“The Mac mini is elegant, inexpensive without being cheap, and it’s not a magnet for the viruses, worms and other malicious software – so-called malware – floating around the Internet. It could fit in any room as a first, second or third computer. And it plays well with others on a home network,” Matthew Fordahl writes for The Associated Press.
“Most of all, it’s a low-cost alternative to Microsoft Corp.’s Windows that doesn’t carry the learning curve of Linux. It doesn’t presume you’re guilty of software theft, and, refreshingly unlike Windows, there’s no activation when you set it up – an no anti-piracy checks afterward,” Fordahl writes. “The mini seems designed more like a consumer electronics device such as Apple’s iPod than a general-purpose computer. But despite the name, it’s watered down only in size and cost. This is as much a Mac as any other that’s been sold over the years.”
“After completing a brief startup wizard, I was whisked to Mac OS X’s simple desktop, where I could launch Apple’s recently updated suite of programs for music, photos and video, and check e-mail and surf the Internet,” Fordahl writes.
MacDailyNews Take: Wizard? Oh well, he’s an XP user – it’s a frame of reference thing.
Fordahl continues, “All the software is included. You also can add a mini to your existing home network, and it will work well even with all your Windows PCs. You can share files, printers and even desktops. Because I use Microsoft’s Windows XP Professional on my primary computer at home, I was able to control that system – and view its desktop – from the Mac mini
in the dining room. That was thanks to a program called Remote Desktop Connection for Mac OS X that Microsoft offers as a free download.”
MacDailyNews Note: Here’s the link for Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac.
Fordahl writes that with the Mac mini “you could abandon Windows altogether – at the risk of breaking out in a cold sweat, not knowing what to do with the money you would have spent on antivirus and anti-spyware software.”
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
CBS News: Grab a new Apple Mac mini ‘and kiss the old Wintel machine goodbye’ – January 27, 2005
AnandTech reviews Apple’s Mac mini: ‘tempting Windows users everywhere’ – January 26, 2005
Windows users can give Apple’s elegant OS X operating system a try with new Mac mini – January 25, 2005
Is your Windows computer broken? You might want to look at a Mac – January 24, 2005
Methinks the floodgates are opening….
Geez, almost makes me wish I’d ever used a Windows machine, just so I could experience the joyous relief of switching.
Dude, it’s like coming home.
Yikes! I’m so used to being a Mac underdog, I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle having so many new converts joing our club. It’s like when I went the the Apple store the other day. I hadn’t been there for well over a year. It used to be a nice cool, quiet place to hang out with my mac geek peeps. But the last time I went, it was packed!! And it wasn’t packed with members of the club. They were all normal PeeCee types. I was excited for Apple but saddened that my cute, struggling little gang-o-geeks was now the popular club.
Isn’t the title of the article: “Two decades late, Apple launches $500 Mac”?
I’m surprised MDN didn’t take the bait with the real title!
Solid article, however. Nice to see someone mention VNC. It works great.
God, I really hope this is the beginning of a huge move to the Mac. Market share is just too low to be viable.
If the mini takes off like the iPod, Apple could be in fantastic shape. 5M additional upgrades of OSX, 5 million upgrades of iLife, etc. It really starts to add up.
My MDN magic word is “sales.” Couldn’t of said it better myself.
Don’t get overly excited. Lets not forget that sales of PC’s total roughly 173M/year(2004). That’s 14M/month…which is more than total annual sales of Mac’s for the past 4 years combined.
Apple has a long way to go.
It’s pretty obvious there will be an increase of some sort. Let’s keep our expectations in line and not sabotage any positives that result because we overblow estimates.
Apple has been on a roll and will continue to do so. ANY increase is great news because all-in-all, it means that Apple will remain profitable and stick around just that much longer!
Im all for more switchers, less widespread problems with malware. Also those stupid webapp developers will start designing websites for other browsers. I still cant believe the blind acceptance of Internet Explorer. Sometimes windows users try my computer out and they ask me “Wheres IE?” Im usually split over freaking out or a lecture as to why not to use it.
Ben.. who cares.. Apple’s been profitable with a 2% global marketshare..
If they DOUBLE their marketshare that twice as many people that could potentially pick up iWork and twice as many that could potentially pick up Tiger (I think they timed it for an April Tiger launch).. In other words.. the worst is over..
If you thought competing with Apple and their zealots was hard when ‘beleaguered’ Apple had a 2% share, wait until it’s 4%, or 6% globally.. Apple will be able to afford to drop prices even further, because they’ll be making so much revenue on selling Mac-only software, and Apple Displays, etc.
As long as the marketshare gets to be enough such that developers say, “and do we want to do a Mac port?” without wetting themselves laughing… If Dell has a 35% share now and Windows itself has a 90+% share.. Apple going from 4% now to 15% would be great.. it’ll take two and a half years.. but still great (marketshare swings aren’t that hard since it’s not measured on installed base)
verve..
it’s not that hard to relate to the ‘switchers’.. they’ve been lied to their whole lives, that’s all.. you woulda done the same if you were fed FUD morning noon and night
on a different note.. I hear alot of reporters saying stuff like, “It wouldn’t be cool to be a mac user if they had a 30% marketshare”
What garbage.. I bought this comp because i love it, not because I love telling ppl about it. I talk to people about the Mac when I’m at a comp. store.. that’s about it. and i still love this thing. Imagine that. If Apple had a 30% share.. barring any pickup in virii (0 times a 200% increase is..) I’ll still love it..
