Announcements during Apple October 30 Event

[Dylrob]

The RAM of the mini is user upgradable btw.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by Dylrob

The RAM of the mini is user upgradable btw.

How about storage? I know some of their MacBooks use proprietary/non-standard storage.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by Dylrob

The RAM of the mini is user upgradable btw.

Yes, but is it soldered in? If soldered in then for most of the mini owners that makes it non-updatable without hiring someone and putting their new toy at risk. Someone like me who had the skills way back when but who is now old with poor eyesight and arthritic likely won't even try to update soldered in components. There is a big difference between plug in RAM cards and soldered in RAM. And even if it is plugged in RAM, how accessible will it be? The Mac mini late 2012 was easily accessible by simply opening a panel door. But if it requires disassembling a large portion of the unit and encountering glued components, then again that is not really accessible to most owners.

ETA: Check out this iFixit video of their teardown of the Mac mini 2014. At 2:20 into the video they clearly show soldered RAM.

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Mac+...Teardown/30410

According to Apple Insider the RAM in the Mac mini 2018 is rumored to be replaceable stating they were supposedly told by Apple employees that owners "with a 'modicum of skill' can get to the pair of RAM slots." But that will need to be verified and hopefully someone will soon after they ship. For now I remain skeptical.

......

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Dylrob

The RAM of the mini is user upgradable btw.

The MacMini has had upgradable memory for a while. My mac mini (Mid 2010) has upgradable memory that looks like your picture. It was the first of the 3rd generation Mac Mini. My first mac was a 2005 mac mini (first generation intel if I remember correctly). You could change the memory and upgrade the hard drive (I did both), but it wasn't easy. The only mac mini that you couldn't upgrade the memory was the 2nd generation, but it's been 8 years since that put out a mac mini that wasn't very easy to upgrade the memory.

I use my Mac Mini to run older programs that don't work with High Sierra and newer.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by OtinG

Yes, but is it soldered in?

In general, if something is soldered, it's usually not considered user upgradable. Most users just don't have the tools nor skill set for soldering much less those that use BGA or something.

[Dylrob]

Originally Posted by OtinG

Yes, but is it soldered in? If soldered in then for most of the mini owners that makes it non-updatable without hiring someone and putting their new toy at risk. Someone like me who had the skills way back when but who is now old with poor eyesight and arthritic likely won't even try to update soldered in components. There is a big difference between plug in RAM cards and soldered in RAM. And even if it is plugged in RAM, how accessible will it be? The Mac mini late 2012 was easily accessible by simply opening a panel door. But if it requires disassembling a large portion of the unit and encountering glued components, then again that is not really accessible to most owners.

ETA: Check out this iFixit video of their teardown of the Mac mini 2014. At 2:20 into the video they clearly show soldered RAM.

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Mac+...Teardown/30410

According to Apple Insider the RAM in the Mac mini 2018 is rumored to be replaceable stating they were supposedly told by Apple employees that owners "with a 'modicum of skill' can get to the pair of RAM slots." But that will need to be verified and hopefully someone will soon after they ship. For now I remain skeptical.

......

You can clearly see the DIMM modules in the photo I posted. That part is set up just like the 2012 model.

Now storage is apparently soldered on. (But hey, it’s a desktop computer, so an extra HDD hanging off the side isn’t such a big deal.)

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by Dylrob

You can clearly see the DIMM modules in the photo I posted. That part is set up just like the 2012 model.

Now storage is apparently soldered on. (But hey, it’s a desktop computer, so an extra HDD hanging off the side isn’t such a big deal.)

Photos can be faked. I choose to wait until the 2018 arrives in peoples’ hands and gets a thorough examination.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

In general, if something is soldered, it's usually not considered user upgradable. Most users just don't have the tools nor skill set for soldering much less those that use BGA or something.

I totally agree. There are some around these forums who have the ability required, but very few owners would actually have that ability, so “user upgradable” is not a correct statement. They are “professional upgradable” at best. But guess what, that cancels your warranty.

[Dylrob]

Originally Posted by OtinG

Photos can be faked. I choose to wait until the 2018 arrives in peoples’ hands and gets a thorough examination.

The image comes from the Apple website itself: https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/?afid...wgo-mac-slid--

It's also in the Keynote (~29min): https://youtu.be/bfHEnw6Rm-4&t=28m55s

Edit:
Specs: 8GB of 2666MHz DDR4 SO-DIMM memory (the site makes it very clear that the MacBooks have "on board" memory by contrast)

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Dylrob

I do hope that they actually deliver on the connectivity for the iPad Pro.

