“Steve Jobs is so enigmatic. A couple weeks ago at MacWorld, he introduced the 2.9 lb. Mac Mini and the reaction was so great it was like he had re-invented the PC. Readers are all excited by the little box and have been asking me for my take on it. Like everyone else, I had to scratch my head a bit and ponder what this thing is really for. I know, I know, it is for all those PC drivers who bought an iPod and are now supposed to trash their Windows PC for a Mac Mini. Yeah, but what’s it REALLY for? Movies,” Robert X. Cringely writes for PBS.
“The Mac Mini is one of Apple’s trademark technology repackaging jobs. There ought to be nothing inherently exciting about the little box. It isn’t especially powerful. You can buy smaller Windows and Linux machines. You can buy cheaper Windows machines from all the big brands. Yet the Mac Mini has people excited and those other PCs mainly don’t. Some of it is industrial design — it just looks cool. Some of it is commercial psychology: by forgetting the keyboard and mouse Apple not only saved money, it invented a whole new computer configuration between a barebones box and a complete system. Other keyboard-and-mouseless systems will soon appear from other vendors, I promise you, but they’ll just be seen as copies,” Cringely writes.
“I’ll buy one. I have an old 400 MHz iMac in the kitchen that is begging to be replaced. Lots of Mac users will buy a Mini just to have one, which is why Jobs didn’t really have to tell a big story to explain the little box, nor did he (yet) have to follow the aggressive pricing plan I suggested in my 2005 predictions. He’ll sell the first half million just on exuberant inertia. But then sales might drop off as they did with the original Mac. THAT’s when we’ll get the real story on what this thing is for,’ Cringely writes. “Everyone seems to think the Mini is a media PC, yet it has few characteristics of most media PCs. The box has no TV tuner and no place for one, and no analog TV output. You can’t even burn a DVD with it, at least not yet. But there were hints in that MacWorld presentation, hints of what’s coming, and the Mac Mini is a big part of that.”
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Report: Apple’s Mac mini power connector hints at upcoming add-ons – January 20, 2005
Cringely predicts $249 Macintosh, would make Apple the world’s number one PC company – January 10, 2005
Robert X. Cringely: Steve Jobs ‘is proud of being an a**hole’ – April 30, 2004
notatotalsucker,
The audio out port doesn’t matter. The content would come off your Mac through the ethernet port or FireWire. HDTV set-top boxes have cable modems build in, USB and IEE-1394. The Mac wouldn’t need to do any of the conversion. The TV or set-top box would.
The HDTV stream off the cable plant doesn’t have a separate audio conductor, does it?….
I would imagine that the Mac mini is really just storage with software to manage the DRM and protect the studios’ intellectual property and had the proper data stream to the cable box or proper TV. Apple has already demonstrated it is capable of doing that with music to the RIAA.
Cringely uses Sony’s presence at Macworld, among other things, to predict an iFlicks like Apple movie store a la iTunes Movie Store.
Not saying that is not the most logical next step but Sony could just be after HD iMovie 5 software for Windows for it’s soon to be released consumer HD movie cameras. Apple is all about the software to Sony’s Pres.
What I find interesting:
“Here’s my thinking, and it is just thinking — I have no insider knowledge of Apple’s plans, I haven’t been diving in any Cupertino dumpsters, and nobody who knows the truth has told me a darned thing.”
Looks like Apple’s ThinkSecret suit is already having a cooling effect
Cringely’s article is one of the most insightful ones that I’ve read concerning the Mac mini.
In a previous topic on MDN, I suggested that the Mini should be thought of as a new platform and Cringely is developing that point with far more eloquence than I could muster.
It saddens me when people talk of the Mini and only discuss it’s price tag or it’s physical size.
The exciting aspect of the Mini is it’s potential.
It’s so obviously a part of a greater whole. Much of what Apple has produced recently has been able to be used as part of the digital hub.
The monitors are perfect for the job.
iTunes could just as easily store and deliver video rather than just audio. The same goes for iTMS.
Even Airport Express wasn’t left to be merely a portable WiFi unit, or a wireless USB printer. It also became the means to let you stream content from your main computer to elsewhere in your house.
Each of those parts is great in itself, but collectively their significance becomes greater.
Clearly the Mini further extends that potential, but we can be quite sure that there’s much more to come.
It would take *days* to download an HD-encoded movie. iTunes songs, by contrast, download in under a minute. This is a major barrier for Apple to overcome if they plan to enter the business of Video-On-Demand, a la “iMovies” / “iCinema” / whatever.
Ryan, I don’t know all the details but my understanding is that the new h.264 video that be heavily implemented in Tiger and Quicktime 7 will drastically change that.
Ryan,
Are you talking about dial-up? If so, then you are correct.
If you are talking braoadband, then ‘days’ is quite the exageration. Also consider the numerous FTTx projects being undertaken by Verizon, SBC, etc. Cable modem service isn’t getting any slower. Comcast has video-on-demand already in most major markets and it doesn’t take all that long to download the content.
Apple is about the future. They could be a little early on this one, but somehow I don’t think so.
I hope Apple (and its resellers) make it loud and clear that to burn DVDs users will have to BTO, and that iDVD will only work with an internal SuperDrive. We don’t wanna tick off too many switchers.
zupchuck.. please.. do we have tread old ground here?
