Lol, Whats with this guy?

[Gamingphreek]

This is the wrong forum! This belongs in OT.

-Kevin

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
I still don't understand why Macintosh doesn't just give up, aside from the fact that Bill Gates is paying them to stay alive.

:roll:

The company is called Apple, and they made a net profit of ~300M USD last quarter.
Get a clue.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
aside from the fact that Bill Gates is paying them to stay alive.

What exactly are you talking about? Bill Gates is not paying Apple anything right now.

 

[His Lord Uberdude]

Say, this was written by a guy named Bill.......... are you thinking 'Gates'?

EDIT; Sorry, I didn't see that this was Billpalmer.net.

 

[Googer]

He has made a very good point. AMD's Getting the world wired Initiative (correct me please, i cant remember what it is called) is going to beat the pants off MAC MINI. For less than $300 usd you get a mini pc complete with monitor, keyboard and mouse. A windows operating system is standard.

 

[halfadder]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
I still don't understand why Macintosh doesn't just give up, aside from the fact that Bill Gates is paying them to stay alive.

What are you talking about? The shares non-voting Apple stock that Microsoft bought in 1997? They've sold most of that in 2002.

Apple has been a profitable company for the past 5 years. Right now they have zero debt and $6.5 Billion in the bank.

If you read some of the interviews with the Mac Business Unit staff at Microsoft (the division that makes the Mac versions of MS Office, VirtualPC, MSN Messenger, Windows Media Player, and Remote Desktop) you'll see that writing software for Macs is actually a profitable venture for Microsoft these days.

But I think I know what you're talking about. Back in 1997 when Apple fired their CEO Gil Amellio things were looking really bad. They had just bought NeXT, bringing Steve Jobs (one of Apple's original founders, also founder of NeXT and Pixar) back into the loop. Jobs knew he had to make some fast moves and one was to get Bill Gates to personally acknowledge Apple and promise to keep making Mac software for the next 5 years. There was also a stock deal in which Microsoft bought something like $200 Million of non-voting Apple stock to keep things serious and to shake up the market. This made the front cover of Time magazine. About 9 months later, Steve Jobs unvieled the iMac and the PowerBook G3 and the rest is history.

 

[neuralfx]

I like Apple, but this man has some valid points. I am really non-plussed by the Mini. Maybe if they were offering a little more or at a little lower price point ... You may as well wait a couple paychecks and get an iBook if you are looking at the Mini.
-neural

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: aeternitas

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: LtPage1
this isnt the place to make fun of mac-bashers. try insidemacgames for that. get used to bad press from the ignorant masses- the mac has been getting it for years, its nothing new.

The computer-literate masses, maybe... the regular masses think macs are uber computers because they're expensive and have chic tv ads. They don't buy them because a Dell is 80% less expensive.

Exactly what Dell is this small without a keyboard and mouse? IF they even had one, do you think it would preform as well? Do you think it would cost less?

HARDLY. Stop compairing things that arnt comparable. No one here is compairing a 300GB drive to a 36GB Raptor. They are for people with differant wants.

My comment was in reply to another poster and dealt with Macs in general, not this new mini...

Down boy...

 

[halfadder]

Originally posted by: Googer
He has made a very good point. AMD's Getting the world wired Initiative (correct me please, i cant remember what it is called) is going to beat the pants off MAC MINI. For less than $300 usd you get a mini pc complete with monitor, keyboard and mouse. A windows operating system is standard.

See my other thread in General Hardware for comments on the AMD PIC based on the Geode CPU. It's a lot of hardware for $80 - $180, but you can also buy a lot of homebrew PC hardware for the same price.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...3280&enterthread=y

 

[imported_Lucifer]

Originally posted by: bigpow

Originally posted by: Thin Lizzy
I just thought it might be interesting read for some people.

Nothing to see here folks, move along!

This IS exactly why there are a lot of Mac Bashers! (to counter Mac lovers!)

:roll: This thread isnt for you then.

 

[hopejr]

I just had a thought - apple is doing the right thing by not offering a mouse with this - it gives people to option to get a 2+ button mouse from somewhere else. But they should be offering a keyboard with it, although it hardly adds anything to the price. I already have aUSB mouse and monitor, and adding the slight little bit to put a keyboard with it is not a problem. Some people just don't think logically when they complain about this.

 

[miniMUNCH]

Also...Mac mini makes make a nice system for enterprise deployments. Reasonably cheap and saves on desk space.

