyboard, and, then, perform an unintuitive press, and, then, make an extra tap? Something which is so simple and intuitive on many other phones requires a tutorial to perform on the Iphone: http://artoftheiphone.com/2009/06/25/iphone-basics-how-to-make-an-e…
This ellipsis example is not the only one.
By the way, Apple is never as “magical” as it claims.
Here is one of several Apple bugs appearing today on the front page of Macfixit (not the forum): http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20007737-263.html
Note that the bug involves the fact that the Mac trash can doesn’t always delete files when commanded. The solution requires differing entries on the command line, depending on the location of the trash can. I’m guessing that the typical Mac user is going to have a little trouble with this fix.
What is most amazing is that the “trash can” is about the only thing that Apple has actually invented in its 33-year history, and it can’t seem to get it right!
Furthermore, I have firsthand experience with Macs crashing. I can’t count the number of times that I have had to wait in a Final Cut Pro edit bay while OSX had to be rebooted, because the system froze every couple/three hours.
These system crashes involved Apple software with an Apple OS on hardware! I guess that I was experiencing the legendary Apple “software/hardware integration.”
Apple’s “walled garden” is more lie a decrepit prison decorated with a few hanging plants.
Incidentally, I use the somewhat experimental Sidux, and I am constantly trying different software from a variety of sources. It has crashed maybe once in the last two years.
At any rate, use of Apple products (“integrated” or not) hardly ensures “freedom from bugs.”
Edited 2010-06-16 23:56 UTC
Well, the GP made a comment about an LG phone and from the sound of it no phone that has come from Apple has suffered from even close to that level of instability. And back in the pre-XP days of Windows there was absolutely no question that Mac OS X was the more stable OS. As for Final Cut Pro, behind the scenes it is a pile of ancient code based on classic QuickTime and Carbon and most likely uses a whole host of poorly documented and undocumented APIs so it’s a wonder that it doesn’t crash more often IMHO. I never said that every piece of software to come out of Apple is gold….
So, the basis for the conclusion that “stability is one of Apple’s strengths, as a general rule” is:
– a single, off-handed, vague comment on a problem with an unmentioned LG phone model(s), among the zillions of perfectly stable non-Apple phones?
– one individual’s “perception” that no Apple phones have the same instability as the unmentioned LG phone(s)?
A quick scan of the official Apple “discussion” forum regarding the Iphone yielded these recent titles:
“Iphone frozen”: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2452575&tstart=60
“iPhone has just died”: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2380163&tstart=10…
“I phone not responding at all!!”: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2463101&tstart=12…
“apps gone, not in purchase history” (ouch!): http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2462602&tstart=15…
“Iphone numeric keypad not working”: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2462008&tstart=21…
The most common problem with pro-Apple arguments is lack of rationality and lack of research. It would be great if the fanboys could just think a little and do a little homework, before posting.
Huh? Please link supporting facts.
Wow! The fanboys constantly hold up FCP as a shining example of Apple’s greatness — now someone admits that FCP is not so great!
We might be making some progress.
At least someone admits it. Folks, Apple is far from perfect.
The LG phone I was thinking of was the one I owned, a KS360, although I’ve heard from KP500 owners that they aren’t doing great either with this one.
However, I agree that there are millions of rock-solid Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones in the wild. As an example, I’ve owned several s40 phones and only experienced one bug : partial UI lockup when opening the “received message” directory while sending an SMS. (The phone still worked, and the UI became responsive again after going back to the home screen). I reported the bug to Nokia, and now it is fixed on all updated s40 devices. Compare with the millions of iPhone 3GS which continue to crash and require a reboot monthly for no reason. And this has nothing in common with all the horrors I’ve experienced with my KS360. I could write a book on the subject, and more concisely I won’t *ever* buy LG hardware again after such an experience.
Edited 2010-06-17 19:49 UTC
I would not call Apple generally rock solid, there are some devices which usually are by them.
The 13 inch macbook pro surprisingly is one of the best machines overall ever built by them, not so the higher specced macbook pros or the macbook (which recently had a case problem 1-2 generations ago)
Also the macbook air is a total lemon with thermal problems since revision 1 never acknowledge by apple and never fixed, the current ones still have problems.
One of the really solid machines and probably one of the most solid Apple ever built was and is the mac mini, especially the revision 3 which now is replaced really is like a tank, I have yet to hear from a someone who has ever had a problem with those boxes.
Outside of that Apple is always hit and miss, it is better to wait usually a few months into the lifetime of a machines series to see which problems crawl up, if nothin serious has crawled up, they have a rock solid series, if it has then Apple has done another lemon.
It is less the build quality from Apple which is average it is more that all the others have run their build quality into the ground that Apple shines a little bit more. With low prices unfortunately came the shoddy build quality everyone nowadays seems to be used to.
It depends, what do you call a low price ? Here, a small fridge costs around 300^a‘not, and it is a life-saving device, so people would expect from a less critical device like a computer an equivalent to much lower price. The tech inside does not matter, what matters is the actual uses of the device…
Edited 2010-06-18 08:08 UTC
Please keep in mind that “build quality” refers to the computer enclosure, not to the internal components.
The only significant problems I have ever heard of regarding computer enclosures (Apple and non-Apple) is heat dissipation, and stylized enclosures with optical drive covers that block the manual eject hole. Every other enclosure pretty much performs its function as a container designed to hold the components.
By the way, guess which company by far has the most heat dissipation problems with its enclosures?
In regards to “solidness,” please try this test with any Apple computer and get back to me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqtkEi-37Gs
There are zillions of computers that are designed to take this kind of abuse. Just do a web search for “mil spec computers” or for “ruggedized computers.”
Apple is strictly consumer grade.
“And yet it moves” (that’s a Galileo quote by the way)
And yet Apple products are bought by millions and millions and millions of people. Apple will sell millions of the new mac mini. Why?
All that you say may be true: if so why do Apple products sell so well? Why has Apple been so successful? Why, when asked in so many end user surveys, do Apple’s customers express so much happiness about their products?
Those are genuine questions I am pitching at you. Your challenge is to answer them with out slipping into the archetypal techie responses I quoted (its the marketing, the Apple customers are stupid etc).
Answering the challenge of explaining Apples success whilst also claiming their products are inferior is a good challenge for you to try – its the sort of exercise that broadens the mind. Back in the (in technological terms) ghastly 1990s when Apple seemed to be dying and the horrible Windows 95/98 was taking the world by storm I had to face that sort of challenge. I could have said that all those people buying an operating system that was so obviously inferior to the Mac’s must be stupid, I could have offered a similar critique of Microsoft’s success as that offered by techies to “explain” Apple’s success.
But in the end I had to face the facts, that whilst being technically inferior (from my point of view) Windows PCs did what most people wanted their computers to do better than Macs (they were compatible with work, they were cheap, they played more games – whatever).
The customer is always right. And it seems as if Apple, and Steve Jobs knows just how to please them. Odd isn’t?
The same questions could be asked of other popular things.
Why do so many people buy Windows — many more millions than those who buy OSX?
Why do Miley Cyrus records sell so well? Why has she been so successful?
Why, when asked in so many fan surveys, do Justin Bieber’s followers express so much happiness about his performances?
Perhaps the answer to these questions about Apple products, Windows, Miley Cyrus and Justin Beiber has nothing to do with the quality of what is being sold.
As do Steve Ballmer and the managers of Miley Cyrus and Justin Beiber
Not really.
Us “techies” have watched zillions of rabid, over-enthusiastic fans getting fleeced.
