Apple degraded their computer line (see mac mini and iMac) to the point that unless you just want to surf and email half their line is useless to a professional...anything.
I love my Macbook to death but I am never going to run a recording studio with it. Nor can I will a 2.2ghz Haswell iMac. The Mac Mini was a KILLER studio computer. They ruined that line by taking the CPU down to a 2 core. Ram is soldered in so upgrading your Mini is now impossible. Same thing with the 21” iMacs (didn’t used to be so).
I’d rather lick a cat’s rear than run windows but Apple has pushed me and others like me who can’t afford to drop 2.5k on a box to get the same work done I can on a $750 self-built computer. I hope they experience a severe loss in sales that forces them to re-examine their computers. Otherwise, outside of looking for a good deal on a used Mac Pro, I am done with them.
I am not happy about the degrading of the entry Mac Mini either, but I understand the marketing reasoning for it. We are using a four year old Mac Mini Server in my office.
For an entry Mac, the new $499 1.44 GHz Mac Mini is not bad. . . but for our purposes, it will not do the job we need. We have to step to the next level up. . . either the $699 2.6GHz Mac mini dual-core Intel Core i5 with either 8GB or 16GB memory and a 1TB hard drive, or the $999 2.8GHz dual-core Intel i5 upgradable to a 3.0 dual-core Intel i7, also with either 8GB or 16GB of 1600MHz LPDDR3 memory and a 1TB Fusion Drive. . . or upgradable to a 2TB Fusion Drive. These Mac Minis are fast. Either of those can run OS X Server and the latter price is what we paid for our Mac Mini Server four years ago.
You think that you need four cores for music software? I don't think you do. I frankly doubt much of the music software out there even is multi-core aware. What you need is excellent multitasking. . . which the two upper model Mac Mini's can supply. .