2018 Mac Mini Review
marco.org
marco.org
Wow. This is what it's come to. "It hasn't gotten worse! Yayy!"
Craftily hidden in a footnote for that paragraph.
edit: apparently Apple TV doesn't have optical audio either.
This is just a standard annoying thing with Apple though. Their designs are very 'forward looking' in that they don't consider what potential customers already have so much as they do what their own future peripherals are going to need.
Anecdotally: I do have a Mac mini with my receiver, which I replaced this year. But the new receiver not only has USB input, it has wifi and built-in clients for Spotify, Tidal, Pandora, TuneIn, Roon, whatever protocol Windows uses for media sharing whose name I'm utterly blanking on right now, and a dozen or so other services, with Apple Airplay 2 theoretically coming in an update.
edit: I'd be curious to see what people are using optical for today (I'm under the impression audio pros mainly use USB interfaces as well)
And it works great over ARC! The TV remote's volume buttons get passed through automatically, and it turns itself off and on along with the TV. I don't even know where the soundbar's own remote is anymore.
I have an external DAC/amp, and I had been using optical until I recently upgraded my workstation. Now I am using USB, because the new motherboard doesn't have optical; I assumed USB would be fine, so the lack of optical wasn't something I considered with the purchase.
Unfortunately there's an awful amount of hiss with USB on this DAC. I'm not knowledgeable enough to pinpoint what's causing it, but standard remedies I've found (eliminate ground loop, try ferrite cores, get a usb filter) have not made a difference. It could be the USB interface on the DAC side, I have no idea.
While I don't _need_ an external DAC, I like using one for a few reasons: mine has a low output impedance which is good for some headphones, a convenient switch to toggle between headphone and speaker output, and a big volume knob with really smooth action. I like it. The alternative is to use the motherboard's ports; this motherboard does jack sensing such that the rear line out gets disabled if something is plugged into the front, so switching between headphones and speakers involves plugging/unplugging the headphones all the time. I also don't like adjusting volume through a tray applet.
You'd be converting from USB to optical, at which point you'd break the ground connection which would be where your hiss is coming from (assuming it's still noiseless when still being used with optical). Then, your concern would be jitter and whether the added conversion is adding lots of jitter to the equation. Your DAC might (or might not) be good at rejecting jitter noise. I've got a Lavry DA10 that's exceptionally good at rejecting jitter (in crystal mode), but that's mastering grade and maybe overkill for you.
It wouldn't add literal noise, but it's also possible for the USB connection to be more jittery than a different computer making the optical connection. That's partly hardware and partly software design (controlling how the data stream is buffered, and associated things that might slightly modulate the audio data clocking). So a change in computer feeding the DAC could also substantially affect the 'sound' of the DAC, as well as the noise issue you observed.
This isn't a huge issue for me, it's just an example of where I'd prefer to use optical. If it ends up bothering me such that I need to fix something, I'll 'fix' the motherboard.
So it's the DACs fault, but maybe it's fair to say that it's harder to make a good DAC when USB is how the data is being delivered. I'm sure a high end USB DAC doesn't have this issue, but I'm pretty impressed with my cheap offbrand optical DAC that was $11. I'm guessing I would not be so impressed with the $11 USB version.
Optical has the benefit of always being electrically isolated.
Optical digital means perfect isolation from the ground plane of the computer. It's that simple. The DAC can do whatever it needs to manage its own noise levels, but you're pretty much guaranteed a huge difference from entirely decoupling the DAC from the computer's ground plane. That electrical interference can do a surprisingly enormous amount of damage to the analog circuitry of the cheap DAC, which itself is probably not very resilient at rejecting any sort of electrical interference.
If you used optical before, it can be reasonable to use USB->optical. A lot of USB audio interfaces already have this. I'm not making use of it, but the USB interface I have on my Mini has an optical out.
It doesn't matter that I have my audio preference set to "prefer external audio" because the effing thing decides to switch back and forth between 2 and 30 times on startup, and maybe 80% of the time it settles (properly) on the receiver, and 20% of the time it tries to use the TV speakers, which are off, and of that 20% of the time, at least half of the time I HAVE to power everything down and start all over again. The other half of the time I can go through the menu with the slow-ass on-screen menu, and manually toggle back to receiver.
I just want an effing option that says "never in hell try to use the fucking TV speakers, for the love of god".
Also, I've had compatibility problems with HDMI between my old Mac Mini and my receiver. I don't know how to troubleshoot those sorts of issues. I do know that optical audio always works perfectly with every device I've ever used it with, though.
I send HDMI to my TV which sends optical to my sound system, and it still works pretty well. Earlier this year I bought a nice sound system with a receiver for the reasons you mentioned, but it added extra lag to my video games, so I returned it. My current sound system also supports ARC but it causes most of the same problems. Decoding those fancy codecs creates lag on every system I've tried, so sticking to LPCM over optical seems to be the only way to enjoy games still.
Isn't that what it was before ? I swear I had previous mac minis with a combo port like that ... why would they not continue that ?
Marco made a few million when Tumblr was sold, has a profitable podcast app and is on either the most popular or second most popular Apple related podcast.
I doubt that he’s hurting so much for money that he has to lie to get a loaner Mac Mini.
Similarly with audio... I don't know if this is true with Macs too, but on PC laptops I've often found the mic quality sucks or has interference, and I started using USB inputs.
>It makes almost nothing worse and almost everything better, finally bringing the Mac Mini into the modern age.
So, no, it's not "yayy" because it "hasn't gotten worse", it's "yayy", because "[it makes] almost everything better".
Having seen teardowns of a MacBook, I'm pretty sure that one without a touchbar would be more-or-less a completely different computer - different keyboard, yes. To accomplish that, though, you'd need to also make a different housing to accommodate it, and a different motherboard, too, because this stuff's all soldered together as a single unit these days.
And for all that, people would still be griping about the keyboard and the monoport.
They ignored those for the 2018 MBP refresh, probably because the new Macbook Air was coming. I'd bet on the full keyboard MBP getting discontinued now that it's out, or best case having the 2017 hang around while the touchbar models continue to see updates.
The Escape has higher powered CPUs than the Air or MacBook, but I don't think anyone is buying from those three based on horsepower.
Keeping it optional indefinitely, then, defeats this goal.
I don't see how this thing is practical across the entire Mac line.
1. Widespread touchbar adoption
2. Increased sales of Apple keyboardsActually, I do: They'll raise the price of the cheapest iMac configuration and include the keyboard in the box. After seeing the starting Mac Mini prices, it makes total sense.
I only estimated that they were going for 100% laptop coverage. But I can imagine a future where Apple keyboards have a touch bar option. Though not as important because Macbook touch bar penetration can drive developers to integrate with it, alone.
At which point it's not much different than gestures when it comes to answering your questions. What happens when you use a Logitech mouse on your macOS desktop instead of a Magic Trackpad?
Note that touch bar integration cannot have unique features, so it's never required. The challenge is to get developers to care about it which is the prerequisite for users to care about it.
Its OK if you like it. I'm sure lots of people do, but you know damn well significantly more people have had issues with this laptop than normal, so I'm not sure why you're implying otherwise.
The keyboard is by far the worst I've ever used, and I've owned a variety of $200 Wal-Mart black friday laptops and a couple of netbooks, in addition to some high end stuff. I had a friend with an older MBP attempt to show me something using my computer and he could barely type on it without frequent mistakes. Within a minute he was getting frustrated. It just feels terrible. I never thought anything would be worse than typing on a touch-screen but Apple's engineers have accomplished a horrifying miracle. Its like they intentionally tried to design something that's as loud as a mechanical keyboard while still having worse tactile feedback than a $5.00 rubber dome keyboard.
On top of that, its not noticeably faster, after 4.5 years it still maxed out @ 16GB Ram (They fixed this in 2018 but its too late), which is not enough for my use case + it died after 3 months (Not the keyboard, it was a power issue).
This is both the most expensive and the worst computer I've ever owned. The 2013 MBP I'm using now as a loaner while I get my new one fixed is, to quote Steve Jobs "Like getting a glass of ice water in hell." It just works.
I don't hate it, but I wish more of the tools I use took advantage of it.
I think it could be massively improved by shortening it a little on the left to make room for a physical escape key. That's about 95% of my problem with it.
And your post also answers you sibling comment: Ctrl modifier is useful outside of just Emacs.
Try it out. I believe the API changed in the macOS release before Mojave, so they relaunched Karabiner under the name Karabiner Elements. This option is under the "Complex Modifications" tab.
