
My Next Mac Mini - ingve
https://rustyshelf.org/2017/01/07/my-next-mac-mini/
======
fowlerpower
Someone here needs to explain it to me because I just don't understand.

We have the largest computer company in the world, a shit load of people work
there, supposedly smart people. Yet they can't put together a refresh of many
of their desktop machines. Why the fuck not? What do all those people getting
paid all that money do all day? I can only imagine the conversations, "it
takes years it has to be super innovative". No it fucking doesn't not on the
PC, just put the latest processors and tech in it. You don't have to innovate
every fucking time, not on the desktop PC. We see this all the time with Apple
devices and I can't understand it.

I mean I don't understand what do they do all day every day for 800 days that
they can't refresh this simple Machine. Maybe I'm being nieve here or I'm
missing something.

~~~
mattnewton
As an apple alumnus, I believe it has to do with a culture of "laser focus"
There is an internal course called "what makes apple apple" that you can take,
but it's not necessary to pick up one of the key pieces of culture: the
importance of saying No to most things.

Apple has built their reputation on high quality. To continue to deliver takes
immense effort, even for incremental programs, and often almost if the talent
internally shifts to whatever is new or deemed important, at the expense of
everything else. So it's not that they don't know, it's not that they don't
care. It's that they believe in sacrificing opportunities elsewhere so that
they can focus on what is truly important.

Another shift that happens internally is executive focus. Executives at apple
are extremely hands on with products. They don't micromanage, but instead
constantly judge whether a product is on course and has taste. We use to
prepare monthly keynotes that went all the way to the top, hitting each
executive along the way, who was interested in taking the pulse of every
project underneath them. This approach does not scale to more than a handful
of product lines per executive.

There is a lot of risk inherent in this approach, because if they line up a
home run with half the company over a few years and then you whiff, you could
be in a tough spot. By that's exactly what apple does. And one of the
advantages is that people are rarely worried about whether apple is committed
to an entirely new product, because they go all in each time they move. For
example, apple is absolutely committed to making the watch dominate the
smartwatch market. It isn't a hobby for them.

The solution the internal apple devoutiees would see to this problem is to cut
the Mac mini entirely if it stopped selling, rather than refresh it. It is
believed to not be worth splitting the companies attention.

Edit: as other commenters have mentioned, apple is also not the largest maker
of these products, just the one with the largest valuation. They have less,
more focused talent, and larger margins.

Edit edit: I just remembered the giant picture of Steve jobs in Infinite loop
I used to walk past to lunch all the time that said "I think if you do
something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else
wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what's next." pretty
much sums this up.

~~~
ScottBurson
Total laser focus on one thing seems like a great mantra for building a
company (or turning around a failing one). But for sustaining a company that's
already successful, I'm not so sure. If you really believe there's a Next Big
Thing that you can bet the company on and win, like the iPhone, then maybe it
makes sense to let other product lines languish. But, now that most of the
world's population carry a computer in their pocket at all times, what if
there is nothing else that big that remains to be done?

There's still lots of room for Apple to grow their existing Mac business.
They've started to make inroads into the enterprise market, traditionally
dominated by Windows. They could really press that. They could stay
competitive in more markets than just the thin-and-light laptop market -- the
Mini is one example, the high-end laptop market is another, and the
workstation market is a third.

Instead, they're apparently conceding these battles, and turning their massive
resources toward finding another Next Big Thing, which may not even exist.

~~~
nextos
I agree. Is the Mac Mini so special it can't be updated by a small team
periodically? Nope. It is in fact a quite mainstream machine, nothing too
special about it.

The uniqueness in the Mac Mini lies in Mac OS. No laser sharp focus is needed
for incremental hardware updates.

The Mac Pro has unique hardware, but between major redesigns it does not need
any incredibly hard work. Just incremental improvements.

I find it absurd too that a company with so much cash in the bank cannot keep
a few people performing incremental improvements on their product lines. The
Mac Pro for example, is hopelessly outdated now.

I think they underestimate the compound effect of an ecosystem. Several little
products, even if they don't bring in insane revenues such as iOS, can help
attracting key users which are those that drive innovation. It also
contributes to the overall experience of regular folks. For example, by
discontinuing screens or routers, things are not as seamless as they once
were.

~~~
beautifulfreak
"It is in fact a quite mainstream machine, nothing too special about it." The
mini introduced a form factor that has since been emulated so often that it
seems less special than it was at first, but it was something new. Small
computers extant back then were larger than the mini. Most were based on the
Mini ITX motherboard design, introduced in 2001, and all of them looked like
boxen (ugly). The mini's dimensions gave it a non-computer look. It might seem
plain now, a very simple form, but that was the genius of it. To allege that
it's mainstream and not special, something to be incremented, is to cast it as
just another box, a mere container. To Apple, it's an optimum solution to both
engineering and aesthetic challenges. Maybe they resist the idea that it is
just a box, and that is why they don't just increment the internals.

~~~
jdietrich
The Mac Mini _was_ special over a decade ago. It's now just commodity hardware
in an aluminium unibody. There are a multitude of competing machines from
Intel, Gigabyte, Asus, Zotac and others. There is absolutely no reason why
Apple couldn't redesign the Mac Mini chassis to take an industry-standard NUC
motherboard and offer a refresh every 12 months.

I won't buy Apple hardware any more because I don't want to be locked into
their ecosystem. I don't want to be subject to the whims of a "tastemaker" who
decides that I don't need PCIe or USB or a headphone jack. I don't trust Apple
not to neglect a key platform for years.

Apple can afford to lose me, because iPhone sales are equivalent to the GDP of
some countries. If at some point that golden goose starts looking unhealthy,
they might regret pissing off their most loyal customers. They might suddenly
realise that the creative professionals who were a cornerstone of their brand
have abandoned them.

As of today, the Mac Pro has gone 1137 days without an update. Three years is
an _eternity_ for a music producer or a video editor to go without fresh
hardware. The introduction of 4K video has only exacerbated the issue, as has
the fiasco of FCPX.

A lot of people feel deeply betrayed by Apple. People who would happily give
Apple $10,000 every couple of years for a fully loaded Mac Pro. People who
have bought every Apple desktop since the Macintosh. People who are role
models in their fields. People whose choices define the term "industry
standard". Can Apple afford to alienate those people?