Edited 2010-06-15 22:20 UTC
The reality of our consumerist society is that those who make desirable products can and do charge a premium for them. By your definition you are being fleeced if you drink any of the popular brands of drinks, or drive any kind of luxury car or fit an up-market stereo system to that car or … the list goes on. In every one of these cases the components that are used to manufacture the final product are at best marginally more expensive and slightly better quality than those used in their much cheaper counterparts, yet the premium on the final product is significant. That’s what building a brand is all about.
Coke is no better than some generic brand Cola, but they have a brand presence and they have educated consumers that theirs is the “real” taste of Cola. In my country a 2l bottle of Coke is nearly three times the price of a generic shopping centre brand, and once you’ve had half a dozen “scotch and coke”‘s you won’t taste the difference anyway, yet there are millions of people who will drink nothing but Coke. They too are being fleeced – by your definition – yet they are no different to Apple customers in that they are happy to pay a premium for something that they believe is better. Whether it is or not is a topic of much debate, but it’s also irrelevant, because the consumer believes it is, and at the end of the day if they’re happy, they’re not being fleeced…
Hence, Windows, Miley Cyrus, Justin Beiber, etc.
By the way, another reality of our society is that many who make desireable products can but don’t charge a premium for them (Linux, Firefox, Apache, Open Office, OLPC, the Elphel camera, etc.).
No.
My point was that mass popularity does not equal quality. Hence, Windows, Miley Cyrus, Justin Beiber, and, yes, Apple products.
Likewise, just because an item has luxury price tag does not mean that one is purchasing a quality product.
No.
The components/ingredients are often worse than those in the cheaper counterparts.
“Brand” certainly can help sell an item, but brand is a characteristic that is independent and separate from the actual quality of a product.
This analogy between soda drinkers and Apple users is faulty, because taste in food is highly subjective, whereas the quality of internal electronic components is tangeable and quantifiable.
Are you arguing that, because it suits one’s taste, a Mac Mini with 2 gigs of memory is better-than-or-equal-to a non-Apple computer with all the same components but with 4 gigs of memory (and a lower price)?
Congratulations to all fans of Windows, Miley Cyrus, Justin Beiber and Apple (not the record company).
Edited 2010-06-16 00:56 UTC
Most nerds do not understand they are a very very tiny fraction of the market (how much traction linux has a mainstream desktop?), they also don’t understand the cocept of value proposition.
Most consumers really don’t know much about what’s under the hood, and they really do not care. The value proposition from a mac mini, is not that it offers a better performance per dollar than other systems. But that it offers a better integrated cheap computer than almost any other system at that price range.
Wintel boxes and OSX boxes at that price range try to compete with two different approaches: wintels offer more bang for the buck, while mac minis offer better user experience. Neither is better than the other. If people request that Apple offer the same value than no-name cheapo boxes, how come the same people do not request the same level of integration and attention to detail from those cheapo wintel boxes?
Each serve a different purpose, and to each their own I guess.
Of course, Mac users know and understand all of these statistics.
Please enlighten us as to how much of the “market” is made up of “nerds”, and, also, please tell us the figure for Linux “traction” in the “mainstream desktop.” Keep in mind that there are no registrations of Linux installations, and that entire national governments occasionally convert all their machines to Linux.
A “value proposition!” I don’t know what that means, but I sure want to learn. Please explain!
Aww… and all along I thought that they were programming in assembly.
No. It doesn’t. There are numerous non-Apple computers that give the same or better “user experience” with the same footprint for less money.
No. They compete with the same approach in regards to user experience — make it as dumb simple as possible(to the detriment of computer literacy and speed).
Not that the way in which manufacturers compete has anything to do with the actual quality of a product.
Probably due to the fact that Apple’s “integration” and “attention to detail” is complete BS. Those false concepts likely originated with Apple marketing and are incessantly parroted by the fanboys.
Here in France, this quote is known as “Et pourtant elle tourne”, which I’d spontaneously translate as “And yet it spins”. Learned something today
Hmmm… I could argue, like somebody else, that much, much more PCs will be sold in the same amount of time, but why would someone buy a mac mini ? If it was around $400, I’d say “because it small enough to be used as a nicer TV recorder, given some good software for the job is installed and an IR remote is added” (let’s face it, modern HDD recorders suck). But at such a high price tag, the pricing of TV recorders largely overcome their horrible usability. Especially considering that they work out of the box, contrary to a mac mini which you must set up manually.
I could also argue that it’s a conveniently low-priced and small desktop computer for those who only have little computing-related needs (usual web browsing stuff) and don’t want to get their desk full of junk. However, again, competitors have moved on, and things like Eeetop now are up to the same job, work just as well, and cost much less. Moreover, as laptops get cheaper and lighter, they’ll probably totally crush this kind of product, because they do the job just as well and have the additional advantage of high portability. As an example, apple’s own macbook is a serious competitor for the MacMini. And the screen is bundled, you don’t have to get a hdmi-ready screen which will cost you a leg.
Under this price tag, however, I think that this macmini will only sell for the following reasons.
-Poorly informed consumers who believe in the magic effect of Apple hardware on usability, especially if they are lured into doing so by people who profess this magic effect.
-People who just buy it because it looks cool and they have a lot of money. Just like you buy a Rolex : it doesn’t have an advantage over other less expensive watches, except that it’s expensive and you can show off how rich you are through the use of it.
-Apple fans which will buy whatever the brand creates because they think that “at least it’s better than a PC” (their last PC dating back from 1998 and running Windows 3 for Workgroups).
iPod : Initially because it was simpler to use than early multimedia players and just did the job. Now, this advantage doesn’t exist anymore, to the contrary iPods are harder to use due to the need to go through that piece of shit called iTunes, however 1/reputation has a great inertia, 2/if you only see a friend of yours using an iPod which is already full of music, you don’t know about hidden defects such as iTunes, and 3/everybody has an iPod, you just must buy one if you want to look cool.
Mac : Initially because it was simpler to use than equivalent computers. Now mostly because of misinformation (like extensive anti-Windows FUD based on now-invalid arguments) which leads into believing that the product is somehow better than competition for average computing tasks, and a bit because of things like look and good brand reputation. A few informed people actually buy a mac because of the following reasons :
-They absolutely need a very long battery life on their laptops, no matter the price (AFAIK, the competition is still lacking in this area)
-As Apple targeted artists a long time ago, some multimedia creation software is only available on the Mac. And you get better support from the old guys who lived in the days where *most* creation software was only available on the mac.
-Geeks who want a nice GUI on top of UNIX, spend most of their times in a shell anyway, and don’t care about the extreme lack of free software on the mac, or use obscure tools like Fink to get it installed in an unsupported and buggy way because they really need it.
iPhone/iTouch : This one initially sold well because it was the first phone to sport a finger-controlled touch interface. Though it is intrinsically an inferior, poorly-performing HID which is good at nothing on such a small screen except showing off, it creates a good psychological feeling for some people, which feel more in touch (heh heh) with the device. No objective benefit otherwise, in fact globally inferior hardware. Now, almost every new low-end samsung phone implements finger touch just as well, do not require iTunes crap for photo and music transfer, and it’s not a so-called app store full of gadget apps which are not good at anything better than farting which will help, so why do the iPhone ecosystem still work ? Same as for the iPod : reputation, properly hidden defects, and the “social object” status of the thing.
iPad : This one currently sells well because it’s a beautiful piece of hardware with an attractive form factor and size for most use. Equivalents from Archos and Asus start to appear, but it will take some years before they manage to put a good touch-optimized interface on top of Windows 7 (though I heard that Asus was doing quite good). That’s the sole benefit of using iOS : Apple benefit from their previous touch device experience in short term. However, as a long-term strategy, a touch-optimized windows 7 is better, because it will allow people to do serious work (with a stylus) *and* play (with their finger) on the same device. Laptop manufacturers had to painfully learn that in the end, it’s all-in-one devices like this that win, because people don’t want to carry around lots of stuff.