I can sell 5 houses and be profitable…doesn’t mean I have any impact or influence on the housing market.
15% market share? Not given Apple’s downward spiral in both annual sales and percentage install base. In 1999, pre-OS X days, Apple sold 3.8M/year…2004, with PowerMac G5’s, Imac G5’s, Apple sold 3.5M/year.
Apple better hope the mini reverses this trend.
And as much as I like the Mac OS X, for god sakes, stop stressing its “no virii and spyware”.
I run an XP box with Firefox and thunderbird…not a single instance of spyware and not a virus in 2 years. Get a firewall, use it, don’t run IE and Outlook, don’t be stupid, and you’re set… Touting this feature as OS X’s strength really devalues the OS.
Ben… good to see you enjoy your life in Windows.
You may be technically savvy enough to understand there are alternative browsers and mail clients as well. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Windows users are unaware of anything except the software that comes loaded on their PC. And Microsoft is not about to direct them away from using IE or Outlook Express.
Maybe you should be spreading you meassage on a Windows forum… I think we have things covered here.
Ben
You’re freaking moron, sure if eveyone did that they could have a nice computing experience but most people just use whatever is preinstalled. The argument is not about people who know what they are doing it is about the people who just want a computer to work.
Magic word is believe, as in believe me not everyone is as smart as you.
96ru,
You can make your point without calling Ben a moron, freaking or otherwise. Because you did, I stopped reading your point and sighed, “Another Mac Zealot. Walk away.”
Ben,
I personally do hope the mini reverses the trend (of Apple’s diminishing market share.)
huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge
I decry the mini! All these Windoes (sneer) Switchers are clogging up MY Apple Store.
It’s getting crowded and I can’t chill with the specialists and geniuses and talk to them as much or as long anymore about block allocations vis a vis partitioning my hard disks…
And the popularity of the iPod was bad enough. It’s not unusual to see an hp or (shudder) DELL laptop at the genius bar for help restoring or synching their new mini. It’s like wearing a Metallica t-shirt to church, fer chrissake!
So to all you windows-using would-be poser-biter switchers: Go Away! There’s nothing to see here. Bill’s Windows is good enough for the likes of you.
Joe McConnell,
Oops! I must have left my fly unzipped. Sorry.
Early adopters….without a good advertising and marketing campaign by Apple the mac mini will quickly fade away from the public spotlight.
And if Steve does some advertising it will be usual image type ads that don´t do any selling.
He never sells the product, the OS or software that comes with it. Just the image.
Problem with image ads is Mom and Pop aren´t teenagers into image only, they want facts and figures to justify their bucks spent.
Will we be seeing a black U2 version mini mac soon????
Mom & Pop buy what their teenager tell them to buy. Period, or at most what the neighbor has bought (told to by his/her teenager).
The next time Mom & Pop buy a new computer is because daughter and son go to college, and to the “Dear, it is time you get a new Dell, mine is a bit obsolete.” “DAAADDD, are you kidding me? It is a Powerbook or nothing. And while you’re there, profit of the iPod discount with it. All my friends have it already”.
I chanced upon the old receipt of the iMac 700 (without DVD, with an extra 512 MB RAM) I bought nearly 3 years ago.
This computer, with its VERY modest CPU and graphics, cost just short of €2000,- !! And that was the ‘cheapest’ I could get it for.
Since that time I, and many thousands of others, have been pleading with Apple (per e-mail) and on sites like this one for a so-called ‘headless’ consumer Mac.
And although many thousands were against us, I haven’t read a single post that shows any sort of contrition.
Where are you all now?
Say something!
The mini is nice, but werent we told just a year ago that the future was in mobile computing? How come so many now pin hopes of impreved market share on a desktop?
What’s it going to be?
By the way Ben, you are being misleading. OS security IS one of the many many advantages of OSX over any version of windows you care to mention. Sure, if you spend hours configing and maintaining your windows box you stand a better chance of not being infected (no thanks to M$), but you are not inmune, firewall or not. Surely the point is that if you compare both OSes out of the box, which is as most people use them, the difference is stageringly clear. Using Firefox will certainly help improve your internet experience and give you greater prtotection, but given that IE is actualy PART OF THE OS then you ultimately have nowhere to hide – you are screwed. Every day there are new exploits that take advantage of Windows holes.
Where you aware that most internet related police officers in the UK actually use Macs? OS security is a big big benefit of OSX.
you could abandon Windows altogether
He says could, I say [B]SHOULD[/B]
Mac mini is going to be a big sales driver, and Apple is probably going to exit the quarter with a big backlog.
However, I suspect there is going to be a sizeable shift in the PowerBook range which, whilst not a G5-type step-change, will certainly give a huge fillip to portable sales. