New Apple Silicon Macs for 2021: Redesigned iMac and a Mac Pro mini

[TurbineSeaplane]

Update - Yeah, that didn't even last a day.

I swear they have bluetooth gremlin issues with these Mini's (maybe just M1 minis?)
I'm just not doing the gen one M1's I think.

My Hack is far smoother and more consistent than this Mini - super weird.
Not sure if it's hardware or software, but I'm out for now.

 

[pastrychef]

Update - Yeah, that didn't even last a day.

I swear they have bluetooth gremlin issues with these Mini's (maybe just M1 minis?)
I'm just not doing the gen one M1's I think.

My Hack is far smoother and more consistent than this Mini - super weird.
Not sure if it's hardware or software, but I'm out for now.

Yes, I think there were batches with Bluetooth issues.

 

[TurbineSeaplane]

Yes, I think there were batches with Bluetooth issues.

It's awful - and ridiculous.

It seemed to skip/stutter almost somewhat related to what the CPU was doing or not.

I even went so far as to put the Mini RIGHT next to the Magic Trackpad and 3 different BT mice I tried.

All with varying degrees of "no thank you".

Maybe not the sort of thing that would matter for my eventual server usages, but it would drive me insane between now and then. Also, just fundamentally, I don't want a new machine with issues like this.

It's ridiculous. Bluetooth being reliable should be table stakes for Apple in 2021.

 

[pastrychef]

It's awful - and ridiculous.

It seemed to skip/stutter almost somewhat related to what the CPU was doing or not.

I even went so far as to put the Mini RIGHT next to the Magic Trackpad and 3 different BT mice I tried.

All with varying degrees of "no thank you".

Maybe not the sort of thing that would matter for my eventual server usages, but it would drive me insane between now and then. Also, just fundamentally, I don't want a new machine with issues like this.

It's ridiculous. Bluetooth being reliable should be table stakes for Apple in 2021.

It doesn't happen on all of them. I think only some batches. My uncle's mini has no Bluetooth issues.

 

[TurbineSeaplane]

It doesn't happen on all of them. I think only some batches. My uncle's mini has no Bluetooth issues.

Hmm...
I had some of it with the other one I had also.
Totally unacceptable to me

Also - after reconsidering it today during some usage and doing some VM testing and a touch of Steam, just to see what we could do...I do think I would want one with more RAM (as you'd also mentioned).

 

[pastrychef]

Hmm...
I had some of it with the other one I had also.
Totally unacceptable to me

Also - after reconsidering it today during some usage and doing some VM testing and a touch of Steam, just to see what we could do...I do think I would want one with more RAM (as you'd also mentioned).

I read on the Apple support forum where one guy had two Mac minis and one had Bluetooth issues while the other didn't...

 

[TurbineSeaplane]

I read on the Apple support forum where one guy had two Mac minis and one had Bluetooth issues while the other didn't...

Yeah - it's bonkers. They need to figure that out ASAP.

I swear I'm not being hyperbolic, but literally everything about my Hack I'm on now was smoother as it related to input. Even when the mouse seemingly was working ok on the Mini, it just wasn't as "connected" in feeling as it is on my hack (both on BT).

I see that some people claim the Mini's in particular have always been a bit sketch on BT -- I don't know about any of that, other than knowing I'm sure as heck not keeping one with these issues.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

My own Mini Bluetooth has been fine, so I must be lucky.

Mind you, Hacks often have serious BT issues too and that is usually related to the antenna placment. A lot have a plastic finger antenna on the back of the case. Not good for connectivity. For my own hack I had to use an antenna extension so that the actual unit is on my desktop (a GigaByte OEM twin-cable model). Perfect mouse connection but for devices too far away the radio often fails.

 

[trs96]

Guess where most of these M1 minis are going to. Mac mini server farms where working BT makes no difference whatsoever. Companies like Macstadium rent these out to their customers.They must have over 10,000 minis deployed right now and are upgrading older ones to M1 minis. Maybe Apple isn't taking it seriously yet because it's not happening with every Mac mini. No one has yet filed a lawsuit that I've heard of. If there were a major problem for companies like Macstdium, it would have been fixed already. The low noise levels and extremely desirable for this kind of use in data centers. Mechanical HDDs heat up, vibrate and create a lot of noise. They're cheap yes, but failure rates a much higher too.