1/What do we know about who conducted such surveys ?
2/What do we know about the people interrogated (e.g. conducting such a survey on mac*.com or to a lesser extent engadget is maybe a bit unfair)
3/What about the self-blinding effect which I mentioned earlier ? The higher the price, the harder it is to admit that you made a mistake, and the higher the chances that you’ll try to get used to the thing in spite of its defects.
Tried my best, hope you’ll be satisfied with the result
I totally agree. Pretending to be objective is just hiding his opinions as much as possible. You still keep them, and for someone which thinks the opposite, your way of thinking is obvious when reading your work. The sole way to truly get an open mind is constructively argue with some serious arguments with one who thinks the opposite, it’s the only way to get to know your “enemies” better (and eventually either become one of them or decide that you still think you’re right while taking the new knowledge into account).
True. Windows is technically a piece of crap, from my point of view. But it’s an empowering piece of crap, and power is something priceless. The “user likes to stay in control” mantra that Microsoft applied when designing Win7 somehow illustrates this competitive advantage of windows (as opposed to anti-competitive advantages like having manufacturers write better drivers for you)
Not certain about that one. Sometimes, customers are obviously wrong. As a trivial example, I often see some young girls wearing extremely thin outfit in winter and spring because there’s no trendy warm clothes at the moment. Things like fashion can be decisive elements, but I think we both agree that they’re close to purely random and hence not always right.
Edited 2010-06-16 08:51 UTC
Actually I am a bit disappointed in your replies – it seems to me that almost everything you have said boils down to the three Techie Apple success explanations I listed.
That is:
Apple’s voodoo marketing: Apple is pulling the wool over the consumer eyes (sometimes this is blamed on media hype).
– Apple’s evil lock in: Apple has a locked down and closed platform, once sucked in people can’t leave.
– Apple consumers and users are idiots: Fooled by marketing and glitzy packaging the sheep can be sold everything.
The issue is to explain the huge success of Apple products, to explain why people buy them in their tens of millions. As an explanation of Apple’s success the argument above, essentially the arguments you used, are crass and superficial.
All companies try to market their products – Apple’s marketing is very good but other companies also have good marketing. Apple spend on marketing is not markedly higher than other companies. Blaming it on marketing seems a bit shallow.
All companies try to ensure customer loyalty and sometimes companies try to do this through locking in customer or at least make switching to another companies products a costly or difficult affair. Apple actually do this less than a lot of other high tech companies. You can get your content out of iTunes and into something else fairly easily. iTunes runs on Windows. Apple does use DRM but all the evidence and all Apple’s public statements indicate that Apple would happily drop DRM if the content owners agreed (why should Apple be interested in DRM – they don’t own the content). Exporting your personal data from a Mac (contacts, calendar, emails etc) to another platform couldn’t be easier. Apple’s browser engine was open sourced by the company. MacOSX uses lots of open standards and Apple software almost always offers the opportunity to save content in open formats. The App store is both closed and open. Closed in the sense that Apple definitely does not want cross platform development between iOS and other mobile platforms (see here http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=MacBas… for one of the many examples of how Apple have been badly burned in the past when they have lost control of the development environment for their platforms), but the App store also pioneered a far more open and accessible way for developers to sell their products. The iOS development tools are cheap and fairly easy to use and the App Store offers the vast majority of developers a very easy route to sell their wares.
You even rolled out the Apple Customers are idiots argument (using a slightly more polite terminology). Explaining the growth of a company from near bankruptcy to becoming the most valuable technology company on the planet in a little more than decade as being the result of poor, ill-informed or fashion driven consumer choices seems awfully weak to me.
Most valuable at Wall street and nowhere else. Apple is still a relatively small technology company when compared with the big ones.
What made them successful financially is that they expanded in new markets that were very profitable. They entered those market with much cash and many strings in the media industry.
Edited 2010-06-16 13:49 UTC
Are you sure ? Read twice. If you still have this impression, define why in detail, using extensive quotations. And if you notice that you spontaneously don’t quote some sentences, read them twice.
Define “essentially”. Again, I think you should read my replies twice.
Marketing is making use of knowledge on the human mind to get better sales. Everybody do that to some extent, and the ones who do better are the ones who don’t get consciously noticed but have unconscious effects, so you’re right that Apple marketing certainly is not the best available.
However, there’s other factors which I mentioned, that are not part of the marketing thing at all. Like the social aspect of having an overly high priced gizmo (Rolex example). Or the fact that when a brand has done good in the past and now doesn’t anymore, it is noticed very slowly due to the high inertia of reputation (as an example, Windows is still known as being the most buggy OS ever conceived among Linux and Apple fans, even though Ubuntu 9.10, the iPhone 3GS, and the iPhone Nano 2G qualify much better).
Yes, if you start to get into professional software, there are many examples of this. However, the fact that many brands are doing wrong shouldn’t be a justification for such horrors. Especially since many other brands *don’t* need to behave so.
There seem to be a contradiction here.
And it participates to making windows look bad by being a bloated and buggy port, bundled with an even more bloated Quicktime, which worsens the already bad Windows startup performance by adding up a lot of stupid services without asking. One of those service endlessly displaying a software update/ad combo explaining you that you really should install Safari because it will make your web experience so much incredibly better. Clearly, Apple, who are OSX and Safari maintainers, have no interest in doing this…
Then may I ask why almost any other music platform in the wild somehow managed to drop DRM and provide neat MP3 files, while Apple still uses it ?
Apple don’t own the content. But they’re deeply linked to people who *do* own content, in a very lucrative way. Which noticeably involves ensuring, be it through threats if needed, that competitors like Amazon won’t even get a chance to distribute the same content.
Seriously, do you expect a brand whose CEO is equipped with more than two neurons (= not Sony) explicitely state “we love DRMs”, knowing how much annoying they are ?
Really ? And what about exporting your personal data from an iOS-“powered” device (game saves, PDFs, e-mails, iBooks…) to another platform ?
…after the copyright owners threatened to sue. Such a bold move.
Oh, yeah, like H.264, AAC, and AudioUnits in another area…
Strange, as far as I know iWork still uses DOC/DOCX, Quicktime still uses H.264, iTunes still uses AAC and MP3 (the letter only after after having set things up manually in a settings panel hidden in the deep)…
Okay so because Apple guys were incompetent enough to depend on microsoft in a long forgotten era, we should accept a development model where licensing terms are fixed in order to target the guys which Jobs don’t like. Sound unbalanced…
I agree with the “accessible”, I discovered a lot of good software in linux repositories, which are more or less the App Store thing done right. However, I’m very curious to know how you’re going to explain that the App Store model is more open than, say, freely redistributing software on the web like people did in the beginning of the century.
As cheap as a mac. Plus you have to pay a non-negligible fee to Apple to get your app distributed, because according to Apple’s SDK licensing terms, you can’t distribute your software anywhere except on the App Store. Contrast with, say, Windows development tools ($0), which you can run on the average windows PC which everybody owns ($0) and distribute on your ISP-provided FTP ($0) or on sites like download.com ($0).
Well, it’s a repository. There has been repositories on UNIX for ages now, and people never needed to buy a mac or kneel before Jobs (not related to kneeling before Zod) to use one.
You conveniently forgot the fact that the product were initially good, and that Apple benefits from the resulting reputation and use it *now* to sell crap. See the iPod : the iPod Nano 2G is the most buggy piece of multimedia player which I’ve ever handled. It can even crash when doing nothing. But it was just forgotten by people who said “well, let’s wait for the next one”. A more recent example of this is the iPhone 3GS, which randomly crashes a few times a month, a fact that remained more or less ignored. Contrast with Windows ME, which dates back from ~2000 and is still not forgotten as of today…
Edited 2010-06-16 14:49 UTC
Wow, what a pointless rant. Fail.
Nice strawman.
The techies, Apple haters included, and Thom excluded, widely consider iPad a very nice product, and one of the better things to happen in tech industry recently. Everybody really wants the tablet market to emerge, and who would be better slated (eh) to do it than Apple?
The deal about iPad is that the rest of the industry needs to get their shit together and start delivering alternative tablets that work as well (or almost as well, even).
Excellent comment!
The point is a simple one really. People are always mentioning comparable PC pricing to what a mac offers.
Here in the states, the only version of the specified Acer includes these specs:
AR3610-U9022
Genuine Windows^A(R) 7 Home Premium , 64-bit version, Intel^A(R) Atom^a"c Processor N330 (1MB L2 cache, 1.60GHz, 533MHz FSB), 2GB (1/1) DDR2 800 SDRAM, 160GB SATA hard drive, multi-in-one card reader, NVIDIA^A(R) ION^a"c graphics, gigabit LAN, 802.11b/g/Draft-N WLAN
Cost $329-$403
The “over priced” Mac Mini as you are referring to it has the following specs on its BASE model:
Mac OS C, 32/64 bit, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz (3MB L2 cache, 1066MHz FSB, 2GB DDR3 1066 SDRAM, 320GB SATA HDD, SD Card Slot, NVIDIA GeForce 320M 256MB DDR3 SDRAM, gigabit LAN, 802.11a/b/g/n WLAN, EDR BlueTooth 2.1, HDMI out, FW800, 8x SuperDrive, etc
Cost $699
Looking purely at the specs, i’m not even going to mention the value of the included software, there is no comparison, better processor, faster Memory, better WiFi, etc etc. So yeah, you get what you pay for. Thats the point. Hope that answers the question.
Right, I did another very quick google search.
Found the dell studio hybrid at ^a‘not499. Not half the price but almost.
Intel Core 2 duo, RAM 4GB, HD 320GB
What I’ve seen is that the similar computer recommended always seems to have the pathetically bad Intel integrated graphics. I want better throughput, not just a better CPU clock speed.
In Australia there has long been a saying in marketing that goes “How much can a Koala bear?”, which, aside from being made into numerous humorous T-Shirts and having a double meaning that’s related to the fact that Koalas are in fact not Bears, actually means “What can we get away with selling this for to our target market?”
Our prices here are inflated compared to the US pricing too, the excuse has always been that the country is such a small market but due to it’s physical size the infrastructure that’s required to deliver the products is higher per item sold, therefore the pricing has to be higher. Which is another way of saying “How much can a Koala bear?”
You can complain all you like, it won’t make one iota of difference to Apple, just as it doesn’t make one iota of difference to the likes of Lexus or Pioneer or Coke. How many people rant and rave about Coke charging twice to three times what other drink manufacturers charge for similar products? All of them charge a premium for their products because that is what the market will pay, and that premium will vary from country to country, again based on what they know they can get away with.
If you don’t like it you just don’t buy it. It’s called freedom of choice. Their choice to price their products however they please, and yours to buy it or not…
By and large, IMO, Mac vs. PC arguments aren’t so much debates as they’re contests between people trying to frame the debate in whatever way will make their favoured platform come out the “winner”.
PC advocate: price and upgradeability are all that matter, therefore the PC wins!
Mac advocate: no, user experience is all that matters, therefore the Mac wins!
PC advocate: well I’ve had a good user experience with PCs and, even though I’m part of the small minority who build their own computers with carefully-chosen components, I’m going to assume that my experience is representative of all users. Therefore, the PC wins!
Mac advocate: well I’ve had a bad user experience with PeeCees and, even though all of the PCs I’ve used were bargain-basement crapware-laden eMachines, I’m going to assume that *my* experience is representative of all users. Therefore, the Mac wins!
…ad nauseum.
Apple hardware IS more expensive. If you go to Newegg and get the cheapest parts in a beige box then you can cut the cost to about half what the Mini is quite easily. Most of the people on these boards (me included) grew up “rolling their own” and it was always cheaper. Now that Apple hardware is line-item comparable with windows hardware it makes the cost difference a bit harder to take.
BUT…
in the case of the Mac Mini find a comparable Windows machine that will sport a Core2Duo, and 8GB ram, BT, wireless N, etc. in the SIZE of a 3.5 hard drive enclosure. You won’t find it at a $699 price point, and certainly not in the RETAIL channel. Without being demoted to Celeron M instead of Core2Duo or worse Atom and integrated Intel graphics instead of Nvidia, you won’t find any wireless or gigabit networking or firewire 800 in Windows desktops at that price point either. The only real competition Apple has for the Mac Mini is in the embedded industrial PC market.. and those start at twice the price for half the hardware. The Mac Mini is highly unique and because of that Apple can pretty much pick whatever price they want.
The challenge is not if you can go to some obscure vendor with one website and cobble together something for way cheaper (without including any cost for Software, assembly time, or shipping though) Find something like the Mini in the RETAIL channel that’s turnkey. They don’t sell for anybody else other than Apple. Dell has some equipment that’s close to the Mini, but the cost is equally bumped up to match the Mini “because they can”. Dell has the Zeno, but the only model comparable to a Mini is the most expensive one. if you take the Dell Studio Hybrid, you are in a similar size and style, and the price is about the same… for lower specs on CPU, GPU, and ram. The Mini is not as “overpriced” as it feels like, it’s just not “cheap”.
Thank You mabhatter, that was well said. Every time Apple releases a new upgrade the trolls come out of the woodwork complaining that the Mac is a rip off and a PC is half the price.
Well sure you can get a cheap PC for half the price and that is fine. But it is not a Mac. There is only one Apple and you are not just buying an assemblage of chips and bits. You are buying fit and finish, highly engineered products with top quality Industrial Design and a level of high-grade that I have not seen in any other computer manufacturer.
Are the PC’s you buy going to have an Aluminum enclosure that is manufactured in such a precise nature? No. Is the PC in this size going to have Bluetooth, 802.11n, gigabit Ethernet, IR sensor, Firewire 800, and dual video ports? No. You won’t find these in any PC of this size because it does not exist. So while I would like to see it priced at $499, Apple has a right to make money too. Think about all the money they had to put into this in R&D.
well i just built some ubuntu dev boxes with core 2 quad cpus on a mini-itx motherboard. ok i will give that the case is a little bit wider than de mac mini case. but most people wisiting our office prefer it to the mac minis that we have.
so what will 400usd give
core 2 quad 2.4
integrated nvidia 9400
500gb hardrive
gigabit e
802.11n
no fw 800 and no cdrom but optical drives now days feels ancient
Hardly comparable to what the Mac Mini is offering. FW 800 and Optical drives might feel ancient to you but many of us require them. So add in the cost of a commercial OS like OS X or Windows, add in FW 800 and a DVD burner, then were are you at? nvidia 9400 is also not as fast as the 320M.
I can buy what you had for $400 but the point is that it is not a Mac mini and it is not comparable to one, so that is pretty much irrelevant.
Personally I do wish the Mini was about $200 cheaper, but there is not much competition in this sector and until there is it is going to be a somewhat premium.
One thing people seem to forget is that an Apple is not a nameless clone thrown together by an enthusiast. It is a highly engineered thoughtfully designed system, like all other Apple’s. In this case, you do get what you paid for.
I don’t know about US prices but in Europe at least, the Dell is almost half the price.
Lot of sensible comments recently in my opinion. I’d especially like to congratulate StephenBeDopper ( http://www.osnews.com/thread?430432 ) and spiderman ( http://www.osnews.com/thread?430409 ) for their respective interventions.
This post surprised me. I’m not informed enough on hardware pricing to know if your information on PC pricing is correct (for me, hardware is just a boring necessity which I only care about when upgrading my computer and totally forget afterwards as long as it works. By the very nature of computer science, the most interesting part lies in software, as long as it’s not crippled by the hardware of course), so I’ll let other more informed posters correct you if you’re wrong. However, if you’re right, congratulation for pointing out some very interesting fact !
As I don’t know yet if I can rely on this information, I just wanted to ask some questions which are not related to the pure hardware spec/pricing ratio.
1/Do the customers of a mac mini-like computer really need such high-spec’d hardware ? (somewhat related to the cellphone plan pricing debate where plans keep getting more and more expensive for average use even though they get filled with useless things in compensation)
2/Considering that they can buy a nice laptop for average use at ~400-500$, and home computers like Asus Eeetop and Dell Studio for around the same sum, in what way does the Mac Mini help people enough to justify its price tag ? Are there some usage patterns which a Mac Mini can fit and which a laptop or some other competing product cannot ?
3/Apple has shown in the past that they were able to provide the same product (mac mini) at a much lower price. Customers sounded happy with it, and I mentioned in an earlier post some usage patterns which this low-priced mac mini could fit. Now, mac mini pricing gets higher and higher, and more and more of its usage patterns vanish. Can you explain what customers are granted as a counterpart ? Do you think it is enough ?
4/Considering that Apple makes more and more people buy a mac when they wouldn’t have bought one otherwise because of the infamous iPhone SDK licensing terms, making price of the low-end Mac fly high sounds like pure and obvious business logic targeting higher benefits. Such a behavior sounds like a motivation to hate the brand, and boycott this product as a customer in order to express his disapprobation against such unfair commercial tactics. Can you provide an alternative explanation, or some kind of sensible counterpoint to this one ?
(Well, I’m pretty proud of this post. I just find it very well-written, compared to my average rant quality
)
Edited 2010-06-17 09:10 UTC
Over-expensive according to whom? Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it. Apple’s profits are proof that their pricing is spot on. You say its too expensive (fair enough), the market says otherwise.
As to *how* Apple charge more for the equally specced hardware and get away with it, my two cents:
PCs are a homogenous product. Apple products are luxury products.
The added *utility value* that Apple offers is as follows:
1. OS X and some other bits of software
2. Outstanding industrial design.
3. (MOST IMPORTANTLY)The emotional response from users interacting with Apple products. Rightly or wrongly, us mac users get very attached to the products. Sad? maybe, its just the way it is. Fact is its the combination of good design both in hardware and software that illicits this response. This is also why Apple users exhibit freakishly high brand loyalty (and alas, sometimes zealotry and fanboism).
4. Brand power. The perceived build quality, easy-of-use, security, and coolness. (and contrary to belief this isn’t just about marketing, the primary factor here is how the users feel about the product and what they say to others about it)
I’m a techie, yet I willingly pay more. Yes, I could build my own machine and install linux. But I find Apple products work better for me. The utility value i gain, is worth the extra money I spend.
So my long winded point is this that a luxury product can get away with charging more than a homogenous one, provided they give a utility value in return. The market decides whether your price point is right or not.
I tried not to troll, honest!
Uh, what? Please reread my post I said exactly the opposite.
Had to google both just to know what the fuck Bentley or Lear jet was. If you are going to make some bogus analogies, please at least use known brands, like Ferrari or whatever!
I certainly couldn’t afford a Ferrari, but I could well afford 10s of those Mac Minis if I wanted to, believe me. Not that that has anything to do with the point actually.
Good sir, read the post. My point was PRECISELY that I can NOT BUY and STILL complain. It makes perfect sense.
And I still have the freedom to bash their product and complain as loudly as I want. I’m not their slave, is it that hard to get?
Oh my …, I’m not going to google for those products I suppose you talk about cars. So the Mac Mini is supposed to be a Ferrari and the ACER a Ford Ka or whatever? Reread the specs I gave you right there in the post and come back.
What was that? English humor or what? Can you parse it for me plz?
Wait…you don’t know what Bentley or Lear Jets are? I will never be able to afford a Bentley, I don’t even aspire to own one because I am not on that level of wishful thinking…but I at least know what one is.
You must be British or some commonwealth country/ex colony, I don’t know. I’m from continental Europe. Never heard about Bentley or Lear jet. Know about Ford, didn’t know about Ka.
Edited 2010-06-15 14:08 UTC
I am an American. Nice assumption, though.
aesiamum: “I am an American. Nice assumption, though.”
So ex-colony then?
I shudder for some of my countrymen.
Oh I know the British thought we were a colony, but when they actually tried to enforce it, we fought back…and won. We were colonials but America was never truly a British colony.
I know they say the victors always write the history books; but if you look around you will still find some of them that refer to the “Thirteen Colonies”.
spiderman, unless you’re from another planet or are 8 years old …. you’re a nitwit if you don’t know what a Bentley or a lear jet is.
If you say it, I must be a nitwit then.
Had to look that word on google though. nitwit: a foolish person or a stupid incompetent person. Asked people around me just to be sure. Seems like I live and work with nitwits too.
Please, get outside a little and experience life. How the fuck (since you would rather not communicate without vagaries, i’ll use the language you appear to be familiar with) does a cum bubbler like you not know what a Bentley is but know a Ferrari? Since you are saying Apple is priced like a luxury product, I referred to a luxury product, but since poor people like you don’t understand luxury, my bad, with your food stamp welfare check cashing ass.
You are right, you can yell as loud as you want reminiscent of that time in prison in the shower, its your right, and just as in prison, it wont matter. And no, that wasn’t English humor, I referred to a bridge as you are a troll, and since you obviously didn’t understand the reference, that makes you a stupid troll (psssst, thats the worse kind).
He does seem to have lived under the bridge for quite some time and missed all the cars passing on top of it. I guess his mother never told him the story of the troll under the bridge.
What a tiresome post. Anyone who criticises Apple, even a loyal customer, must be a troll. How dare he point out that hiking up the price by ^Alb150 for very little reason has lost Apple a sale! Just unqualified adulation and praise here, if you please!
We all know that Apple offers a level of quality that you have to pay for, but if they arbitrarily crank up the price for basically the same slightly updated product and then crank it up some more for us Europeans, then I think they’re ripping off their faithful and they deserve to know it.
An Atom processor, no aluminium casing. Graphics weren’t listed anywhere but the sucky CPU suggests it would be useless anyways. It also lacks software (Macs come with iLife bundled), and you fail to acknowledge the simple fact Apple sells its OS for 30 bucks, so it’s deemed to make some of the missing money through hardware sales. Apple also has a full onsite warranty, Acer doesn’t.
