5 ms·

> Look how many people bought Minis and ended up just paying for API calls anyway. (Saw it IRL 2x, see it on reddit openclaw daily) Aren't the OpenClaw enjoyer

by jsheard 7mo ago

> Look how many people bought Minis and ended up just paying for API calls anyway. (Saw it IRL 2x, see it on reddit openclaw daily) Aren't the OpenClaw enjoyers buying Mac Minis because it's the cheapest thing which runs macOS, the only platform which can programmatically interface with iMessage and other Apple ecosystem stuff? It has nothing to do with the hardware really. Still, buying a brand new Mac Mini for that purpose seems kind of pointless when a used M1 model would achieve the same thing.

ErneX 7mo ago
It’s exactly that. They are buying the base model just for that. You are not going to do much local AI with those 16GB of ram anyway, it could be useful for small things but the main purpose of the Mini is being able to interact with the apple apps and services.
- chaostheory 7mo ago
  No one is buying a base model Mac for local LLM. Everyone is forgetting the PC prices have drastically increased due to RAM and SSD. Meanwhile, Macs had no such price change… at least for the models that didn’t just drop today. Mac’s are just a good deal at the moment.
  - briffle 7mo ago
    the new models cost $200 more for each 8GB of Ram you add.. Ouch...
    - Forgeties79 7mo ago
      That's been the case for years. Not new to the M5's
  - jsheard 7mo ago
    > Meanwhile, Macs had no such price change Yeah because Mac upgrade prices were already sky high, long before the component shortage. 32GB of DDR5-6000 for a PC rocketed from $100 to $500, while the cost of adding 16GB to a Mac was and still is $400.
    - AnthonyMouse 7mo ago
      I'm kind of curious how Apple's supply contracts actually work, because it's currently more attractive to buy a Mac with a lot of RAM than it usually is, relative to a PC. So if it's "we negotiated a price and you give us as much RAM as we sell machines" the company supplying the RAM is getting soaked because they're having to supply even more RAM to Apple for a below-market price. But if the contract was for a specific amount of RAM and then people start coming to Apple more for high RAM machines, they're going to exhaust their contract sooner than usual and run out of cheap memory to buy. Then they have to decide if they want to lower their margins or raise the already-high price up to nosebleed levels.
      - walterbell 7mo ago
        https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/memory-supply-chain-ai-disrupts-apples-nand-pricing-electronics-nn8tc https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/memory-supply-chain-ai-disrup... Apple has accepted a 100% price increase for Samsung's LPDDR5X memory, with DRAM supply commitments secured only through the first half of 2026. Tim Cook acknowledged during the Q1 FY2026 earnings call that storage price increases would significantly impact Q2 gross margins.. Apple is evaluating ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) and Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) as new supply sources, attempting to rebuild pricing leverage through supply chain diversification.
- rafaelmn 7mo ago
  16GB should be enough for TTS/Voice models running locally no ? I was thinking about having a home assistant setup like that where the voice is local and the brain is API based
  - ErneX 7mo ago
    Sure, that’s why I said maybe it’s useful for a few things. But the main reason people were recommending the Mini was for its price (base model) and having access to the Apple services for clawdbot to leverage. Not precisely for local AI.
  - 0x457 7mo ago
    I run ministral for my home knowledge database on 24G iMac and some other non-agentic LLM things.
llmslave 7mo ago
yes, and its funny that all these critical people dont know this
re-thc 7mo ago
> Aren't the OpenClaw enjoyers buying Mac Minis because it's the cheapest thing which runs macOS That's likely only part of the reason. Mac Mini is now "cheap" because everyone exploded in price. RAM and SSD etc have all gone up massively. Not the mention Mac mini is easy out of the box experience.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- CrazyStat 7mo ago
  It's not cheap, though. Two weeks ago I bought a computer with a similar form factor (GMKtec G10). Worse CPU and GPU but same 16GB memory and a larger SSD for 40% the price of a base mac mini ($239 vs $599). It came with Windows preinstalled, but I immediately wiped that to install linux. Even a used (M-series) mac mini is substantially more expensive. It will cost me about an extra penny per day in electricity costs over a mac mini, but I won't be alive long enough for the mac mini to catch up on that metric. I considered the mac mini at the time, but the mac mini only makes sense if you need the local processing power or the apple ecosystem integration. It's certainly not cheaper if you just need a small box to make API calls and do minimal local processing.
  - re-thc 7mo ago
    > It came with Windows preinstalled, but I immediately wiped that to install linux. Do you really need Openclaw now? And not claude code + zapier or Claude code + cron? That's the point. If you have worse CPU and GPU Windows will be sluggish (it's bloated).
  - nicoburns 7mo ago
    If you need the CPU power in the Mac Mini then it is a pretty good price-to-performance ratio.
  - stanmancan 7mo ago
    It's cheap for what you get. If you just need "a small box to make API calls and do minimal local processing" you an also just buy a RPI for a fraction of the price of the GMKtec G10. All 3 serve a different purpose; just because you can buy a slower machine for less doesn't mean the price:performance of the M1 Mac Mini changes.
philistine 7mo ago
There are so few used Mac Mini around, those are all gone and what is left is to buy new.
- jermaustin1 7mo ago
  Worse than that, they hold their value, so buying a used M1 mini is still a few hundred bucks, and saving $200-300 by purchasing a 5 generation older mini seems like a bad deal in comparison.
  - teaearlgraycold 7mo ago
    Someone came to be excited they got a "deal" on the newest Intel Mac Mini for hosting OpenClaw. 8GB model for $300. I kind of regret bursting their bubble by telling them you can walk over to Costco (nearest one at time of discussion was walking distance) and pay $550 for one with an M4 and 16GB of RAM.
    - Octoth0rpe 7mo ago
      Up until a week ago, the base m4 mini (16gb ram/256gb ssd) was $399 at microcenter, now $499. Pretty shocking how good of a value that is IMO.
      - teaearlgraycold 7mo ago
        Damn. Would be awesome to network a bunch over thunderbolt.
    - Forgeties79 7mo ago
      That’s just somebody not doing their research and overpaying unfortunately
- someperson 7mo ago
  Just like with GPUs and Bitcoin they'll be a flood of old hardware on the market eventually.
BeetleB 7mo ago
Can't they simply run MacOS on a VM on existing Mac hardware?
- shuckles 7mo ago
  You aren’t going to run a network connected 24/7 online agent from a laptop because it’s battery powered and portable.
- sneak 7mo ago
  Not if you want it to be able to use the hardware identifiers to register for use with iMessage.
  - jen20 7mo ago
    Not true as of macOS 15 onwards [1]. [1]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/using-icloud-with-macos-virtual-machines https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/usi...
  - webXL 7mo ago
    I have it running in a macos VM using lume & BlueBubbles on a throwaway iCloud account. A lot of hoops to jump through, though https://cua.ai/docs/lume https://cua.ai/docs/lume https://docs.openclaw.ai/channels/bluebubbles https://docs.openclaw.ai/channels/bluebubbles
renewiltord 7mo ago
Bro. The used M1 mini and studio are all gone. I was thinking of buying one for local AI before openclaw came out and went back to look and the order book is near empty. Swappa is cleared out. eBay is to the point that the m1 studio is selling for at least a thousand more. This arb you’re talking about doesn’t exist. An m1 studio with 64 gb was $1300 prior to openclaw. You’re not getting that today. I would have preferred that too since I could Asahi it later. It’s just not cheap any more. The m4 is flat $500 at microcenter.