If I was writing a list of tricks for macOS power users to try, this would be my number one. Up there with binding a global show/hide hotkey for iTerm (I use Ctrl-Space, thus CapsLock-Space).
I currently use Karabiner for this as well, but a slightly different configuration.
The two rules I use are:
* R-Cmd + hjkl are arrows (which works great with HHKB but even on native MBP it requires less movement of hand from trackpad or typing hand than the arrow keys)
* Caps solo is Esc while Caps with another key equals Ctrl.
Is there a way to do this in Linux as well? I currently have to use Linux regularly and I rebind Caps to Ctrl however for Vim it isn't ideal. So I'd like to have the same functionality I have with Karabiner on Linux (Xorg / console).
It's not optimal, but I do it because backtick is about the same position as a hardware Escape key. It makes using vim feel ok again.
This option is available from the KE Complex Modifications tab.
Ahh... the good 'ol Scottsman shows his face yet again! Right on time!
Refuting the initial generalization by saying that no "serious" computer users use their Touch Bar because their computers are closed is nearly a textbook example of the fallacy.
I'll compromise. We'll call it the no "serious" computer users fallacy instead of the no serious Scotsman fallacy.
The touchbar is so much less functional than the keys it replaces. Some key combinations now require serious acrobatics, and you can’t touch type as easily.
We’re not buying any more macs until it improves.
What kind of work do you / your teammates do? I walked into an Apple store last week prepared to hate the keyboards and touch bars, but was very pleasantly surprised. My ladyfriend wanted to see the Air, but was so taken with the Touch Bar for photo work that she will be buying an MBP instead. While it might not be everyones cup of tea, I think Apple may have figured is demographics correctly on this one.
Yup, that's exactly what the HN groupthink would like to believe. What is by definition a small user demographic complains repeatedly/loudly that their problems are the most important, indicative of "everyone", and Apple is doomed because so-and-so bought a Surface Pro/Dell/System76. The hyperbolie is kicked up a notch here, as clearly any $200 Walmart laptop keyboard is better.
As is typical, there's never any data to support the claims and a significant number of counter anecdotes are dismissed absent critical reasoning ("you know damn well...!"). Instead, the echo chamber resonates unabated by logic.
Throw in an out of context Steve quote and you can identify this drivel pretty uniformly. It's usually best to ignore, though at times a response is merited when it's completely off topic and unhelpful (as it is here, the new Mac mini seems awesome regardless of a hater's two year old take on the tbMBP).
I also like the touchbar. The touch-slide volume is a nifty improvement...I use the touchbar for the occasional screengrab...and that's about it. As someone mentioned above, I too would really like a physical Escape key
Just like your comment, this is an anecdotal opinion on the Internet. I didn't read your response and come away with the conclusion that you were attempting to represent it as a peer reviewed white paper, so I'm not sure why you're holding my random Internet comment to the same standard.
My anecdotal evidence is that all of the typical places people go to talk about technology on the Internet(reddit, hacker news, blogs, etc.) seem to have to more complaints about the keyboard on the new MBP than I recall seeing about the old model, which was almost universally hailed as the best laptop on the market.
Included with that anecdotal evidence is my own experience in a company with hundreds of people that use MBPs. There might be other companies where everyone loves them.
It would be really helpful if we could trust Apple to publish accurate, relevant data on the new MBP vs the old one, but they have a history of hiding, denying and/or lying about issues with Apple products.
>The hyperbolie is kicked up a notch here, as clearly any $200 Walmart laptop keyboard is better.
This isn't hyperbole. Its just my opinion and it was presented as such. I've been using computers since the early 90s. I've never used a keyboard that felt worse to me than the MBP. When I say that I don't mean that its one of the worst keyboards I've ever used, I mean that its THE worst keyboard that I have ever used, which is obviously just my opinion.
>Throw in an out of context Steve quote and you can identify this drivel pretty uniformly
This isn't a case where reusing a quote is changing the context of what he meant. I wasn't saying that Steve Jobs agrees with my opinion of the new MBP. This should be pretty obvious. The original context was that Steve Jobs felt one product was so superior to another one that getting the former was like getting a glass of ice water in hell. Its a perfectly relevant quote used in the same way that he did. I just happen to be comparing different products.
>It's usually best to ignore, though at times a response is merited when it's completely off topic and unhelpful (as it is here, the new Mac mini seems awesome regardless of a hater's two year old take on the tbMBP).
1. Its perfectly on-topic to discuss the quality of Apple products in a post about an Apple product. The reputation of their products is pretty valid when people are discussing whether to buy a newer product.
2. I didn't bring up the MBP, someone else did and I responded.
3. Not liking a single Apple product doesn't make me a "hater". I loved my 2013 MBP, I loved all of my iPhones/iPads, and I love MacOS. Apple released a product that I have an issue with. Lots of other people are having the same issue. I'm not sure why you have to react to that like a personal attack.
There's this phenomenon where if lots of people have an issue with something and then a random person buys the product and has a good experience, that person decides to dismiss everyone that has had an issue, pretend its impossible the issue existed, and then act like there must be something wrong with the people that had the issue. I don't really understand that because with any product that sells thousands or millions, its typical for some people to have issues even if most like it. In this case, it just happens to be a product where a slightly larger percentage than normal is having an issue.
It could be better - it could require a bit more of pressure to press buttons and could have haptic feedback like the touchpad, but I bet someone is working on that, even if it means extending haptic feedback to the whole chassis (which is not a bad idea anyway).
If drcongo doesn't mean to speak for "Anyone who owns a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar", drcongo should refrain from using those exact words. And you should probably refrain from speaking for drcongo.
It's interesting that you chose the term "sweeping generalization". It almost always carries a negative connotation. In fact, it's considered to be a logical fallacy (see https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla...).
> I find it really annoying when someone says something like "everyone likes cats!" and then someone, inevitably, will hop in and reply with "ACTUALLY, I hate cats."
I'm sorry I annoyed you. I find it annoying when someone speaks for me and gets my opinion wrong.
edit: Is it really "inevitable" though? It happens every single time? (just kidding)
> This isn't a mathematics proof.
No, but communicating clearly and honestly is important, even in casual conversations.
Got a new one from my new job, keyboard stuck.
My brother bought a new one, keyboard stuck.
Performance is better across the board (6-core i9 vs 4-core i7, 32GB vs 16GB, faster SSD). It has a larger, pressure-sensitive track pad. The display is better.
I have a slight preference for the old keyboard, but I don't dislike the new one. I could take or leave the TouchBar. I was never a big user of the F keys and IntelliJ, where I spend a lot of my time, has good TouchBar support. I like having Touch ID. I'd prefer to have a real escape key, but the button is still in the same place so I haven't had to retrain my fingers to hit it.
USB-C with a Thunderbolt 3 hub is marginally more convenient than a Thunderbolt 2 hub plus a MagSafe power cord. I do miss MagSafe though.
Reality: Apple product breaks sales records.
This is the thing - narrow single issue analysis that doesn't even acknowledge that other factors of consideration even exist, inevitably will result in conclusions with very limited applicability.
I don't like the touchbar, I don't like the new keyboard, and I don't like the new ports.
I think there is something wrong if, now two years later, there are still people like me who not only don't see a clear benefit to upgrading, but see it as a net-negative.
Ideally, there should be nearly no one (if anyone) who prefers the previous iteration.
But the sides of the function keys are the escape and power keys, so the row itself couldn't go away
I wish the Touch Bar was farther offset, 50-100% taller for a better display area, and that the escape and touch id/power buttons were distinct. I also wish there was a standard way for applications to advertise functions for it (I have some really useful tools that are third party, such as mic mute).
I'll be getting a 2018 Mac Mini once they're available for order here, so this machine will see much less use then, just basically if I need to be able to do something while travelling (which isn't that frequent).
How else would you bind ESC?
There is nothing wasteful about it when you've been trained that way.
However, while users are mostly just faced with perhaps-hard choices about how to remap the given keys, the keyboard manufacturer and integrator Apple had many other options. Caps Lock is currently 2U wide on both ISO and ANSI layouts https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3tJagPz-xIw/maxresdefault.jpg , so it could fairly comfortably be split into a 1U Esc and Caps Lock. You could even give Escape the outside position: that's not a big reach, just the mirror-image of the ISO English # key and more convenient than Esc's existing position in both ANSI and ISO, and there's an arguable case for not putting Esc on too much of a hair-trigger position near the home row anyway. Alternatively you could carve a 1U key out from the right of the right Shift, which is pretty uselessly overlong on both ISO and ANSI.