I do not see why most any of the USB C hubs that work on MacBook, Chromebook, and PCs would not work on the new iPad Pro as well. People are certainly going to expect them to work, it is an industry standard interface, unlike Lightning port.

So for example:

https://www.amazon.com/EUASOO-Thunde...ords=USB+c+hub

HDMI, USB, Ethernet, SD cards, audio etc.

One thing I am wondering about is availability of an adapter or hub that lets you plug in Lightning accessories (microphones, headsets, Apple Pencil v1, etc.), and ideally have passthrough for charging.

I think app developers need to get serious about supporting keyboards properly (keyboard shortcuts etc.). It really holds iPad back from being a better laptop replacement. I’ve been asking Amazon to add keyboard shortcuts to Kindle app for years now. Even just being able to turn pages with cursor keys, sheesh.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I do not see why most any of the USB C hubs that work on MacBook, Chromebook, and PCs would not work on the new iPad Pro as well. People are certainly going to expect them to work, it is an industry standard interface, unlike Lightning port.

So for example:

https://www.amazon.com/EUASOO-Thunde...ords=USB+c+hub

HDMI, USB, Ethernet, SD cards, audio etc.

One thing I am wondering about is availability of an adapter or hub that lets you plug in Lightning accessories (microphones, headsets, Apple Pencil v1, etc.), and ideally have passthrough for charging.

I think app developers need to get serious about supporting keyboards properly (keyboard shortcuts etc.). It really holds iPad back from being a better laptop replacement. I’ve been asking Amazon to add keyboard shortcuts to Kindle app for years now. Even just being able to turn pages with cursor keys, sheesh.

I do have to wonder a bit why they decided to make this change. Are they going to abandon the lightning across the range of Apple products? One would think you could plug a USB hub in, though I would think the hub would need a regular power supply.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I do have to wonder a bit why they decided to make this change. Are they going to abandon the lightning across the range of Apple products? One would think you could plug a USB hub in, though I would think the hub would need a regular power supply.

Most hubs have a place to plug in power (pass through).

Probably allows faster charging and data transfer rates than Lightning. And opens things up more for 3rd party accessories because it is an industry standard. There’s speculation that future iOS update will make external storage writeable which would help with the video/audio/photo editing story.

I don’t see as much need to do this for a phone. But who knows.

[Dylrob]

Well we will see if it migrates to the iPhone... I certainly hope it does... but I think market pressures are what caused this switch on the iPad. The iPad line began its life as a media consumption device. For years Apple was content with pushing that angle, however thanks to Amazon, that market niche has been gobbled up by much cheaper devices. The only way Apple can continue to justify the price of the iPad is by pushing it as a productive device. And I mean the last generation of iPads were very capable in that area, though IO is still the one area where it was lacking. Especially since companies like Adobe are finally getting around to developing desktop quality apps for the platform.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by tomsem

One thing I am wondering about is availability of an adapter or hub that lets you plug in Lightning accessories (microphones, headsets, Apple Pencil v1, etc.), and ideally have passthrough for charging.

Some web searching and critical thinking has lead me to the conclusion that there probably never be a way to use Lightning accessories with the new iPad Pros. When the first MacbookPro with USB-C ports came out, many users complained that they could not use their iPhone (Lightning) headsets with the MacbookPro. It is still the case a couple of years later.

I’ve come to really like my Lightning headsets, in particular the Pioneer Rayz, which has active noise cancelling (drawing power from the Lightning port) and other enhanced abilities like equalizer, auto-pause, etc., and it has a Lightning port to plug power in, so you can listen and charge at same time.

The Lightening plug seems less prone to breakage and noise caused by bad physical connection than 3.5mm stereo plugs, which I have come to despise. So I’m not looking for a return to that. Yet it is not clear that wireless audio will ever have low enough latency for audio production (wireless MIDI seems good enough on my current iPad Pro, but that does not involve nearly as much bandwidth).

I have an audio interface (mic+guitar+aux) that currently connects to my iPad via lightning wire, and even with that there is a tiny bit of latency. It also has USB 2.0 output to connect to a laptop/desktop, so maybe that will work with iPad Pro’s USB-C port (with suitable adapter).

There are USB-C headsets and audio interfaces, of course. Looks like I’ll need to look into these and factor that in to what I will need to spend to upgrade.

[tomsem]

Learnings about USB-C audio. In short, it is kind of a mess:

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3284...esnt-work.html