"The missing mid-range desktop Mac"

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iljitsch

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  • #1
    Dan Moren has the following story over at Six Colors: The missing mid-range desktop Mac. In it, he argues that Apple is leaving a gap between de relatively modest performers such as the M1 iMac and the M1 Mac Mini on the one hand, and the new Mac Studio and the Mac Pro on the other hand.

    So the former two are for light tasks, the latter two are definitely pro machines, but this leaves the "prosumer" who wants/needs more than the basics but also doesn't want to start at $3000+ for a computer and a monitor.

    I think pricing-wise, that seems correct. But comparing the entry level Mac Studio to a Mac Mini configured similarly, it just looks like the Mac Studio is overpriced:

    Mac Mini: $1200 for 8 core CPU / 8 core GPU, 16 MB RAM, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, 512 GB SSD
    Mac Studio: $2000 for 10 / 24 cores and 32 GB RAM

    So more RAM and a much beefier GPU. The difference in CPU cores is larger than it seems because the Mini has 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, for the Studio it's 8 + 2. But... even if that adds up to about twice the performance, that really only helps you with very parallel tasks. Not sure if compiling code would be much faster, for instance.

    Is that difference really worth the 67% higher price? Or the 82% higher price if you're not going to use 10 Gigabit Ethernet.

    Of course all of this could suit Apple just fine, as people who are in the market for something faster than the Mac Mini will have to jump to $2k and get the Studio as the $1500 or so machine that would suit their needs better doesn't exist.

    But... all of these machines are going to get faster. So the next Mac Mini will probably be the machine "prosumers" really want, and the next entry level Mac Studio will probably be the machine that warrants that $2000 price tag. Or the ones after that.
     
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    hestermofet

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  • #2
    iljitsch said:
    this leaves the "prosumer" who wants/needs more than the basics but also doesn't want to start at $3000+ for a computer and a monitor.
    Click to expand...
    I think the fallacy here is you are starting from the flawed assumption that you must include an Apple monitor when pricing out the Studio Mac. The Studio Mac is competitively priced with similar PC workstations, and if you pair it with a normal PC monitor, you can get a very high end system with a quality 4K display for less than $2500. This seems like a much more reasonable price point for a midrange system, and comparable to the 27" iMacs that came before it while providing way higher performance. You can get a total package for $2250 if you go with a very reasonable quality 1080p or 1440p panel instead of 4K.

    So more RAM and a much beefier GPU. The difference in CPU cores is larger than it seems because the Mini has 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, for the Studio it's 8 + 2. But... even if that adds up to about twice the performance, that really only helps you with very parallel tasks. Not sure if compiling code would be much faster, for instance.

    Is that difference really worth the 67% higher price? Or the 82% higher price if you're not going to use 10 Gigabit Ethernet.
    Click to expand...
    For double the performance cores and double the RAM, absolutely. And buying a Mac has always meant paying for things you don't need, simply because you are stuck with one vendor and whatever configurations they offer. You've never been able to pick and choose in any meaningful way.

    You are also ignoring the added ports that the Studio provides. That's worth a lot in certain use cases.

    But really, everyone who has a need for a $2000 desktop should be moving to 10Gbps. :)

    You're proposed price point seems to be a $1500... which is just the higher spec M1 iMac that already exists. :confused: Is there really space in the lineup for an additional model in between?
     
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    iljitsch

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  • #3
    Yes, you don't have to get Apple's new monitor, that's why I said "3000" rather than "3600". But you're right, you could be doen for $2500. And if you feel 10GE is a given at these price points then obviously, 4K would be the minimum. :cool:

    Sure, two more USB-C ports and an SD card slot on the front are nice, but a USB hub does much the same at a fraction of the cost. But that's compared to the Intel Mac Mini (like the one I'm typing on right now) with four USB-C/TB3 ports while the M1 Mac Mini has only two. That's not enough.

    So a Mac Mini with 4 TB ports and 32 GB RAM would be a good addition to the lineup, IMO. More than 2 TB ports and/or more than 16 GB RAM are fairly common desires. Not wanting to break the $2k barrier, also a common desire.

    You can still order the Intel Mac Mini, which will give you 4 TB ports and up to 64 GB RAM. But with 32 GB and GE that one's $1800 so not exactly the midrange price option I was arguing for... But Apple keeping this model around does suggest that more tB ports and more RAM are likely to appear on future ARM Mac Minis.