~~~
dustinmr
This, which was posted a short time ago, seems relevant to this comment.

[http://www.economist.com/news/business-and-
finance/21711011-...](http://www.economist.com/news/business-and-
finance/21711011-research-shows-firms-ignore-passionate-consumers-their-peril-
how-companies-should)

~~~
nextos
Neither Apple nor Google seem to be applying many of the principles outlined
in that article.

To me this is just a sign of broken management. Apple has a minimal product
line. Not being able to refresh products regularly is unacceptable.
Furthermore, they don't have a complete ecosystem anymore which has an impact
on the whole experience.

Google is also broken, but in a different way. They are stuck in a perpetual
cycle of release-abandon products, with some insane duplicities. For example,
Hangouts/Allo/Duo.

Google has discontinued the much praised Google Reader, plus replaced open
Google Talk by closed Hangouts. Also released Allo & Duo, confusing everyone.
A royal mess.

Apple is unwilling to update Mac Pro & Mini frequently. They have also
discontinued their screens (and third party USB C ones are not working well)
and also discontinued all their routers.

------
finstell
Nowadays, I kind of enjoy seeing posts about people abandoning Apple
ecosystem. Although it's painful, I myself have been yet another avid fan of
pretty much Apple offered, it feels like this is not going to last forever.

When they do the math, iPhone might seem the most lucrative (they seem not to
care about anything else) but since they are killing the ecosystem with no Mac
Pro, no Mac Mini and with so called pro MacBooks, developers will abandon
Apple eventually. Even if iPhone becomes/remains the most technologically
advanced smart phone on the market, it would be like a distant paradise island
with no airports. Airplanes (developers and subsequently the end users) will
be landing on alternative airports on emerging islands, letting them prosper.
Consequently, Apple island will be deserted.

~~~
mobiletelephone
I don't buy this argument. Developers will work on platforms that have users
with money to spend, even if the development hardware is poor value. In this
sense, Apple has us hostage!

~~~
gurkendoktor
I have no data, but I'd wager that iOS developers who sell directly to end
users are rare nowadays. Most of us are paid good money to build apps for
bigger companies that make their money outside of the App Store. Often we
don't even use our own Mac for that, so as a first step, we might use a Mac at
work and Windows/Linux at home.

If we left the ecosystem, the cost of native iOS development would increase,
and companies would build portable (and/or crappy) apps instead. macOS indie
apps would also lose some customers, and IMHO these apps are what makes the
Apple world worthwhile in the first place.

~~~
jclardy
Paid apps are essentially dead on iOS and Android, thanks to both of their
terrible policies. Both search algorithms for each platform place way to much
weight on volume (downloads, ratings, reviews) over other attributes which
they could track (like user retention.)

This means a well polished, but expensive app can be easily ousted out of a
top search result spot by a rushed clone at a lower price point, even if
people end up deleting the crappy one after a day or two anyways. Basically
both modern app stores place a ton of value on "new" things but don't care
about software built to last. So as a dev you are incentivized to abandon your
old projects and just stick out new ones every few months. And on iOS it gets
even worse with paid search ads which can be targeted at competitor app names.

Couple that with a 30% revenue cut, no access to your users (So you have no
ability to refund them or discount future purchases), and the stores having
the ability to oust you at any time and it becomes obvious that the only
sustainable business is continuous crap-ware or SaaS with your main business
outside the App Store. Just look at the Top Grossing chart, there isn't a
single paid app till around 80 and even then the app is Minecraft.

~~~
pjmlp
App stores are just a digital version of any physical store.

Honestly when I go any store, I sometimes wonder how all those companies with
products on the shelves, manage to sell enough goods to keep the engines
running.

------
coldtea
> _Well, perfect except that six years in this machine is very creaky. It
> needs a reboot every week or so (otherwise it will refuse to launch
> anything)._

That sounds totally unrelated to the age of the machine, and totally related
to what's installed, the mini running out of disk, etc.

Maybe do a clean install of the OS?

Aside from the mechanical parts (CD ROMS, Hard Disks, etc), the "digital"
parts of a PC do not age and their age does not affect program execution speed
(all other things being equal).

Either they work, or they don't (well, corrupted memory can cause crashes when
accessed, but it wont slow down programs).

~~~
CydeWeys
There is one factor that heavily affects performance that you haven't
addressed though: Software demands on hardware increase over time. MacOS today
is more demanding than the MacOS of six years ago. Even if the hardware is in
perfect condition, you can't run all six-year-old software, so it's going to
be slower.

~~~
rz2k
Differences in hardware matter in subtle ways too with new versions of MacOS.
For example, AirDrop or Handoff work seamlessly on the latest hardware, but
frustratingly work one day then not the next at random on older hardware. The
difference is Bluetooth versions 2.0 compared to 4 or 4.2, but one wouldn't
likely even realize what version of Bluetooth a computer has.

The NUC he describes sounds perfect for what he wants. Kaby Lake might not
have many noticeable improvements over Skylake for most uses, but the
integrated graphics for streaming high resolution content are significantly
better. Furthermore I don't think there is _any_ Mac that has HDMI 2.0
necessary for sending 4k video to a regular television at greater than 30Hz.

~~~
jsjohnst
> Furthermore I don't think there is any Mac that has HDMI 2.0 ...
    
