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New Mac mini loses optical drive, gains Bluetooth 4.0 (updated)

By | July 20, 2011, 9:00am PDT

Summary: Apple today announced a new Mac mini with a Sandy Bridge processor, Thunderbolt high-speed I/O port (like the MacBook Air) and no optical drive (like the MacBook Air).

Apple today announced a new Mac mini alongside new MacBook Airs and Mac OS 10.7 Lion.

Like the 3G MacBook Air, the updated Mac mini ships with Intel’s Sandy Bridge processor and a Thunderbolt high-speed I/O port. According to Apple’s press release the new Mac mini delivers up to twice the processor and graphics performance of the previous generation.

The new Mac mini comes in two desktop configurations and one server configuration:

Desktop configurations

  • 2.3GHz Intel Core i5, 500GB hard drive, 2GB RAM - $599
  • 2.5GHz Intel Core i5, 500GB hard drive, 4GB RAM - $799

Server configuration

  • 2.0GHz, dual 500GB hard drives, 4GB RAM - $999

Perhaps the most interesting development is that Apple has dropped the optical drive completely from the new mini. (Something I recommended two years ago.)

…if an app you need isn’t available from the Mac App Store, you can use DVD or CD Sharing. This convenient feature of OS X lets you wirelessly “borrow” the optical drive of a nearby Mac or PC. So you can install applications from a DVD or CD and have full access to an optical drive without having to carry one around.

The other option is to purchase Apple’s external SuperDrive ($79) which works with both the Mac mini and the MacBook Air.

The new Mac mini server configuration includes a 2.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, Lion Server, 4GB RAM and dual 500GB hard drives for $999 (US). Configure-to-order options include adding up to 8GB RAM, two 750GB hard drives, or up to two 256GB solid state drives.

Update: MacRumors notes that the new Mac mini and MacBook Air support Bluetooth 4.0 and Bluetooth low energy:

…a new specification that offers ultra low-power data transfer and has been touted as opening the door to a host of new wireless peripheral devices.

The new Mac mini is the first to support discrete graphics:

The new Mac mini also makes a transition to discrete graphics on the high-end model, utilizing the AMD Radeon HD 6630M and offering up to twice the graphics performance of the previous generation. The low-end and server Mac mini models continue to utilize integrated graphics in the form of Intel HD Graphics 3000.

What do you like/dislike about the new Mac mini?

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Topics

Apple Macintosh, Apple Intel Mac Mini, Optical Drive, Desktops, Apple Mac OS, Hardware, Operating Systems, Software, Jason D. O'Grady

Jason O'Grady is a journalist and author specializing in mobile technology. He has published six books on Apple and mobile gadgets and his PowerPage blog has been publishing for over 15 years.

Disclosure

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady is the creator and editor of O'Grady's PowerPage, which has been publishing mobile technology news since 1995. He maintains an advertising relationship with the following legacy advertisers on the PowerPage:

  • Amazon Associates
  • Google Adsense
  • Tekserve

    • Advertising on the PowerPage is brokered by a third-party agency (BackBeat Media) and he recuses himself from these negotiations.

Biography

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady developed an affinity for Apple computers after using the original Lisa, and this affinity turned into a bona-fide obsession when he got the original 128 KB Macintosh in 1984.

He started writing one of the first Web sites about Apple (O'Grady's PowerPage) in 1995 and is considered to be one of the fathers of blogging. He has been a frequent speaker at the Macworld Expo conference and a member of the conference faculty. He also co-founded the first dedicated PowerBook User Group (PPUG) in the United States.

After winning a major legal battle with Apple in 2006, he set the precedent that independent journalists are entitled to the same protections under the First Amendment as members of the mainstream media.

O'Grady is the author of The Nexus One Pocket Guide, The Droid Pocket Guide, The Google Phone Pocket Guide, and The Garmin nuvi Pocket Guide (Peachpit Press), the author of Corporations That Changed the World: Apple Inc. (Greenwood Press), and a contributor to The Mac Bible (Peachpit Press). In addition, he has contributed to numerous Mac publications over the years, including MacWEEK, Macworld, and MacPower (Japan).

When he's not writing about Apple for ZDNet at The Apple Core, he enjoys spending time with his family in New Jersey.

