The new Apple Mac mini fits perfectly to the "Pro" market, but the complaints have already begun

You asked for it and you got it, let's see now if you buy it. The new Mac mini is a good machine, but it is time to determine if its fans are numerous or simply disproportionate to the market for which it is intended.

It may have taken 1,475 days for Apple to update the Mac mini, but that is now the case. The new machine is what you would get if you took almost every wish from the world's "professional" Mac mini fan and that everything was packed in gray space plus 100% recycled aluminum.

Only the Mac mini is a stubborn little computer. You can tell us that before this update, the old Mac mini was foiled by even cheap Windows machines and we would not disagree. He has been defeated by all that is happening and yet Mac minicomputer buyers are hooked for a very long time.

This is a sign that the Mac mini is a very good product. People also talk a lot about it, which would be an extra sign, but for gossip, you always have to improve the situation, or Apple is doomed, otherwise Steve Jobs would never have allowed such a thing – the last two being a nonsense.

Our first thought when Tim Cook referred to a "small but powerful computer that our users expect" was obviously that it was the Mac mini. However, before the first one was really finished, we thought that this could put an end to complaints about Apple's market abandonment.

This should be the end of the conversation, but it is not. With this announcement, Apple should silence fans of Mac mini and those who think that the company abandons business users for the benefit of consumers. That's all, the work is done – but in one way or another, you simply know that the best that he can do is give Apple a minimal respite.

Seriously, we should be done with all this. For years, we've heard that the Mac mini needs to be faster, have more memory, more storage, and have to stay cheap. We hear this since switching to Intel in the Mac mini and that Apple did not care about users of this machine before.

Sometimes, the argument is specifically that Apple is only interested in consumers because it would not make a Mac mini more powerful. Other times, the argument is precisely that Apple does not care about consumers or that it would make a better Mac mini. We have not heard both arguments at the same time, but it is very close and we may have moved on to something else before reaching it.

Take the argument of abandoning business users. Before the October 30 event, a Mac mini would cost you $ 499 and you have a 1.4 GHz machine with 4 GB of RAM and a 500 GB hard drive. Since the event, you start to $ 799, but you get a 3.6 GHz Intel i3 quad-core computer with 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of SSD storage.

This does not include the fact that the new Mac mini is equipped with Thunderbolt 3 USB-C connectors as well as HDMI 2.0, Ethernet, USB 3 connectors and a headphone jack.

This does not affect the fact that you can upgrade to a six-core Intel i7 processor running at 3.2 GHz with 64 GB of RAM and a 2 TB SSD plus 10 Gigabit Ethernet. It will cost you – if you want to maximize the Mac mini, you will have to pay $ 4,199 – but you can do it.

This new Mac mini is definitely a professional tool.

Now take the argument that Apple is abandoning consumers. You can not usually have things back and forth, but this time the answer is exactly the same. This new Mac mini with its basic configuration is a mainstream tool.

Define pro

This may be a perfect illustration of why the terms "pro" and "consumer" do not matter or at least do not exclude each other. This unique Mac is not designed for all users, but the consumer who buys it today will not throw it away tomorrow when it will become a professional user.

You are a professional user if you need or want a fast machine to make money and are willing to pay for it. If this is your case, you will probably want to protect this investment by upgrading the machine later. We do not say that then, it's unreasonable to pretend that it's unreasonable: we point out that, hello, the Mac mini is scalable.

Specifically, the RAM is. Apple claims that the RAM of the new Mac mini is an integrated SO-DIMM connector, which means that within certain limits you will be able to buy more memory at any time. It must be compatible and can not exceed the Mac mini 64GB ceiling, but it does not necessarily have to come from Apple, which still represents a rather gigantic economy.

Surely you are stuck with the storage you buy when you order and it is not possible to put a larger capacity or a faster drive later. However, this Mac mini does not come with an old-fashioned SATA storage of 550 MB / s. This is theoretically at least four times faster and, in our experience, SSDs of this type are in practice six times faster.

Then you are also stuck with the processor that chose at the time of order. You will not receive any disagreement about this from us. Except that the hope of trading the processor when the entire machine is designed technically, electrical and thermodynamic seems less professional and looks more like DIY.

And hardly anyone does it. Almost nobody has ever done it, and Apple has not given the explicit possibility of doing it well before the second advent of Jobs.

If you need a faster processor in a few years, buy the Mac mini version sold by Apple, because either you have already returned your money from a professional point of view, or your cost of ownership is less than a dollar a day.

Advantages and disadvantages

Last year we had the iMac Pro. This year we have the Mac mini, an almost unnamed business machine. Some time in 2019, we will have the Mac Pro.

Also this year, we have a 12.9-inch iPad Pro with 1TB of storage that, under the right circumstances, can drive an external 5K monitor. It also has an Apple A12X Bionic chip that, according to the company, "makes the iPad Pro faster than most PC laptops".

In addition to all these professional tools, there are tools for consumers. There is the basic iPad starting at $ 329, the iPhone XR starting at $ 749 and this new Mac mini starting at $ 799.

To the extent that it has done so and will probably always, Apple addresses both consumers and the professional market. Or as we would prefer to see it, the occasional user and the heavy operator.

So let's get away from the complaints that Apple is not serving this market or that one, and let's focus on the much bigger issues that we all face, such as the reason why it was not there. iMac day at this event on October 30th.

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