    It's too bad that Apple didn't add an internal expansion option to the Mac Studio. That would have better justified the high entry level price. But of course at the same time undermine the SSD size upgrade money grab.
     
    Megabat

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  • #5
    I mean I'm pretty sure the answer is that the margins on that $1200 Mac Mini spec are way higher than they would be on a hypothetical $1300-$1500 M1 Pro desktop.

    I'd like to see an analysis of how the "prosumer" electronics market (and Apple specifically) exploits middle class anxiety. We want a faster/nicer-than-average tool (and can appreciate it) but we're afraid of splurging on something really nice. This Goldilocksian sentiment appears so often in Mac enthusiast commentary and seems totally at odds with Apple's rigid product schedule.

    Personally I think Apple is perfectly situated. At this point the people willing to tolerate the disadvantages of a desktop aren't doing it out of frugality but a desire for high performance. Once Qualcomm et al. start adding ARM SoCs to non-Apple notebooks there'll be virtually no reason to buy a desktop without a discrete-class GPU/lots of memory/fast IO/superior cooling. Most people need just enough power in a convenient package, the rest have a bottomless desire for capacity and fidelity.
     
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    wrylachlan

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  • #6
    Scandinavian Film said:
    Given the continued existence of the Intel Mac Mini above the M1 version, and the Mac Studio not having an M1 Pro option, I think it’s a foregone conclusion that there’ll be an M1 Pro Mini.
    Click to expand...
    I’m not sure I would read it that way. There’s still a huge installed base of x86 Macs that devs need to target and they need at least one Intel Mac to stay in the lineup as a dev box. Even if they introduced an M1 Pro (or M2 Pro by the time it arrives) Mac Mini we could still see the Intel Mini stick around as a dev box.
     
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    wrylachlan

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  • #7
    Megabat said:
    At this point the people willing to tolerate the disadvantages of a desktop aren't doing it out of frugality but a desire for high performance. Once Qualcomm et al. start adding ARM SoCs to non-Apple notebooks there'll be virtually no reason to buy a desktop without a discrete-class GPU/lots of memory/fast IO/superior cooling. Most people need just enough power in a convenient package, the rest have a bottomless desire for capacity and fidelity.
    Click to expand...
    Meh. By that worldview neither the M1 Mini nor the 24” iMac would exist. Everyone would be on laptops except the high performance Mac Studio crowd and I don’t think that’s right. The draw of desktops is simply “I don’t need to do my work anyplace other than here so why do I want a laptop?” There’s also Universal Control which explicitly envisions customers whose on the go device is an iPad. Desktop + iPad is a quintessential Apple combo.

    It feels to me like something is up with the M1 Pro chip. There are two obvious places for it - the Mac Mini and the 24” iMac - that Apple is choosing not to put it. But there are consistent rumors that an M2 Pro is going in those places. So why would Apple skip the M1 generation for those models? Could it be as simple as pent up demand for laptops is eating all the M1 Pro supply they can manage?
     
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    iljitsch

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  • #8
    Megabat said:
    We want a faster/nicer-than-average tool (and can appreciate it) but we're afraid of splurging on something really nice.
    Click to expand...
    Not sure if that is true, unless with "really nice" you mean something excessively overpowered and expensive. Mac users have been paying a lot more than non-Mac computer users for a long time.

    This Goldilocksian sentiment appears so often in Mac enthusiast commentary and seems totally at odds with Apple's rigid product schedule.
    Click to expand...
    Exactly. So Apple shouldn't be so rigid, and give people what they want. To some degree they are doing that now with ports coming back to laptops and the new display, but it's not exactly a sea change.

    A good example of such rigidity would be if they stick with ARM Mac Minis that only have two Thunderbolt ports and 16 GB RAM (well eventually everything gets more RAM, but let's say 16 GB for the next couple of years) and if that's not enough, get ready to upgrade to the Mac Studio.

    Then again, with HDMI and some USB-A ports being limited to two USB-C/Thunderbolt ports is is not the end of the world.
     
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    Jade

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  • #9
    iljitsch said:
    Megabat said:
    We want a faster/nicer-than-average tool (and can appreciate it) but we're afraid of splurging on something really nice.
    Click to expand...
    Not sure if that is true, unless with "really nice" you mean something excessively overpowered and expensive. Mac users have been paying a lot more than non-Mac computer users for a long time.