 

[mrgoblin]

Originally posted by: aeternitas

Originally posted by: mrgoblin
So halfadder. What your saying is A. the g4 1.25 ghz has life in it; 2. that the mac has games (besides the puzzle with the apple on it); 3. that you dont care about performance because you are comparing your imac with a via which is never a good situation and ;4. form factor is more important than value. Lets be honest here. Your not buying the imac because its a good computer, your buying into a trend. Its the same reason why people buy macs. Not because they are faster but because they look pretty and are fashionable. If you could run OSX on your pc with mac drivers, what would be the advantage of owning a mac? Without going into the reasons why people could also use linux and save a lot more money and still do everything a mac or pc can do, theres no reason why anyone should own an apple. I dont hate apple. I think they make fine mp3 players and monitors but until they get serious about processor power and price, I have no reason to make the switch. As far as form factor is concerned, there is the AMD PIC with its 250 buck price tag. BUT it also comes with a 15 inch crt mouse and keyboard. The way I look at it, the Imac mini just doesnt cost 500 bucks. 700 is probably the right number with what you need to buy. For 700 bucks, I can probably configure a shuttle system.

No. Its $500. You seem confused. You see, if you want a keyboard mouse and monitor included, Apple has something called an iMac for that. Do you understand anything about targeted marketing? The shuttles are ugly and less powerfull.

Who wants an Imac? Shuttles are ugly? I happen to think they look better than any case on the market. Especially the all stainless steel one.

 

[mrgoblin]

Originally posted by: CrackRabbit

Originally posted by: Tiamat

Originally posted by: aeternitas

Originally posted by: mrgoblin
So halfadder. What your saying is A. the g4 1.25 ghz has life in it; 2. that the mac has games (besides the puzzle with the apple on it); 3. that you dont care about performance because you are comparing your imac with a via which is never a good situation and ;4. form factor is more important than value. Lets be honest here. Your not buying the imac because its a good computer, your buying into a trend. Its the same reason why people buy macs. Not because they are faster but because they look pretty and are fashionable. If you could run OSX on your pc with mac drivers, what would be the advantage of owning a mac? Without going into the reasons why people could also use linux and save a lot more money and still do everything a mac or pc can do, theres no reason why anyone should own an apple. I dont hate apple. I think they make fine mp3 players and monitors but until they get serious about processor power and price, I have no reason to make the switch. As far as form factor is concerned, there is the AMD PIC with its 250 buck price tag. BUT it also comes with a 15 inch crt mouse and keyboard. The way I look at it, the Imac mini just doesnt cost 500 bucks. 700 is probably the right number with what you need to buy. For 700 bucks, I can probably configure a shuttle system.

No. Its $500. You seem confused. You see, if you want a keyboard mouse and monitor included, Apple has something called an iMac for that. Do you understand anything about targeted marketing? The shuttles are ugly and less powerfull.

You seem to be getting caught up in your own words. Firstly, the Mac Mini is as you say. However the shuttle is similar as well. The shuttle is not ugly and is not less powerful. Perhaps you can argue the first part of the latter sentance, however you simply cannot say something as broad as "less powerful".

The main problem with target marketting is that people just outside of that target are also interested, but start spreading bad news when the two or three additional components that they would want are not there.

Here are a couple examples of how similar $$ can get you a decent PC

Shuttle SN95G5: $309
AMD A64 3000+: $155
Mushkin 1GB PC3200: $137
Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB: $104
Total: $705

Shuttle SK83G: $200
AMD A64 3000+: $135
Mushkin 512MB PC3200: $65
Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB: $104
Total: $504

Obviously, the bottom one is closer to the price of the Mac Mini. I see the Shuttle winning here in everything that is ram intensive, and things like games hands down. Double the ram, and a much better graphics card. Not to mention the processor is nothing to laugh at.

If the mac mini were 400$, or came with 512MB ram, and 9600pro, things would be very different.

The things you are leaving out are a copy of Windows XP an optical drive and the other software that the mac mini comes with (ie DVD and Audio Editing and whatnot).
That adds another 3-400 bucks right there.
The other thing is that not everyone needs super powerful desktop machines to surf the internet and write term papers. People dont buy Macs to play games, they buy them for productivity or general use.

Just because Mac charges your first born for dvd burning software doesnt mean that Its worth that much. Not to mention I get half life 2 for free with an a64. Without getting into the thick of detail, who the hell buys an imacmini for audio creation? It has 256 MB of ram and garage band isnt the best SW in the world for that either. Reason is. Its a professional level audio editing and creation tool. If you do need audio editing as you put it there are a myriad of free audio editors and dvd burning tools for free. Hell I author my dvds for nothing. The only true thing about the software is that I have to pay 89 for windows XP but if I cut down to 256 mb of ram and a 9200se, I still win on performance.

