Apple-Event the 28th

[Gig']

macfreak found a live link but it's in french ..

http://keynote.mac4ever.org/

if it helps

 

[bbloke]

Also:

http://www.macrumorslive.com/web

and

http://ilounge.com/

 

[JetwingX]

New mac mini ^_^!!!!
Looks the same but has Front Row
Intel Core Solo Processor 2.5x-3.2x faster
4 USB Ports, and SPDIF audio port, and can now be connected to your TV.
Front row also now picks up shared music libraries, and now it can pick up shared Photo libraries too

 

[nixgeek]

The new Mac mini is a disappointment. The price was increased and the video was made worse. Had they left the price the same, I wouldn't have minded it since it would have been comparable to the Mac mini copycat PC machines out there, but this is just ridiculous.

 

[ksv]

The new Mac mini is a disappointment. The price was increased and the video was made worse. Had they left the price the same, I wouldn't have minded it since it would have been comparable to the Mac mini copycat PC machines out there, but this is just ridiculous.

I've used a DTK Mac with an Intel GMA 900 for a few months, and the graphics seemed much more snappy than the Mac mini even though I've been running the DTK at much higher resolution than the Mac mini I've used.

Based on my experience, I would expect the GMA 950 to be significantly faster than the Radeon 9200 with 32 MB VRAM.

I find the price of the high-end model to be quite absurd, however. For $400 more you'd get an iMac with an excellent 17" LCD, keyboard and mouse, a faster processor, a faster HDD and twice the storage.

 

[Mikuro]

Based on my experience, I would expect the GMA 950 to be significantly faster than the Radeon 9200 with 32 MB VRAM.

Maybe, but then again, nobody would have expected them to stick with that card in 2006. I'll be interested to see benchmarks. In any case, it's certainly not good for the system as a whole, since it starves applications of a fair chunk of RAM. 512MB wasn't sunshine-and-roses even before. Taking 80+MB of that away for video can't be good.

 

[mw84]

Just finished reading this, Mikuro:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1821804,00.asp

 

[Lt Major Burns]

so, it's a shit as it sounds. apple used to praise the mini for having great games ability. that page is now unsurprisingly missing from the apple website.

 

[Jason]

the 950 will be a better performer than the previous Radeon chip, imho, shared memory or not.

 

[ksv]

Just finished reading this, Mikuro:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1821804,00.asp

2D performance is what matters for most tasks in a graphics-intensive OS. A Quartz benchmark would be more appropriate to compare the minis. I don't think anyone would expect to be able to run the latest 3D games on a Mac mini with blazing speed anyway.

As Mikuro pointed out though, 512 MB RAM is already too little. Rosetta often eats hundreds of MBs per application, resulting in continous swapping and very slow application switching.

 

[fryke]

Then again, the Mac mini _is_ Apple's low-end. 599 or 499 USD. It's neither aimed at gamers nor is it aimed at graphics professionals. Integrated graphics is good enough, and I hear good things about the later versions of intel's integrated graphics chips. So I wouldn't write it off just yet. The RAM issue... Well – if you intend to use it with iLife '06 and maybe iWork '06: Those are universal already. If you intend to run Adobe CS through Rosetta emulation on it: You wouldn't expect the best possible performance of a Mac mini anyway. You'd buy a PowerMac G5 or wait for its replacement. For its purpose, the Mac mini certainly is reasonably well equipped.

 

[ElDiabloConCaca]

599 or 499 USD.

Not anymore... try $599 or $799. Still considered low-end, but much more expensive, relatively.

Apple's touted "$500 computer" is gone as of now.

 

[ScottW]

Yea... the $1299 for the iMac is a much better deal. By the time you add a iSight, Keyboard/Mouse and a 17" display to that Mini, a 7200 RPM drive you will be putting up a lot more $$$.

 

[fryke]

I meant it doesn't matter much whether it's 599 or 499: It *IS* the low-end Mac.

And Scott: That is unless you already _have_ a decent TFT as well as a USB-keyboard and a mouse. I, for one, already have those items. I'm sure many PC users out there do, too. Then, the iMac seems like much too much. Since you then have a spare TFT or something, that would've been fine. Depends on where you're coming from, I guess...

 

[Qion]

Ah, I guess this is a bit disappointing. But hey, it was unexpected to the general public and not really hyped that much, so I believe we should all just shut up and accept what was freely given to us. (Well, for an extra 100 USD.)

I think that Apple did a fine job despite the integrated graphics bullshit. They added two USB ports, a larger stock HD, a dual layer DVD burner option, Front Row, and a processor that's quite a bit faster. I'm not let down by this upgrade... although I was wishing for something a bit more exciting.

I don't even get where Apple's going with the Hi-Fi. It's just another overpriced Bose system that people who shop at Sharper Image on a daily basis are going to buy... I'd much rather get on Amazon, buy a decent home theater system and an iPod cable and listen to my iPod on my home theater that can also be used for TV or movies...

 

[Mikuro]

One good thing nobody's mentioned yet is that it now has an AUDIO IN PORT. As a Mini owner myself, I was pretty annoyed when I discovered I couldn't use a microphone. Well, I know there's the third-party iMic, but still, that's more money, especially when you consider the USB hub I'd need to make up for my Mini's sore lack of ports — which is another thing Apple fixed with the new revision. So kudos to Apple on that.

Too bad there's still just one FireWire port, though.

 

[fryke]

I also just read that AirPort and Bluetooth are already in the base model. That was more than 100 USD earlier, I guess...

 

[Lt Major Burns]

another note, while reading this 2 year old thread, absolutely no-one complained that apple were charging £500 for an iPod.

 

[fryke]

Btw.: The integrated graphics takes 64 MB of the main memory. Not "80 MB minimum" or something like that. So it's not _that_ bad. 512 MB is meager, anyway, and _if_ you update, you'll go 1024. Now 960 MB is not _that_ low, so it doesn't make much of a difference.

 

[Mikuro]

Btw.: The integrated graphics takes 64 MB of the main memory. Not "80 MB minimum" or something like that.

I was a little confused about this. Look what Apple says in their footnotes on the specs page:

Memory available to Mac OS X may vary depending on graphics needs. Minimum graphics memory usage is 80MB, resulting in 432MB of system memory available.

They do say all over the place that it uses 64MB of "shared memory". I guess that means 80MB is reserved for graphics use, with an additional 64MB being shared with the main system, making maximum possible graphics memory 142MB. That's the best I can make of it, anyway.