“At a riotous MacWorld keynote address earlier this week, Apple CEO Steve Jobs contradicted earlier promises and introduced two products he had previously said Apple would never produce: A sub-$500 Macintosh computer and a flash RAM-based iPod audio player dubbed iPod shuffle. And contrary to my pre-MacWorld analysis of the rumored low-end Mac, the Mac mini, as the computer is known, looks awesome. In fact, it’s so good, I expect Apple to sell millions of them this year. We can bicker about the missing features (no keyboard, mouse, or screen–stock components that come with a typical $500 PC, which is also more expandable), but it doesn’t matter. By hitting the $500 sweet spot, Apple now has a credible vehicle, finally, for increasing the Mac’s market share. And the display-less iPod shuffle? It’s a stroke of genius with an amazingly small form factor (think pack-of-gum small) that will also sell in the millions in 2005. I’ve berated Apple when it does the wrong thing, but with the Mac mini and iPod shuffle, Apple has proven that it can deliver when it needs to. Very, very impressive,” Paul Thurrott writes for Paul Thurrott’s WinInfo.
“Apple [also] revealed… that its profits for the quarter ending December 31, 2004, were up almost 500 percent to $295 million on sales of $3.49 billion. Apple credited the surging iPod for the improvement, and though iPod sales in the quarter fell short of the 5 million units analysts were expecting, the 4.6 million iPods the company did sell is still an impressive number. Even Macintosh sales were up, with Apple selling over 1 million Macs in a quarter for the first time in more than 4 years. Apple’s iTunes Music Store, which made only a small profit, has sold over 230 million songs to date, the company noted. Let’s recap: Apple’s kicking butt with the iPod, and it has a new iPod out that will likely sweep up the two-thirds of the portable digital audio market that Apple doesn’t already own. And though the Mac is now stuck with less than 2 percent of the PC market, the recent Mac sales resurgence occurred before Apple announced the Mac mini, which should dramatically improve matters. Apple–and the Mac, from what I can tell–are back,” Thurrott writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: While it makes us extremely nervous, more than a touch lightheaded, and fairly nauseous, we pretty much agree wholeheartedly with Thurrott about the iPod shuffle and the Mac mini. Yikes! Please cut it out, Paul, you really are scaring us! 
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Kiss of death II: Thurrott wants an Apple Mac mini, calls it ‘drool-worthy’ – January 12, 2005
Kiss of death: Dvorak likes Apple’s new Mac mini – January 12, 2005
Kiss of death III averted: Analyst Enderle calls Apple’s Mac mini a ‘crippled product’ – January 13, 2005
apple is dead. thanks, paul.
‘Apple and the Mac are back’
Really? Where did they go?
Also, I know that $499 is the ‘magic number’, but what was wrong with the pricing of the iMac G5? That product also has an excellent price point for what it gives you.
Nonetheless, it’s good to see that Thurrott can actually speak a bit of logic…sometimes. I’ll wait to see what he says about Tiger.
“Let’s recap: Apple’s kicking butt with the iPod, and it has a new iPod out that will likely sweep up the two-thirds of the portable digital audio market that Apple doesn’t already own.”
I thought Apple already owned TWO-thirds of the portable digital audio market.
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And he even didn’t mind about the lack of keyboard, mouse and monitor.
What’s going on? I’m pretty sure I didn’t take any drugs this morning
XABEX, He means that the iPod shuffle will take over two-thirds of the 29% of the market that currently is flash-based.
Or add about 20% to it’s current 65% marketshare for an 85% total.
Ironically, my magic word was ‘own’.
Is this a prophecy?
Apple has a very smart ad campaign going with the iPod family. The question is will Apple also smartly advertise the Mac Mini? The incredible success of the iPod has proven that great advertising works. I hope Apple pushes this mini computer with all the energy of the iPod. I would like to see sales number rocket past anything Apple has ever done. Please Apple show the world how cool the Mac Mini is before its copied.
I take this is proof that aliens are substituting us one by one.
Dave H — ROFTLMAO !!!
I agree with the above post by Dave H.
Ralph- I too think that if advertised with the same brilliance that Apple usually portrays in marketing (when they do actually advertise that is) the Mac mini will be a HUGE hit.
So many possibilities. Apple needs to let people know.
Super-bowl ad?
Careful! This idiot always finds ways to weave negativity about Apple in to every article he writes concerning Apple.
Paul claims analysts were expecting Apple to sell 5 million iPod but missed that number by only selling 4.6 million. Analysts were not expecting 5 million iPods sales they were all expecting 4 million which Apple beat!!!
Just be careful, Paul is a Microsoft Butt Snake and will always be one!!!!
i’m sorry, but I don’t think I remember usually seeing monitors ship with other sub $500 computers. I really wish one of these analysts would actually throw in a sales link to one of these machines into one of these articles. And I know, the monitor they speak of would also be a 17″ cheapo crt. But seriously, in the $500 pc market, is the monitor standard?
When Turdrott first expressed his approval for Mac mini on Nexus last week, many people either expressed or probably agreed (myself included) with the opinion that he would never commit that approval to record within WinInfo.
This must be what it’ll be like in the 24th Century, when you first witness a cell of the Borg collective break away. You won’t know what to think or believe. And you certainly won’t trust them.
Positively scary�
I think that whether Apple has a one-third or two-thirds market share of portable music devices depends on whether you’re talking revenues or units.
Maybe Thurrott’s hallucinogen prescription ran out.
It’s units, Sum Yung Gai.
Alright, what is the angle? Is someone paying him to write this or has all of his years of playing with Macs while pooping on them in print finally got to him? Has he secretly fallen in love with the Mac and been just waiting for an excuse to “come out of the closet” for quite a while? Or does he see the writing on the wall and want to jump on the up and coming Apple bandwagon right at the start? Who knows. This guy is wierd.
SYG wrote:
“I think that whether Apple has a one-third or two-thirds market share of portable music devices depends on whether you’re talking revenues or units.”
During the keynote, Steve made it very clear that Apple has (roughly) 2/3 of the unit market share… anyone want to bet on them NOT having more than 80% of the revenue market share?
I think the confusion revolves around the word “the”: “… that will likely sweep up the two-thirds of the portable digital audio market that Apple doesn’t already own,” reads correctly if you remove the first “the”.
Billy Boy, they are out there. Here is Gateways comeback to the Mac mini:
http://products.gateway.com/products/GConfig/proddetails.asp?system_id=3200S&seg=hm&cmpid=consumer*homepage*Button_1*100MIR_3200SE*PRODUCT_DETAILS:HOME:GATEWAY_3200S
Of course it is what is inside that matters so I wouldn’t take one of these if you tried to give it to me (what the heck would I do with it anyway? Give it to someone I dislike?)
Those PC people base their entire opinions of the Apple on someone else’s views of it. If they’d just try one out for a minute or a weekend, maybe then they’d have some room to talk if they wanted to badmouth the platform. But everyone has used pc’s and know that they suck!!
Resurrection before death!; how do you like them apples?
Can MDN ask this crap writer and a$$hole to go away and don’t boder us please!!!!!
Oh man you just gotta see the comments on the original article – very funny! Some of the anti-Mac brigade have even manged to string a few words with more than one syllable together! LOL
Jack A
All I got was:
Information for this product is temporarily unavailable.
For information on products and services, please visit Gateway.com, or call 800-369-1409 to speak with a Gateway Sales Representative.
Did Gateway go bust again!??