    This Goldilocksian sentiment appears so often in Mac enthusiast commentary and seems totally at odds with Apple's rigid product schedule.
    Click to expand...
    Exactly. So Apple shouldn't be so rigid, and give people what they want. To some degree they are doing that now with ports coming back to laptops and the new display, but it's not exactly a sea change.
    Click to expand...

    The heart of the prosumer xMac argument exposed: why can't Apple be like PC makers? The real problem for Apple is that the value of prosumers is inversely related to popularity of the Mac. Their solution has been to bifurcate the lineup between consumers and professionals, forcing prosumers to choose one or the other. Unfortunately, cognitive dissonance is a tough nut to crack, hence the xMac lives for another thread!
     
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    Scandinavian Film

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  • #10
    wrylachlan said:
    Scandinavian Film said:
    Given the continued existence of the Intel Mac Mini above the M1 version, and the Mac Studio not having an M1 Pro option, I think it’s a foregone conclusion that there’ll be an M1 Pro Mini.
    Click to expand...
    I’m not sure I would read it that way. There’s still a huge installed base of x86 Macs that devs need to target and they need at least one Intel Mac to stay in the lineup as a dev box. Even if they introduced an M1 Pro (or M2 Pro by the time it arrives) Mac Mini we could still see the Intel Mini stick around as a dev box.
    Click to expand...
    If Apple follows the same schedule for the AS transition as the Intel transition, next year’s macOS won’t even run on Intel Macs, so I doubt they’ll still be selling them past this year.
     
    Cranioclast

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  • #11
    Megabat said:
    At this point the people willing to tolerate the disadvantages of a desktop aren't doing it out of frugality but a desire for high performance.
    Click to expand...
    What about screen size? A lot of people I know can't stand to use a small laptop screen. Yes, you can plug a laptop into a desktop screen, but why pay extra for a screen and battery that you're not going to use?
     
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    wrylachlan

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  • #12
    Scandinavian Film said:
    wrylachlan said:
    Scandinavian Film said:
    Given the continued existence of the Intel Mac Mini above the M1 version, and the Mac Studio not having an M1 Pro option, I think it’s a foregone conclusion that there’ll be an M1 Pro Mini.
    Click to expand...
    I’m not sure I would read it that way. There’s still a huge installed base of x86 Macs that devs need to target and they need at least one Intel Mac to stay in the lineup as a dev box. Even if they introduced an M1 Pro (or M2 Pro by the time it arrives) Mac Mini we could still see the Intel Mini stick around as a dev box.
    Click to expand...
    If Apple follows the same schedule for the AS transition as the Intel transition, next year’s macOS won’t even run on Intel Macs, so I doubt they’ll still be selling them past this year.
    Click to expand...
    I would be VERY surprised if they were that aggressive with dropping Intel Macs from macOS. In the PPC transition people got new computers every 2-4 years because they were improving so fast. Today people regularly use a computer 5-7 years. It’s a very different world.
     
    Mhorydyn

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  • #13
    iljitsch said:
    So more RAM and a much beefier GPU. The difference in CPU cores is larger than it seems because the Mini has 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, for the Studio it's 8 + 2. But... even if that adds up to about twice the performance, that really only helps you with very parallel tasks. Not sure if compiling code would be much faster, for instance.
    Click to expand...

    Just touching on this a bit. Compiling code would indeed be much faster. For example: https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/ ... b_compile/

    For me at least, it’s worth the extra cost.
     
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    iljitsch

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  • #14
    Jade said:
    The real problem for Apple is that the value of prosumers is inversely related to popularity of the Mac.
    Click to expand...
    Relative value. The sad thing is that there's probably a larger group of people who share mine/our needs and desires than there was in the past, but Apple meets those wants/needs to a lesser degree... because other people showed up?

    Their solution has been to bifurcate the lineup between consumers and professionals, forcing prosumers to choose one or the other. Unfortunately, cognitive dissonance is a tough nut to crack, hence the xMac lives for another thread!
    Click to expand...
    Don't get the cognitive dissonance thing. Disagreeing with Apple is not some kind of mental failure.

    I do think Dan Moren had a good point that if the Mac lineup stays the way it is, there is a hole in it between the consumer machines and the pro machines.

    But I'm relatively confident that the Mac Mini will return to its Intel configuration, with more TB ports and more memory options. (Well, maybe keep the dual TB model to cover the bottom of the price range, too.)

