Why does everyone think the Mac Mini is being EOLed? It's a great product. Compact, inexpensive, and is GREAT for switchers who want to try out the Mac without spending a lot of money.

It is reasonably fast and does 95% of what "normal people" (as opposed to Power Users) want to do with a computer. Why get rid of it?

I hope to see the Mac Mini around for a long time. While I don't personally own one, I've seen several people get their first taste of a Mac from one and it is a good machine.

I am a recent convert to the Mac. My first purchase was a Mac Mini (Now also own a Macbook.). I can safely say the availability of the Mini lead directly to my Macbook purchase. The Mini provides a relatively inexpensive way for a new Mac user to get a taste of what Apple is all about. If I would have needed to spend over $1,000 for such an experience, I would probably still be a full-time Windows user. For what its worth, I find the Mini's capabilities to meet 99% of my needs.

Glad to read this. I was on the verge of buying a Mini or iMac. The weak graphics card on the mini has prevented me from making the purchase of a Mini. The reported screen problems of the current iMac needs to be addressed before I'd go for an iMac.

I use several Mac Minis in my office. We have found them to be quite reliable and because of the size, can be used nearly anywhere. It is also a major advantage to be able to upgrade to a more powerful model without having to buy a new monitor, especially if you are using expensive monitors as we do.

However, during the past six months, several of the medical xray and CT software packages we use have been upgraded; as a result the 3D rendering of these programs is now very slow on the Minis. Two MB of RAM and the GMA 950 graphics processor are now inadequate for many even modest tasks.

I feel that Apple, for only trivial development cost, can bring the Mini up to date. Minimally they need to incorporate a Core 2 Duo processor (at least 2.2 to 2.4GHz), the x3100 graphics processor, and at least 4 GB of RAM. The additional RAM is especially valuable for people who must use programs inside of Parallels. These improvements could be done without making any significant changes in the case design, especially considering the Penryn's cooler heat radiation profile.

One last thing: It would be great if they could make the video driver handle the 30" monitor. That would be very useful to many types of professionals. The Mac Mini can continue to be a great profit center for Apple. I hope the rumors are for real!

why make macs smaller?
for all i care they could build the next generation of macminis the size of the cube, i.e. twice its current hight.
all i'd ask for is more space for ram - say 4gb, a bigger hard disk - 400gigs 3,5" would be nice, and more connectors (why not include a usb and fw-hub?), as well as a graphics card that allows hooking up 2 big monitors.

and possibly a cheap way to upgrade my two current mac minis.
i used to work on all sorts of macs, even high end ones, for years. yet the mini was the first mac i truly fell in love with.
anybody considering to "eol" (=kill) the mini must be nuts!

one afterthought: putting the power button in front might be a smart move!

So I've been waiting patiently the last few weeks to purchase a new iMac, and I came across a situation online to buy a 3 week old iMac from a guy, it is the 24" aluminum 2.8Ghz intel extreme with 500gb hard drive (you know the rest). The price is $1650 after the original post started at wanting $2400. It also include a brand new wireless mouse & keyboard (new style). So, here's my question, would you pull the trigger on that deal or would you wait out for the new model and spend the $1700 on that? I don't think anything coming out is going to be a better machine that the used one with those specs & and at that price, thoughts....

I'm a REALLY low budget consumer - a college student with tens of thousands of dollars in student loans already. I've been looking forward to upgrading from a 4-year old Pentium 4 PC to a Mac Mini and saw some of the great deals Apple is offering on them on the "Refurbished" section of their store - $479 for a Mac Mini that runs over $600 new is a STEAL. I'd be really really unhappy if Apple killed the Mac Mini line. I fell in love with them during a summer internship at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, where our lab used all Mac equipment. We had a massive X-server setup there, too, which we used for distributed processing power. The Mac Minis were nice "terminal" systems to let us do some local programming in the Unix shell, then execute the programs and send them off to the distributed cluster. I'm not sure the lab could have afforded to use all Mac equipment if the Mini wasn't available!

I'm another walking example of the Mini doing its job.

Bought my first Mini within days of debut - as an affordable way to check out OS X and contemporary Apple design. That alone convinced me to become a Switcher - after 20+ years of using products run by Microsoft designs - and earlier.

Next step was a MacIntel Mini when they arrived. Followed by giving away the remaining XP box in our home/office. Didn't make any enemies with that because I included a CD for Ubuntu Linux with it.

Now, I've moved up to an iMac and a MacBook - traded in both of the Minis.

None of which would have happened without that 1st Gen Mini.

So is this this actually going to happen, any confirmations of this rumour?

Any confirmations of this rumour?
Say something... Today is April 3rd

I've been waiting to replace my five and a half year old Powermac with a shiny new iMac since I saw this article but I don't know if I can take the pain of waiting much longer, I need a new machine, mine is dying, but is this update going to happen within the next three or four weeks? Is it worth waiting for? And seeing as I only get a new computer every five or so years can you imagine the pain if I to out and get one and it's almost immediately obsolete? Garrr!

How about some Light? After all that heat in March, I have not been able tp dig up one single fact about the impending resurgence or impending demise of the Mini. But, then, I live in the rusty old East coast. The only information I can get from my patients are related to national security and secret new radar systems. How boring.

Why haven't any of you dumpster diving Palo Alto "Scoopsters" been able to dig up so much as a single shred of information to help the rest of us plan our computer lives? I mean, the dearth of information is profound. Isn't there a hardware shortage in somebody's supply chain, a sale in the Herzegovina branch of CDW, a new motherboard ramp up in Taiwan, a mysterious part number appearing in the Best Buy system, anything? Even a photo on Flicker would be encouraging.

I have caught myself a number of times late at night, putting together custom configurations of Mac Pros on Apple's on-line store. When I pull myself back to my senses I am sweating profusely. I even found myself last Saturday sending emails to MacPro sellers in Craigs List. Oh my God.

I refuse to believe, given the fact that Apple farms out its fab to factories all over the world that there is not a single snitch who could be bribed to say something to bring this torture to an end. Wasn't this mother-boarding banned by the Geneva Convention? Water-boarding could never be this bad.