Granted, that's not all of it. He is celebrating that it's gotten better, but he is also specifically celebrating that it hasn't lost many advantages.
I'm hoping it will be good for 3 more years.
The only real competition I see for the Mac Mini is the little computers from System76. But they're about the same price.
Are the USB C ports Thunderbolt?
I'm now wondering if VCV Rack is sufficiently multicore that it will perform better on more expensive Mac boxes, or whether this little thing has now set the bar for ability to run demanding modular synth software live. That would be really convenient.
Building a PC mothership is certainly cool as hell and I'm not knocking it, but there's something to be said for 'this is my live performance rig, it's stable as a rock and it fits in my pocket. And it's cheap enough that if I'm headlining Coachella with my modular jams, I'll buy a second one and clone it so I have a backup, there onstage ready to be plugged in if there's a problem'.
I'm with Marco on this one. Looks nice. I know what I'm getting with a Mac of this type, and this definitely looks nice to me.
(Assuming you use a typical USB A audio interface rather than something more exotic)
FWIW, I also do electronic music, though just as a hobby.
OK, hardcore studio level stuff.
Yeah, that's a bit beyond my hobby "Behringer" type stuff. Recently upgraded from 2-in/4-out to 4-in/4-out. Still plenty of bandwidth on USB 2 for that.
> I Can’t Believe The Mac Mini Is This Awesome, I Can’t Even Say “Again” Because It Never Was
Sounds like his conclusion is that it's better than it used to be.
If SSD could be upgraded buying a i5/i7 would have offered amazing upgrade paths down the road. This machine misses the mark IMHO but not by much.
Having said that, I’m still going to get one with 512gb ssd, because I just want everything neatly in one box.
Everything I read said to get the 2012 model, not the 2014 one, which was slower, less memory, less everything - way worse. So the last one before this new one definitely did get a lot worse.
That means that instead of hopelessly compromising thermals and power supply with some power hungry, yet limited GPU (because of the small form factor) you simply buy the CPU and memory that you need. It simplifies the job of keeping it cool.
CPUs are evolving a lot slower these days. This one should last you many years before it becomes a problem. Having upgradeable memory all the way to 64GB means that too is not going to be a problem any time soon. It means that a mac mini should have a serviceable life of 3-5 years or more if you are less of a power user.
Additionally, you plugin an eGPU of your choice and additional storage via USB-C. Better, when improved eGPUs become available, you can sell your old one and buy a new one without having to tear the machine apart. They also don't overtax and compromise your power supply or cooling.
I currently have an imac 5K that is nearly 5 years old now. I maxed it out at the time with all the bells and whistles and it has served me well. So, money well spent despite the shocking price initially.
I'd totally consider spending 3-4K on a setup with a mac mini, decent eGPU + monitor, and external ssd storage (I actually have a Samsung 2TB T5 already). The new imac pro would cost more and deliver less value. What I like about this setup is that it is completely modular and I can replace individual components without having to worry breaking the other components.
I imagine the mac pro next year will also emphasize expansion and upgrades through USB-C rather than internals. Basically the old model without dedicated GPU and upgradable Xeon CPUs + Memory would be exactly the right product right now. Egpus can be replaced easily and with a solid base configuration, a pro machine should have a long productive life.
There are actually plenty of nice looking small form factor PC cases that can house a full GPU
- https://www.dan-cases.com/dana4.php
I'd actually say this is one area of the custom PC market that's well served by nice design.
Besides, with Apple you are paying a premium for a dedicated GPU in a macbook, which makes the price of an external eGPU less of an issue. Because if the choice becomes paying 500 euro extra for a mac mini with a last generation laptop grade GPU or spending the same on a eGPU with modest specs (or a bit more on something fancier), that's a lot easier to defend. Especially if you can swap it out once every other year for a new one.
I'm guessing that with the mac pro they may offer some options for a dedicated, non upgradable GPU as well as eGPU options. Most professionals would probably prefer investing in the latter because it provides them performance without much compromise and an easy way to upgrade. E.g. I'm still waiting for Apple to make a move with AR/VR, which they sort of support but which they don't really actively promote currently.
Anyway, the mac mini is not necessarily that interesting for people looking for cheap options. The start configurations are nice if you don't need much but most more serious users are going to want bigger ssds, more cpu, and more memory. That creeps into the mac pro use case already. I'm guessing that in terms of price segment this thing is designed to fill the gap with the mac pro, which will likely have a starting price of around 5K, just like the last one.
https://store.apple.com/xc/product/HM8Y2VC/A
Also, one nice thing about this eGPU is that it has two Thunderbolt ports, so you can plug a Thunderbolt display like the LG UltraFine 5K directly into it.
It… didn't occur to me that I might be thinking about running such a rig off a Mac Mini. But then it didn't occur to me that a Mac Mini would come out and be in some conditions faster than any other Mac currently made. Interesting times…
I've been very happy with it overall. I have a 4k 28inch monitor and a 30 inch Cinema Display plugged into the GPU, and the eGPU enclosure has a sata port + ethernet port. There are some gotchas, eGPU.io is a great resource.
Also, bootcamp with windows 10 works with my eGPU, but required some work. If you want more info, let me know.
- be possible (while SFF devices like Hades Canyon et al. with e.g. Kaby Lake-G manage to do just fine without breaking thermals and noise)
- still be immensely useful for many/at least better than current integrated Intel (which is a significant step backwards with the dropping of Iris)
b) You assume to have USB-C/TB3 instead, when there's no argument against having both.
And for anyone really not needing it and arguing about the unneccessary cost - just restrict it to the more expensive SKU, done.
They do. It's called an iMac and comes free with an excellent monitor.
Now, seriously, unless you plan to do a lot of GPU computing (I don't) the internal Intel graphics are pretty reasonable. I can't see how a 64 gig mini would not be able to be my main machine for 5 years or more. With an updated SSD, my previous mini is a pretty good general purpose computer.
I long for a return to the Powermac G5 'basic tower' form factor.
An ITX format video card (~7") should fit into MacMini-sized case (7.7"), not sure about PSU and heat dissipation though.
The NUC8 with comparable specs (sans 6 core CPU) comes at under half the price! If you needed the 6 cores sure but given most workloads other than encoding don't - it's questionable. Even then the 6C processor doesn't cost enough to make up for the difference.
It's looking very much like all that can be done just as well off the back of this tiny computer that's less than $1000. I was expecting the computer side to have to be more than $2000 to properly handle the fancy outboard. What with the Mini doing certain single-core processing tasks faster than ANY other Mac, and even having some RAM upgradeability (?!?) there is no question that it'd be able to work with the gear I mean.
I don't need my host computer to be a quarter the cost of all the outboard gear that plugs into it. It'll be roughly the same cost as each of the pieces of outboard gear. That doesn't seem too expensive at all.
I was astonished, actually; I had assumed Windows would be better than macOS as a TV computer, other than integration with Apple services (Apple Music, my kids photos as screensaver).
Nothing could be further from the truth. It's a shitshow. 100% of Windows media players are garbage (VLC included, and there is no Movist). They can't play high-bitrate video without stuttering (on way better hardware), they show some ungodly mishmash of scaled UI and tiny unreadable UI on a 4K TV, for each player you install (about 10, so far, for me) you have to google for an hour to make sure they aren't malware (and of course almost all of them nominally are, trying to install all sorts of insane adware shit during the install phase, although that is par for the course on Windows)...
It's been 2 months and I saw the new Mac Mini and despite the 200%+ markup on storage I couldn't help but think Hmmm....
My TV also has at its disposal Xbox (OK but not great), PS4 (pretty shit), iOS (Apple TV, pretty shit), and Nintendo Switch (has no TV computer features at all, basically).
So what OSes are you talking about? Linux?? Android?
Will give it a shot.
Downside is... 99% of raspberry pi cases are really ugly :(
- Amazon FireTV remote (connects via Bluetooth)
- Logitech F710 (if you also run RetroPie, connects via USB)
https://retropie.org.uk/ is a great emulation system for several vintage consoles (80's-early 2000's).
Am I the only one though that uses the Pi with a (Synology) NAS with MySQL (MariaDB) to store the Kodi data, and my NAS (NFS) for the content? you can pick up where you left off from your Pi, to your laptop, or Phone.
I know...it's like Plex in architecture.
As for the remote, CEC will let you control Kodi from your TV's remote. Or if you have seperate audio, like a soundbar or AV receiver, a harmony remote will do.