    Although Apple has been all over the super speed of their chips, they must realize that raw performance is a selling point to fewer and fewer people these days, while at the same time Moore's law hasn't run out of runway just yet so in a few years today's low end machines will start creeping up on the performance of today's lower end pro machines. I think that's part of the reason why the Mac Studio starts at such a high price, because they need to be able to give it significantly more power to stay ahead of the consumer machines as those get faster.
     
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    Jade

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  • #15
    iljitsch said:
    Jade said:
    The real problem for Apple is that the value of prosumers is inversely related to popularity of the Mac.
    Click to expand...
    Relative value. The sad thing is that there's probably a larger group of people who share mine/our needs and desires than there was in the past, but Apple meets those wants/needs to a lesser degree... because other people showed up?

    Their solution has been to bifurcate the lineup between consumers and professionals, forcing prosumers to choose one or the other. Unfortunately, cognitive dissonance is a tough nut to crack, hence the xMac lives for another thread!
    Click to expand...
    Don't get the cognitive dissonance thing. Disagreeing with Apple is not some kind of mental failure.

    I do think Dan Moren had a good point that if the Mac lineup stays the way it is, there is a hole in it between the consumer machines and the pro machines.
    Click to expand...

    Let's test that cognitive dissonance thing. Analyst Ross Young is convinced there will be a 27-inch mini-LED display in June, but what if that display is an iMac? That would plug the "xMac Gap" Dan Moren asserts as existing in the lineup, so that would satisfy those whose needs still aren't met right?

    Narrator: It would not.
     
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    UserJoe

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  • #16
    Scandinavian Film said:
    Given the continued existence of the Intel Mac Mini above the M1 version, and the Mac Studio not having an M1 Pro option, I think it’s a foregone conclusion that there’ll be an M1 Pro Mini.
    Click to expand...
    Maybe they'll even put a usb port and an SD slot on the front of it wow that Apple seems to have come out of Ive design hell. Also remember that there is a lot of use of Mac Minis as servers and even custom holders to put them in racks. The M1 Pro with 32 GB of RAM would suit that market too as a replacement for the 32 GB Intel Minis.
     
    kefkafloyd

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  • #17
    All the M2 needs is the extra display PHY and 32 gigs of RAM max support and the new Mini will be just fine. If it comes out in the summer or September, people will forget the three or six month gap pretty quickly.

    I still think there's a business case for a larger iMac, but they clearly put the Studio out there for those who bought the higher-end 27 inch first.

    I also don't think Apple will drop Intel OS support until Mac OS 15 (four years after the first M1s) since 10.6 didn't ship until 3.5 years after the first Intel Macs. Rosetta will hang on for two years after that.

    Obviously past performance is not indicative of future results, but it seems like a reasonable guideline.
     
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    Jade

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  • #18
    UserJoe said:
    Scandinavian Film said:
    Given the continued existence of the Intel Mac Mini above the M1 version, and the Mac Studio not having an M1 Pro option, I think it’s a foregone conclusion that there’ll be an M1 Pro Mini.
    Click to expand...
    Maybe they'll even put a usb port and an SD slot on the front of it wow that Apple seems to have come out of Ive design hell. Also remember that there is a lot of use of Mac Minis as servers and even custom holders to put them in racks. The M1 Pro with 32 GB of RAM would suit that market too as a replacement for the 32 GB Intel Minis.
    Click to expand...

    I think it would depend on how many of those 500,000 or so minis sold per year go into the server market, especially the MacStadium type server farm. If that number was high, it would seem like mini development would be driven by that need, individual mini users being a long for the server development ride, so to speak. If feels like the opposite though, that the mini is designed for the individual or individual business, and that it's use as a server is serendipitous.
     
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    UserJoe

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  • #19
    Jade said:
    UserJoe said:
    Scandinavian Film said:
    Given the continued existence of the Intel Mac Mini above the M1 version, and the Mac Studio not having an M1 Pro option, I think it’s a foregone conclusion that there’ll be an M1 Pro Mini.
    Click to expand...
    Maybe they'll even put a usb port and an SD slot on the front of it wow that Apple seems to have come out of Ive design hell. Also remember that there is a lot of use of Mac Minis as servers and even custom holders to put them in racks. The M1 Pro with 32 GB of RAM would suit that market too as a replacement for the 32 GB Intel Minis.
    Click to expand...

    I think it would depend on how many of those 500,000 or so minis sold per year go into the server market, especially the MacStadium type server farm. If that number was high, it would seem like mini development would be driven by that need, individual mini users being a long for the server development ride, so to speak. If feels like the opposite though, that the mini is designed for the individual or individual business, and that it's use as a server is serendipitous.
    Click to expand...
    The server use is definitely not driving development. If it was, the Mini would look like an Xserve. It is just a bonus market since it is the only Mac form factor that can is suitable for use like that.
     
