Mac minis are sold out in NYC these days because everyone gets them to try out openclaw. Even if this move by Apple is unrelated to the recent demand, it certainly was timed right for the policy and market makers.
It's so funny to me that HN seems convinced that artists have a sudden renewed interest in desktop computers, when LLMs have been driving mac mini sales for more than a year
It's so funny to me that X users think OpenClaw represents more than 1% of Apple's desktop sales because it's what their timeline says is true.
If you want to humiliate me conclusively, throw me some numbers. LLMs have moved trillions worth of hardware value, but only a fraction of it is Apple branded.
Why do you say that?
Anecdotally, everyone I know who has bought a Mac mini in the last month has done so to run OpenClaw. Yes only three people, but before that I only knew one person over several years who had bought one.
I'm a product exec now but used to be designer and lead UX teams. Even though I don't use those skills as much nowadays it's still a almost daily hobby of mine.
Like the rest of HN (maybe it's HN's fault!) I managed to convince myself that I not only needed a Mac Mini desktop but also a 4090 rig for AI.
The 4090 hasn't been booted up in 9 months and the Mac Mini is now the world's most amazing 10GBE NAS server. My older M1 Max Macbook Pro and underpowered newer Macbook Air are the only things I use.
I mean, I'll take the 4090 if you don't want it :)
It's funny how we convince ourselves we need things. I bought myself a 3080 Ti a few years ago because I wanted a gaming computer, but then I ended up buying a Playstation 5 and not using my computer for anything more intensive than Factorio. More recently though I have been using my 3080 for Comfy UI image generation and messing around with local models, so I guess it's getting use now.
Macs have "unified memory" meaning the GPU uses the same memory as the CPU and minis can have up to 64 gigs. So its a lot faster than running on a CPU and a lot cheaper than any other GPU based rig with similar memory.
Everyone recommending a Mac Mini for OpenClaw is recommending the base model (which has just 16GB of ram), so it’s not about the unified memory, it is about the agent being able to interact with your apple ecosystem services like reminders, iMessage etc.
Everything about that makes me feel very uncomfortable. Google made and spent a fortune on getting people's data, and now people are just handing it out for free by the GBs.
Apple is amazing at marketing to make 1990s technology sound cutting edge. I'm sure they change something for plausible deniability, as a nominalist, not even 2 of the same computers are the same.
The Mac mini has a very good value for money if you need raw performance in a small silent package. Frequently available for between $399 - $499 discounted.
A VPS that can perform like a Mac mini will likely cost the same as a Mac mini in 12 months time.
claws are run mainly by rich american programmers. The only computer they have is a macbook. The only brand they know is apple. The only cloud they know is serverless