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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
jackson1984-24316069205748857739440257893812 10th Oct
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
BillDem 20th Jul
A lot of folks were trying to use the Mini as a HTPC. Removing the optical drive just made it even less useful for them. At least Apple didn't remove the HDMI port.
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This way you can't load store bought software on it.
William Pharaoh 20th Jul
@BillDem
so you'll have to go to the Mac store online.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
snoop0x7b 20th Jul
@William Pharaoh How does the mac store online take care of the fact that people need the optical drive to play DVDs in an HTPC... Do you even know what an HTPC is?
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
non-biased 25th Jul
@snoop0x7b Pretty sure he meant the Mac App Store but in his flustered hurry to bash Apple he forgot the include "App".
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
Hasam1991 20th Jul
@BillDem
Not a lot of use Apple TV and stream... cd's dvd's and blu ray need to go!
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
Fletchguy 20th Jul
@Hasam1991
Lol yeah right at this time cd and dvds and blu ray ar still needed as apple tv is useless and you have to pay over and over. then they add the pointless thunderbolt port instead of the usb 3.0 port which is the standard so now you have a useless port like firewire was and no drive but a higher price. Apple really does fancy it's buyers as retarded lol
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
snoop0x7b 20th Jul
@Hasam1991 Which apple product comes with a bluray drive again?
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
Champ_Kind 20th Jul
@BillDem It's called Handbrake, it runs on your other computer, and it works wonderfully well. I haven't played a DVD in years, and I'm questioning keeping my Blu-Ray player since I'll either stream through Netflix or buy/rent through iTunes most of the time.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
jack@... 20th Jul
@Champ_Kind.. Even Handbrake needs to read DVDs.

Sure you can rip it on another computer, but then you have to have a second computer (with a DVD drive). You might as well just run an HDMI from that second computer and skip the Mini altogether. I use a mac mini for my home entertainment center. I specifically use the mini to play region 2 DVDs while my regular DVD player plays the region 1 DVDs.

What's more, what if you need to reinstall the OS? Is Apple going to release Lion on an SD card?

Bad move, Apple... or smart move if it sells more $80 external DVD drives - but that's a d*ck move in my opinion.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
Peter Perry 21st Jul
@Champ_Kind Forget that, PavTube and Rip the Bluray!
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
Masari.Jones 21st Jul
@BillDem I can be wrong, but I found most users of the mac mini were setting them up as a media center (HTPC) as you indicated. It was bad enough Apple refused to support bluetooth, but without the standard super drive the unit is useless for playing DVD movies. I was looking forward to upgrading my Mac Mini to the i5/i7 processor not to mention the additional RAM and HD storage. Not going to now... for me at least the mini has lost its usefulness.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
non-biased 25th Jul
@Masari.Jones Are you talking about your current mini? The new mini supports Bluetooth 4.0.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
richardw66 Updated - 21st Jul
@BillDem

Anyone building an HTPC who wants a DVD drive is somewhat living in the past.

Of course these will read USB or FW drives - heck go get a FW Blu-Ray writer from LaCie - and play optical games as much as you want.

Or of course assuming there is a another computer in the house - I believe many people now know how to work file sharing? Maybe you have heard of it?

My TV plays movies - without an HTPC.

It can read these straight from my Mac - or from a USB stick - it did not occur to Samsung that the TV would be useless without a DVD drive - maybe Samsung are mad??? I don't know.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
non-biased 25th Jul
@BillDem It's not optimum but as stated in the article if you have another Mac near by you can share the optical drive on it. I have considered getting one to setup as a HTPC as well and this would be something to consider but it certainly doesn't make it unusable for that purpose.
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Purchase a SuperDrive?
toddybottom 20th Jul
Does the Mac Mini not work with standard external optical drives? From the way you wrote your article, it sounds like only Apple's SuperDrive will work. Can you clarify?
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From Apple's web site
oncall 20th Jul
@toddybottom

