Apple October 30, 2018 event

[KeithP]

Hearing rumours that the memory on the new mini is upgradeable! Possibly even the nvme ssd also.

From ZDnet…

I reached out to Apple about this and was told: "Yes, Mac mini is configurable up to 64GB and uses industry-standard DDR4 SO-DIMMs. While we don't consider the memory directly end-user accessible, service providers can access the internals of the Mac mini to upgrade the memory."

-KeithP

 

[jpiniero]

You know, if the Air really is using Amber Lake... isn't that the first time Apple has updated a Mac within the Intel product's launch window?

 

[Eug]

You know, if the Air really is using Amber Lake... isn't that the first time Apple has updated a Mac within the Intel product's launch window?

No.

Well, it depends on what you mean. This chip hasn't been announced I don't think, so it's similar to a situation I believe a decade ago where Apple was using a semi-custom Intel SKU. I can't find the link though, since every time I do the search I get a bazillion hits about Apple going custom ARM.

 

[Zaap]

As far as the Pro goes, I'd be using it as well (for artistic purposes)

You're a BRAVE man! I wouldn't let my kids within a country mile of my $1200+ iPad Pro. (Theoretically speaking, that is.) Especially after the words markers....mess....*shudder*.

Anyway the new iPad pro does look pretty awesome. It depends on how much Adobe's plans to intergrate Premiere Rush with the real thing really pan out, but if I can actually edit 'in minature' on an iPad and continue on a desktop, real professional projects... sold! Been kind of an editing dream for a while now and the Pro could possibly make it reality.

 

[Kaido]

You're a BRAVE man! I wouldn't let my kids within a country mile of my $1200+ iPad Pro. (Theoretically speaking, that is.) Especially after the words markers....mess....*shudder*.

Yeah, I'll definitely be looking for a used iPad Pro gen1 before Christmas, haha. After further thinking, definitely decided that a $1,200 tool + kids = nope! I do want to pick one up eventually for art, but even then, I don't think I'm $1,200 into art at the moment, lol.

I found a great stand that is both heavy & can adjust the angle, so it's nice for drawing at a table or whatever...freehand art, tracing, letter tracing, digital coloring book apps, etc.

Already did it with Minecraft...got it on the TV/phone/VR...RIP Legos! Haven't stepped on one in years now!

 

[Kaido]

Anyway the new iPad pro does look pretty awesome. It depends on how much Adobe's plans to intergrate Premiere Rush with the real thing really pan out, but if I can actually edit 'in minature' on an iPad and continue on a desktop, real professional projects... sold! Been kind of an editing dream for a while now and the Pro could possibly make it reality.

Yeah, I am very interested in that, as I am currently a huge Premiere + Resolve fan. Mobile editing would be amazing...have a terabyte of solid-state storage in your hand would be pretty epic too...maybe not $2,300 epic, but y'know

 

[Kaido]

You're a BRAVE man! I wouldn't let my kids within a country mile of my $1200+ iPad Pro. (Theoretically speaking, that is.) Especially after the words markers....mess....*shudder*.

Anyway the new iPad pro does look pretty awesome. It depends on how much Adobe's plans to intergrate Premiere Rush with the real thing really pan out, but if I can actually edit 'in minature' on an iPad and continue on a desktop, real professional projects... sold! Been kind of an editing dream for a while now and the Pro could possibly make it reality.

PS - how's the hackie?

 

[Zaap]

PS - how's the hackie?

At work finally switched from Final Cut Pro 7 over to Premiere CC. So it's forced my hand switching at home too. You can imagine, to keep running FCP7, it kept us from upgrading OSX beyond Sierra. So I've been stuck with a current-gen, non-Pro 27" iMac running Sierra which still has support for 32-bit apps. But so much for that, switching everything over to Adobe CC and Mojave, so begone FCP7. (FCPX was NEVER an option- still a toy IMO).

There's a lot I like about Premiere though so I'm enjoying the switch. It can even be set up to resemble FCP for peeps like me that kept using it.

Anyway- the sig Hackintosh is still running strong! 5 years and counting.

I'm going to have to upgrade it before long. It's been stuck at Sierra and I'm not sure the routine to upgrade to Mojave on this mobo. So finally a great excuse to upgrade! Gotta keep parity with my laptop and work computers.

The new Mac Mini might finally be a desktop Mac worth buying for me. On the other hand, my 2012 Hack has lasted this long because I've been able to upgrade it so easy. The Hack is so old I'll be buying everything new except for my SSD's so building vs. buying a Mini won't be much of a cost difference, just feature and upgrade path difference.

 

[Eug]

The new Mac Mini might finally be a desktop Mac worth buying for me. On the other hand, my 2012 Hack has lasted this long because I've been able to upgrade it so easy. The Hack is so old I'll be buying everything new except for my SSD's so building vs. buying a Mini won't be much of a cost difference, just feature and upgrade path difference.

I'd be scared to buy the i7-8700, due to the risk of fan noise.

I'd be inclined to buy the i5-8500.

We shall see how loud these units are.

P.S. Geekbench 4 has the i7 Mac mini at over 5500 / 23500.

 

[Kaido]

Bad news, SSD is soldered (as is the CPU). RAM is super easy to swap out, however:

https://www.engadget.com/2018/11/09/mac-mini-2018-teardown/

I don't understand the thinking here. I can understand the CPU, but the SSD? I mean, SSD's fail all the time. They've gotten more reliable in recent years, but unlike mechanical hard drives that often slowly fail & allow you to get your data off first, SSD's typically just flat-out die. I don't understand why they wouldn't just stick a simple NVMe slot in there, especially because if your SSD dies, then they have to replace your entire motherboard under the warranty or AppleCare. The soldered storage is in highlighted in orange (bottom right) in the picture below: (128GB Toshiba TSB3225V81199TWNA1 flash storage)

Granted, it does say that the new SSD chip is PCIe-based, and that you can get up to 3.4GB/s sequential read speed, which puts it nearly on-par with the advertised speeds of the Samsung 960 PRO NVMe SSD chip (3.5GB/s max), so outside of the even faster (and vastly more expensive) ones I install for business clients, like Kingston's DCP1000 (four NVMe chips on a single card) or Fusion-io's (now Sandisk, I guess) super-ridiculous cards, that's pretty dang speedy. I'd really love to get my hands on the new Mini, which is basically a SoC now (for better or for worse), because I bet that little sucker flies due to having everything interconnected like that.

 

[Kaido]

Also, the new Mini does have four (4) Thunderbolt v3 ports, so you can just add on whatever storage you want, whether it be for booting or for storage. For example, the Thunderblade is available in up to 8TB of capacity with a max speed of 2.8GB/s:

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-thunderblade

Highpoint sells a TB3 to 4x NVMe RAID adapter, which is compatible with the 2TB Samsung 960 PRO models:

http://highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series-rs6661a-nvme-overview.htm

Storage isn't an issue, either...OWC's Thunderbay is available in up to 72TB for $5k:

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB36SRE072/

Daisy-chaining is also available: