Returning to the Mac Mini

On why a Mac Mini refresh in 2016 could be huge

In the summer of 2014, I wrote a piece called “The year of the Mac Mini” all about why I thought that Apple’s lowest cost Mac would be critical in the year going forward, and why it therefore needed an upgrade.

At the time, iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were still rumors, but credible ones, and iOS 8 was shown at WWDC to be getting a lot of the major features that consumers (both Apple users and holdouts alike) were really clamoring for. And crucially, OS X Yosmite was announced with Continuity, which meant that iPhone and Mac were going to interoperate in ways that they had never been able to before.

Basically, a lot of people were going to be interested in getting a new Mac.

Now, the Mac Mini did get an update in 2014. I’m not going to claim that I had any effect on that, but I am going to claim that I was right about the need for the update.

Of course, I wasn’t totally correct. I said that:

“The Mac Mini is for tinkerers… It is highly configurable from Apple, but because it is easily opened, it’s also highly user upgradable.”

Infamously, the user accessibility was removed from the 2014 Mac Mini, and the RAM was soldered to the board making it inaccessible even if the machine was pried open.

But I maintain the main point of tha argument, being that the Mac Mini is a good machine for a small minority of power users. Because the quad core configurations were removed, you can argue that the Mac Mini is not as good of a compute for power users, but I will politely disagree. Here’s why: geeky secondary machines.

The Mac Mini makes two great geek machines: an HTPC and a server. The mini is compact and headless, which means it fits well hiding away in your entertainment center. It even has an IR port, making it easy to control with a remote. It also has an HDMI port to connect to your TV. And it can be configured with a ton of internal storage, and has all sorts of ports for external storage. As a server, the Mac Mini is a great machine because it has just the right amount of power, low cost, headless design, and tons of ports for external drives so it can back up and grow over time. Also, the Mac Mini is probably the nicest looking server you’ll ever use.

These are power user features, though. Normal people don’t generally have a large enough collection of digital media that can’t be streamed from iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, etc, and they don’t want to deal with running a server.

Truth be told, I don’t have a need for an HTPC now that I have an Apple TV, and I didn’t really think I needed a server until I started to switch to using an iPad as my main computer.

I love iPad Pro. I previously used the first generation iPad Air, and it was really great, but for whatever reason, I would always end up back on my Mac when I needed to do “real work.” Until, of course, I decided to write a multi-page lab report on my iPad and I loved it. So, I got the iPad Pro 12.9". And it’s great. And I don’t want to go back to my Mac.

But everything isn’t perfect on iPad. Storing files in iCloud Drive (or Dropbox, etc) is great and works well, but on my Mac, I would manage the cloud files so that only the most recent and necessary to access files were in the cloud, avoiding going over the free storage tier. Long term file storage took place on a couple various external hard drives. For me, it doesn’t make sense to pay monthly to store files that I’m rarely going to access, but can’t delete for fear that they might become useful again. This does include a couple hundred GB library of movies I own that I have ripped to digital.

Also, there are still things that can’t be done on an iPad, such as iTunes library management. But these can be accomplished on a Mac, or by remotely accessing a Mac via a VNC app like Screens.

As it turns out, a Mac Mini file server would fill my needs perfectly, and I imagine that other users would also agree.

But probably more importantly, the Mac Mini is still a great computer for first time Mac buyers. I already established that this was true two years ago, but I think it’s newly true this year. Think about it: we now have iPhones in big sizes at two different price tiers. We have the iPhone SE at the lowest price ever for a new iPhone. We have the two new iPad Pro models helping to convert old, cheap PC users into the Apple ecosystem. And iOS and Mac integrate better and better each year.

I think this creates the perfect environment for interest in the Mac Mini, Apple’s cheapest Mac option.

I said before:

“That’s where the Mac Mini comes in. Most consumers in the US already have a PC, and a lot of those are legacy desktops. Some may even be running the now dead Windows XP. People have peripherals, and just want a new computer. If they don’t come in just wanting a new computer, Apple can convince them of this with the Mac Mini.”

And I think that remains true today to some degree. Granted, Apple has been doing more and more each year to bring the iMac and MacBook Air down in price for entry level switchers too, but I think the Mac Mini still has its place.

So, why an update? Both the power users I described and normal users want a computer that is reasonably future proof when they buy it, because they don’t replace their computer every year or two. When a Mac reaches the “Don’t Buy” recommendation, they get nervous and look for something else that’ll last longer.

So, what updates should we see to the Mac Mini? Obviously, a processor bump from Haswell to Broadwell or Skylake (depending on availability of Skylake) would be nice. I think the price points are fine the way they’re at, starting at $500, $700 for the mid tier, and $1000 for the top tier.

I do think that the RAM/HDD configurations should be reconsidered, though, as long as the margins can still be reached for Apple. I think the entry level model should start at 8GB RAM, with a 1TB HDD. No Mac should start below 8GB RAM in 2016, because you just won’t be giving your users a good experience. And I understand starting the lineup with a spinning disk drive, but it might as well be pretty big so as to please users in that sense. With that said, I think the mid tier version should start at 8GB RAM with a 1TB Fusion Drive. Fusion drives need to percolate down the Mac desktop lines because they radically improve the experience over plain HDD’s. The top level drive should come default with some size of PCI-E based flash storage, with the option to configure it with a Fusion drive at no additional cost (the current top tier comes with 1TB fusion drive, but a 256GB flash storage can be swapped in for no additional cost).

I would also like to see the return of the server models, which had two hard drives built in, just because I would find it really cool for the nerdy side in me, but that’s totally a reach goal that I don’t see coming true.

The same thing goes for quad core processors. The nerd in me would like to see them come back in the higher tiers, but I don’t find them that necessary, and I wouldn’t want to see a price increase to accomplish those chips.

So, will this be the year of the Mac Mini again?