Apple to mini fans: "Be patient."

That sounds reasonable, I was in a Mac store griping that there was no way to control iTunes using a smart remote and the salesman told me to be patient.. It was on it's way. 2 months later we had 'remote' for free.

I bought two 2.0GHz CPU, 2GB RAM Mac minis, his and hers, with AppleCare in August '07. They have run fine 24X7 ever since. In fact, we are both on them right now. I can't imagine an upgrade that Apple might do to cause me to buy two new ones. Well, Okay, with 3.0GHz and 4GB, eSata port, SD slot, discrete graphics and just a slight increase in price I'll buy at least one. :-)

I bought the first two Mac minis and last year Apple didnt update the MM so I bought a laptop. I don't think I'll ever buy a MM again. Apple is too unreliable on this product line and the difficult to upgrade RAM and HD is enormously stupid for such an intelligent company.

I also have a used Cube that my parents are using. I like the idea of the small footspace macing. However, AppleTV and now the Time Capsule have eroded any sensible reason for a OS X user to but the MM. Linux and XP equivalents are half the price and easy to upgrade.

I think the Mac Mini and the AppleTV are about to merge into one product.

Apple hasn't done anything with the Intel Atom processor either, right?

I'm sure we'll see the new video chipsets from the new Macbook and Macbook Pro show up in these, in which case they will a much more viable HTPC, and simple gaming machine. That was what held me back about getting one as an HTPC.

Come on Apple, just give it all the features the macbook has but give it a 3.5" HDD so we can get some decent harddrive space.....

I'm interested in building (buying really) an htpc and a revised mac mini could fit my needs very well. Small, quiet, powerful (enough).

I'd rather just buy my own machine and an EFI-X dongle ..

Just combine everything about the mini and the apple tv together. that would be nice.

I've got an old PowerPC mini that runs as a server on my home network, and I know a few people who have them as media center PCs. The Mac Mini was also my dad's first Mac, and now that he's getting into mastering audio on it, he's thinking of upgrading to an iMac.

It would be a shame if Apple discontinued it, because its form factor and low power usage, combined with OS X's built-in media and server software, make it a great enthusiasts computer. And its low cost and ability to run Windows makes it a great switcher computer. It fills two niches in Apple's ecosystem.

The only modification I'd make would be to make the hard drive and RAM user-serviceable. I'd like to upgrade the hard drive so that I'm not using external drives, and I'm sure the media center folks would like to add some RAM.