Apple Mac mini review(arstechnica.com) |
Apple Mac mini review(arstechnica.com) |
So do Toyota and Honda, and their sales seems be pretty steady.
For example, sales for the first half of 2026 vs first half of 2025 in Australia show:
Toyota is down 20% BYD is up 68%
Unfortunately it degrades a major value prop of using Apple in the first place.
When they can justify it, they will add features to macOS which bog down the older systems. Eventually they will say that older systems just don’t have what it takes to run macOS and stop supporting them
Apple has never had an issue with taking machines that can last out of the market
See iOS for a great modern example
There has always been a healthy used apple market
Part of it is that traditionally new machines take away or invalidate good features like ... replaceable graphics cards, or pcie slots or expandable memory/storage or ports in general...
When it balloons, it's time to ditch the machine.
No worries, they will be unsupported by the software pretty soon
I have no position on whether this ought to materially alter the outrage, but the point about low-heat components tends to get lost when comparing PC parts and Mac parts, so duly noted.
https://pcpartpicker.com/products/internal-hard-drive/benchm...
I guess you could build it into a keyboard if you wanted to, but I don't like the apple keyboards so that would be a downside for me.
Eg. https://uptradeit.com/buy-used-refurbished-mac-mini-2024-sil... ($269)
I’m hopeful for even lower than $300 prices just because there’s a lot of homelab people spending a lot on these and the M5 ultra really does make the M4 not worth using for that use case. So there should be a flood shortly hopefully.
My first 'modern' Mac was the 13" 2010 MacBook Pro, and it was $1299. The current Air is $1299. Inflation be damned.
Let's not even go back in time and look at what the PowerBook G4 or PowerBook 5300c cost...
I paid $96 for 32 GB of DDR5 RAM for my Framework 13 laptop back in December 2023. When I checked a few months ago, the same RAM cost around $400; I don't know what prices are like now.
$250 just for 2x8gb DDR5 RAM. I'm not even sure you'd save much money on a DDR4 build, all parts considered.
Why wouldn't you choose unified memory if it matters to you ? A central point of Windows/linux is to get the hardware you want.
> I see no advantage to using Apple right now outside of the iPhone.
For me, the advantage is not being on Windows or Linux. If my PopOS/Manjaro setups hadn't introduced so many random issues with WoW on raid nights that it became a meme for my raid team, I might still be on Linux.
We'll stream everything, so "computers" will exist in the cloud and users won't have to worry about upgrading their machines.
They'll just pay a monthly fee like for mobile data or whatever, and you just connect via screen.
All these data centers and shit around it (internet, etc.) will be actually useful to every day consumers.
Why should I have to upgrade my GPU every 2-3 years? I should just be able to pay to get 4k streaming top of the line graphics.
And <25ms ping latency will become a human right. Only back water countries will see their people having to suffer loading screens and 150ms+ ping
/s btw (in case you're oblivious or something)
Apple trade-in value is currently $565 for the base 16GB/256GB M4 mini. (up from $480 a couple weeks ago)
https://i.imgur.com/9qgKSZd.png
I paid $500 for it. Why would I sell it to you for $300?
That's really not a good proxy, as the base price of EVERYTHING was way lower in 2024. Heck, that M2 mini you're referring to is selling for more than $250 today.
The link you're sharing is a scam - the $269 "2024 M2" takes you to a $269 2014 Intel Core i5 turd.
Do any of these competitors build "machines that can last" as much as Toyota and Honda? Does any other manufacturer have a longevity reputation of either of these two? What are the depreciation schedules of competitors (AIUI, T/H hold their value pretty well)?
I would also say Ford, but their reputation for reliability applies only to their trucks.
It's a thicker port, single orientation and slower. Why you would still want this legacy port is beyond me and it should be a industry wide mandate by now. Very surprised to see it on the Mac Studio this year, just get an adapter/dongle.
The dongle era sucked then and sucks now. All the minefields of FW chipset era with none of the disclosure on usbC controller du jour.
On money, being about the same price as a mac is good enough, given the machine will have vastly more versatility and expandability.
It won't resonate as much if you're straight into the "one size fits all" target of Apple machines. I used to have a macbook and an iPad, the iPad being the primary device, and it was an utter pain. Moving to a windows tablet cuts my costs in half while being able to do more things in total.
I don't wish an iPad on anyone, it's worse than basically any laptop.
Honda's hybrid, including their version of eCVT is entirely different.
If you give any car company that amount of money every year they would be able to undercut the competition and grow their market share too.
When you don't need to make a profit you can afford to dump enough product to kill the competition.
https://eletric-vehicles.com/byd/byd-posts-first-annual-prof...
The rest of the car industry was sleeping on electric, while BYD made it their sole focus. That s why they're now eating everyones lunch.
Also what dumping? They're selling abroad at 2x domestic MRSP, i.e. $10,000s over domestic price, aka fully covers any subsidy, multipe times over. PRC "dumping" is just delulu innumerate cope at this point. The reality is without subsidies PRC structurally make cars for much less (~50%) than western auto, a few $100 per chassis of subsidies is immaterial to $10,000s of retail price gap.
Is it because BYD is more reliable or 'just' cheaper?
There are a number of folks for who H/T would be their first pick if not for (a) waitlists and/or (b) price considerations. And there a lot of folks who don't necessarily care if the car will last 10 or 15(+) years because they'll replace it earlier that that, so as long as it's 'good enough' it's fine.
I am engaging in this from a "Logic 101" perspective. I saw a false premise used in an argument and I only wanted to point that out.
I have no actual position on cars brands or apple computers or any of that.
That's par for the course yes. The AI bubble didn't help it was never priced at entry level either.
I got mine the first year it got out, and the laptop (a Z13 with 64gb RAM) was price aligned with the top of the line MBP pro with the same ram.
Or just do the simple math, if one assume western auto production is somehow competitive with PRC auto if PRC auto simply no subsidies, we are talking about PRC subsidizing each vehicle to tunes of $10000s... PRC made 35m cars last year. For this frankly retarded position to mathematically square, PRC would have to subsidizes ~300B+... aka more than they spend on defense in one sector. The entire position PRC competitive because subsidies is unserious. Even overinflated CSIS study only assumes PRC spend ~250B over 15 years. Like you can come up with the dumbest propaganda numbers on PRC auto subsidies (which CSIS is), and PRC structural production advantage is simply economically unassailable.
This gives the impression that Apple are even bigger than they are.
Curious to know how many of these sales are 'corporate purchases' for fleets versus 'personal purchases'. Given a choice, would most people prefer a Lenovo/PC or an Apple product? How many have Lenovo/PC IT-managed work machines and also (choose to) purchase a PC for personal use versus choosing an Apple?
I certainly would, because I demand Linux on all my computers. I can't stand the idea of being forced to sacrifice x% of my disk for things like "Apple Intelligence" or other bloatware that Apple decided I can't remove because it is a "system component." That, plus all the privacy and user control issues posed by an operating system effectively remotely controlled by a third party.
Given a choice, I would rather have the Thinkpad at work as well.
Lenovo contribute to Linux, and Apple is relatively hostile.
Look at how they break the GPU driver interfaces, and explain to me how that it isn't hostile.
And boy, Limux runs awesomely on Thinkpad. I got one with 32GB RAM, 512 GB SSD for a mere 600 bucks. Works like a charm, perfect for any software development work.
Global desktop market share for macOS is 15.31% according to https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide
It is well known for decades that a Mac user spends many times more on software for that Mac than a PC user spends for software, so it is reasonable to conclude that an iPhone user visits more web pages.