Sure there’s a bigger margin for Apple than there is for Acer – ASSUMABLY – but your laughter of a comparison fails to make any valid points.
Edited 2010-06-16 03:58 UTC
It’s even worse than that – it’s ^Alb649 inc VAT on the Apple UK store. For a Mac Mini. Are they insane??
I had one of the older Mac Minis for a year before I got my Imac. I paid ^Alb399 for it and I thought it was a spectacular machine. Since then there’s been two price increases and now it’s ^Alb649 for a fairly basic computer without a monitor.
The form factor, quietness and HDMI socket are very nice for home cinema but at that price they can forget it. Lunatics.
You’re not the target customer. Sadly they’ll probably sell a ton of these.
How do you know he’s not the target customer??
I’ve personally owned a ton of Mac kit and my eyes lit up when I saw a new Mac Mini, but there’s no way I’m paying this. No keyboard, mouse or screen and despite the HDMI, they can’t even give you a cheap Apple remote. That’s passable at ^Alb499, but ^Alb650?!
It’s the same as the Mac Pro, which has been hiked and hiked and now starts at a ludicrous ^Alb1940.
As someone else said, vote with your feet AND tell Apple why.
Why would selling a lot of this product to satisfied customers be “sad” in any way?
Oh, wait .. “sad” because the sheeple that buy them don’t know why l33t haxorz like yourself laugh at the specs … yet they will likely get many enjoyable years of usage out it.
Gotcha. You win. Yup.
Don’t worry, when ObaMAO rolls out the VAT here we’ll probably be paying more than you guys.
the Yoo Ess Aye has had a sales tax (VAT is a variant of sales tax) across a majority of it’s states for time immemorial. You are either remarkably ignorant or trolling.
Sales taxes at most places dont come even close to VAT rates. Also vat is applied more than once during the journey from manuf plant to destination. Americans now tend to order online to bypass sales tax. Personally I think a revolt has long been due in the US for all this legalized stealing.
Edited 2010-06-15 12:53 UTC
No I’m afraid you’re the “ignoramus”, way to demostrate it!…Sales tax in the US vary by state and even county and/or town/city..here in Crook County, err I mean Cook County, there is quite a high sales tax rate for the US. The combined tax rate, (city + county) for Chicago (the largest city in Cook County) is 10.25%, and as the other poster stated, is only applied at point of sale and not along the manufacturing process.
Oh and here’s some reference material to read…but I’m sure you already have it memorized and something is wrong with my eyes…http://tax.illinois.gov/Publications/Sales/strrm/07012008/ST-25.pdf
chip chip cheerio!
Your avatar kind of fits the first line of your post
How is it Apple’s fault that the United Kingdom is one of the most expensive countries in the world to do business in? Maybe you Brits should do something about the obscene cost of doing business in the United Kingdom then there wouldn’t be the massive disparity in prices. Apple aren’t going go absorb the higher cost of doing business in the UK hence it is passed onto you the consumer.
How do the other computer vendors manage to have similar prices in the US and in Europe and not Apple then? Can you explain that?
Edited 2010-06-15 14:00 UTC
Probably because they’ll sacrifice their well-being just to appear number one in the sales charts. Dell were killing themselves to kill the competition. It took years for it to hit home, but it came back to them in a huge way and they’re still trying to recover.
Apple, on the other hand, are not going to win at all costs. They are comfortable and that’s how a business should be.
What you said. Geez these posters are thick.
So exactly how much more expensive is it to take an order on your web site from a UK customer; charge them in pounds and then have the item shipped over from somewhere in China. I thought a lot of Apples cost justification was the clever design work and R&D.
For anyone in the UK seriously thinking of buying a new Mac Mini I suggest it would be quicker and cheaper to just write “sucker” on your own forehead with a magic marker.
From what I understand Apple run an call centre in the UK along with a whole infrastructure for importing into the UK.
I think it’s in the Irish Republic (I could be wrong). Certainly, they have a presence in Eire and whenever I’ve ordered online, the sales person has been Irish, judging by their accent.
I’ve not used any helplines though, so possibly those might be in the UK, but I have a vague memory of Ireland enticing in tech companies during the ’90s with loans/special deals and I think that Apple was one of the ones which took up the offer.
Incidentally, as an aside, here’s a tip for getting Apple kit cheaper (at least in the UK): always use the phone ordering rather than the website. At some stage, the salesperson will ask you if you wish to proceed with your order – say something like: “I’m not sure, I have been looking at Sony/Dell/Whoever and they seem really good value”. You invariably get a discount offered to you. I got 5% off a MBP recently. Not a huge percentage, but given the price of Macs in the UK, not to be sneezed at.
Edit: typos
Edited 2010-06-16 12:38 UTC
So have a friend in the US buy it from an Apple store and ship it to you, and you pay him the USD cost plus shipping via PayPal. It’s bound to be much less than what Apple asks for in your currency.
It sucks to have to do that of course, and it’s a dick move by Apple to charge so much overseas. But, that’s the way the corporate world turns.
Probably would work for the UK. Unfortunately that does not work for continental Europe. People don’t want the English version of the Mac.
Have you ever used a Mac before? You choose your language the very first time you power it up, and from that point forward the OS and apps are in your native language.
So OSX is multilingual even in the US, contrary to Windows ?
Edited 2010-06-19 19:25 UTC
Indeed, I don’t remember how many languages there are in total but I know there are several European and a few Asian languages. When you first power on a new Mac, or on the first boot after reinstalling the OS, the first screen you see is a language chooser. There are also regional settings for the entire globe.
I saw this on the few macs I set up, but I thought that it was only on an european version of OSX.
Why would you? http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aluminium
Meaning: there’s no need to spell it otherwise, aluminium is a valid spelling.
It’s because every time anyone on the internet publishes an article with either the word “aluminum” or “aluminium” in it, some spelling troll with only knowledge of one of the spellings points erroneously that it is misspelled, only to have their smug self-satisfaction ripped away by an army of more knowledgeable spelling trolls who point out what you just did. This usually devolves into 20 or so posts that have nothing to do with the article itself (much like this one).
It appears Kroc’s attempt to curtail this inevitable behavior by mocking it in the article have been futile…
And so is the way of the intertubes.
Nucular, Lisa! It’s called Nucular!
Not sure what you re trying to prove with that link, if you want an actual definition you have to got to: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aluminium
Maybe because there’s no element on the periodic table that is spelled “Aluminium”.
And another thing….the letter is Z (as in zee). Not Zed. Whatever “King” developed your “English” should have been drawn and quartered.
Weren’t euros supposed to cost much more than dollars ? ^^’
Without VAT, that one costs 965^a‘not in germany (19% VAT), with xe.com claiming that $999 equals 814^a‘not currently.
So it’s partly that EUR prices usually contain VAT, while USD prices don’t due to interstate trade rules, if I understand matters correctly.
Apple still increase their margin by about 19%.
No, they increase the PRICE by 19%. Their margin increase would be something like 100% it would seem.
Yes correct, if you count the monetary fluctuations in and the average VAT in the EU for the first time in years a 1:1 price comparison would be close to correct which means 699$ in the US without VAT would compare to 699^a‘not including the average VAT, the rest is just Apple Tax the import taxes are mostly the same for the US and EU versions. (companies mostly have found ways to bypass them over here in Euro country)
So this means by counting out everything Apple charges us 100^a‘not more on the average here in europe than it does in the good old US, add to that the general price hike and lesser specs to the old model and you can see you have to pay significantly more for less.