    
      MacBook (Retina, 12-inch,
      Early 2016) and 
      late-2016
      MacBook Pro models 
      support 60Hz refresh 
      rates over HDMI when 
      used with a supported 
      HDMI 2.0 display, an
      HDMI Premium Certified
      cable, and a supported 
      USB-C to HDMI 2.0 
      adapter.
    

Source: [https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT206587](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206587)

~~~
rz2k
I see that active adapters that support HDMI 2.0 are about $25 now. Apple's
$50 multiport adapter is only HDMI 1.4b, I suppose because it only handles the
built in USB-C alternate mode.

~~~
jsjohnst
Yep! That's exactly why. USB-C alternate mode only supports DisplayPort 1.3
and HDMI 1.4b. You'll need an active adapter like you mentioned. Not
surprisingly, Apple doesn't sell them, that would be to useful.

For future readers, here's one as an example:
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FIVSC6Y/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FIVSC6Y/)

~~~
rz2k
Note that one actually says it is not compatible with the new 2016 MacBook
Pro.

~~~
jsjohnst
Odd, works for me. Hmm

------
esfandia
I had the same experience as the OP. My Mac Mini was getting old, and the fan
was making a worrisome noise. I wasn't going to buy the "latest" Mini, since
it is very stale, hard to upgrade and expensive for what it is. Funnily enough
I was already running Windows on that Mini anyway, so my next computer didn't
have to be a Mac. But I did enjoy the small footprint, and I have to say that
the Mac is probably the easiest hardware to run Windows on. The drivers have
been tested and everything just works.

I ended up with the latest "Skull Canyon" NUC as well. Even though it is
thinner than my old Mini, its footprint on my desk is about the same, it's
just less square. I'm not a fan of the color or the design; it seems marketed
at teenage gamerzzz, not at the boring middle aged guy who prefers a
minimalist Scandinavian style. But that's not very important. I did have to
buy the SSD and the RAM separately, I had to install Windows myself (so that's
no better than buying a Mini to run Windows on), and I did have to hunt for a
couple of drivers. I don't know why they don't sell a fully configured
machine.

Its fan is not as quiet as the Mini, and it has some weird transient behavior
when it wakes up from hibernation. It didn't come cheap (I maxed pretty much
every spec though). It is very fast, it does the job competently, but I don't
Love it like I Loved the Mini. Sad that Apple has abandoned this cute nifty
little machine.

~~~
nextos
There are brands that build absolutely awesome _fanless_ cases on top of Intel
NUC boards. I recommend those:

[http://www.aleutia.com/computers/](http://www.aleutia.com/computers/)

[http://www.cirrus7.com/produkte](http://www.cirrus7.com/produkte)

Intel is a bit lazy. Many manufacturers are selling cheap fanless devices for
a lot less money. Their Core m3 is a fanless CPU. They should release a
fanless NUC themselves.

I love NUCs because their hardware just works on Linux and they are relatively
affordable. Fanless cooling would make them perfect.

~~~
lobster_johnson
Last year I got a fanless box from Atlast to use as a headless Linux server
running Plex Media Server. Really excellent little box.

Quad-core i5, 120GB SSD, 8GB RAM, Ubuntu preinstalled. $600 plus $50 shipping
to the US (they're in the UK): [http://www.atlastsolutions.com/fanless-mini-
itx](http://www.atlastsolutions.com/fanless-mini-itx)

They Atlast guys are also very friendly, and they know Linux.

~~~
nextos
Cool. Seems they are using Akasa cases?

~~~
lobster_johnson
I believe so. There's no logo or any markings on the case, however.

------
srj
I had the same experience when I went to create a small recording studio for
my wife. I figured I'd use garage band on a Mac Mini and connect the mixer to
that. I changed my plans after going to Apple's website - I don't want to buy
old tech and especially not at full price.

It's bizarre to see a company with the wealth and resources of Apple not even
putting out spec upgrades for their machines. I could say the same about my
old MacBook Air I've been wanting to upgrade. Just throw us a bone here Apple.
Even a small bump in specs.

~~~
rsync
"It's bizarre to see a company with the wealth and resources of Apple not even
putting out spec upgrades for their machines."

What's _so bizarre_ is that the things that people want are actually the
easiest and cheapest things for apple to do.

 _All anyone wants_ is a macbook air with a retina screen. Not a new 12" one,
not a new form factor, not design and engineer some new razor thin design ...
just take the same old cad drawings and put a nicer screen on it.

 _All anyone wants_ is a mac pro tower (not the wastebasket) with nicer
internals and fast SATA/USB ports. That's it. Nothing new to design, no new
manufacturing processes - you don't even need new press photos.

If you're going to relegate the product line(s) to second tier, why not just
save a ton of money and give people exactly what they were all asking for ?

~~~
remir
What Apple lacks is humility. Jobs even said people don't know what they want
until "you showed it to them".

So, I highly doubt that Apple will listen to what people want. I mean, Apple
would make a killing with a new Mac Mini with better spec, a Macbook Air with
better screen res, couple of USB-C ports, a 24" iMac instead of 21, etc...

But Apple won't do it because that would be listening to people, and this is
something they're too proud to do.

~~~
brandon272
It's interesting... unless my memory is failing me, you never hear Apple say
anything to the effect of, "We listened to our customers, so we decided to
_____"

I mean, I agree with what Jobs said when he suggested that customers expect
Apple to innovate and curate and make it's own decisions about what products
it develops. But I think you can also take that too far, especially when your
customers are screaming at you on certain topics.

~~~
remir
Yep, even with stuff like the antennagate, they never truly recognized their
mistake ( _" you're holding it wrong!"_). Too proud. Same thing with the
"touch disease" on the iPhone 6.

