George Graves
On Thu, 15 May 2008 13:23:15 -0700, Glorb wrote (in article <c45e5$482c9bb3$19323@news.teranews.com>):

Glorb
George Graves wrote:

George Graves
On Thu, 15 May 2008 08:57:36 -0700, Glorb wrote (in article <6a253$482c5d70$17004@news.teranews.com>):

Glorb
George Graves wrote:

George Graves
On Wed, 14 May 2008 08:27:19 -0700, Glorb wrote (in article <c3e60$482b04d7$6599@news.teranews.com>):

Glorb
Mayor of R'lyeh wrote:

Mayor Of R'lyeh
On Tue, 13 May 2008 22:30:08 GMT, me4@privacy.net (Wayne Stuart) wrote:

Wayne Stuart
ZnU <znu@fake.invalid>wrote:

ZnU
In article <r81i2493mg7ii0vqdtv8m1o2k08vko0vnp@4ax.com>, Mayor of R'lyeh <mayor.of.rlyeh@gmail.com>wrote:

Mayor Of R'lyeh
On Mon, 12 May 2008 14:57:49 -0700, George Graves <gmgraves2@comcast.net>wrote:

George Graves
On Mon, 12 May 2008 13:18:23 -0700, ZnU wrote (in article <znu-5B168E.16182312052008@news.individual.net>):

ZnU
Will they do it? I don't see them having much interest, at the moment. But who anticipated the Mac mini, introduced as a $500 Mac when the cheapest Mac was previously nearly twice that price, or the Xserve, a product targeted at a market in which Apple had previously shown no interest at all?

George Graves
The thing is that any computer designed to compete in that space would have to be more computer than the Mini. Let's face it, for the cost of a Mini one can buy or build a Windows box with near Mac tower performance and capability. Not that the Mini isn't useful, it certainly is, it just doesn't stack-up, hardware wise, very well against similar priced Winbox offerings. It's main appeal is that it runs OSX. This makes it worthwhile to those who value OSX, but to our local Windroids and Winscum here, many of which have never even seen, much less used OSX (Edwin), the Mini merely looks overpriced.

Mayor Of R'lyeh
Mac user (at work anyway) here to say that the Mini is grossly overpriced for what it is. If the higher end Mini were priced at $500 and the lower end one at $300 they'd be flying out the doors.

ZnU
It's priced quite well for a small form-factor system, but many buyers probably don't care much about the form factor. Apple could make the thing a fair bit cheaper by just making it a bit larger, so it wouldn't have to use laptop RAM and optical & hard drives.

(Though it's also worth noting the Mac mini hasn't seen an update in something like nine months -- it'll probably be much more competitive after the next update. Though that will probably take the form of better specs at the same price points. Unless it has been so long since the last update because Apple is up to something....)

Wayne Stuart
Maybe if the Mini had been a bigger seller, Apple would have put more effort into keeping it fresh. But everything I've seen points to the Mini has always been considerably outsold by the much more expensive iMac.

You also have to wonder if this has been sending a message that people aren't particularly interested in cheap Macs, so no point making an even cheaper one.

Mayor Of R'lyeh
What people are interested in is a $500 Mac that has the same features as a $500 PC, not a $500 Mac that matches the $198 PCs on Wal-Mart's website. As I keep pointing out its not the price point, its the value.

Glorb
I agree. ** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

George Graves
Depends upon one's definition of value. I hate to resort to car analogies,

Glorb
So lets get rid of your car analogy and stick to computers. :-)

George Graves
The Mini appeals to people who have no use for a Windows PC of the same price or less, no matter how much better a processor, more memory, bigger hard drive or more software it comes bundled with. That makes such comparisons moot.

Glorb
Since few people, if any, fall under such a category, the comparisons are far from "moot."

George Graves
Since Apple, being only one company, is only selling to a "few people" in the larger scope of things, the comparison is absolutely moot.

Glorb
Apple's commercials disagree with you. They're trying to convince PC buyers to become Mac buyers. They're not aimed at the kind of people who will buy a Mac even if better PCs cost less.

George Graves
SOME PC buyers, they couldn't handle a lot of PC buyers.

I might, conceivably buy a Mini, I would never buy one of these similar priced or even cheaper Windows machines even if it were faster and more fully loaded than the fastest Mac one can buy, because I have no use for a Windows machine.

Glorb
Why do you feel your personal beliefs extend to the market as a whole?

George Graves
I don't. But they do extend to the Mac market, the only market of interest in this discussion.

Glorb
You both said you don't and you do.

Especially when you posted about occasions when you had to use a Windows machine for your work.

George Graves
Even so, that's what Parallels is for.

Glorb
You didn't post about using Parallels, and "even so," it showed you had a use for Windows machines.

George Graves
Those odd and rare occasions when one just HAS to use a Windows program. There's no reason to buy a Winbox for that.

Glorb
Yet you wound up using a Windows machine.

George Graves
I wound-up with a MacBook Pro running Parallels for ONE Windows program: Visio.

Now that Omnigraffle Pro 5.0 is fully compatible with Visio, I don't even need that any more.