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    hestermofet

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  • #20
    Cranioclast said:
    Megabat said:
    At this point the people willing to tolerate the disadvantages of a desktop aren't doing it out of frugality but a desire for high performance.
    Click to expand...
    What about screen size? A lot of people I know can't stand to use a small laptop screen. Yes, you can plug a laptop into a desktop screen, but why pay extra for a screen and battery that you're not going to use?
    Click to expand...
    A lot of people leave the laptop open in that scenario, and with more people working from home, that's a setup people have become very comfortable with. The default rig that most companies I've seen send out is a laptop and a 24" screen to go along with it.

    As for battery? Battery hasn't mattered for ages, despite Apple's race to extend it for the past decade. A huge number of laptops are used in a stationary manner, so people have been paying for a battery they don't really use for many, many years. c.f. all the complaints online about swollen batteries as a result of leaving your battery plugged in all the time (not as common now as battery tech has improved, so swelling is the less common failure mode).

    Sure, two more USB-C ports and an SD card slot on the front are nice, but a USB hub does much the same at a fraction of the cost.
    Click to expand...
    A hub is a really ugly, non-Mac-like solution, and performance is way lower because you are sharing the bandwidth of the same USB bus. Extra ports on the desktop itself can improve performance dramatically, especially on a machine billed as "Studio" where you can expect many users will be connect it to very high speed peripherals such as RAID DASs and capture cards, or latency sensitive applications such as audio interfaces.

    Your performance will tank if you connect those types of peripherals to a hub. I think the number and positioning of the ports on the Mac Studio is a huge feature for the targeted market.
     
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    mklein

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  • #21
    For most users here, even the base M1 Mac Mini with 8GB RAM is more than enough for computing needs.

    The lowest end offering used to be sluggish, almost unusable, but cheaper. Now the lowest end Mac has the same single-threaded performance as the highest cost Mac. The lowest end Mac has the same disk performance as the highest end Mac. The battery life of the lowest end Mac laptop has the same performance as the highest end Mac laptop, with nearly similar performance.

    There is no missing mid-range Mac. They've switched to the iPhone method -- you're getting nearly everything in each model except for storage.

    Those who need multi-threaded compute performance are not in the middle range -- they are power users.
     
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    hestermofet

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  • #22
    Their solution has been to bifurcate the lineup between consumers and professionals, forcing prosumers to choose one or the other. Unfortunately, cognitive dissonance is a tough nut to crack, hence the xMac lives for another thread!
    Click to expand...
    Don't get the cognitive dissonance thing. Disagreeing with Apple is not some kind of mental failure.
    Click to expand...
    He's not even using the term right. Cognitive dissonance is when you try to align either behaviour or beliefs to an experience that causes you mental discomfort, in order to justify it. For example, when you have such a high bar to gain membership to a club that you think the club is worthwhile, even if it sucks. If anything, if being forced to choose between a consumer Mac, and a professional Mac, prosumers should be happier with their decision, instead of asking for an xMac instead as Jade proposes.

    Or, for example, this classic study:

    Method
    Female participants were informed they would be helping out in a study funded by several manufacturers. Participants were also told that they would receive one of the products at the end of the experiment to compensate for their time and effort.
    The women then rated the desirability of eight household products that ranged in price from $15 to $30. The products included an automatic coffee maker, an electric sandwich grill, an automatic toaster, and a portable radio.

    Participants in the control group were simply given one of the products. Because these participants did not make a decision, they did not have any dissonance to reduce. Individuals in the low-dissonance group chose between a desirable product and one rated 3 points lower on an 8-point scale.

    Participants in the high-dissonance condition chose between a highly desirable product and one rated just 1 point lower on the 8-point scale. After reading the reports about the various products, individuals rated the products again.

    Findings
    Participants in the high-dissonance condition spread apart the alternatives significantly more than did the participants in the other two conditions.

    In other words, they were more likely than participants in the other two conditions to increase the attractiveness of the chosen alternative and to decrease the attractiveness of the unchosen alternative.
    Click to expand...
    https://www.simplypsychology.org/cognit ... nance.html

    Hmm, maybe it applies to owning a Mac more than people think. :p
     
    orionquest

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  • #23
    So is the solution here to the missing mid range mac is a Mac Mini with M1 Max?
    Or not buying the studio monitor and get something else with the Mac Studio?