What Apple mostly did is to overcharge the same or even a bigger sum they used to get by their 1:1 pricing scheme when the Euro was higher. But back then it did not hurt that much because the machine generally was cheaper and you got more for the same money.
Btw. just to give a short comparison 799^a‘not comes close to 960$ at the current exchange rates so where does this fit into affordable anymore.
We are used to being charged more but for that hardware having to pay 960$ good luck Apple, all I can see is the prices for the last revision probably going up on E-Bay.
999 USD = 679 GBP = 818 EUR = 7882 SEK.
The price in Sweden is 11395 SEK which is 1444 USD…
Even after adding the 25% VAT to 7882 it only adds up to 9852 SEK so for some reason they charge 195 USD more for the Mac Mini Server in Sweden than in the US.
$999 = ^Alb679
^Alb679 + 20% (UK VAT tax) = ^Alb815
^Alb815 + 14% (UK AAPL tax) = ^Alb929
$999 = ^a‘not818
^a‘not818 + 18% (ES VAT tax) = ^a‘not965
^a‘not965 + 17% (ES AAPL tax) = ^a‘not1,119
As a pro-social spanish guy, I praise apple for taxing us higher so they can give even more social benefits to the community…
Actually on the Apple Store the Mac Mini starts at ^Alb649.00 Inluding VAT (Sales Tax)
Also VAT in the UK is 17.5% currently.
So your figures are out by a fair bit – but I agree that like for like products are more expensive outside of the USA even allowing for currency fluctations and sales tax.
All the prices I displayed are for the server mac mini, so figures should be ok except for the UK VAT…
Well with a strong Euro it should cost 572^a‘not (excluding VAT) and with even with VAT it should be cheaper in EU but so is not the case.
Common VAT % EU Example
19 % 680.68 ^a‘not Pricing in Germany 809 ^a‘not ($987.86)
20 % 686.40 ^a‘not Pricing in Italy 799 ^a‘not ($975.65)
21 % 692.12 ^a‘not Pricing in Ireland 799 ^a‘not ($975.65)
22 % 697.84 ^a‘not Pricing in Finland 799 ^a‘not ($975.65)
Extreme VAT % EU
25 % 715.00 ^a‘not Pricing in Sweden 7995 SEK (829.82^a‘not $1 013.29)
1 U.S. dollar = 0.8189 Euros
1 Swedish krona = 0.1037 Euros
That’s almost MacBook money just 200 ^a‘not price diff and then I get a screen. I would not buy it for that price 572^a‘not or 697 sure but not 799 ^a‘not.
Welcome to socialism. Thanks to goverments, who thinks out we should support some bums on universities that only grow beards, argue on Linux crap and try save johny polarbear, everything is much more expensive here. And don’t forget Euro has dropped like hell thanks to some wise men who figured out that only reliable accounties are greeks. Also you have to translate whole material to some cryptic language spoken by 5 people in night time or making version with combustion engine attached so you can sell it to econazis as hybrid.
Here in Brazil, everything from apple is, at least, 3x more expensive…
Brazil heavily taxes everything imported to encourage purchases of locally made product.
Not just Apple products.
Unlike what the summary here states, the 2.66 GHz CPU is available as an option to the base model. In the US store it is a $150 addition.
I really want one of the new minis, my G4 and first generation intel minis are showing their age. Unfortunately i find the new prices totally ridiculous, with 2.66 GHZ and 4 GB ram, the price gets up into the iMac range Part of that is no doubt that the dollar has gained value which isn’t reflected by the iMac prices yet, but still…
Thanks for the correction, the store was bouncing up and down whilst I was writing the article and couldn^aEURTMt test this.
Firewire instead of e-sata?
Its nice, but way too expensive for an entry level machine.
I’m getting more and more annoyed with Apple as of late. Its starting to like like OSX is being relegated to a developer platform for the iOS junk.
I love OSX, IMO, it is FAR AND AWAY the best desktop unix ever made. (I have using and developing on Linux since 1995, and using Sun OS since about 1987, so I certainly have some experience to make this claim).
I just wish they would let OSX run legally on non Apple hardware, or at least make some hardware that the same order of magnitude price/performance ratio as say Dell. Given how awesome OSX is, even a cost of 1 – 2 times more then a comparable Dell would be tolerable, but this thing is what like 4 – 5 times more then a Dell of the same specs.
I’ve been using OSX since the NeXTSTEP days (Had a NeXT Station at University, and bought myself a copy of OpenSTEP), but these ridiculous price increases, lack of hardware updates will push even people like me away to Linux full time.
The copy of NeXTStep/Openstep was $299 university pricing.
Commercially it was $799 User/ $4,999 Developer.
Add in WOF when it was 3.1 and it was $2500 entry/$50,000 Enterprise.
Your NeXTStation was > $10,000 when it came out.
And you’re whining about $699?
LOL, I was thinking the same exact thing.
I doubt Apple is losing much sleep for not going the extra mile to cater to that “untapped” market of people with very limited purchasing power who are not interested in buying apple products.
Very attractive device…
…but far too limited and insanely priced. Remember, the HTPC is usually the 3rd or 4th computer. I’m not going to spend 700 EUR on that.
well it’s not exactly an HTPC tho, it can be an HTPC. The HDMI is nothing more than something the new Nvidia 320M provides for free, I think people are reading too much into this as an HTPC device only.
this is a still a primary Mac machine, thats why they are still focusing on form factor, it’s made to look pretty sitting on your desk.
Actually I found that a good incentive to get a Mac Mini as my first Macintosh. I had three computers at home — one desktop, two laptop and I wanted to try out the mac experience so I got a Mac Mini as I can double it as a HTPC (back in 2008, so it’s connected via vga cable).
Of course, the price puts me off entirely
Considering the neatness of the little Mac Mini and the premium you always pay for nice design, I don’t find the basic price tag too shocking. It’s not an entry level computer for people who want value, but it’s a nice HTPC, carputer, or system for green/quiet computer enthusiasts.
The amount Apple charge to go above the basic spec is a blatant rip-off though:
^Alb123 extra for a 2.66Ghz rather than a 2.4Ghz CPU.
^Alb80 to go from a 320Gb to a 500Gb HDD.
^Alb80 for an additional 2Gb RAM.
The cost of a minor upgrade is more than the actual cost of the component. For example, you can buy a 500Gb 7200RPM 2.5″ HDD for around ^Alb60, with the price difference from a 320Gb drive at around ^Alb10-^Alb15.
With the Mac Pro it’s much, much worse. With Apple charging some crazy prices, like ^Alb450 for a 2Tb hard drive.
Add the above upgrades to the Mac Mini, plus a basic Apple keyboard and mouse, and the price rises to around ^Alb1000, without a screen or additional software.
You can get a very nice little PC for ^Alb1000.
No question, the new hardware design is slick and to be honest seems specially designed to take over the premium HTPC market and make the AppleTV obsolete. But for me to really have a reason to buy it and for it be worth the prices they are charging, it needs Bluray. It’s such a glaring omission it’s almost ridiculous.
Maybe in the next iteration….
Here’s what I don’t like: no DVI port.
Display Port is still very rare. And this put people at buying another adapter. Mac Minis are marketed for people that have already monitor/keyboard/mouse.
I guess, since a lot of the new Monitors come with HDMI ports, this problem will be negligible in the near future. I even read that the new 1.4 HDMI standard will even bring Ethernet capabilities.
It comes with an HDMI to DVI adapter.
My bad. Didn’t see the included part of Apple’s mini page.