------
Marazan
Apple's attitude to the Mac mini truly confuses me. Many years ago I was
interested in getting one for eithet iPhone development or as a media pc but
every time I looked they kept seeming to jack the price or downgrade the spec
(relatively speaking).

~~~
rwmj
TBH I've never understood what Apple gets out of selling the Mac Mini. It
cannibalizes their own low-end laptops/desktops, and at the same time must be
quite a marginal product mainly sold to a small number of hackers who probably
put Linux on them.

~~~
zymhan
Why would anyone buy a Mac Mini and put Linux on it?! There are a million
other small PCs that are far better for that.

If I was going to buy a Mac Mini, it's to have an affordable Mac that I can
stick somewhere in my house to run occasional OS X software. I already have a
few other computers, plenty of them running Linux. A Mac Mini is a great way
to get a cheap OS X setup going.

Also, it's not low margin, they charge $200-$400 for each upgrade you make. So
if you only want a 1.8GHz box with 5400rpm spinning rust, then you're still
paying $500 and Apple can't be out more than $300 in parts and costs.
Especially given that they've been selling this model for 3 years, the cost of
production is quite low.

~~~
rwmj
Back when I had a Mac Mini (10 years ago), you could pull them apart and
upgrade the RAM and hard disk, which I did. Is that not still the case?

~~~
washadjeffmad
You still can, but they're a few hardware generations out of date. You'd have
more fun with a raspi 3 or a less expensive mini-ITX build that you can
upgrade with current gen components.

~~~
lultimouomo
Ram is soldered so you cannot upgrade it. You can swap the HD with a SATA SSD,
iFixit has an easy 35 step tutorial to do that (plus 35 steps back to
reassemble it) that involves a custom made tool to remove the motherboard and
a pretty rare anti-tamper Torx TR6 screwdriver.

(Once you get ahold of the screwdriver it's actually not as hard as it looks.
You can DIY the motherboard removal tool from a wire coat hanger and in 40
minutes of focused work you'll be done.)

------
caleblloyd
The NUC has full Linux support out of the box. You can configure them with
16GB of RAM and a 256GB-512GB SSD for $400-$500, especially if you go for the
old model (Gen 6 Skylake instead of Gen 7 Kaby Lake, not much has changed)

~~~
pmorici
Are you sure? I have one and the wifi definitely doesn't work out of the box
and there are a couple other annoyances the worst being the machine locking up
if you let it sit for too long. I haven't spent time to investigate but that
isn't the definition of "works out of the box"

~~~
devdoomari
> the worst being the machine locking up if you let it sit for too long.

uhm... look into power settings? That's common for most os.

~~~
washadjeffmad
No it isn't, and you shouldn't accept that as a standard behavior.

------
luckystartup
I'm confused. That Mac Mini is still amazing. They didn't say anything about
wiping the hard drive and reinstalling everything. Maybe there are some
problems with the harddrive, so just replace it with a new SSD. Check the RAM
and see if any needs replacing. You need to do all of that before you go out
and buy a new computer.

I'm using a Lenovo Q190 [1] that runs lubuntu. It's a little slow to start,
but everything runs fine. I run Plex Server, Plex Home Theater, Spotify, and
RetroPie.

I would gladly trade it for a 2010 Mac Mini. That's crazy. Just reinstall
everything and run a scan on your disk and RAM.

[1]
[http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/desktops/lenovo/q-series/q190/#...](http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/desktops/lenovo/q-series/q190/#tab-
tech_specs)

------
rwmj
I would take a look at the Gigabyte Brix. The basic model is £119 [1] -
considerably cheaper than the Intel NUC. I have a couple running a firewall
and a little server, and they have trucked along for years without problems.

[1] For a more complete spec including the other parts you may need, see:
[https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2015/05/04/new-home-gateway-
route...](https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2015/05/04/new-home-gateway-router-
part-1/#content)

~~~
bsenftner
I've been picking up Intel ComputeSticks: $99 gives you Win10, WiFi, 4GB RAM,
HDMI & USB. I seem to remember I put a 32 GB SD card into my first one... I've
been putting them behind our TVs, giving them web access.

All I put on them are Chrome and Mame.

The $99 ComputeSticks are just powerful enough to play standard def video from
someone like NetFlix or Amazon. Higher bit rate streaming video is too much,
and the'll stutter. But they have higher spec ComputeSticks I've not played
with for $199, and $299. (Maybe I'm being grumpy, but most video content
simply does not need to be 4K, or HD.)

They are great with 3D graphics, as far as rendering. I write 3D, and have
been having a good time with their 3D performance, using WebGL.

Seems like the Nuc prices are just at that level that one could pick up a
desktop with the necessary CPU, video card and RAM while being expandable to
the future - where the Nuc is not...

~~~
wolrah
> The $99 ComputeSticks are just powerful enough to play standard def video
> from someone like NetFlix or Amazon. Higher bit rate streaming video is too
> much, and the'll stutter. But they have higher spec ComputeSticks I've not
> played with for $199, and $299. (Maybe I'm being grumpy, but most video
> content simply does not need to be 4K, or HD.)

Even the slowest compute sticks had a BayTrail-T Atom in them which has
support for hardware decoding of any 1080p content you're likely to come
across and technically supports 4K 30FPS playback (though doesn't have the
necessary DRM support to play any commercial 4K content). If your machine had
trouble playing back any 1080p content you probably had something
misconfigured in your player or video drivers so it was incorrectly using
software decoding.

------
nottorp
Speaking of NUCs, are there any that are

(a) quiet at load

(b) have the PSU integrated in the case?

Those are about the only redeeming qualities of a Mac Mini right now, and it
pisses me off to no end that no one bothers with (b) on the Wintel side.

Edit: please don't explain to me how a power brick that's sometimes as large
as the NUC doesn't bother you, it does bother me.

~~~
CydeWeys
Unfortunately, your two desires are at cross purposes to each other. An
external power brick helps keep a lot of heat out of the system, which allows
you to run less cooling in the box, and thus be quieter.

