alt Hacker News> 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.
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There are so few used Mac Mini around, those are all gone and what is left is to buy new.
Can't they simply run MacOS on a VM on existing Mac hardware?
> 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.
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.
yes, and its funny that all these critical people dont know this
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.