    To me Apple has drawn some pretty defined lines like they do with iphones, step up and pay to play.
    And if you want any kind of internal expansion not controlled by them, you need a Hollywood budged to own a Mac Pro.
     
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  • #25
    orionquest said:
    So is the solution here to the missing mid range mac is a Mac Mini with M1 Max?
    Or not buying the studio monitor and get something else with the Mac Studio?

    To me Apple has drawn some pretty defined lines like they do with iphones, step up and pay to play.
    And if you want any kind of internal expansion not controlled by them, you need a Hollywood budged to own a Mac Pro.
    Click to expand...

    Mini with m1 pro, 32GB ram and ability to drive 3 monitors, imo, which matches the output of the intel mini.
     
    japtor

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  • #26
    I mentioned in one of the other threads, M1 Pro desktop is the new (or yet another) xMac. Just an obvious spec and price gap right there in the middle with an available chip right there ready to use. But as has been pointed out a few times, with the upgrade spec price points for the M1 machines it gets murkier pretty quickly.

    I could see redesigned M2 models bumping the prices a bit more to tighten the gap. And/or a lower end Mac Studio with M1 Pro and less ports or something a la the entry level MBP before.
     
    jaberg

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  • #27
    kefkafloyd said:
    The missing solution is an M1 Pro with 32 gigs of RAM in a Mini or iMac (along with a 27 inch iMac). It may be that they're stuffing as many as they can into 14 inch MBPs.
    Click to expand...

    This. And we may have to wait for the M2 Mini for this to sort itself out. In the time being, here have been gaps in the “range” before and there will be again. Should I decide to buy a Studio it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to buy “more than I need” to meet my needs — and this applies to more than just computers.
     
    orionquest

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  • #28
    Scotttheking said:
    Mini with m1 pro, 32GB ram and ability to drive 3 monitors, imo, which matches the output of the intel mini.
    Click to expand...

    Hmm yeah I see that now. I keep forgetting there is a M1 pro chip.

    That's kinda shitty of Apple. Basically they have backed us all into a corner with integrated RAM and SSD'S, and low balling their RAM configs. So now if you want more RAM then pony up to the next M1 x variant to get more RAM. Where as the intel version of Mac mini you could go up to 64 gigs. :/
     
    Arasirsul

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  • #29
    kefkafloyd said:
    The missing solution is an M1 Pro with 32 gigs of RAM in a Mini or iMac (along with a 27 inch iMac). It may be that they're stuffing as many as they can into 14 inch MBPs.
    Click to expand...

    That's likely a large part of it, but there may also be a side dish of "We expect to make more money on the Mac Studio, so we're gonna release that first before we let the Mini cannibalize Mac Studio sales." Might be enough room in the market for both, but it just makes sense to put your engineering resources toward the thing you expect to have a higher margin first, then fill in the gaps.
     
    kefkafloyd

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  • #31
    Arasirsul said:
    kefkafloyd said:
    The missing solution is an M1 Pro with 32 gigs of RAM in a Mini or iMac (along with a 27 inch iMac). It may be that they're stuffing as many as they can into 14 inch MBPs.
    Click to expand...

    That's likely a large part of it, but there may also be a side dish of "We expect to make more money on the Mac Studio, so we're gonna release that first before we let the Mini cannibalize Mac Studio sales." Might be enough room in the market for both, but it just makes sense to put your engineering resources toward the thing you expect to have a higher margin first, then fill in the gaps.
    Click to expand...
    I've made similar arguments and largely agree on this point as well.
     
    A

    ant1pathy

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  • #32
    Arasirsul said:
    kefkafloyd said:
    The missing solution is an M1 Pro with 32 gigs of RAM in a Mini or iMac (along with a 27 inch iMac). It may be that they're stuffing as many as they can into 14 inch MBPs.
    Click to expand...

    That's likely a large part of it, but there may also be a side dish of "We expect to make more money on the Mac Studio, so we're gonna release that first before we let the Mini cannibalize Mac Studio sales." Might be enough room in the market for both, but it just makes sense to put your engineering resources toward the thing you expect to have a higher margin first, then fill in the gaps.
    Click to expand...

    A re-design on the base Mini could be in the works as well, accommodating both the entry M chip and the Pro variant.
     
