Just as I'm curious what prices really were. don't know exactly what Gr tower line you are talking about, but according to https://www.macstories.net/mac/the-power-mac-g4-line/ , the first reasonable powermac G4 was summer 2000, and

> Prices ranged from $1,599 to $3,499,

According to one online inflation calculator, $1599 in 2000 dollars is $2,372.95 in 2019 dollars. and $3499 is $5,192.58.

So, I guess, yeah.I do recall them seeming awfully expensive.

I agree this new release seems awfully awfully expensive.

They got even cheaper than that. In 2003, the Power Mac base price was $1499. In 2019 dollars, that's only $2082.

By 2012, the entry level Mac tower was up to $2499. Since 2013, the cheapest Mac Pro (no PCI/E slots) has been $2999.

The 2019 model is literally more than twice as expensive as the 2013, which in turn was already the previous most-expensive entry-level Mac workstation ever.

PowerMac/MacPro prices have always seemed steep, but this is a new ballgame even for Apple.

The difference is that the iMac Pro and Mac Mini didn’t exist to segment that market back then; all the tiers of professional hardware were rolled into just “the Mac Pro.” Roll those back in and the pricing tiers look more equivalent.

The Mac Mini has been around since 2005...

Yes, and the post I was replying to was citing 2003 prices.

They were even higher in the early 90's. In 1993 the Power Macintosh 8100 (one of the first ppc computers) started at $4200 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh_8100

I found the invoice a while ago for the professional desktop publishing setup that my parents bought in 1993...a Quadra 800 mac, upgraded video memory, a flatbed scanner, b&w laser printer, a 20" monitor, a 14400 modem and some kind of fancy magneto optical drive or something for FedExing large files. Total price was $13k at the time.

Toss that $13k into an inflation calculator and sigh loudly. http://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1993?amount=13000

It's about $23k in 2019 dollars.

Sounds like the coolest computer in the city.

March 1989:

Mac IIcx, 16 MHz 68030, 4 MiB RAM, 80MiB HD: $7069

Radius two-page display (19”): $1495

Monochrome video card: $699

Extended Keyboard II: $229

A 20” monitor in 1993? That had to be super expensive!

Yeah it was definitely something geared towards graphics professionals...just found an old magazine ad for it, looks like it had a Trinitron tube and ran for $2700 at the time. It weighed an absolute ton. I certainly enjoyed the screen real estate for playing Sim City when my parents weren't working!

Also in googling for it I found it had been featured in Jurassic Park: https://productplacementblog.com/movies/supermatch-20-t-moni...

I remember drooling over the IIfx at $10k.

It's unclear to me if you were agreeing or disagreeing but the upcoming mac pro entry model is going to be more than double the price of the entry level G4 towers after adjusting for inflation. So the original commenter seems to be correct, they used to be more affordable.

Is the crazy price due mainly to the all aluminum enclosure? I don’t remember the cheese grater models being priced this high accounting for inflation.

Accounting for inflation, the old 2012 cheese grater models started at $3150 in 2019 dollars. The older models were $1000 cheaper

Hopefully they've included built-in battery powered GPS because at those prices and with the handy carry handles these are going to be walking away from their owners in record numbers.

They even have wheels!

> I bought a G4 tower when I was in college and it sure as heck wasn’t $6,000 back then.

No, but an entry-level SGI Octane was like TWENTY GRAND back then. The Mac Pro is what occupies that space today.

The new Mac Minis are really powerful. What doesn't it have that you're hoping for?

- The new Mac Mini has soldered storage. This precludes upgrading storage, replacing internal storage (which is important for preserving data due to a motherboard failure), and adding additional internal storage.

- Apple finally made the RAM on the new Mac Mini upgradeable, but it is not user-serviceable; you have to get the RAM installed by an Apple-authorized repair center in order for the warranty to stay valid on the Mac Mini. The same holds true for the iMac Pro.

- The Mac Mini lacks expansion slots. All expansion must be done externally using Thunderbolt or USB-3.

Until the 2013 Mac Pro was released, Apple has sold an entry-level Power Mac or Mac Pro model for around $2,500 in inflation-adjusted currency that was user-serviceable and has expansion slots. The 2013 Mac Pro was still user-serviceable, but it lacked expansion slots. Now Apple is finally selling a user-serviceable, expandable Mac, but at prices that are beyond what many users can afford. There are no user-serviceable, expandable Macs that cost under $5,999.

> - Apple finally made the RAM on the new Mac Mini upgradeable, but it is not user-serviceable; you have to get the RAM installed by an Apple-authorized repair center in order for the warranty to stay valid on the Mac Mini. The same holds true for the iMac Pro.

I'm pretty confident this isn't legal in the US. Under a law from the 70's the FTC released a letter reiterating this fact last year. Apple and other companies have made this purposefully vague as well as fighting right to repair laws.

> There are no user-serviceable, expandable Macs that cost under...

This has been a gripe against Apple for at least 20 years.

The memory on the iMac Pro is user upgradeable, and I believe it’s the case with the new Mac Mini. One big strike against the new Mac Mini is how much the higher end CPUs are thermally throttled. Not good for a relatively expensive machine.

You can replace the memory yourself, but you must put OEM memory in if you bring it in for service.

GPU for me. I’d snap one up if it had a GPU in line with that in the MacBook Pro. I don’t particularly want a large external GPU hooked up over Thunderbolt.

Same. The short height of the mini is in no way a feature for me, but being configurable with a graphics card sure would be.

Upgrade and repairability

I don't think there is much demand anymore for a Mac tower in the consumer space; actually, I don't think towers have been a popular option in the consumer space for a long time for any platform.

Yes because:

1. Apple first failed to update the cheese grater line for years consecutively

2. Then Apple's redesign of the Mac Pro transformed it into a larger Mac Mini trashcan which wasn't really expandable compared to the original cheese grater line. No one asked for that.

There is evidence for demand for a reasonably priced Mac Pro Tower if you look at the Hackintosh community and eBay sales of older cheese grater Mac Pros, but Apple keeps refusing to meet demand.

The cheese grater was already pro, not consumer. The last consumer tower was probably the G4 era, afterwards the iMac, mini, and laptops took over consumer completely, leaving towers to the pro market.

There is "niche" demand for consumer towers, sure, but I don't think it would be worth Apple's effort. The iMac 5K is really good, and its even the cheapest option to get one of the best displays out there.

Yes the cheese grater was Pro and it was at a reasonable price starting at $2k- 3k depending on the model. Yes that’s adjusted for inflation.

$2400 in 2006 is just over $3k in 2019. Not sure if that is consumer, more like a higher end iMac sans display.

Yeah, you're paraphrasing what I wrote. It is not consumer. It was called a Mac Pro and it's half the cost of the new Mac Pro, accounting for inflation

I paid under 3k for my PowerMac G5, ~3300 for the original Mac Pro after that, then 3k for my current 4 core 2013 Mac Pro. This is definitely a course change on the entry level pricing.