Personally, I switch to an Intel NUC with a fanless akasa case, and aside from the occasional Lodi crash it works relatively well.
I'm not sure if Linux would make for a play-for-play better home theatre OS than MacOS, but it would certainly be both better than Windows, and better value than a Mac.
A dedicated 10-foot UI would maybe work better, but as a low-cost low-effort solution, this works great. I got the PC for free (somebody was throwing it out at work) and the keyboard plus a DP to HDMI cable was $35 total. It plays 1080p x265 just fine.
"Get peace of mind knowing your files are backed up securely in the cloud. Backup your Mac or PC just $5/month."
And use their GUI program on MacOS and sync that remote NAS storage folder.
Although recently I’ve been using my Apple TV more, I like the interface better. Still use the shield for anything I want in proper 4K with original audio.
All of the video files reside on a local windows machine and a cheap storage VPS on the cloud(located in NL). Both of the machines run plex server and auto transcode all content to an MP4 container ( HEVC for 4k content ). I force plex on the xbox to direct play all content and it usually works pretty well.
Media PCs never stopped working, and they're still better at some things. They're just less "convenient" in some ways, and requires more investment, both in time and money, which is why some people switched to streaming boxes or simply using their TV's software.
The sad thing is: This has reversed. I gave up trying to Netflix and Amazon Video from my HTPC. The former at least has an app and now even supports all formats (Dolby Vision 4k, Atmos), but the controls are terrible for a remote. The latter doesn't even have an app, and all you get is HD+Stereo. And don't get me started on Blu-Ray.
Smart TVs and Roku boxes simply cannot be trusted. I have a brand new, relatively expensive Sony smart TV and while its Android TV support is more than adequate I don’t use it at all and keep it off the internet at all times. Instead, I use an Apple TV 4K.
Which is what I'd do but unfortunately Google insists on using it's own video codec for 4k instead of H.265. Meaning your 4k AppleTV can't play YouTube videos at 4K. My smarttv can though... We use AppleTV for everything else.
I maintain that if LG or Sony offered a “Pro” version of their OLED that had no apps whatsoever and no internet connectivity I would pay a premium.
To reiterate what I said elsewhere, this Mac Mini is meant to be a desktop, not a media device (or some sort of perverse NAS). It's being pushed into the home theater niche by people who probably have a big trashcan Mac Pro at their desk and try to justify this lesser device. But it's an extremely competent legitimate PC for most people.
An iPad can’t though. And NAS’s don’t generally support transcoding.
A DLNA compatible media server can stream content to any device on the network.
Can vlc scrape Metadata and download art? Can I browse my catalog through vlc? Does it work with my remote? How hard is it to get to the next episode when watching a season?
Vlc is great, but it's just a player.
yes
> Can I browse my catalog through vlc?
yes
> Does it work with my remote?
if you got a remote that connects to your pc, yes. there are quite a few of these around, especially if you buy a microserver or similar.
> How hard is it to get to the next episode when watching a season?
pretty easy.. actually, its imo way easier than anywhere else, as you can always use a wireless keyboard/mouse and just jump around
VLC can even cast to a chromecast device and serve its content to TVs if you want that
most of that needs to be enabled through the settings though.
I use an Apple TV 4K. For non-netflix/hulu/primevideo stuff, it streams off a Synology NAS (using Plex or VLC for Apple TV)
edit: it's funny how your experience pretty much mirrors mine almost 10 years ago. A Mac guy outfitting a machine for a home media center. I was used to Mac media stuff always being behind on codec support and performance so I bought some HP PC. It never worked right, always had to mess around with audio outputs (HDMI audio output worked maybe once) and codec stuff kept breaking since either Windows or the Nvidia drivers hated trying to do hardware acceleration and you just got a green screen. We mostly ended up plugging in our MacBooks...
For me, using Plex is an utter and complete nightmare. Anything with transcoding and library reindexing is a no-go. I've tried to be happy with it at least 6 times, and each try was an unmitigated disaster. I just want a thing to play files from storage.
Transcoding is obviously a last resort, but I've used it on rare occasions for streaming live and recorded TV from home to the Plex app on my iPhone and it works reasonably well. For my home theater stuff I absolutely don't want any transcoding at all, and Plex is generally smart enough to figure out what formats my playback device is able to decode on its own. When I first got a Chromecast Ultra, I had to fiddle with some XML config files in Plex because Plex was only aware of the non-4k Chromecast and thus would try to transcode 4k content, but I believe that Plex resolved that issue fairly quickly.
I've also tried running Plex server on my Win7 HTPC with the volume mounted over CIFS, but I had various issues with that; for one, having to reindex the volume means I have to either wait 15 minutes to watch something I just procured, or manually login and force a refresh which is annoying when I just want to browse files. It's been awhile, but I have tried a number of approaches (including Plex server on OS X) and none of them were satisfactory. Furthermore, I could never figure out why any of it was preferable to simply having a media player read files from a network store and play them. I don't care about "album art" type stuff; I don't download/store/play hollywood movies or music, so those features would be irrelevant even if I cared about them in general.
The one nice thing about Plex is I now have a few friends sharing their libraries with me over the internet. It's a cool feature, but I'm only using it from the client side, and I typically forget to even consult their libraries before paying to rent content.
As for Plex wanting to transcode things, I mentioned having some issues with my Chromecast Ultra, but even that wasn't too bad. There should definitely be an option to not transcode video at all and let my playback device tell me that if it really can't decode the file. As far as I could tell, that option doesn't exist.
I haven't had any issues with library refreshing with Plex on my iMac and movies shared over SMB from my Linux file server. Plex seems to watch the shares and do small incremental refreshes for new content very quickly.
> I don't care about "album art" type stuff; I don't download/store/play hollywood movies or music, so those features would be irrelevant even if I cared about them in general.
That's definitely valid. Wouldn't basically any playback device that supports DLNA (and can decode your files) work fine for that? For me, the library features are pretty important. I had done a lot of work getting Kodi on my Raspberry Pi setup how I liked it, then I switched to Plex which is just as good or better but with a lot less work and maintenance.
The absolute best setup I've found is Infuse (https://firecore.com/infuse) with Plex as the backend. Infuse will ALWAYS request the raw video/audio stream and does all the decoding on the Apple TV, so your Plex machine can be very modest (it's never transcoding, after all).
You can also forego Plex and just have Infuse index all the content, but I've found that it's nice to have a single Plex backend that can be shared amongst multiple Apple TVs, iPads, etc.
For some reason Plex wouldn't see half of my video library. I eventually tracked it down to Plex not liking the filenames of certain TV shows.
My TV shows are named Show Name - Episode Name.
Plex wanted them to be ShowName.s0x.e0x.
I'm not going to go through and rename all of my files. Plex should just work from the metadata like iTunes does. That's what metadata is for.
Nope. Had no idea. And no idea why I should, since iTunes has no problem with it. I'm not going to spend six hours sorting 4GB of files because Plex can't read metadata that iTunes can.
We're running the Plex app on an AppleTV (4th gen, not 4K), and it all works really well. The only issue is that it loses connection to the server maybe once every month or two, but I think that's related to my really crappy modem.
edit: Plex server is running on the 2012 Mac mini "Server" edition. Quad-core, baby!
A lot of people were super annoyed coming from WinAmp. They organized their library by filename and the metadata was often a mess. They also wanted to treat iPods as USB drive and drop files on there.
Plex is even different in that it only looks at the filename and pulls metadata from the Internet.
I like the flexibility of having them separate (upgrade separately, keep in separate rooms, etc), and having a unified “10 foot” UI I can control with a remote to access Plex, Netflix, etc.
You could easily get a 2 or 4 bay NAS + HDDs + Shield/Roku/AppleTV for less than the $800 base price of the new Mac Mini. Unless there’s a reason you need Mac OS I wouldn’t get the Mac Mini.
If you’ve already got the Dell I’d consider just using it as a server and getting a Nvidia Shield as the client.
Eh? I use VLC and Media Player Classic HD on a few different machines, including a rather old i5 that only had spinning disks, and I've never had any issue with high bitrate video.
I wonder if it's something specific to your setup?
Nope. Unmitigated disaster. Same thing, navigating endless spy/mal/adware laden sites to download CCCP codec packages and plug things together, every time I installed one thing I found another thing that didn't work right. I have some weird Jockersoft thing to force some other application to keep running and restart if it fails, and even though I no longer use whatever that thing was, I can't uninstall the goddamned jockersoft thing to save my life.