How many times do you want to watch your favorite movie?
Ahh SJ has already dismissed movie downloads, saying that kind of thing is already in place.. Blockbuster, etc..
Old material here..
Mike,
What SJ dismissed was standard quality TV and movies via entrenched giants (cable companies and Blockbuster). He did not dismiss HD, nor did he dismiss sending HD streams over the Internet.
There are so many signs pointing to an Apple “iFlix Video Store”, even as SJ was busy dampening expectations (and hiding real intentions from market competitors) until Apple was almost ready with H.264 and QT7. It is after all “the year of HD.”
As there is no doubt that Apple is headed into consumer electronics (Target selling Mac mini) and that H.264 will arrive in 1H05, there are three key threads remaining:
1. Who is Apple getting to provide content for the store? Movie studios, TV studios and broadcast networks, music studios (music videos), sports leagues? (Note NFL audio on iPod!) (Can ThinkSecret break an NDA on this?)
2. Is broadband at up to 6Mbps downstream going to be fast enough for HD-quality H.264? If not, what else might Apple use?
3. What wireless standard will Apple use to move multimedia around the house (802.11a, pre-802.11n, Freescale UWB, etc)? And where’s that Apple remote control for the Mac?
Back when SJ said the Mac would be the digital hub, he also said that Apple intended to be one of the ten biggest Internet companies. Now we’re just beginning to see what he meant.
Here’s to all the people who want Apple to offer a subscription service!
Brought to you by the magic word: learned
Wow, is Cringely smart! I have no doubt after reading this that at least half of it is right. Jobs hates TV and loves movies. Selling or renting movies online is a natural.
The things that leap out at me as confirming Cringely’s view are:
1. That *both* iFlix and iFlicks have clammed up. What are the odds on that?
2. That Jobs was making such a big deal of H.264 in general, not just in the context of iChat AV. He did exactly the same thing with AAC, explaining how fabulous it was, 6 months or so before the iTunes Music Store started selling songs in that format.
3. His otherwise mysterious point about how H.264 is Blu-Ray / HD-DVD agnostic.
4. His having already experimented with selling extremely large downloads in the form of the U2 box set, which is the equivalent of about 4 movies (using Jobs’s own “a movie is 100 times as big as a song” rule of thumb).
5. His extreme slowness to line Pixar up with another studio–this is extending the golden moment in which he has incredible negotiating power with every movie studio in existence. Being extremely attractive and un-mated gives you negotiating power, and it does seem possible that he means to use it to complete an iTunes-style multiple simultaneous deal.
Anyway, I just think there’s got to be something to what the man is saying.
Two things to consider before you agree completely with this article:
First, trailers do not have to be viewed through iTunes, as mentioned by the writer. It is most likely that he selected a particular trailer or size that had to be viewed through iTunes, but most trailers on Apple’s site are viewable through the web browser or (if you save the file with QuickTime Pro) through QuickTime Player. For an example of this, check out the Fantastic Four trailer page where Full Screen is viewable through iTunes but the other three sizes load within the web-browser.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/fantastic_four/
Second, when QuickTime 7 for OS X is released there will be a version for Windows XP. This is going to happen because iTunes for Windows XP needs QuickTime to function and so far Apple has kept both the Mac and Windows versions identical with every update. My point is that if Apple goes into the HD movie downloads business, a Mac mini would not be the minimum recommended system; any current PC would also do.
I think that people should stop wishing for a Mac Media Center and start accepting the Mac mini as the desktop PC that it is. Just because it can output video to a television does not mean that it is replacing the VCR, DVD or cable box.
Considering the only audio output on the Mac Mini is an 1/8 inch headphone jack I think this video hopothsesis is faulty. No digital output means no surround sound, no hi definition audio.
Sol,
1. Cringely said the Quicktime/iTunes thing was a glitch that was fixed but that he could see that as a glimpse of the future.
2. Just like iTunes/iTMS is for the PC, I would expect “iFlix” to also be available on the PC. But the x86 PC hardware requirements may be steep for HD, since Tiger H.264 will be optimized for the PowerPC/GPU. So that a future Mac mini will not only look better but be cheaper than a HD-capable PC.
Huck,
One other point – Apple’s own XServe, XServe RAID, and XSan are perfect (fast and cheap – especially when you buy from yourself) for serving up the iFlix service.
Chris,
The Mac mini is a forerunner of a future box that includes an internal digital sound output. For the current Mac mini, there could be a second box (Firewire or USB) that drives a digital audio output. Apple is just getting people ready to buy “consumer electronics” from them – note that Target.com is selling the Mac mini.
The Cringley article brings up the possibility of movies on demand but assumes the Mac mini is the computer for the job. I don’t think so. Maybe the form factor, but there will be a Mac AV or something to do the job. And do it right.
Finally at the bottom of the posts, AlanAudio and Huck start putting all the pieces into place. This year you’ll get an iDeck that downloads movies in H.264 while you sleep or are at work, and you can watch them when you wish (and probably on you Sony TV not your Mac).
Just two questions… If you can download tunes and flix, what will the site be called? And can you stram these movies over airport?
Hmmmm?