Yes a SuperDrive will work as will CD/DVD sharing from another Mac or PC.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
Droid101 20th Jul
@oncall
He asked if a regular external optical drive will work or not, not if the Apple Superdrive will.
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Any Optical Drive
kg6ygs@... 20th Jul
@toddybottom
It depends upon what you mean "work with..." It will probably work with any USB/Firewire external optical drive, as in reading, writing, playing a movie or CD, but the computer won't boot from any USB Drive--thus, no booting from a system DVD or CD. I happen to have a Firewire LightScribe optical drive, but I've never tried booting from it. As I can boot from Firewire hard drives, it wouldn't surprise me if it would boot from a Firewire system DVD as well. Too bad there aren't a lot of Firewire optical drives out there.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
Fletchguy 20th Jul
@kg6ygs@...
Firewired died alongtime ago and the new thunderbolt port is on the same path or limited use and then extinction. If your not running a music production studio then firewire was a useless port.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
Champ_Kind 20th Jul
@Fletchguy - it's called target disk mode and it's awesome; it allows you to turn your Mac into one of the most expensive external hard drives ever. It makes backing up the data on your system about 1000x easier than digging around for and removing the hard drive out of the system.

Also, USB2 had nothing on FW800 for external drives, just like how USB3 has nothing on Thunderbolt (which has Intel's support, meaning it's going to be around for a while).
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
jscott69 21st Jul
@kg6ygs@... my understanding is that at 10 Gbps, Thunderbolt is already twice as fast as USB 3.0 (5 Gbps). Plus TB is on-track to reach 100 Gbps within next few years or so. USB 3.0? Not so much.

Plus, TB handles video signals, which makes it more useful than just connecting drives and scanners and such.

And with Intel's support behind it, you can bet it'll be around for a while. Hopefully, Intel will start incorporating it onto their logic boards for PCs, too. If so, USB could easily be the interface that'll struggle to survive.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
Eman101 21st Jul
@kg6ygs@...

Ummm.... Darwin will recognize any external drive (including optical) that has a bootable partition on it. If you've ever played with a hackintosh, you'd know that. Google it and i'm sure you'll discover how to boot from an external drive pretty quickly.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
Hasam1991 20th Jul
I love it!! it's time for the optical drive to die, the technology is from the 80's, it needs to go, reminds me of the floppy disk, think back to 1998 when everyone was complaining about Apple killing the floppy on all Macs... do you miss it today?
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
snoop0x7b 20th Jul
@Hasam1991 I don't miss it today, but when Apple killed it the floppy drive was still standard. Hence why my college had to buy thousands of USB floppy drives... And everyone I knew with a mac had a USB floppy drive for years.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
StandardPerson 21st Jul
@snoop0x7b at that time I knew dozens of Mac users and the university I was working at had thousands of Macs. Almost nobody bought external floppy drives, because a few hours with a shared external floppy at the department was enough to get everything you needed onto CDs. (Remember, iMacs had those new-fangled CD drives? And two years later they had writable CD drives?)

Some people had to get new installation CDs from the software vendors, or perhaps borrow a external floppy drive for an afternoon so they could burn the floppy-delivered software onto a CD, but that was about the extent of the inconvenience.

I don't know where you went to college, but I can't recall anyone in Australian or UK universities having the problems you described.

As for the floppy drive being "still standard" in 1998, it may have been on Windows, but in universities at that time we had LANs and the internet for transferring files. (The residential college I lived in had AppleTalk LANs, connected to the university LAN, in the late 1980s.)
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
JimSatterfieldW 20th Jul
Some apparently forget that not everyone has enough bandwidth to drop something that requires a DVD's storage capacity. And how will it stand up if ISPs get their dream fulfilled and download caps are implemented?
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
DaveN_MVP Updated - 20th Jul
@JimSatterfieldW

Good point about the ISP's. I just downloaded a 2.6 GB app at the office. Am I to download it again at home, or does it make more sense to copy it to a 2-cent blank DVD and carry that home instead? There are always workarounds (USB flash drives for example), but why take away options? What if someone wants to play a rented DVD or a music CD?

IMO this is Apple leaving out a $19 part in hope that their customers will buy a $79 part. Not to mention that it'll pressure customers toward their app store rather than purchasing retail software elsewhere. Just a money grab IMO.