Windows Media Center itself was actually a joy, though, I really enjoyed how well it worked for the things it could do out of the box which were far fewer than I had been led to believe.
I also realized that a decade+ of using OS X had left me unprepared to navigate the latest online threats in the world of not-entirely-legitimate download sites for Windows utilities. It got really bad while I was away.
My main criteria is being able to use everything from the couch, using a single remote, and no keyboards. I was close to that with the SageTV boxes, but Google bought SageTV and it started becoming obsolete, and there was never really a good Netflix integration anyway.
I find the trouble with all PC-based stuff is switching between things and inconsistency between apps. Netflix on PC doesn't have a good way to do keyboard-based control, so remotes don't work well -- you pretty much need a mouse-style pointer. Plex works GREAT but the keyboard works differently than it does when you're using YouTube, and there's not a great way to switch. There's also all kinds of dumb problems getting multi-channel audio working with Netflix since they require some type of certified system or something.
A couple years ago I gave up on PCs and bought an Nvidia Shield, and it's basically the perfect device for me. AndroidTV is a great launcher, it supports everything I use (Plex, Netflix, Youtube, Weather, Baby cam monitor) and everything works with a single remote (I use a Logitech Harmony to control it + the TV + audio). No compatibility, rights or audio issues. And bonus: it is a Google Cast device, and also works with an OTA tuner (Silicondust HDHomerun -- though I never actually use that anymore). My TV never changes inputs: it's basically just a dumb display for the Shield, which now does 100% of content playback in my house.
It costs maybe a bit more than a nice MiniITX HTPC build, but just works (whereas an HTPC will take hours of time to get it working semi-properly).
Man I was pissed when Google bought and killed SageTV. It was probably the best DVR out there. Flexible in all the ways you'd want it to be. High Wife Approval Factor (MythTV was a disaster)
I guess they open sourced it a few years ago, but our family has moved on to just renting comcasts DVR. It's actually not that bad.
... That being said, the way we consume media has changed considerably since the days of SageTV. Youtube has almost completely taken over my TV watching time.
I did spend some time trying to get the SageTV backend working with Plex, but scheduling required an awkward web app (not wife friendly) and I could never get it naming everything in a way that made it easy to navigate with Plex. Around this time, my cable company also turned off their unencrypted QAM channels so I could no longer tune them, and that was really the nail in the coffin for me. I don't pick up enough OTA channels to make it worthwhile.
When Plex released their PVR thing, since I had the gear I set it up, but honestly, I just never watch it.
You might want to take a look at Daum Pot Player.
I can't bear to use VLC anymore. It is just that much better.
I haven't tried it for your use case though.
You assumed correctly circa ten years ago. Unfortunately the best solution bar none was killed by Microsoft: Windows Media Center Edition. It had a killer ten foot interface and actually supported CableCard digital TV tuners. I can only assume it wasn't a big revenue maker and that the support calls were pretty high. Not to mention it never had more than lukewarm reception from cable companies which didn't appreciate the competition for set top tuner boxes.
These days if you really want to roll your own you can buy an HD Home Run [1] and let it stream to you. It doesn't install any malware but I haven't seen the UI so no clue if it's beautiful or absolute crap. Since it can stream via DLNA that probably depends on the device you stream to as much as anything. I punted and used Youtube TV which I'm about to cancel since hurricane season is over. Like the old song says "500 channels and nothing's on."
I'm actually very interested in these - could you point me at some? I've been interested in getting a NUC8 machine, but the cheapest I can find one for (granted, in the UK) is £750 before RAM & SSD... and I have been seriously considering the new Mac Mini as a result because the final price doesn't seem like it'll be much different.
edit: found some on SimplyNUC.co.uk starting at £650 (inc VAT), 8GB of RAM and 128GB SSD, awesome! https://simplynuc.co.uk/8i7beh-full/
Same 8GB/128 GB, but probably lower CPU for £307: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B077SLPZ63
There are many different configurations on Amazon/Ebay
But yes, the decked-out i7 Mac Mini is really expensive! As noted elsewhere in the comments (and in the article), a big chunk of that cost is in Apple's 1TB SSD pricing - ticking that option adds $800 over the 128GB SSD for some reason.
I tested the original case, and it was fairly noisy, like a busy laptop. I don't recommend it.
You may find it slightly cheaper if you install the RAM and SSD yourself. This would be easy with the normal case. Installing the silent case was more tricky, since it requires using thermal paste to connect the case to the CPU.
A quick glance at Amazon (US) says that a 7i5 NUC with 8GB of RAM and a 250GB SSD is $540.
Two monitors. Monitors that are exactly what I want.
Finally considering upgrading as it has been a while.
The low power consumption of the thing is one thing that always just blows me away. No noise, at all. My UPS seems to last forever when the power does go out.
And I say that as someone that happily switched from a Mac to a PC I built a few years ago - I like getting the maximum grunt for my money.
- Home theater -> iTunes movies play
- NAS -> iCloud clone with eventualy automation running
- Backup -> iCloud / Dropbox / Google Drive backup
- bonus: siri, xcode builds, local+ third party remote iOS backup
I have a raspberry pi setup handling the above for Google + dropbox. The day I want to switch to an Apple centric system I’d move to the Mac mini in a heartbeat.
That CPU power comes in handy for most of the mini’s use cases, transcoding for home theater / nas, or build times for build server.
I dont' know about "most", but pros who want quiet, small and fast (read: musician, audio engineers) will be all over this Mini.
You see this on The Grand Tour all the time.
But more than that, Marco Arment actually uses high end rigs in his daily work and describes pushing them to the limit. It is highly appropriate for Marco to review a Mac Mini with high end specs, and I find it informative
>Interestingly, I disabled Turbo Boost to simulate the base i3 model’s thermals, and couldn’t get the fan to spin up audibly, no matter what I did. Those who prioritize silence under heavy loads should probably stick with the i3.
I know it's probably not fair to give him a pass on reviewing the top-end, because really it is a review and should be held to the same standard as other reviews, but something about his tone makes me not care so much.
It outperforms every previous mac mini, and doesn’t benchmark that far below the 2018 i7 macbook pro. This is a desktop i3, the desktop-class cpu’s are a different performance class from the mobile line.
I listen to podcasts and audiobooks on a daily basis and I really really appreciate someone putting the effort into this. Thanks!
I honestly don't care for this audio, it's crystal clear and perfect for a podcast but the video is of him sitting in front of a window with a dog and the absence of any environmental noise is odd.
Next time, I’ll pipe the audio directly into the camera instead of relying on manual syncing during post, which had tons of drift."
Money will be an issue with the U87, so you can look for good clones; there are a few in the market.
[0] The only one thing I wish he'd add would be the ability to limit concurrent downloads to prioritize at least one of them finishing. I routinely get bad wifi and seeing 8 downloads at 55% is maddening.
Honestly, it feels like a bit of a joke.
In any case the price is due to the SSD and RAM upgrades. You can get the i7 with 8gb RAM and 256gb SSD for $1300, which is still pricey but what do you expect from Apple...
Base price on the Mac Pro has been $3000 even before the trashcan version. With the pattern in all of Apple's recent products, the next one might be more.
Don't need GPU for typical coding.
https://slickdeals.net/f/12192367-1tb-samsung-970-evo-nvme-m...
If you really need the very-high-end, then yeah, the 970 PRO is just shy of $400.
For cheaper stuff, ADATA's 960GB was recently down around $180.
SSD prices have really dropped the last few months.
The DRAM too but at least I could upgrade that myself to 64GB.
People consider this a good thing?
EDIT: To clarify, the cost of their proprietary devices mean spending an additional bit. Every other company uses USB C now.
But hey, at least it's the year of desktop linux!
Its desktop, the user should not have to type anything ever ever ever. The community is toxic and harmful to the future of linux by telling everyone that terminal for the average user is okay.
I love my ubuntu server, its the greatest thing I've ever used. No problems ever.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BN217QG/?coliid=I2D5ZX13M1AMZ7&...
The model & price reviewed here is the "let's not stop people from throwing money at us" option.
Apple made it pretty clear in their keynote they're focussing this product to be attractive to the 'pro' market that gives zero fucks about a whiz-bang graphics card.
What is it that justifies the $2500 price?
You can build a similarly spec’d PC for maybe $1500, with a better GPU, but 20x as large, not silent, higher power consumption, etc. Many trade-offs, not for everyone.
https://www.amazon.com/NUC7i7BNH-Dual-Core-i7-7567U-Bluetoot...
"This is crazy! You can just build your own for half the price!"
Snooze. You could have made this comment about most of Apple's products for decades. Some people apparently just don't get it, so here it is from my perspective:
As long as Apple does what I need, I'm not going to buy anything else. I'm definitely not going to build my own PC to save a few bucks. I recognize that not everyone is in this position, but my time is valuable and the difference between "click buy" and "research and buy a ton of parts and assemble them and install software and drivers and blah blah blah" is worth thousands of dollars to me.
I rely on a Macbook Pro for work every day. I generally keep them for 2-3 years, and given my preferences, work setup, software, and how much money I make with these things, I'd pay triple (or more) what Apple currently charges for them vs. getting some shitty Dell or Lenovo and hassling with Windows or Linux. That's not to say everyone should feel that way, but that's my situation, and I'm not alone.
[1] https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Apple-T2...
> Update 2: It looks like even if disabling the Secure Boot functionality, the T2 chip is reportedly still blocking operating systems aside from macOS and Windows 10.
That seems to contradict your claim, and I haven't seen that refuted elsewhere.
But I thought that modern SSDs were supposed to last decades, even under heavy use. Is this actually a real problem?
I remember reading it’s not supported over USB3.
Both machines were heavily used for development and consumer type stuff. No big data stuff or big media stuff.
Samsung rates these things at 150 TB write endurance for the 850 and something around 120 TB for the 840.
My projection based on that usage is that it will take over 35 years to reach 100 TB.
Samsung's ratings are quite conservative. Reviewers that have put these things through write torture tests to the point of error have typically gotten several times Samsung's rating. Around 170 years worth of writes at my usage rate.
I haven't seen numbers for Apple's durability, but if it is within even distant sight of Samsung's EVO performance you can expect to have retired the computer for other reasons long before the SSD dies.
I'd expect that the only reason the SSD might lead to getting a new computer is that you want a bigger SSD, but even that might not be an issue because Thunderbolt 3 gives pretty good performance for external disks.
My Mac Pros have both been retired, replaced with a 2017 iMac (one iMac could replace both office and work computer because we switched to working at home). My Samsung EVOs are now on the iMac in an AKiTiO Thunder3 Quad Mini enclosure.
The internal SSD in the iMac gets just short of 2000 MB/s for both read and write, according to Disk Speed Test from Blackmagic Design. The Samsung EVOs get around 465 MB/s write, 520 MB/s read, so 1/4 the internal disk but still fast enough for most purposes.
Note that the Samsungs are SATA drives. Something that made more direct use of TB3 could probably go much faster.
I used it for development type stuff. It outlasted the 2011 MBP I bought it for. In fact, I ran it on 3 different computers during its life span.
Overall, I'm pretty happy that it got the 5 years. With spindles, I prefer to replace them every 2 years to avoid headaches.
I consider using Apple products on par with using Keurig, its bad capitalism.
But if the computer dies and the motherboard survives, you can connect to some thingy on the board to get the data.
Last time I had a problem with my MacBook Pro and took it in to get fixed. They wanted me to write down my login password before they would accept it!
I had to reschedule and wiped my disk before bringing it back again.
I guess the options are throwing down the cash for a 15" MacBook Pro, or waiting to see what they come up with for the Mac Pro next year…
15" MBP is not an option for me because of the touchbar and keyboard, so I am basically out of options.
I found that wasn’t really nice to use because of the stuttering, but native 4K was much better. You need good eyesight though :)
I'm considering a Mac Mini, but there's no way I'm going back to low PPI displays and the lack of affordable 5K / 27" options concerns me (in my opinion 4K/UHD at 27" is a borderline unusable combination with its effective resolution of 1080p - feel free to convince me otherwise).
If those few 5K options can't be driven smoothly by an Intel GPU, it's settled and I'm waiting for an iMac update instead. Ideally I'd like a multi monitor setup though.
Read more about it here: https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/
In my opinion 2x scaling is the only option and that leaves you with an effective resolution of 1920x1080 points - sure, it‘s sharp, but far from true 5k and more importantly the same screen real estate we used to fit into 20-24 incch displays for years. It‘s the wrong resolution for 27“.
For me personally 4K 27'' would be better. At 163 PPI it would be worse than the 218 PPI of the 5K display, but it would not be a deal breaker if the color quality was the same.
Edit. Remembered Iiyama ProLite XB2779QQS, but it uses 6bit colors.
I suspect if they release a new display it will somehow be beholden to graphics capability of new Apple machines, possibly requiring A chips or their ilk. https://daringfireball.net/2017/04/the_mac_pro_lives
One area I can speak to now, which I'm heavily invested in, is audio applications. It's the main reason I still run a Mac. Upgrades are usually slow and cautious in this domain. I'm still on 10.12.6, and have no plan on upgrading anytime soon.
I, for one, am quite concerned. It used to be in regards to performance, but now it's all the applications and plugins that will need ported. There's a very real chance I'll go to Windows if it looks like a nightmare. Would love to see a Ubuntu variant come out of the ashes of such a thing, but that's probably a pipe dream.
Last PPC Mac: 2005
First x86 Macs: 2006, PPC apps work on x86 Macs
Adobe CS3 (first native x86 version): 2007
OSX 10.5, last OSX version released for PPC Macs: 2007
--
OSX 10.6 (x86 only, PPC apps still work): 2009
Adobe CS5 (x86 only): 2010
OSX 10.7, PPC apps no longer work: 2011
What’s wrong with the LG display? It gets a lot of criticism, but I find it hard to understand why. There was an interference shielding issue, but it was fixed more than a year ago.
For anyone familiar with the matter, what is it that makes the LG not great?
However I cannot justify the prices they're asking for these ones. I'm looking for a new machine for myself now, but no way will these be considered.
2 - I remember there being a big differential in equivalently priced machines back then. One of my current work Dell workstations is a much cheaper option than this Mac, much better specced and I've had no issues with it for over two years.
3 - It's £800 for the thing, seems way out of line with inflation compared to what I bought then.
Can't speak for European pricing, but the base model Mac Mini 10 years ago cost $599, and adjusted for inflation it would cost $750 today ($50 less than the current base model).
Got a MBP for college, 2009. Still running as my mom's laptop in 2018. Meanwhile my dad's 2 year old dell has endless problems, it's incredibly cheap, despite having better internal hardware. It's slower, needed tons of configuration out of the box, and Windows 10 is just awful. My dad's laptop constantly has issues. My mom? Never once. It just works.
I will gladly pay for a product that is like that. I don't care what an SSD costs on Amazon. I don't want to spend time looking up components and motherboards and bargain hunting. I don't care about gaming and therefore the GPU. People on here look at numbers and costs but they never consider the customer experience.
It's far more damning of Apple to have the bad keyboard on the new MBPs than have some overpriced hardware. Ask 99% of people on the street if they even know what an i7 is.
I've bought a number of Macs since I switched in 2007 and I've had a number of tragic stories.
My wife's previous Macbook Air died during its second year. It was working fine and one day it didn't turn on. Apple Mexico asked for close to $1000 at the time to replace the logic which was simply ridiculous.
My top of the line 2011 MBP died when it was 2.5 years old because of a known GPU defect. Apple fixed it over a year later but it was too late. I already had a new machine and the second hand value of the 2011 plummeted. I ended up giving it away to a junior dev in my team a couple of years later.
My current laptop is a 2014 13'' rMBP. I wanted to change the battery and Apple Mexico asked for close to $400 since it argued the complete top panel had to be replaced. I ended up doing it myself for less than $100.
I still prefer Macs for working because of macOS, but I don't know what I will do when my current laptop dies.
For a long time smart car buyers never bought redesigned vehicles. Why? Their reliability is unknown. As device gains in hardware continue to diminish, perhaps it'd be wise for us to take this stance with electronics - and wait a few years.
> I still prefer Macs for working because of macOS, but I don't know what I will do when my current laptop dies.
Sadly it's not much better on the other side. Premium window machines still can't get basic things like the touchpad right. Windows 10 is pretty bad. I'd gladly get another machine - but nothing offers what I like about my Macs. The linux people aren't worth bothering with. Most people don't want to deal with the limits - and there aren't a lot of manufacturers.
For example my 2007 MBP suffered from Nvidiagate. The GPU died during its third year, many months after the warranty had ended. Apple fixed it, no questions asked.
The 2011 Radeongate affair was ridiculous. There were thousands and thousands of users complaining online. It took Apple 2 years from the first machines failing to start a repair program AFTER a couple of class action lawsuits. It was a massive fuckup.