by jsheard 7mo ago

ErneX 7mo ago

It’s exactly that. They are buying the base model just for that. You are not going to do much local AI with those 16GB of ram anyway, it could be useful for small things but the main purpose of the Mini is being able to interact with the apple apps and services.

chaostheory 7mo ago
No one is buying a base model Mac for local LLM. Everyone is forgetting the PC prices have drastically increased due to RAM and SSD. Meanwhile, Macs had no such price change… at least for the models that didn’t just drop today. Mac’s are just a good deal at the moment.
- briffle 7mo ago
  the new models cost $200 more for each 8GB of Ram you add.. Ouch...
  - Forgeties79 7mo ago
    That's been the case for years. Not new to the M5's
- jsheard 7mo ago
  > Meanwhile, Macs had no such price change Yeah because Mac upgrade prices were already sky high, long before the component shortage. 32GB of DDR5-6000 for a PC rocketed from $100 to $500, while the cost of adding 16GB to a Mac was and still is $400.
  - AnthonyMouse 7mo ago
    I'm kind of curious how Apple's supply contracts actually work, because it's currently more attractive to buy a Mac with a lot of RAM than it usually is, relative to a PC. So if it's "we negotiated a price and you give us as much RAM as we sell machines" the company supplying the RAM is getting soaked because they're having to supply even more RAM to Apple for a below-market price. But if the contract was for a specific amount of RAM and then people start coming to Apple more for high RAM machines, they're going to exhaust their contract sooner than usual and run out of cheap memory to buy. Then they have to decide if they want to lower their margins or raise the already-high price up to nosebleed levels.
    - walterbell 7mo ago
      https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/memory-supply-chain-ai-disrupts-apples-nand-pricing-electronics-nn8tc https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/memory-supply-chain-ai-disrup... Apple has accepted a 100% price increase for Samsung's LPDDR5X memory, with DRAM supply commitments secured only through the first half of 2026. Tim Cook acknowledged during the Q1 FY2026 earnings call that storage price increases would significantly impact Q2 gross margins.. Apple is evaluating ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) and Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) as new supply sources, attempting to rebuild pricing leverage through supply chain diversification.
rafaelmn 7mo ago
16GB should be enough for TTS/Voice models running locally no ? I was thinking about having a home assistant setup like that where the voice is local and the brain is API based
- ErneX 7mo ago
  Sure, that’s why I said maybe it’s useful for a few things. But the main reason people were recommending the Mini was for its price (base model) and having access to the Apple services for clawdbot to leverage. Not precisely for local AI.
- 0x457 7mo ago
  I run ministral for my home knowledge database on 24G iMac and some other non-agentic LLM things.