~~~
nottorp
Yeah, except Apple manages to come close so it's possible :)

Give credit where credit is due.

~~~
jmanderley
The mac mini is much larger than an Intel NUC.

------
CoolGuySteve
I'm running a $65 FireTV with Kodi sideloaded that accomplishes everything I
need. The device is silent and the remote is bluetooth and feels nice in the
hand. (But to be fair, my router is used to download torrents and I don't
ingest any Live TV.)

To be honest, I think the NUC or any other intel platform is overkill for TV
these days.

------
Symbiote
Especially useful, "VESA mount bracket included in the box".

If you don't mind ~35mm more depth to your TV, you can mount the NUC on the
back. Or, mount it to the back of a monitor, for an iMac replacement.

~~~
protomyth
We just did a full lab (30 machines) of Intel NUCs (NUC6i7KYK) mounted on the
back of LG 21x9 monitors. It is quite a nice setup. I dearly wish there had
been an Apple Mac Mini update, but we can get by with Windows in that lab.
Went with Samsung M.2 SSDs and 32 GB of memory.

------
raphinou
Honest question : any good reasons to go with Windows rather than Linux?

~~~
daenney
A lot of it would depend on what your use case is. In this case the author
needs an Elgato/Geniatech EyeTV stick and app for his purposes which isn't
supported on Linux by the manufacturer. It might work, but it might also not
be worth the hassle.

However, if you want something that plays media but doesn't (necessarily) also
have to be able to receive regular terrestrial signal it shouldn't matter much
beyond user preference and ease of installation/maintenance/debugging.

~~~
peatmoss
I bought one of those HDTV terrestrial sticks (RTL2832) for about $10. I use
it for FM Radio, but I'd guess that would still work for TV on Linux?

Think Penguin sells a stick that's a bit pricier, but also presumably very
easy to use with Linux: [https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/usb-tv-tuner-
w-suppor...](https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/usb-tv-tuner-w-support-hd-
atsc-dvb-t-digital-tv-us-canada-europe)

There's also the Linux TV site that discusses the software side of things:
[https://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/TV_Related_Software](https://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/TV_Related_Software)

~~~
technofiend
it doesn't fit the original requirement as it is too large but when these
discussions come up i feel obligated to mention silicon dust as well.
[http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/](http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/)

they make outboard tv tuners that will either do over-the-air or digital cable
and stream wired or wirelessly. one model even transcodes to h.264 and they
publish plugins for kodi and plex along with working with a variety of
commercial and open source apps. it was my preferring tuning device with both
myth tv on linux and Microsoft media center until i ditched cable entirely.

------
nnain
I hate to bring this up -- but I earnestly think that Apple would do better
with a Product Manager at the top post. Tim did good work for the company in
optimizing operations, however envisioning new products is a different ball
game.

------
DCKing
I understand this blogpost is meant to point out that Apple is abandoning
desktop computers and their various use cases. It's all very bad and we
haven't had enough articles discussing this yet, why won't Apple think of us
anymore, etc. etc.

But I'm surprised he quickly says "No worries you might say, go to Apple and
buy a new Mac mini!". If your Mac Mini behaves like he describes, wouldn't the
straightforward response be to open it up, give the fans a good cleaning,
maybe replace any HDDs with SSDs, and give it a fresh install (of either OS X
or Windows 10)? If you blog about tech as this guy does surely it would be no
issue at all to just (attempt to) quickly fix these issues.

Don't get me wrong, I too like buying new toys. But I'm amazed at how some
apparently tech-savvy people think "this computer does not work as it used to,
so it logically follows I should buy a new one!". The problems with his Mac
Mini don't sound particularly bad and perfectly fixable in less time it would
take to set up a new computer.

~~~
camperman
I don't believe you can - it's all soldered on. Like the new Macbook Pros,
it's designed to be impossible to upgrade.

~~~
DCKing
This is not as true for the Mac Mini, not even the latest generation. Although
not plug and play, the hard drive in these machines are serviceable with a
basic kit you can buy off eBay and clear instructions from iFixit. The Mac
Mini referred to in this post moreover is 'over six years old', making them a
little easier to service.

------
rcarmo
I built a Mini-like machine with a fair amount of oomph before Christmas, and
have all the part lists and build details online:

[https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2016/12/17/1840](https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2016/12/17/1840)

------
jakobegger
Can someone here explain why Apple seems to be the only company that builds
small stuff with an integrated power supply?

What's the point in making something small, when you need a huge power brick
to power it?

It's a shame that Apple's stuff is outdated, but it's just so much nicer when
you look at the details.

~~~
Viper007Bond
By having an external power brick, you keep a ton of heat out of the device.
That means a smaller device and less cooling needed.

~~~
jakobegger
That's obvious, but if that was such a major obstacle, how does Apple manage
to do it? The Mac Mini, the Apple TV, all the Airport routers -- they all have
a built in power supply and use a standard figure-eight power cable.

This is not rocket science. Why does no other company manage to do that?

------
jmkni
I wish Apple would just team up with Intel and license macOS on the NUC.

It's a perfect successor to the Mac Mini.

~~~
rocky1138
What's the point of OSX on the NUC when Linux or even Windows does everything
a NUC is usually used for?

~~~
jmkni
I'm thinking more about what people use Mac Mini's for.

Apple clearly aren't interested in the Mac Mini anymore, so why not license
macOS on a superior machine in the same category instead?

Similar to how they no longer make their own monitors, and now recommend an LG
5K monitor.

For example, I use a Mac Mini for Xamarin. When it dies, I don't want to spend
money on a new one because they are really overpriced, would rather buy a NUC
and a copy of Mac OS and use that instead.