I haven't bought any of the redesigned MBPs with the butterfly keyboard, but again it took a couple of years to get a repair program after a couple of class action lawsuits. Also, in the US Apple is all fine and dandy, but in Mexico I've personally witnessed cases of Apple refusing to repair the keyboard because apparently they couldn't reproduce the issue.
> But without actual numbers we have no idea if this is a trend or not
Yeah, Apple is as opaque as things can be. Even more now than they will not even share the number of units sold in future reports.
Topically - it was at one point driving my television off this old E1505 and got a 2010 Mac Mini as a Christmas present, and hooked that up instead. Netflix and Hulu chugged on the Mac Mini, which also locked up for no reason from time to time. I literally installed nothing but Flash, for playing back videos.
Hulu and Netflix ran without hiccups or lag on the 2006 Dell laptop, so we put the laptop back.
Nowadays, that same 2010 Mini could probably stream Netflix reliably, since it'll be decoding HTML5+DRM instead of Flash.
My general experience with Apple products has been 50:50 some good, some bad, Apple is nothing special when it comes to quality. Better than some is about all I can say.
I've always been fond of the old Mac Pros (still one of most beautiful machines from Apple), but the extensibility through TB3 has rendered many of the advantages moot (and my Mac Pro is stuffed to the gills).
Ideally I'd want 5K displays (I'm used to the iMac 5K) but it seems that LG's UltraFine is the only real option and the rest of the industry has settled on 4K/UHD at 27 inches, which results in a) limited screen real estate due to an effective resolution of 1080p at 2x scaling and b) slightly less pixel density.
I maybe fine with b) but both issues considered I'm seriously wondering why UHD displays at 27" are so popular - it seems like a subpar and regretful combination. Are my worries unwarranted?
I typically divide each display in half, and each half comfortably fits one browser window, mail client, terminal, Spotify, etc.
MacOS only works probably with integer-based scaling - 1x, 2x, theoretically 3x. Everything inbetween will lead to blurry text/assets and decreased performance since the output as a whole will be scaled and downsampled by the GPU.
I'm working a lot with text and a sharp/crisp display is important to me. 2x scaling is the only proper option in my opinion.
I run 2 27" 4k displays off a MacBook with integrated graphics, both scaled at 1.5x to "look like" 2560x1440. It works fine; text is not quite as sharp at it would be at 2x, but it's far better than it would be on an actual 1440p display. I haven't noticed decreased performance, but I'm not doing heavy graphics work.
Agreed that display manufacturers are messing this up. 4k displays should be either 20-24" for 2x scaling or 40+ inches for unscaled; 27" displays should be 5k.
I think that would bother me.
Something you might want to consider is this 32" 4k monitor: https://www.benq.com/en/monitor/designer/pd3200u.html
It has great reviews, and while it's a bit different from what you're looking for, you might be able to run it at a higher resolution and get more screen real estate. Food for thought...
Not high enough DPI for retina, not big enough to avoid scaling. The monitor market seems to be messed up at the moment, there's LG monitor models which were shown at CES 2017 that are barely appearing in some countries today.
It was flaky as hell when it first came out but over the course of about a month of receiving it, the problems largely seemed to stop occurring.
I typically unplug and plug it in once per day when I take my Macbook Pro away to sit somewhere else in the evening. But when I'm working during the day I use it as my primary display. For my own experience the integration of brightness and volume is seamless. The speakers are good (although I use some old Genelec monitors instead for this), and the quality of the display is absolutely fantastic as you said.
About one in fifty times plugging it in to the laptop doesn't immediately work, and then I plug it into a different USB-C port on the laptop, and then it does.
Despite this I'm very happy with it.
This is reproducible by connecting both screens to a 15" MBP Pro 2016.
If the screens would at least have an ordinary power switch so I would have to crawl over my desk once every two weeks my life would be a lot better,...
They were like: LG does this now.
I just hope the default GPU of the mini can drive 3 UHD displays without choking on the dock animations :|
Concerning the Ultrafine: Yes, it‘s too expensive and since I‘d need to connect it to another PC without Thunderbolt it‘s not an option for me.
edit: There‘s also this option: https://iiyama.com/gl_en/products/prolite-xb2779qqs-s1/ - it‘s sold for under 700€ here in europe, but the 6bit is concerning.
MacOS's non-integer scaling works surprisingly well on these; I use one with an apparently resolution of 1440p with no issues.
Side note, why is a computer only for games, streaming, and mining bitcoin? It that what the end user experience is limited to?
There is a justification for the pricing, but you probably won't like it: More than enough people will buy the product at a high margin price to make up for the price-sensitive people who won't buy it.
I had the curse of having to use a 2017 MacBook Pro 13” with a 128GB SSD...it’s not forgivable, it’s not usable.
By the time I put xCode in there as well as Office, et cetera, and project files, I was left with 20-30GB left, and anytime I dipped below...20? it bombarded me, literally, continually, with a message ‘you are low on disk space.’
You know what is never forgivable? Soldering a hard drive to the motherboard on a $1500 device.
We're replacing a ton of those 'garbage-can' Mac Pro models with them. Lord knows we don't need kick ass graphics cards.
In terms of consumer-level applications, it definitely seems like the sell used to be the pleasant $500 price point.
The G4 Mac Mini, at $499, was my very first entry into the Mac world. I certainly couldn't afford $1,100 for an iBook G4 in High School.
And I'm not sure whether glossy Retina screens are really the best bang for the buck for developers. I often wish I had dual 1440p or a ginormous 21:9 screen when I'm dealing with complex projects.
Apple lent me a high-end configuration for review — 6-core i7, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD — which would cost $2499 (much of which is the SSD)
I think (and I have no relation to this person) http://lon.tv is an example of an exemplary and ethical reviewer in this regard.
How about putting "paid review" in the title of the HN submit?
Also, in case you're not familiar with Marco, he was a co-founder of Tumblr, created Instapaper, and is the developer of Overcast (podcast app for iOS). Not sure he needs the money
A 1 TB SSD is on the order of $150.
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-860-SATA-Internal-MZ-N6E1T0BW...
That isn't a performance monster. But you could get something really top-of-the-line for, say, $400.
That said, Apple should not be sodering these SSDs to the motherboard.
> which would cost $2499 (much of which is the SSD)
A 1TB SSD is maybe $200 retail?
For the cheap ones. The faster/better quality ones from Samsung and Intel, which are more comparable to what Apple is using, are $400-500
970 Pro (effectively same speed, but 3bit MLC versus 2bit): $380
The 970 EVO is $230.
Come again?
The problem is that the i7 has hyper-threading, which creates a giant security hole in your system. I'd be much more interested in the i5 benchmarks, since the i5 (supposedly) does not have hyper-threading.
My concern is mainly javascript or webasm running in the browser. Even if there aren't currently any unpatched exploits of this nature, that's no guarantee that there won't be in the future.
Second, if an exploit is discovered just disable the extra hardware threads until it gets patched.
As an aside, I don't know what your "supposedly" about the i5 is supposed to mean. The i5 has only one hardware thread per core.
The tech specs page on the Apple site doesn't give the exact part number, so there's always the chance it could be some previously unreleased chip.
I've switched over to Linux as my main desktop completely. While I've been using Windows for years, Windows 10 is just not doing it for me, even with WSL, it just feels limited and unpolished. Anyway, rant over. [0] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/when-the-going-gets-tough-...
But I believe Travis CI does have macOS workers available for free, but they might be scarce in available time slots.
I've only contacted their support team about billing stuff, but they were responsive and helpful.
Disclaimer: no affiliation, just a happy user.
The cheapest SSD I can find goes for €129.47, and it doesn't seem to get up to much more for consumer SSDs. Unless this SSD has some crazy specs that I'm missing, it seems seriously overpriced to me.
Probably more column B (expensive) than A (good)
I heard some complaints, but was all like "Yeah, but modern Apple SSDs are 3GB/sec, that is pretty good, bros..."
My coworker clued me in, though:
1TB samsung 970Pro M.2 (3GB/s)
was as low as AUD$304 here just
yesterday. Thats ~USD$215. I
don't usually mind paying the
_AppleTax_ but that is ridiculously
overpriced.
If you put anything inside your PC, you'll have to look up how it connects :)
Even outside - whether it's USB-C or thunderbolt actually matters, HDMI vs Displayport etc.
Those who prefer to pay less, have more freedom and get a higher-performance system which is more tailored to their needs will, for the (small) price of some more up-front thought, choose other suppliers. They will have the added advantage of being able to partially upgrade their system by swapping the SSD while those who choose the Apple option will have to wait for the next iteration of this product.
I havent bought Apple products, but the obvious anti-consumer and anti-developer practices are a no brainer.
Apple is clearly pushing everything towards a more luxury high end. More than ever, they're pushing the market to see how far they can go.
They're pricing me out. I can afford their stuff, I just find it hard to justify it.
I actually think it's pretty cost effective if you go for 32GB RAM instead of 64GB, and keep the baseline 256GB SSD storage. It comes out to $1,899. With 64GB RAM and 2TB storage, it comes out to $4,099, which is a huge markup for things that can be self-upgraded on a PC.
Even $2,699 for the 64GB version doesn't seem that bad for effectively the best MacOS running computer you can get currently.
The AMD graphics in the Hades' is vastly better, but still significantly inferior to anything you will connect via eGPU. A lot of casual usage will not require the Hades' GPU but you'll always pay a power/thermal price for it. As resolutions increase, or depending on your requirements now, you'll probably be forced to pair it with an eGPU because it really only excels at 1080p for 3d stuff afaik.
One nice thing from the Hades' predecessor is fanless cases, I don't know if they've emerged yet for the Hades Canyon but going fanless is really amazing. Prior to that it could be loud, and the Hades added a second loud fan for the GPU.
I was expecting the Intel + AMD GPU combo to end up in this Mac mini, turns out not.
I think the Mac mini is at an awkward price point. You need a monitor, keyboard and mouse which cost you extra. At that point you can get a base MacBook Pro.
I think it would only really make sense for businesses
Dell XPS 13 with: 8th Gen i5 Processor/8GB RAM/256GB SSD €1189
Pretty happy so far.
I can't wait to throw my money at Apple when they bring back MagSafe and scissor switches.
Not holding my breath though.
Is this common, for a company to lend a product for review, instead of just giving it to the reviewer?
Where 'much' is approximately 5-10%.
The 1TB SSD is a $800 option on the 128GB base model, and a $600 option on the 256GB model.
The 2TB SSD is an even more eye-watering $1600 option from the base model.
The PC specs are amazing, value for your money is excellent, the OS is beautiful - the biggest obstacle now is so much open source documentation explains how to install or build on a linux based machine, ignoring the Windows users and making them feel like sh*t for working on a Windows box.
If more dev's offered docs around building/compiling on Windows, and Windows support, that would be excellent...
I'll pass.
I had to install a webcam driver but other than that everything just worked(TM)
/edit setting a different scalefactor on my external (non-HiDPI) monitor was frustrating in that it worked... sometimes
Buy any desktop in any supermarket in the world and it's going to work out of the box with the latest Ubuntu. This has been the case for 5 years now.
If you have some weird hardware that needs a kernel module that isn't enabled by default or packaged as a kms for your distro, then sure I can definitely see some awkwardness there, but for instance I haven't had so much as a wifi problem in 10 years.
Definitely a stark contrast to Windows where you have to go to the manufacturer website for each component of your machine if you're not using the bloated OS that comes pre-installed.
> but for instance I
"I" being the key word there. On the other hand, I have had issues with Linux drivers every year.
Music production is a big one from my perspective -- currently, if you are looking at the tools and plugins that are the most popular in the professional world, your practical choice is basically between Macintosh or Windows.
The majority of DAW plugin synths / effects currently are not compiled for Linux, and I do not believe many popular DAWs (stuff like Ableton Live, Logic, Cubase, etc.) are currently supported yet either. I have heard that if you keep it light weight, some audio plugins will run just fine under something like WINE. But for a heavy-hitting plugin like, say, Spectrasonics Omnisphere, I have heard that emulation is too slow to be practical.
There are certainly native Linux DAWs and plugins out there, you can probably go quite far with Ardour or the Linux version of Reaper, and there's a few plugins too (u-He has some native Linux builds of their excellent synthesizer plugins for instance). It's just that the native ecosystem out there is quite a bit smaller, unfortunately.
So what I tend to do is use linux install paths and do my scripting work in WSL, with my more GUI/Corp apps in windows.
All they need to do now is get raw network sockets working and finish off Linux Docker engine support in WSL and I'll be sorted!
That being said, if someone likes Windows 10 now, there really is little reason to remain on Mac hardware. Practically, most creative software exists on Windows.
The PC specs are amazing, value for your money is excellent, and now is so much open source documentation explains how to install or build on a linux based machine.
And outside of laptops, a custom PC can still be built with whatever specs needed.
Despite Microsoft's FUD[0] ("The Long Term Servicing Channel, which is designed to be used only for specialized devices (which typically don't run Office) such as those that control medical equipment or ATM machines"), it also appears to run Just Fine[tm] on the latest desktop hardware[1]
It's the only version of W10 I'll go near.
[0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/w... [1] I've had W10 LTSB 2016 running for months on two home-built Ryzen boxes (1x 2700X + 1x 2400G)
At the same time, I am perfectly happy with my Macs; I still absolutely love macOS, my work 5k iMac is a delight to use, and my private 2010 MacBook Pro is still going strong (although as of Mojave, it can no longer run the latest OS). My 2008 Mac Mini is nearing end-of-life, but only because I can't justify upgrading its internal storage to an SSD when the computer is stuck on Mountain Lion. I worry about the price hikes, but OTOH, as long as I can expect getting 8-10 years useful life out of a system, I don't mind paying the Apple Tax.
IOS devs need to run Xcode.
Server devs can and usually should use remote servers for development. So their local machine’s OS doesn’t matter. It could be Windows, but they are mostly ssh-ing to Linux boxes or VMs for work.
None of the reviews I've seen from "general public" "reviewers", in the year or so Apple has been doing it, have provided real criticism. It's always "fine", always "great", big issues are glossed upon.
At the very least, Apple picks their target "reviewers" very well based on their bias for Apple products. That's fine in and of itself, but it creates a bad image when these people get their review units before even the media reviewers.
[1] Maybe it really isn't the hand that feeds him. Marco's primary gig is his podcast player for iOS.
ATP and Overcast (not to mention Tumblr) are successful enough that he doesn't need to be on Apple's good list to make ends meet.
It's always been a fashion statement to own an Apple product...
What bothers me is how the technical community, both software engineers and academics, have fallen into this trap.
A new Win10 pc is a much better development machine. Sorry, but I do prefer to Think Different and don't care about what is fashionable, but make my choices based on specs, utility and value.
I don't consider it a fashion statement, I just want it to work. After 20+ years I don't like to tinker with my desktop anymore. I would go back to Gnu/Linux for desktop, but finding the right hardware with the above specs is a challenge if not impossible (I have yet to find a track pad driver that works as well as Apples).
I have not reevaluated in 2018, If there is anything better I would like to hear specific examples of hardware and OS combinations?
Funnily enough, IIRC Darwin isn't unix-like - it's an actual certified UNIX™:) Although in the modern ecosystem, perhaps it's more appropriate and useful to say that it's a Linux-like :-)
Approximately how many cumulative weeks have you spent in OS X / macOS?
95% of their workforce was using Excel for reporting tasks. But, of course, this was Mac Office 20xx (08, 12?), when the rest of the world was on Office2016+. Half the features weren't available, or required people to hold down 8 keys simultaneously to work.
Baaa
The problem is that many others did the same, so these honest reviewers gained followers, that gave them exposure and eventually they get approached by the PR departments which would like to "lend" them top end review samples for an undisclosed amount of time. Well before the press NDA, of course. Lately I find myself buying paper magazines again.
That being said the new Mac Mini does seem like a great product.
I've heard many companies "forget" to ask for their seeded samples back, particularly those sent to so-called influencers.
Refurbised Mac Pro with dual GPUs and SSDs are much better value.
1. A much better discrete GPU which can run titles in 4k.
2. Ability to run games cause windows has DirectX.
3. Ability to run Linux natively using WSL.
4. Expandability - You can add components like more RAM or an additional GPU.
But what are you doing in WSL that you can't do on a Mac (or, of course, a Linux machine) without a 'subsystem'?
Sincere question, because the 'Mac is not Linux' things that wind me up tend to require X11 to fix, WSL would be no different.
Using Macports or homebrew gets you most of the packages that are available for the various Linuxes, GNU utilities etc.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_%28operating_system%29
Oh, I didn't know that, that does make it a bit more interesting to me!
I still think I'd be frustrated (as I am on Mac) with the lack of a configurable (or even of a choice of) window manager though.