They FINALLY abandoned the old power connector. The previous Mini’s power connector was ridiculously easy to accidentally bump out. This new (much more standard) power connector should be much better.
Mini-DVI also suffered this same problem, it was plainly a weak connector. I can totally understand why they dumped it for HDMI.
Edited 2010-06-16 05:22 UTC
access hole sure is welcome. Beats what I had to do to my grandpa’s Mac Mini: http://www.methodshop.com/gadgets/tutorials/macmini-ram/index.shtml
putty knives should never be necessary for changing RAM D:
I don’t think anyone’s pointed out how badly the new model compares with the more expensive version of the old mini. The new model is 50 Euros more expensive than the high spec old model here, and what do you get for that extra 50 Euros? Apart from the better graphics and SD slot (which don’t interest me), you get half the RAM (2GB vs 4GB), a slower CPU (2.4GHz vs 2.53GHz), and one fewer USB ports.
Adding BTO options to address the shortcomings in RAM and CPU would bring the increase over the old model to 275 Euros. I was waiting for the new mini to come out, but when I saw the price and specs I rushed out to buy the old one.
Apart from that, the Euro 499/599 model seems to be completely gone. Although I like Macs a lot, until they drop the prices, there is no entry-level model that I can recommend to newcomers anymore…
It seems to become clearer and clearer: OS X is for media development (only), iOS is for consumption (the masses).
man after reading these VAT prices, I sure as hell hope we(US) doesnt go down that road, if people think the ecomony[sic] sucks now that should really put the final nail in. but then we have a live action Idiocracy playing out right now.
Most of the price difference is down to a larger profit margin for Apple, not VAT.
Well, it looks like there are still people believing in “techies” around, so I thought that it would be interesting to go into more details about why I believe that those don’t exist.
First, let’s condensate what’s gravitating around the “techie” concept :
-He is biologically speaking an average human being, generally male (hence the “he”), with a particular interest in science and technology.
-This interest to such a boring subject can be explained by the fact that he has been blessed by the God of Technology with the ability to directly connect its brain to any electronic device through the use of electromagnetic waves, bypassing any computer interface. This allows him to silently ignore standard user interfaces designed for mere mortals and just go straight to the point. It works even in situations when the device looks broken, because the electromagnetic waves provide enough energy to power on the device just the time needed to communicate to its prophet what’s going on. Be careful that because of this, techies may, after long exposure, cause cancer.
-Because of their telepathic fusion with electronic devices, techies feel very comfortable about them, and always buy lots of them. A so-called techie which only has one computer in his house for work is not a real techie, but rather someone who pretends to be one. Even if he sees computers everyday because of his job, he always want more, and can never get enough. This intimate relationship is beyond human comprehension, and goes way further compared to normal human contact. This explains why techies feel uncomfortable with other human beings, and prefer to stay at home (where home is everywhere when there’s a computer, or a smartphone if no computer is available) and never go out. Notice that this conveniently make their existence non-falsifiable, since even if you never see one in the wild ever, you can still profess that it’s because they stay at home.
-Techies do not have normal human needs in terms of feature. They always ask for things which are obviously useless, not because they are stupid but because features are a kind of meal for them. The more electronic device features they gather around them, the better they feel. Techies have a relationship with feature diversity that is closely related with that which flowers have with the sun. This, and not some logic reasoning, explains why techies always look for features on a device and don’t seem to care for things such as look and UI.
-Oh, and techies are the sole people who can stand technological language (they invented it, in fact), so everyone at OSAlert is a techie… Except for the original poster, who is some kind of anthropologist who somehow managed to conduct an in-depth study of techies and get a great understanding of them without becoming one at all. Because he has been blessed by the God of Anthropology with the gift of being able to understand people instantly. Don’t argue.
I think that with this, I pretty much described what a techie in the sense often mentioned is. It’s some kind of superhuman being who grew so advanced that it doesn’t care about normal mankind anymore. So you have to hate it, because it’s better than you, and encountering one makes you understand how much you suck facing tech. And because like any superhuman being, they are part of a conspiracy, whose goal is to voluntarily make electronic devices more and more complicated so that they become an indispensable mean of communication between them and the human race and can finally rule the world. Only Steve Jobs managed to understand their evil deeds and tries to invert the tendency by making products which explicitly target normal human being. But he’s alone, and techies try to make it disappear (see his “Android tries to kill the iPhone” rant). So any sane human being who is not yet sold to the techie race should help him.
Props, that was hilarious
This is, in my experience, what most people call a techie. Now, etymologically speaking, techie is just a short word for “technicians”, which means people who are very knowledgeable in one specific domain of science and technology. We need such people because as human knowledge gets more and more complicated, when choosing between “knowing everything a little bit” and “knowing something for sure”, the second choice becomes more and more sensible, as long as it’s combined with people who made the first choice in order to coordinate things up.
What are real-world technicians ? A lot of people become technicians because they’re passionate, but let’s restrict ourselves to some examples of peoples whose job is to be one. As I said before, professional photographers can be considered as such. They work at such high picture quality level that they can’t anymore just take pictures and assume that the camera will do fine. They get extensive knowledge about photography theory, and then apply it on professional cameras which allows them to set everything up by hand instead of setting everything up all by itself. This is because current technology can’t, in the end, fully replace human taste when you have neat results in mind.
Then, we can consider the case of plumbers and electricians. They exist because working with pipes and electrical circuitry is both cumbersome and dangerous. People don’t want to risk their lives trying random things out, and don’t have the time or the will to learn enough to work on the broken system safely. However, they have some spare money. They hence call somebody who has studied plumbing/electricity a lot and knows for sure how to solve common problems and how to find out solutions to less common problems.
And because the techie stereotype is nowadays over-linked with computer science, this short list of examples wouldn’t be complete without a computer scientist, so let’s take a network administrator. You have four hundred computers. You want to make them work together. However, at such a large scale, the “just try putting a large hub in the middle, connecting every computer to it, and crossing fingers” methodology won’t work, be it only because default configuration of computers only allow for 256 machines to be simultaneously connected to a network. Or because a single router failure can take the whole company’s network down. For that reason, you hire a guy, who knows about the internals of computer networks and can explain why something which looks that simple can crash that easily, ask him to make the computers work together, and give him all information that he may ask for, so that he can get, based on his personal knowledge, make some computer network that rocks without you even knowing a single thing about its internals except colors.
Globally, good real-world techs have the common characteristic of being a black box. You give them money, they do the dirty work for you and you keep your own hands clean. A good tech is the most user-friendly tool ever invented, because he allows you to get a problem solved without even slightly knowing what’s happening (try this with things like a screw driver or a hammer… but not when I’m around). Hence, he’s one of the most valuable professionals in a company. I don’t know how I could get anything done if I did had some knowledgeable people around me, honestly.
But for some reason, people keep exposing misconceptions about “techies” (even though their real nature is simple and obvious), and bashing them for the sake of bashing, in a fashion that somehow make them look as if they were jealous of the hardly-acquired capacities of the techs.
I just can’t get that. Do you ?
Edited 2010-06-16 20:06 UTC
Actually, when they say techie, they really mean “nerd” or “geek”. It’s just normal argumentum ad hominem. They don’t like your point of view, get angry and call you a nerd, really meaning “an idiot” even though they know nothing about you. Pretty standard on any forum on the Internet I must say.
I remember a time when everyone wanted a mac desktop, and now is that time where it’s a very capable priced desktop. I am totally good with the price. For that amount of money, some people buy alienware, others buy apple.