 

[hopejr]

mrgoblin: get it through your head - an imac and a mac mini are two completely different computers. Anyway, I'm getting sick of all these threads with ignorant people in them.
OS X more than makes up for the price. It's a great OS and better than anything else I've used (the list of OS's I've used extensively is quite long).

 

[Anubis08]

Can he not afford one or what? It works great for what it was designed to do and even more if you get a 3rd gen.

 

[SunSamurai]

The Shuttle SK83G is also twice as big as the Mac Mini.
Get a clue man. If Apple used as much space as that shuttle, they would of slapped in dual G5s.


This is all comeing from a guy that is building a Athlon 64 system before this summer. I like building PCs. An intresting hobby with thousands of combinations of goodness. This, however, doesnt mean that Apple didnt just produce an ultra compact desktop better than anyone else so far.

 

[loic2003]

That man's myopic blunderings display an alaraming level of ignorance.

The mac mini is a fantastic machine for the intended market. Once and for all stop trying to compare the price tags with an equivalent PC. Saying you could buy a dell or whatever for a bit less shows distinct ignorance in the field of operating systems and software. Sure you could pick up a dell for £400, but you'll be running windows XP, which sucks. Some people say "ooh, but my XP install is stable" like it's actually impressive. Being stable and secure is a very, very basic requirement for an OS, and we're all so used to such a shite operating system that when it does manage to meet one basic requirement we're actually impressed.

What about the bundled software -iLife? Does the dell come with anything even remotely similar? no.
Windows movie maker: is that a joke? jeez. What if I wanted to edit and burn a DVD,with a windows machine? Well I'd have to go out and buy editing software (not cheap) as well as Nero or an equivalent (more cost).

What about organising photos? You've got to do it in explorer (messy, unstable) and what if you want to edit the photos? remove red eye, rotate them, adjust the histogram settings, etc.? Well you have to fork out for some photo editing software (yet even more cost).

The same goes for music organisation software, although there's free ones, they have so many less features.
On top of all that, do the programs integrate? Can you add you add edited photos into your DVD program and add music from your music library all together? No. Of course you can't.

Then you have to pay for antivirus software, and keep paying every year.
Plus you have to maintain your computer and waste your time defragging, clearing out old files, etc etc.

They actually work out cheaper when you caluclate all the additional costs of software to kind of bring a PC up to a similar-but not so good - level.



And suggesting that macs aren't good for audio editing, well, they won a grammy for their contributions to the music industry:Grammy Award


It's very easy to bash a mac when you're ignorant, but when you learn and think about it you'll find most arguments don't stand.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: loic2003
That man's myopic blunderings display an alaraming level of ignorance.

The mac mini is a fantastic machine for the intended market. Once and for all stop trying to compare the price tags with an equivalent PC. Saying you could buy a dell or whatever for a bit less shows distinct ignorance in the field of operating systems and software. Sure you could pick up a dell for £400, but you'll be running windows XP, which sucks. Some people say "ooh, but my XP install is stable" like it's actually impressive. Being stable and secure is a very, very basic requirement for an OS, and we're all so used to such a shite operating system that when it does manage to meet one basic requirement we're actually impressed.

What about the bundled software -iLife? Does the dell come with anything even remotely similar? no.
Windows movie maker: is that a joke? jeez. What if I wanted to edit and burn a DVD,with a windows machine? Well I'd have to go out and buy editing software (not cheap) as well as Nero or an equivalent (more cost).

What about organising photos? You've got to do it in explorer (messy, unstable) and what if you want to edit the photos? remove red eye, rotate them, adjust the histogram settings, etc.? Well you have to fork out for some photo editing software (yet even more cost).

The same goes for music organisation software, although there's free ones, they have so many less features.
On top of all that, do the programs integrate? Can you add you add edited photos into your DVD program and add music from your music library all together? No. Of course you can't.

Then you have to pay for antivirus software, and keep paying every year.
Plus you have to maintain your computer and waste your time defragging, clearing out old files, etc etc.

They actually work out cheaper when you caluclate all the additional costs of software to kind of bring a PC up to a similar-but not so good - level.