    I

    irfoton

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  • #33
    kefkafloyd said:
    Arasirsul said:
    kefkafloyd said:
    The missing solution is an M1 Pro with 32 gigs of RAM in a Mini or iMac (along with a 27 inch iMac). It may be that they're stuffing as many as they can into 14 inch MBPs.
    Click to expand...

    That's likely a large part of it, but there may also be a side dish of "We expect to make more money on the Mac Studio, so we're gonna release that first before we let the Mini cannibalize Mac Studio sales." Might be enough room in the market for both, but it just makes sense to put your engineering resources toward the thing you expect to have a higher margin first, then fill in the gaps.
    Click to expand...
    I've made similar arguments and largely agree on this point as well.
    Click to expand...

    But at this late stage, I hope the Mini "pro" would have a M2. perhaps the M2 will have other improvements including the option for more memory on the base chip. That and the Studio display would be a great iMac 27" replacement.
     
    Galvanic

    Galvanic

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  • #35
    Lineup pricing ranges at the moment (barebones to fully hardware maxed):

    Mini: $699 to $1799
    iMac 24: $1299 to $2658
    Studio: $1999 to 7999
    Pro: $5999 to 54,448

    So in terms of raw computer prices, there isn't really a gap, though of course the iMac comes with a screen and the Studio doesn't.

    Also, that top end Pro costs more than all the cars I've ever brought in my life combined.
     
    Chris FOM

    Chris FOM

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  • #36
    iljitsch said:
    [snip]

    I think pricing-wise, that seems correct. But comparing the entry level Mac Studio to a Mac Mini configured similarly, it just looks like the Mac Studio is overpriced:

    Mac Mini: $1200 for 8 core CPU / 8 core GPU, 16 MB RAM, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, 512 GB SSD
    Mac Studio: $2000 for 10 / 24 cores and 32 GB RAM

    So more RAM and a much beefier GPU. The difference in CPU cores is larger than it seems because the Mini has 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, for the Studio it's 8 + 2. But... even if that adds up to about twice the performance, that really only helps you with very parallel tasks. Not sure if compiling code would be much faster, for instance.

    Is that difference really worth the 67% higher price? Or the 82% higher price if you're not going to use 10 Gigabit Ethernet.

    Of course all of this could suit Apple just fine, as people who are in the market for something faster than the Mac Mini will have to jump to $2k and get the Studio as the $1500 or so machine that would suit their needs better doesn't exist.

    [snip]
    Click to expand...

    Right data, wrong conclusion. With the transition to Apple Silicon they've standardized their upgrade pricing across their entire product line. SoC, RAM, and storage upgrades cost the exact same no matter what device they're in, from an iPad Pro through a Mac Studio.

    For an M1, going from a 7-core GPU to 8 cores costs $50, and going from 8 GB of RAM to 16 costs $200.
    There are currently no devices with M1 and M1 Pro options, so we can't do the math on that jump, but afterwards we can go all the way from the base M1 Pro through the topped-out M1 Ultra.
    M1 Pro, 8-core CPU, 14-core GPU, 16 GB RAM, base price (all M1 Pro options can be upgraded to 32 GB RAM for $400).
    M1 Pro, 10-core CPU, 14-core GPU, 16 GB RAM, $200 (all prices relative to base M1 Pro)
    M1 Pro, 10-core CPU, 16-core GPU, 16 GB RAM, $300
    M1 Max, 10-core CPU, 24-core GPU, 32 GB RAM, $900 (including the mandatory $400 32 GB RAM upgrade, all M1 Max options can also be upgraded to 64 GB RAM for an additional $400)
    M1 Max, 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 32 GB RAM, $1100
    M1 Ultra, 20-core CPU, 48-core GPU, 64 GB RAM, $2700 (including mandatory $400 64 GB RAM upgrade, all M1 Ultra options can also be upgraded to 128 GB RAM for $800)
    M1 Ultra, 20-core CPU, 64-core GPU, 64 GB RAM, $3700

    Thus far those numbers have been consistent regardless of device, so we can easily do the math to scale down to a hypothetical Mac Studio with a base M1 Pro, 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD. Doing that we get $1100, which is actually the price of a mini with an M1 and 16 GB of RAM. And don't forget that even if an M1 Pro wouldn't need the Mac Studio's cooling system there's still a much larger array of ports on the Studio, extra external display support, etc. meaning you're giving up even more going from the Studio to the mini. So from those numbers, it's not the Mac Studio that's overpriced, it's the mini. Even accepting that less expensive products have thinner margins, an M1 Pro mini should still be roughly the same cost as that hypothetical M1 Pro Studio. That means a base M1 Pro with 16 GB RAM for $1100 going up through an unfused M1 Pro with 32 GB RAM at $1800, which then transitions perfectly to a Studio at $2000. Only question then becomes what the price is to jump from an M1 to an M1 Pro, which we don't know but looking at their current price increments would probably be somewhere around $150, which drops the current M1 16 GB mini to $950. Problem then becomes the entry-level model, which drops to $550 from the current $700, which probably means a redesign to reduce costs. Which is why we haven't seen it yet.
     
    D

    dal20402

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  • #37
    hestermofet said:
    I think the fallacy here is you are starting from the flawed assumption that you must include an Apple monitor when pricing out the Studio Mac. The Studio Mac is competitively priced with similar PC workstations, and if you pair it with a normal PC monitor, you can get a very high end system with a quality 4K display for less than $2500.
    Click to expand...

    The problem with that is that almost every "normal PC monitor" is garbage compared with what you get on the 24" iMac. macOS since Mojave and even more since Big Sur has been designed to look right on 200+ dpi P3 displays. It has meaningful and increasing usability issues on lesser displays. P3 is not a problem, but you just can't get 200+ dpi in a commodity monitor for love or money.

    This seems like a much more reasonable price point for a midrange system, and comparable to the 27" iMacs that came before it while providing way higher performance. You can get a total package for $2250 if you go with a very reasonable quality 1080p or 1440p panel instead of 4K.
    Click to expand...

    Nothing with a commodity 1440p or especially 1080p (really??) panel is going to have a comparable user experience to a 5K iMac, or even a modern MBP.

    But really, everyone who has a need for a $2000 desktop should be moving to 10Gbps. :)
    Click to expand...

    We're not quite there yet but Wi-Fi 7 is going to make wired Ethernet irrelevant for all but the most specialized use cases. I was planning to upgrade the wiring and gear in my house to 10GbE until I learned more about what Wi-Fi 7 will do, and now upgrades to wired Ethernet just seem like a big investment for a very short expected life.
    Scandinavian Film said:
    If Apple follows the same schedule for the AS transition as the Intel transition, next year’s macOS won’t even run on Intel Macs, so I doubt they’ll still be selling them past this year.
    Click to expand...

    This isn't right. Apple has been very consistent about macOS support schedules for years. Users always get at least 3 years of current OS support from the day a machine was discontinued as a new product. Apple has sold several Intel products as new since Monterey was released. Assuming they discontinue the last of those before macOS 13 comes out, they should be fully supported by macOS 13 (2022), 14 (2023), and 15 (2024). I'd expect all T2-equipped Intel Macs to be supported along the same timeline, meaning that fall 2025 is when they will lose current OS support, and fall 2027 is when they will lose security support.
     
    H

    hestermofet

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  • #38
    dal20402 said:
    hestermofet said:
    I think the fallacy here is you are starting from the flawed assumption that you must include an Apple monitor when pricing out the Studio Mac. The Studio Mac is competitively priced with similar PC workstations, and if you pair it with a normal PC monitor, you can get a very high end system with a quality 4K display for less than $2500.
    Click to expand...

    The problem with that is that almost every "normal PC monitor" is garbage compared with what you get on the 24" iMac. macOS since Mojave and even more since Big Sur has been designed to look right on 200+ dpi P3 displays. It has meaningful and increasing usability issues on lesser displays. P3 is not a problem, but you just can't get 200+ dpi in a commodity monitor for love or money.

    This seems like a much more reasonable price point for a midrange system, and comparable to the 27" iMacs that came before it while providing way higher performance. You can get a total package for $2250 if you go with a very reasonable quality 1080p or 1440p panel instead of 4K.
    Click to expand...

    Nothing with a commodity 1440p or especially 1080p (really??) panel is going to have a comparable user experience to a 5K iMac, or even a modern MBP.
    Click to expand...
    I think there's a wee bit of display snobbery here. Usability issues on a lower res display? Which issues? Is anything so blurry that it is unreadable? Is there any window in a first party application that won't fit because the minimum window height is more than 1080 pixels, and it can't be changed?

    No? Then there are no usability issues. Don't confuse "looks ugly" with "can't be used". I've used Windows on a display with only 600 pixels of vertical resolution. There are actual issues with usability there. Mac OS can be used just fine on a 1080p display.
     
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