~~~
mobiletelephone
The mac mini just works because apple put the effort into making it work. If
they were to license macos for the nuc then they would have to put the work in
there too. If they are not interested in working on the Mac mini, why would
they be interested in working on the nuc?

~~~
protomyth
I once believed that, but it really isn't true anymore. Intel made quite the
effort to kill third party chipsets. We are not living in the early 90's.
Intel decided (quite differently than ARM) that it would have a set of
configurations and take over almost every aspect of it chips.

Look at the NUC, it is a stock Intel everything design. It would be rather
easy to support from Apple's perspective.

------
awinder
I ran a windows pc connected to a tv for a while and ultimately decided that
it was a lot of upkeep and hassle. Some of it was that I was using one of
those infinitv cable card tuners with windows media center. But a lot of it
was the pain of managing upgrades, and dealing with wake/sleep with an ir
receiver. It was just always a lot of work.

So I moved to an Apple TV and a server running freenas. Any computer-y stuff
basically involves the Apple TV talking to the nas, and I can admin the nas
over web ui and ssh. I'm sure you can get remote admin setup with windows for
similar experience, but having been on both sides, stuff breaks down all the
time on windows and it's just a less-than-stellar OS for the tv.

------
Joeri
One of the big selling points of the mini is that it's really quiet. Does
anyone with actual experience know how the NUC compares? From what I've read
it's significantly louder, which is not what you want from a living room PC.

~~~
analog31
For the living room PC, I recently went even further downscale and replaced a
wheezing old desktop box with a fanless mini-PC running Win10. It solves the
problem of when both kids have homework at the same time. The only software on
it is Chrome, since the kids do all of their stuff in the cloud.

Oddly, it's the end of an era: The first computer I've owned that I'm not
tempted to install MS Office on.

~~~
remir
Why not go with a Chromebox or Chromebit instead? Seems like the perfect
solution for your kids and no maintenance for you.

~~~
analog31
This is certainly a possibility, or even plain Linux. For myself, I'd like to
be able to run Jupyter/Python, but I think this must be possible on a Chrome
machine.

------
facepalm
It seems to me an Amazon FireTV or even one of those sticks (firetv,
chromecast) could do everything he wants.

~~~
UnbornSoul
It can't be used as a DVR.

~~~
CydeWeys
Aren't DVRs kind of a dying product category? They're only relevant if you
have a cable subscription, and most people putting media PCs in their living
room are relying on streaming services. I don't know anyone who uses a DVR
anymore, but I know dozens of people with Netflix/Amazon/Hulu/etc.
subscriptions.

~~~
UnbornSoul
Here in Europe the situation is mostly the other way around. Netflix is
available in most countries for a year or two. Amazon launched only a month
ago in most European countries. Also the author mentioned Eye TV which is DVR
software.

------
puzzlingcaptcha
You can also build a good ol' fashioned htpc at almost half the price of this
NUC:
[https://pcpartpicker.com/list/DmXrtJ](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/DmXrtJ)

Could be even cheaper if you already have some spare parts.

It might use a bit more power and has a larger footprint, but there is enough
space for 3.5" drives and it is practically noiseless at any load. Plus you
can expand it with a TV tuner, a graphics card or a HDMI capture card.

------
dbg31415
I use a Raspberry Pi hooked up to my NAS and it's great. All for about $100.

Approximate setup I used:

* Amazon.com: CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3 Complete Starter Kit - 32 GB Edition: Electronics || [https://www.amazon.com/CanaKit-Raspberry-Complete-Starter-Ki...](https://www.amazon.com/CanaKit-Raspberry-Complete-Starter-Kit/dp/B01C6Q2GSY)

* Amazon.com: Air Mouse,ELEGIANT 2.4G 6-Axis Portable Mini Wireless Air Mouse Remote Control Keyboard for PC HTPC IPTV Smart TV and Android TV Box Media Player: Computers & Accessories || [https://www.amazon.com/ELEGIANT-Portable-Wireless-Control-Ke...](https://www.amazon.com/ELEGIANT-Portable-Wireless-Control-Keyboard/dp/B01LYL2XG1)

You can also get some game controllers and RetroPie and turn your Raspberry Pi
into a sweet little gaming machine. I have every NES, SNES, Genesis, and N64
game ever made I think. Plus it plays every video format (tends to struggle
with 4k video outputs... I don't have a 4K TV so I just re-downloaded the
video after I saw the issue).

* RetroPie - Retro-gaming on the Raspberry Pi || [https://retropie.org.uk/](https://retropie.org.uk/)

* Amazon.com: Buffalo Classic USB Gamepad for PC: Computers & Accessories || [https://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-Classic-USB-Gamepad-PC/dp/B00...](https://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-Classic-USB-Gamepad-PC/dp/B002B9XB0E)

------
yalogin
The problem is evenntoday there is no replacement of comparable alternative to
the Mini. The Intel NUC is just a kit not a machine. So I cannot order it for
my mom. Either the machine has no profit margin or the other companies are
clueless to not bring a worthy competitor to market in all these years.

~~~
746F7475
I'm guessing that market is kind a small. Most people I know have either
transitioned into just using their smart phones and tablets or at least into
using laptops and on other side thous who want to play games have needs that
mini/mini-like computers can not fulfill.

Mini is kind a odd computer, it isn't mobile yet doesn't provide much more
power than a laptop (if any). I think a mini-like computer would probably do
everything I need it to do, but I rather get a laptop and just dock it. Which
also has the extra benefit of being portable

------
simonh
I just don't think Apple is trying to cover the whole computer market anymore,
and in fact really haven't done for the whole post-NEXT era. They do basic and
pro desktops and a few basic and pro laptops and that's it.

There will always be some pros and some consumers that want or need something
a bit different and for them there's Linux and Windows, and from Apple's point
of view that's fine.

Apple are long past trying to occupy every ecological niche that computers can
fill. The level of fit and finish they put into their products means they just
don't have the bandwidth to cover all the market, or update every product on
every cycle. The NUC us a great little device and Windows 10 is the least
worst version for years, so go for it. Enjoy.