I'm not in favor of legacy technology on new equipment, but I'm not ready to consider CDs and DVDs "legacy."
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
non-biased 25th Jul
@DaveN_MVP I could be wrong because I have not priced one in a while but didn't they drop the base price from $699 to $599? Upgrade some specs, drop the optical drive and drop the price $100, doesn't sound all that bad to me since you can get their drive if need be for $79. I would prefer they left it in there but just saying.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
bandersnatch42vt Updated - 21st Jul
@JimSatterfieldW

True enough. In fact most major ISPs in the US already have caps in place although they don't make it a point of obviously saying so (Comcast' 250 GB cap for example). Even those ISPs that supposedly give you unlimited bandwidth have a lovely little disclaimer in the fine print about what they perceive as "too much or extraordinary bandwidth usage" which basically allows them to throttle your usage or cut you off entirely for an extended time period for any reason, real or imagined, as "punishment" for using too much bandwidth (I'm not making this up, btw).

Unfortunately, for the people of the US which has just about the worst broadband service in the world as far as price , available bandwidth and bandwidth caps are concerned, Apple is global and apparently doesn't care about the US where broadband access and usage is extremely limited as compared to say, their European and Far East counterparts. I should know--I'm a US citizen born and raised.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
non-biased 25th Jul
@JimSatterfieldW Not sure why I would be concerned about my ISP if I using a shared DVD drive within my own network to copy to the Mini.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
mlavelle 20th Jul
I won't miss the optical. I have plenty of network shares available. What I really like is the discrete graphics in the higher end model, plus the absence of the optical drive in a single drive should help internal cooling.
Max the RAM out, and a person should have a very good all purpose machine.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
Fletchguy 20th Jul
@mlavelle
The optical drive is a must for everyday users who do everything with their computer. maybe if your just surfing then no optical is needed and as a repair refurbisher the integrated video chips are the worse. I have to constantly reball and reflow integrtaed chipsets daily about 200 a week easy. A quick swap graphics card is so much better and makes more sense as time and cost its faster and easier and less exspensive to open a panl pop and swap then to tear down a whole unit to its motherbord then desolder reball and reflow.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
Eman101 21st Jul
@Fletchguy

You won't be doing anything like that with sandy bridge integrated graphics since it is on the cpu die...

Also, what everyday user honestly has the need for a constantly present optical drive? Are you still trapped in 2004? Because then I would wholeheartedly agree with you. How is it back there by the way? I still miss the good economy...
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
non-biased Updated - 25th Jul
@Fletchguy If we were to believe all your BS claims about the number of repairs you do a week on various Apple products you do more work than the average shop with 10 employees and that's just on Apple products. Of course you are such a frothing at the mouth Apple Hater that I would suspect that anybody with half a brain only believes at most 10% of what you way when it comes to anything Apple. You would know a fact if it walked up and slapped you in the face. I really do pity people like you with so little in their lives that they have to focus all their energy on hating anything let alone a company. It's truly pathetic. I personally don't care what OS you use or what products you like or don't like, but then I have a life.
  • Flagged
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
Morgan_Reed 20th Jul
Article doesn't quite have the configuration info right. You can get a Mac Mini with client Lion (not server) and the i7 chip. It's a Build To Order, but it's right there in the main "buy it" page.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
non-biased 25th Jul
@Morgan_Reed Article is correct, you can get it with Lion Server which also comes with client Lion.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
Champ_Kind 20th Jul
There's only one reason to use optical these days, and that's to clean install an OS. Even then, USB flash drives are quickly replacing DVDs for installation, and it won't be long until your OS comes as either a downloadable image for a flash drive/hard drive install or on a flash drive in a retail package.
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Am I the only one ...
jscott69 21st Jul
... who finds it funny that Steve Jobs tried doing without optical drives decades ago with the NeXT Cube, but was -- again -- ahead of his time? He grudgingly added the optical drive tray because folks wanted it so they could conveniently load software, backup files, etc.

Same was true of floppy drives. He started it with NeXT (and I don't think NeXT ever had a floppy drive). Then when he returned to Apple, the original iMac was the first floppy-less Mac and people cried foul ... but they seem to have gotten over it. These days, few machines -- PC or Mac -- have floppy drives.

And now, with so much of our data coming via download, an optical disk really is more optional, like the old floppy. I rarely use any of my optical drives.

