Apple Fall event official for October 30th (1 Viewer)

[Mark Booth]

Of the new Apple products, the 11" iPad Pro is the most attractive to me. It will be on my Christmas list for Santa.

I like most everything about the new Mac mini EXCEPT the fact that there's no mention of HDR support. Maybe it was expecting too much for it to support high dynamic range output to a TV? Well, that and the lack of a hardware GPU.

If I get the new Mac mini I'll likely get the 6-core i5 version. I think the 8-core i7 would be overkill. Plus my expected max budget for a new Mac mini was about $1,500. I'd want the 1TB SSD so that puts the i5 right in the ballpark. The i5 with 8GB RAM and 1TB SSD is $1699 but Apple is already discounting it via EPP (Employer Purchase Plan), which I still get to participate in as a retiree (per Apple). That knocks the price down to $1597.

But the home theater product first on my list this holiday season is the new Panasonic UB9000 4K Blu-ray player. I'm on Robert Zohn's waiting list and believe I'll have a shot at the December allocation.

Mark

 

[Carlo_M]

It's interesting that on the new iPad Pro video they had a DJ using it to play music. Except that it has no headphone jack. And no lightning jack (for the lightning-to-headphone dongle they used to include with the iPhones). Only a USB-C jack. I had to google it, USB-C to headphone jacks do exist (from 3rd parties) so hopefully that's how you hard-wire headphones into this. Otherwise I guess it's bluetooth only headphones.

 

[Sam Posten]

Of the new Apple products, the 11" iPad Pro is the most attractive to me. It will be on my Christmas list for Santa.

I like most everything about the new Mac mini EXCEPT the fact that there's no mention of HDR support. Maybe it was expecting too much for it to support high dynamic range output to a TV? Well, that and the lack of a hardware GPU.

AFAIK NO integrated graphics solutions support HDR.

 

[Citizen87645]

I was hoping Best Buy would carry the Core i7 with 128 GB SSD, but their choices are limited to the Core i5 with 256 GB SSD or the Core i3 with 128 GB SSD. I think like John I balk at the principle of paying $200 for 128 GB more capacity.

 

[KeithAP]

MacBook Pros are getting some new GPUs come November…

Radeon Pro Vega Graphics Coming to MacBook Pro Next Month
Apple also today announced new MacBook Pro graphics options that will bring powerful Radeon Pro Vega graphics to MacBook Pro for the first time. These new graphics options deliver up to 60 percent faster graphics performance for the most demanding video editing, 3D design and rendering workloads.

-Keith

 

[JohnRice]

I was hoping Best Buy would carry the Core i7 with 128 GB SSD, but their choices are limited to the Core i5 with 256 GB SSD or the Core i3 with 128 GB SSD. I think like John I balk at the principle of paying $200 for 128 GB more capacity.

The i7 with 128GB SSD is a custom configuration. It sounds like BB carries only the two base model Mac Minis, which isn't a surprise.

 

[Sam Posten]

I did not see this coming. Weird.
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/10/31/macbook-air-youtube-unboxing-videos/

 

[Thomas Newton]

I was hoping Best Buy would carry the Core i7 with 128 GB SSD, but their choices are limited to the Core i5 with 256 GB SSD or the Core i3 with 128 GB SSD. I think like John I balk at the principle of paying $200 for 128 GB more capacity.

As a rule, Best Buy only carries the 'stock' (non-custom) variants that you see on the Apple Store site. I suppose you could ask them if they would do a custom order.

 

[Citizen87645]

That's OK. I wound up paying $100 of it with my Best Buy Visa card, which should get me a $15 reward certificate if they honor their promotion. I might put that toward a new monitor, but will probably wait until Black Friday to see what my options are. Until then, I'll be getting by for a couple weeks on an old 1080p monitor.

 

[Clinton McClure]

I'm definitely putting a Mac mini in my Christmas list this year. I'm currently eyeballing the entry level with the 6-core i7 bump for $1099. The primary purpose of the mini will be as a Plex and iTunes server. I'm sure the quad core i3 could do just fine, but I don't want to take any chances with a slow i3 processor getting bogged down making mkv files. I would also take the entry level 128GB SSD and 8GB ram. I would replace the ram with 16 or 32GB on day one and add an external RAID for file storage.

 

[JohnRice]

I'm definitely putting a Mac mini in my Christmas list this year. I'm currently eyeballing the entry level with the 6-core i7 bump for $1099. The primary purpose of the mini will be as a Plex and iTunes server. I'm sure the quad core i3 could do just fine, but I don't want to take any chances with a slow i3 processor getting bogged down making mkv files. I would also take the entry level 128GB SSD and 8GB ram. I would replace the ram with 16 or 32GB on day one and add an external RAID for file storage.

If you’re going to use it to process video files, you should get a huge speed boost with the i7.

 

[Carlo_M]

Apple has long wanted to free itself from the shackles of Intel's upgrade cycle (and more importantly, Intel's delays). I think this is a result they've been waiting for...

https://www.macrumors.com/2018/11/01/2018-ipad-pro-benchmarks-geekbench/

 

[Sam Posten]

More on MacStadium:

 

[Clinton McClure]

Mind = blown

 

[Carlo_M]

Uh oh. Mac mini in my future? Maybe...

https://www.macrumors.com/2018/11/02/first-mac-mini-benchmark-surfaces/

 

[JohnRice]

Uh oh. Mac mini in my future? Maybe...

https://www.macrumors.com/2018/11/02/first-mac-mini-benchmark-surfaces/

It generally beats the 27" i7 iMac. I'm so glad I waited.

 

[Mark Booth]

It generally beats the 27" i7 iMac. I'm so glad I waited.

But the mini doesn't have a dedicated hardware GPU and the iMac does. Depending on app, that may make the iMac faster.

Mark

 

[JohnRice]

But the mini doesn't have a dedicated hardware GPU and the iMac does. Depending on app, that may make the iMac faster.

Mark

If that's important, you can probably add an even better external GPU than anything available in an iMac, and still save $. Plus, I don't give a flying F about a dedicated GPU. This lets me replace my home Mini, move it to work, and replace the other two Minis there for what I would have spent just to replace my home Mini with a roughly equally performing iMac. huge win.

 

[Carlo_M]

I wouldn’t buy it as a gaming/power video machine. I built a gaming PC for that. This would be more of a NUC. But if I ever needed GPU power I’d buy an eGPU and connect it via thunderbolt.

 

[JohnRice]

It's funny how gamers can't comprehend there would ever be any use for any computer other than gaming. I've never played a computer game in my life, for what it's worth. There is another world out there, and most people live in it. This will be a seriously nice Photoshop machine, at a killer price for a Mac.