------
gjkood
I have found the best way to enjoy Apple hardware without the sticker shock is
to just go ahead and buy used Macs from vendors such as OWComputing
(macsales.com) or macofalltrades.com.

The hardware is rock solid even if it is 3 or 4 years old and the software is
upgradeable. And I know I will be able to use it for another 5 years without
too much hassle.

My casual computing needs do not include high end gaming or deep learning
using the latest GPUs.

I don't need anything more powerful to browse the internet, check my email and
some casual document editing. This is what my family also does 90% of the
time.

Sometimes it is cheaper to just change the timing belt on your car rather than
leasing/buying the next latest/shiniest new thing.

------
rasengan0
I'm in the same boat but opted for ChromeOS with Linux
[https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton](https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton)
on [https://www.groupon.com/deals/gg-
acer-116-chromebook-2857](https://www.groupon.com/deals/gg-
acer-116-chromebook-2857) My current mac mini sits idle only used for
activities Chrome / linux doesn't support

Oh yeah, Apple?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13511241](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13511241)

------
base698
Just bought a NUC with an added 32GB of RAM as a dev machine. It's been great
so far.

~~~
smcl
Which model is that? I've considering a dedicated windows dev machine, ogling
the Surface Book but can't find anywhere that sells the 16/512 model in Czech
Republic. I hadn't considered an NUC, I just presumed they'd be low on RAM and
non-upgradeable

~~~
base698
Got the Skull Canyon one:
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01DJ9XS52/ref=ox_sc_act_imag...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01DJ9XS52/ref=ox_sc_act_image_2?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1)

------
bitL
Get a NUC5i5/NUC6i5 instead, that works with OS X like a charm. Kaby Lake
won't work till Apple releases something with it. I have a quad boot on 5i5,
Linux/W7/W10/OSX, a perfect little development machine.

~~~
dragonshed
It's interesting to me how few people consider this an option. I got a 6i5 and
other than wifi, macOS runs great on it.

~~~
bgarbiak
Not having a wifi is, I assume, kind of a deal breaker for most of the people.

~~~
bitL
You simply buy a generic Broadcom BCM94360CD for $25 and you are set; works on
macOS, Linux, W7, W10.

The only missing thing in NUC is a more powerful graphics card for machine
learning/games but that will come with 7nm process as well I am sure.

Similar size to Mac Mini is Zotac NEN, including quadcore i5 and NVidia 970M,
which might be an interesting NUC alternative (though considerably pricier). I
run SteamOS on 4k TV with it.

------
benologist
NUCs are awesome, I'm waiting to add this passive cooling case to mine, then
an external GPU effectively everything but my MBP will be able to share.

[http://www.fanlesstech.com/2017/01/exclusive-akasas-skull-
ca...](http://www.fanlesstech.com/2017/01/exclusive-akasas-skull-canyon-case-
final.html)

These also look quite capable:

[http://www.anandtech.com/show/10966/zotac-mini-pcs-kaby-
lake...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/10966/zotac-mini-pcs-kaby-lake-
ces-2017)

------
Entangled
The next Mac Mini should be the exact size of an Apple TV but in aluminum
case, with the most RAM it can get and the fastest processor in the world.

We pay for quality and we expect Apple to deliver. That NUC is ugly as fuck.

~~~
pacomerh
If that ugly NUC ran macOS I would be ordering one right now. I don't mind if
a desktop comp is ugly, I always hide them anyways, I only care about the
results. But I do mind if my laptop is ugly.

------
sams99
I have a skull canyon NUC and love it. I work in a co-working space. At the
end of my day I can disconnect it and put it in my locked drawer. It is tiny
and super fast. Caveat though for those thinking they can hackintosh this
thing, it is going to be tricky and incomplete
[https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/intel-nuc-skull-canyon-
sk...](https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/intel-nuc-skull-canyon-skylake-os-x-
el-capitan-installation-using-only-unibeast-multibeast.195888/)

------
intrasight
Complete PC with OS for ~$220. HDMI 2.0 with 4K at 60Hz. I expect that they'll
sell a ton of them as HTPCs.

[https://www.amazon.com/Intel-BOXNUC6CAYSAJR-NUC-Kit-
NUC6CAYS...](https://www.amazon.com/Intel-BOXNUC6CAYSAJR-NUC-Kit-
NUC6CAYS/dp/B01MXYZ8V5)

I use a Raspberry Pi 2 as my HTPC. As I only watch my own media on my NAS, it
is perfectly adequate. But what is pretty surprising to consider is that this
NUC is only about twice as expensive as my complete Raspberry Pi system.

------
forgottenacc57
All technology companies fail due to dogmatic self belief above their world
view.

The Apple world view is that they do not need to aggressively compete in
desktop/laptop computing.

------
labrador
I don't understand, since Apple has so much money, why they don't put some of
it into the Mac line. It seems short-sighted.

~~~
scribu
I think the limiting factor is not money, but mental bandwidth. Even if they
could just go out and buy a whole extra product team that's up to their
standards, they would still need constant attention from the leadership to be
successful.

~~~
Joeri
The team they have right now is more than big enough to manage all product
lines they have.

The reason they're struggling is probably because they have lots of people
working on other things than their current products, like the car.

------
biot

      > a died in the wool Mac user
    

What an appropriate typo. Normally it should be "dyed in the wool".

