“I’m definitely not one to shop till you drop, but I snapped up a Mini Mac on Saturday morning–at a mall, no less. You know, just to feel good,” Jeff Pelline writes for CNET News. “‘Why?’ my wife asked, when I got home, holding my son with one hand and my ‘headless’ Mac–in its own little box with a handle–in the other. (No need for a bag–that’s my style). ‘Oh, why not.’ Look, one of my favorite mottos is ‘spon-tan-i-e-ty.'”
“It didn’t break the bank either–for $499 I got a computer, DVD player and quickly built a home media center with our existing HDTV. (Oh, and I got to download iLife ’05 on my other Mac, a $79 “value.”) This play toy also fulfilled my curiosity–as a consumer and a journalist,” Pelline writes. “I plugged my ‘headless’ Mac into the Sharp HDTV in the living room, and in no time Mitchell was watching ‘Finding Nemo’ and ‘Dora the Explorer’ on the ‘big screen.’ The DVI connection heightened the picture quality. Later we listened to music from ‘Ralph’s World’ from the pint-size Mac, courtesy of an iPod. We navigated with a wireless keyboard and mouse, borrowed from my desktop Mac… [This] lesson from Apple should be taken seriously. Steve Jobs is a college dropout, not an MBA. But (unlike many MBAs) Steve is smart enough to know that if you build good products and market them, people will come–they’ll even line up in front of your store on weekends.”
“I know we’ll get our money’s worth from the Mini. I can plug it into a mall flat-panel TV in the kitchen, and take it to Lake Tahoe, or to work,” Pelline writes.
Full article here.
I also picked up my Mac mini today and carried that sweet little box home. I loaded on iLife 5 on my G4 iMac and disconnected my 7600 Mac, jazz drive, two old hard disks, and old Apple CD burner all of which are about to be trashed.
And low and behold my Sony monitor, key board, mouse are born again and I’ve got all kinds of desktop room.
I won’t be able to pick up a Mac Mini yet, (snowstorm and lack of funds) but I did pull out my old Macintosh Plus to show my daughter how far computers have come. She got a kick out of seeing it, but became quickly bored, plus, I noticed the ‘N’ key doesn’t work anymore. However, I think I can fix that, and there’s a website the offers downloads of old Mac programs for the original Macs, so I’ll be experimenting with that old Mac Plus for S&G’s. I plan to get a Mac Mini for my daughter, who’s been itching to replace her old PowerMac 6116 in her bedroom. I’ll have to get it with the Airport installed, because I won’t run wires to her room. I can’t wait to see one for myself.
Broguht to you by “leave”, as in Leave that old Wintel mess behind!
This is the thing the stupid pundits don’t get! this is why the mac mini might be the most important mac ever released.
Magic word-set as in Set to explode!! let’s go Apple
Hey Dak…
Theres also a website that specializes in old “Abandon-ware” games for old Macs…. you can check it out .. here…. Lots of the old games you may remember, and even some you may not…
But, if you grab a few of those, it might even impress your daughter !!
Good Luck !!
Got mine today.
Mac OS X and all these preloaded apps are awesome. My daughter has a G3 iBook, but since she is away at college, I barely get to play with it.
The Mini is the perfect machine for 90% of the computer using world – emailing, web surfng, burning CD’s, importing photos, record keeping, basic word processing, etc.
It blows away my Pentium III, Windows XP machine.
All those naysayers HAVE NO IDEA what they are missing.
Yep, so we trekked up to the San Francisco store again today, after being told last week that iPod Shuffles (1Gb model) would be in stock.
Alas, still not available. Guess the employees got them all first. The guy at the desk suggests we look at the Mac mini instead. Nice try sunshine.
(yes, we had tried to call beforehand, but no answer – they must’ve been busy!)
Man, maybe I need to rethink things here. My oldest kid’s been bugging me to death to get him a new computer–he’s stuck using a ’99 era iBook and my oooold original PM 6100 (with G3 upgrade–woo hoo!). I hadn’t really thought of getting a new machine, but honestly I’ve got a 17″ monitor and several keyboard/mouses around. If I doubled the RAM and put in airport, this thing would still cost just around $600 and would be a great computer for the kiddies….. Hmmm.
Quality. Umm… is this today’s word?
Loving the momentum. Anyone else notice that there seem to have been many who wanted to use Macs, only to switch when the price lowered? Is there a message there?
The Apple Store at Fashin Island in Newport Beach was sold out of the mac mini at 2:00 this afternoon.
Excellent and funny too!
This is the sort of press Apple has been after for years!
Looks like the mac mini is gonna be used for all sorts of things!
Now – if only they made a G5 version…
Went to the Sacramento Apple store on Sat. at 1PM & ALL of the shuffles & mini were sold out. 2 weeks before the next shipment. Apple’s got to get more product out there then that!!!
AGGH…..I am in the UK, and although I have ordered my mac mini, all you guys over the pond are getting them first!!
I have to wait another 2 weeks.
“…I snapped up a Mini Mac on Saturday morning–at a mall, no less. You know, just to feel good,” Jeff Pelline writes for CNET News.
Another satisfied customer.
Go Apple!
Just curious, but from a licensing perspective, is it legal to install iLife 05 that ships with the Mini on the rest of the Macs at home? I was under the impression it was a single computer license.
Not that I would be surprised that CNET writes an article endorsing the violation of an Apple software copyright.
BTW, take a look at Internet-Nexus, (don’t worry, no one dares to advertise there anymore), Thurrott now has the site themed with Apple’s iLife graphics & icons. What a bi-polar moron.
Went to the Sacramento Apple store on Sat. at 1PM & ALL of the shuffles & mini were sold out. 2 weeks before the next shipment. Apple’s got to get more product out there then that!!!
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So? How were they supposed to know it would sell so well.. NEWSFLASH.. ITS A MAC!!!
You’re talking about a company that barely sold 1M Macs last quarter..
What if they produced 10 million units and then announced it.. ? What if didn’t catch? By this point the release would have been not Jan 22 but about March 1st… and you’ve got 10 million mini Macs that no PC users are willing to try for whatever reason…
Don’t bash Apple for being logical… You on the other hand, have some real explaining to do..
What? It SHOULD sell? Pffft.. so should the eMac! This just in.. 1.9% marketshare buddy… Apple was being prudent and testing the waters.. They managed this launch perfectly..(Okay, they could have spent a little $$$ and included 512 RAM, but they don’t wanna cannibalize too much)
It’s a short quarter, so I’ll pitch between 300K and 400K units of Mac mini for Fiscal Q2 generating around $200M of revenue and $30M of profit.
Some people in Taiwan or wherever are going to be working some long shifts, and Airborne Express are going to be very happy bunnies.
Devnull,
I got the impression that he took it off the mini and added it to his other Mac. That he can legally do.
Wait a few months to purchase the mini and you’ll get the new OSX for free. That will save you $119.
In the full article he linked to a parody on Apple by Gizmodo. I must say it rankled a bit but it IS funny.
I think I might have to be getting a Mini too sometime. BUT my savings are earmarked for a G5 or Dualcore G4 Powerbook. Decisions, Decisions. I will probably wait until someone has all the solutions to turn the Mini into the best Home Media Center on the Planet. Then I will probably be able to swing it with the wifal unit in ADDITION to the Powerbook.
I can only imagine what reporters (and the average switcher for that matter) will say when the Mac mini starts selling with Tiger and all its awesome technologies. Picture a long time windows sufferer coming to the Mac platform for the first time experiencing Tiger and Apple’s too cool iLife software wrapped in a wonderful mini case! And they call us fanatical? I can hardly wait!!
Steve Jobs is a college dropout, not an MBA. But (unlike many MBAs) Steve is smart enough to know that if you build good products and market them, people will come–they’ll even line up in front of your store on weekends.
What does MBA have to do with this? Mein gott! What’s wrong with tech journalists and tech editors? So he’s had a bad day/week/month courtesy of some MBA … who cares?
Brought to you by the magic word coming as in the third coming of Jobs.
I have found through experience that the best CEOs, bosses etc are the ones without the MBAs etc.
These guys are unique because, instead of learning how to run a company from a training course, they run a company from pure instinct, talent and skill.
Another example is the music industry – You don’t need to be able read or write music to be successful musician. All you need is talent, alot of luck and total dedication to succeed along with that fact that you really enjoy what you are doing.
I feel the same about design. I have been a designer for over 14 years and now have my own creative consultancy in the UK. BUT I have had no trainging how to run a company and I have always said that as soon as I stop enjoying what I do – then I will pack it all in and try something else!
The Trojan Pony. Coming to a mall near you.
Actually devnull, the current mini comes with two iLife licences, one for 4 (installed on the HD) and one for 5 (on disk). Legally, he’d need only not install 5 on the mini. Fat chance of that though.