And suggesting that macs aren't good for audio editing, well, they won a grammy for their contributions to the music industry:Grammy Award


It's very easy to bash a mac when you're ignorant, but when you learn and think about it you'll find most arguments don't stand.

You forgot that OSX has a built in spellchecker. Perhaps you should consider Switching.

- M4H

 

[hopejr]

Originally posted by: loic2003
That man's myopic blunderings display an alaraming level of ignorance.

The mac mini is a fantastic machine for the intended market. Once and for all stop trying to compare the price tags with an equivalent PC. Saying you could buy a dell or whatever for a bit less shows distinct ignorance in the field of operating systems and software. Sure you could pick up a dell for £400, but you'll be running windows XP, which sucks. Some people say "ooh, but my XP install is stable" like it's actually impressive. Being stable and secure is a very, very basic requirement for an OS, and we're all so used to such a shite operating system that when it does manage to meet one basic requirement we're actually impressed.

What about the bundled software -iLife? Does the dell come with anything even remotely similar? no.
Windows movie maker: is that a joke? jeez. What if I wanted to edit and burn a DVD,with a windows machine? Well I'd have to go out and buy editing software (not cheap) as well as Nero or an equivalent (more cost).

What about organising photos? You've got to do it in explorer (messy, unstable) and what if you want to edit the photos? remove red eye, rotate them, adjust the histogram settings, etc.? Well you have to fork out for some photo editing software (yet even more cost).

The same goes for music organisation software, although there's free ones, they have so many less features.
On top of all that, do the programs integrate? Can you add you add edited photos into your DVD program and add music from your music library all together? No. Of course you can't.

Then you have to pay for antivirus software, and keep paying every year.
Plus you have to maintain your computer and waste your time defragging, clearing out old files, etc etc.

They actually work out cheaper when you caluclate all the additional costs of software to kind of bring a PC up to a similar-but not so good - level.



And suggesting that macs aren't good for audio editing, well, they won a grammy for their contributions to the music industry:Grammy Award


It's very easy to bash a mac when you're ignorant, but when you learn and think about it you'll find most arguments don't stand.

:thumbsup:

 

[dullard]

The Mac Mini certainly has an audience who will like it. It has many things going for it that I think are positives:
[*]Finally a low priced mac. Apple has really missed out on the $399 computer boat that all other computer manufacturers have.
[*]Most of us already have a half dozen keyboards/mice laying around. I'd love for Dell and the rest to give us even a $20 savings to stop bundling these. The option is always nice. Need a keyboard or mouse? Just choose the option with them - the rest of us can do without.
[*]A small size is useful for many niche markets.
[*]Bundled software is certainly nice, even though I bet 98% of users have no need for them. Very few people will ever edit video for example. They just connect up and burn a DVD.

However there are cons:
[*]The awkward-sized, large (long) power supply brick means you can't put the Mac Mini into a small compartment. It'll have to be at least as long as the power supply and thus much longer than the Mini's case.
[*]256 MB of RAM just doesn't cut it anymore. And it should be made easy to upgrade.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Macs are wack.

 

[loic2003]

Originally posted by: deathkoba
Macs are wack.

Link?

 

[jpsmoney]

Man, I wonder why that Bill guy is so angry. There's got to be something behind it?

Just like any other system, some people will go for it and some won't. As someone who's never used a Mac but is intrigued (and has friends that work for Apple), I think it's pretty cool. Unfortunately, with WiFi and at least 512mb of memory the price starts to look unappealing. I'm waiting for a refurb!

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: dullard
The Mac Mini certainly has an audience who will like it. It has many things going for it that I think are positives:
[*]Finally a low priced mac. Apple has really missed out on the $399 computer boat that all other computer manufacturers have.
[*]Most of us already have a half dozen keyboards/mice laying around. I'd love for Dell and the rest to give us even a $20 savings to stop bundling these. The option is always nice. Need a keyboard or mouse? Just choose the option with them - the rest of us can do without.
[*]A small size is useful for many niche markets.
[*]Bundled software is certainly nice, even though I bet 98% of users have no need for them. Very few people will ever edit video for example. They just connect up and burn a DVD.

However there are cons:
[*]The awkward-sized, large (long) power supply brick means you can't put the Mac Mini into a small compartment. It'll have to be at least as long as the power supply and thus much longer than the Mini's case.
[*]256 MB of RAM just doesn't cut it anymore. And it should be made easy to upgrade.

There's one user-upgradable slot accessible on the Mac Mini that is warranty-safe. The Apple-installed RAM goes in a sealed compartment. No touchy.

- M4H