------
HillaryBriss
He had me at: _the last update Apple made to them was mostly a downgrade in
terms of performance. No one except the most desperate of people should even
consider buying one of these things. The fact that Apple will still happily
sell you a 2-3 year old computer for new prices is beyond insulting._

------
Damogran6
That NUC looks like it would be SO close to my needs...but the need pushing a
new, small, quiet computer into the living room is VR...and I don't think it
would quite do that. (Perhaps a TB3 dock to a gtx1070?) I'm not ever sure if
the blocker is processing power or physical video ports.

~~~
benologist
There's another NUC called Skull Canyon that's a quad core Skylake i7 with
Thunderbolt 3. It's not quiet, but there's a fanless case coming for it so
it's going to be. It's about the size of a VHS video cassette, or ~2x the NUC
the OP mentions.

[http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/nuc/nuc-kit-
nuc6i7kyk...](http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/nuc/nuc-kit-nuc6i7kyk-
features-configurations.html)

------
kkylin
I remember going to the Apple Store the week they released the 2014 Mac Mini,
taking one look, and going back to my campus bookstore and buying the last of
the 2012 Mac Minis. Still very happy with that purchase.

Not sure about the rationale behind most of Apple's design decisions the last
couple years...

------
DrNuke
Trying to sell my mid 2011 right now but market is flooded, you didn't see
this a couple of years ago.

~~~
germinalphrase
My experience as a buyer doesn't match. I've been trying to find a cheap older
model just to noodle around with/set up a lightweight media server. Everyone
around me are trying to get 2x their practical value, it seems.

But then, I've been keeping a 2009 MBP alive with salvaged parts - so I
probably don't adequately consider the apple tax on used equipment.

------
aorth
Actually that machine looks great—but where do I buy one? I searched for the
product number of that NUC on Amazon and only find different (older) versions?
There's something to be said for Apple's naming scheme versus "NUC Kit
NUC7i5BNK" !

------
sunstone
For friends and family I've been building a few Zotac CI323's running Ubuntu
16.04 for this purpose. Not expensive even after adding a 80gig ssd and 8gigs
of ram, passive cooling, between Chrome, Kodi and VLC it handles a lot of
content.

------
spraak
I never really use my laptop as a portable computer. It usually still just
sits at my desk, so I think next time I buy a machine I'll consider getting
something like this and max out the RAM and get a nice USB monitor.

------
otikik
I've got a Raspberry Pi 3 with raspbian and a SSD, all inside a tiny white
box. It reproduces x264 video just fine.

Now that we might upgrade to a 4K TV I might need to look for alternatives. I
wonder whether the NUC is my best option.

------
supercanuck
I've tried this but i've struggled mightily getting audio via HDMI from the
Nuc. no matter if I install Windows or Linux.

I simply replace the mac mini with the nuc, same hdmi etc and nothing.

So tread carefully.

------
bootload
_" Is this what I’ve been missing all these years as a died in the wool Mac
user?"_

Laser focus in apple (cf @nattnewton), laser focus in customers perceptions.

------
ychombinator
If only Firefox / Intel would sort themselves out and get H.264 encoding
working on the NUC so you can watch YouTube above 720p on Linux. Sigh.

------
intopieces
I'm usually happy to jump on the hate train even for companies I like
(criticizing is fun) but this faux incredulity is becoming really stale.

Apple doesn't make the computer that fits your niche because it doesn't have
to. They make gobs of money selling old machinery because for most people it
works just fine.

A significant portion of every day computing is in the cloud anyway. It's why
computers now have less file storage than before. Most people spend more time
looking at their smartphone instead of their computer screen.

------
notadoc
Looks like a good machine.

Really makes you wonder why Apple seems to be neglecting the Mac Mini, or the
Mac line in general.

------
Twiebie
This doesn't run MacOS without some hackingtosh stuff, does it? Or did he
switch to Windows with it?

~~~
Viper007Bond
The article mentions switching to Windows.

------
synaesthesisx
Apple is aggressively at work with their new depth sensors + SoC and GPU for
their new lens wearable.

------
return0
Can that thing run OSX ? damn, i just ordered a mac mini to do some ios dev.

------
general_ai
"Never had to reboot". Yet every time I start my sparingly used Windows
machine the first thing it wants me to do is reboot to install updates, and
it's pretty insistent about it.

~~~
fuzzy2
Not only that, it _will_ reboot when it decides to and you can't do a thing
about it. You haven't pressed a button for a while because you're watching a
movie? Time to reboot!

I know about "work time", but it can last only 12 hours (IIRC).

------
plg
Where does one buy one of these Intel NUCs???

------
andreapaiola
Better late than never...

------
khazhou
Ok great. So now I want to buy this. With a hard drive, etc ... I want to go a
purchase site, select my specs, and hit purchase.

NOT SO FAST. This is a Kit. I have to buy the components separately and
assemble. Hurray for roadblocks.

------
wildchild
Apple is a scam and nothing else.

It's more clear for me after my Mac Mini 2009 is no longer supported by Sierra
without any constructive reason (you can install it with pair of crutches but
no Wi-Fi). Actually Apple is selling fancy outdated hardware with pretty
questionable "new features" like touchbar bullshit to excuse their ridiculous
pricing model.

Awesome that more people abandoning it.

------
orbitur
Blog post leaves out an important point: is it easy to get macOS running on
that particular model?

edit: The mini hasn't competed on a purely specs/price level since, perhaps,
its first year or two of existence. There have long been better, similarly
sized options if you don't care about OS X.

~~~
taspeotis
The blog doesn't even try to make that point.

> It turns out there’s another OS that has all those: Windows. I’ve had
> Windows 10 on a gaming PC I built over 6 months ago and I’ve not had a
> single problem with it.

~~~
orbitur
Which is strange, since the Mac mini's only value for the last 9 or 10 years
has been it's ability to run OS X/macOS.

From a purely technical/specs/price standpoint, the mini hasn't been a
competitor since 2006, so I'm not sure what the blog post is saying that is
new.

~~~
taylodl
It's small and quiet. Quite nice for a living room machine. It's also rackable
so you can put them in your data center and use them as an iOS build server.
It's odd the Mac Mini can fill both of these divergent niches but such is the
Mac Mini - it's a niche machine.