However ... when I need to load a CD/DVD or burn something, I need it. So, I really like having one, and wouldn't yet do without one. But I can see the day coming.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
Eman101 Updated - 21st Jul
@jscott69

And you can get a nice samsung usb burner for 20 bucks these days for the once in a blue moon you need one without being added mass and power draw in daily usage.... Steve Jobs is definitely right in this case. Amost everything I install or use is downloaded, put on a thumb drive or placed in my dropbox.... Honestly, the optical drive has been marked for death ever since thumb drives and sd cards exceeded 4.7gb.
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Anyone remember SCSI - oh yes high end PCs now
richardw66 21st Jul
For those above whinging insanely and wrongly about FW and USB 3.

I remember when Macs used SCSI for HDD interfaces, and all the PC harpies thought Apple was stupid cause they didn't use IDE.

Now I only hear of SCSI being used for high-end PC servers.

Apple has moved on from SCSI - and the PC world discovered it was really fast.

Apple history is somehow PC future.

SCSI was the reason that Mac HDDs cost more - the SCSI controllers were more expensive than IDE - and they were worth it.

FW is an essential interface for many uses - not just for audio.

FW 800 - is preferable to USB 3.0 for video streams for instance. Want to edit HD - then get FW - and forget USB 3.0.

I guess PC users don't expect to edit HD - cause that's fancy stuff and only artistic types might have an HD camcorder and want to get quality results.

FW might die out the thunderbolt.

Thunderbolt is currently the start of something - not the end.

Thunderbolt leaves USB for dead at around 4x the practical bandwidth now and room to grow.

I also remember USB ports on PC motherboards long b4 the OS supported them, and PCs still using parallel and serial ports for printers for quite a long time.

Shortly after USB ports started appearing Apple introduced USB including actual support in the OS - then USB took off - eventually PCs dropped the stupid serial & parallel ports - but they dragged that out for a long time.

So history seems to indicate that Apple's use of an interface will in many cases lead to it having a long life.

So go ahead - spin garbage in the hope of bringing down Apple - if it pays your bills, or justifies your use of inferior product.
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
nfiertel 21st Jul
I do believe that since the Intel chips were the defacto Mac standard cpu or soon thereafter, a Mac can be booted from a USB 2.0 drive. I personally do not use USB more than I have to due to its sluggish performance but I think that either Firewire or USB drives ought to be otherwise equivalent.
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no Optical no sale
neal1974 22nd Jul
I use my 2007 mac mini as a 1 box solution ie i ditched my dvd player to have just the mac with tv connected through the mac. I do download most content these days but my kids have 100's possibly 700 dvd's n as a front room system everyone uses it, a nas server for that amount of dvd's + the family music is to expensive, now i'll have no option but to buy a pc alternative n i hate pc's so its really annoyed me ive loved my mac mini
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No optical drive no more Mac Mini home theatre!!
timiambeing 23rd Jul
Its a killer for me as well, I wanted the Mac Mini as a home theatre unit under the 50" plasma, not much point in that if my family can't just put in a DVD and watch it! And what about ripping audio CD's to iTunes - and no I don't want a bloody add-on super drive, or use my MacBook superdrive and transfer the damn files - more boxes, more cables! Anyone who says 'just get a USB DVD drive' obviously doesn't realise what's going on here? Most people who buy this will not have a clue it hasn't got a optical drive, so when they want to buy software for it what will they do - ah! they will use the App Store! How convenient for Mr. Apple, another locked off and certified platinum plated revenue stream! And when they want to add some music or a movie - ah! iTunes store! This is getting silly now, I am starting to talk about Apple the way I used to talk about Microsoft a few years ago - don't these corporate morons realise we actually 'know' whats going on? Do they think we are all certifiably stupid? I was going to fill my new house with Apple gear, Mac Mini as the central home theatre unit, AX's in every room feeding powered speakers, AE bringing in the wireless, iPad for a remote... it goes on. I love the gear, I am starting to hate the company... not good PR :-/
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RE: New Mac mini ditches the optical drive
jackson1984-24316069205748857739440257893812 10th Oct
This could be one belonging for the most truthful sites We have at any time previous to scan. Following to absolutely nothing overcomes wonderful to begin with hand nflshop know-how on issues. Many thanks for at present to be sincere about this.

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