llmslave 7mo ago

yes, and its funny that all these critical people dont know this

re-thc 7mo ago

> Aren't the OpenClaw enjoyers buying Mac Minis because it's the cheapest thing which runs macOS That's likely only part of the reason. Mac Mini is now "cheap" because everyone exploded in price. RAM and SSD etc have all gone up massively. Not the mention Mac mini is easy out of the box experience.

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
CrazyStat 7mo ago
It's not cheap, though. Two weeks ago I bought a computer with a similar form factor (GMKtec G10). Worse CPU and GPU but same 16GB memory and a larger SSD for 40% the price of a base mac mini ($239 vs $599). It came with Windows preinstalled, but I immediately wiped that to install linux. Even a used (M-series) mac mini is substantially more expensive. It will cost me about an extra penny per day in electricity costs over a mac mini, but I won't be alive long enough for the mac mini to catch up on that metric. I considered the mac mini at the time, but the mac mini only makes sense if you need the local processing power or the apple ecosystem integration. It's certainly not cheaper if you just need a small box to make API calls and do minimal local processing.
- re-thc 7mo ago
  > It came with Windows preinstalled, but I immediately wiped that to install linux. Do you really need Openclaw now? And not claude code + zapier or Claude code + cron? That's the point. If you have worse CPU and GPU Windows will be sluggish (it's bloated).
- nicoburns 7mo ago
  If you need the CPU power in the Mac Mini then it is a pretty good price-to-performance ratio.
- stanmancan 7mo ago
  It's cheap for what you get. If you just need "a small box to make API calls and do minimal local processing" you an also just buy a RPI for a fraction of the price of the GMKtec G10. All 3 serve a different purpose; just because you can buy a slower machine for less doesn't mean the price:performance of the M1 Mac Mini changes.

philistine 7mo ago

There are so few used Mac Mini around, those are all gone and what is left is to buy new.

jermaustin1 7mo ago
Worse than that, they hold their value, so buying a used M1 mini is still a few hundred bucks, and saving $200-300 by purchasing a 5 generation older mini seems like a bad deal in comparison.
- teaearlgraycold 7mo ago
  Someone came to be excited they got a "deal" on the newest Intel Mac Mini for hosting OpenClaw. 8GB model for $300. I kind of regret bursting their bubble by telling them you can walk over to Costco (nearest one at time of discussion was walking distance) and pay $550 for one with an M4 and 16GB of RAM.
  - Octoth0rpe 7mo ago
    Up until a week ago, the base m4 mini (16gb ram/256gb ssd) was $399 at microcenter, now $499. Pretty shocking how good of a value that is IMO.
    - teaearlgraycold 7mo ago
      Damn. Would be awesome to network a bunch over thunderbolt.
  - Forgeties79 7mo ago
    That’s just somebody not doing their research and overpaying unfortunately
someperson 7mo ago
Just like with GPUs and Bitcoin they'll be a flood of old hardware on the market eventually.

BeetleB 7mo ago

Can't they simply run MacOS on a VM on existing Mac hardware?

shuckles 7mo ago
You aren’t going to run a network connected 24/7 online agent from a laptop because it’s battery powered and portable.
sneak 7mo ago
Not if you want it to be able to use the hardware identifiers to register for use with iMessage.
- jen20 7mo ago
  Not true as of macOS 15 onwards [1]. [1]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/using-icloud-with-macos-virtual-machines https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/usi...
- webXL 7mo ago
  I have it running in a macos VM using lume & BlueBubbles on a throwaway iCloud account. A lot of hoops to jump through, though https://cua.ai/docs/lume https://cua.ai/docs/lume https://docs.openclaw.ai/channels/bluebubbles https://docs.openclaw.ai/channels/bluebubbles

renewiltord 7mo ago

Bro. The used M1 mini and studio are all gone. I was thinking of buying one for local AI before openclaw came out and went back to look and the order book is near empty. Swappa is cleared out. eBay is to the point that the m1 studio is selling for at least a thousand more. This arb you’re talking about doesn’t exist. An m1 studio with 64 gb was $1300 prior to openclaw. You’re not getting that today. I would have preferred that too since I could Asahi it later. It’s just not cheap any more. The m4 is flat $500 at microcenter.