“The Mac Mini’s size (think of a slightly overgrown CD-ROM burner) makes it great for small spaces. And, it’s built to work with your existing keyboard, mouse and monitor; there’s even an adapter for LCDs that have a VGA connector, more common among PC users than Mac ones. As has been widely reported, Apple has aimed the Mac Mini at Windows users who are tired of system crashes,” Mark Kellner writes for The Washington Times in an article that’s unfortunately headlined, “MacMini’s value is in its size” which somehow achieves the dubious distinction of getting both the name of Apple’s latest Mac and its value wrong. Although the mini’s size is a “value,” reading Kellner’s full article doesn’t lead us to think he believes that the size of the mini is its strongest point. We don’t think Kellner wrote the headline; somebody else who didn’t fully read Kellner’s article must have slapped that mess above the article.
Kellner writes, “My test system arrived with a 40 GB hard disk drive, a ‘combo drive’ that plays DVD and CD discs and writes to blank CDs, and 512 megabytes of RAM. That extra 256 megabytes of RAM will push the $499 price up by $75. Adding, as Apple did, wireless connectors for Bluetooth devices such as a wireless keyboard and mouse, as well as wireless networking, or WiFi, tacks on another $129. All told, we are just a hair beyond $700 for a machine equipped as tested, sales tax not included.”
“For the price, however, even this slightly upgraded Mac Mini is still a bargain compared with other Macs in years gone by. And don’t forget that Apple’s Mac OS X is a far, far more stable operating system than Windows XP, or that Apple includes a free copy of I Life ’05, a suite of multimedia applications including ITunes, IPhoto, IMovie, IDVD and Garage Band with each model. That’s a $79 value (if not more) right there,” Kellner writes. “The Mac Mini raises the bar for what a good, low-price computer can and should do.”
Full article here.
My mini has been brilliant since I got it last Friday. My G3 400 MHz PowerBook is now in its carrying case, waiting to be sold to a friend for more than the price of my brand-new 17″ Nu flat-panel display. Twice the HD space and about 5x the processing power… I’ll take it!
[Half].. We haven’t seen the [half] of what Steve Jobs has up his sleeve..
Hrm .. Can Apple juggle selling low-end Macs AND lisencing OS X?
There has to be a price point (for OS X on Intel) where the Mac mini makes sense…
Claim: Apple will not release OS X on Intel.
Proof: Apple makes its money on hardware. OS X on Intel means less hardware sales. Less hardware sales means less money for Apple. Less money for Apple means failure as a business. And failure is not the goal (by assumption). Hence, the claim. QED.
About that article where SJ mentions 3 top PC builders aching to license OS X… did he specifically state that they wanted to run it on x86? I think somebody is going to start putting Macs inside HDTV’s. Everyone seems to think convergence means the computer absorbing everything else, but what if everything else simply absorbs the computer?
TV’s running Tiger with iTunes ready to go… YUM! 😀
What a hoary old chestnut: OSX on Intel. It would be nice if a month could pass without someone feeling the need to write their misguided reasons as to why Apple must switch to Intel or perish …
Buy a Mac and move on, really!
erg.
Ahem.. selling software to 95% of the Computing Industry a road to failure, hrm?
I’m very much referring to the Fortune Article which stated that a few major PC makers were asking Jobs for some kind of Mac OS lisencing deal…
But how about a deal to put OSX on sony’s PS3 – sould not harm the computer sales but would get the OS into most homes.
I don’t think OS X will ever be on an intel machine but it MIGHT be on a computer made by someone else with one of these new Cell Chips. A Sony perhaps?
Meanwhile I want a mini just for the cool factor but really don’t need one yet. If they have an elegant solution to make it a home theater center I will get one though. Right now I am waiting for Tiger and then will get either a PowerMac or a PowerBook – not sure which yet. I have traditionally been a laptop man but I might stretch out my 667 Ti for a bit more and go for the POWER. 80% of my computing is done at my desk anyway.
I wouldn’t buy OS X for Intel [myself], since I happen to like Mac hardware too!
Why would Apple release OSX on Intel, when the Cell chip (Power-based) is going to blow away the x86 architecture completely? IBM just sold off their x86 business, and now announce Cell based workstations are coming before the end of the year. Apple and IBM could already be working on something there that is going to have MS desperately trying to get Windows back onto Power.
I agree, if OS X is ever licensed, I don’t think it will be on Intel. My guess is, OS X Server will be licensed to Sony, IBM, and maybe HP for enterprise use.
Here’s my prediction regarding use of the Cell: 2006 will bring us a Mac running a 4.5ghz (or higher) Cell processor which will also run Sony’s PlayStation OS instantly making the Mac one of the top gaming platforms.
Somewhere I read that Tiger has some features which appear to be tailor-made for the Cell specs, but I can’t remember where it was.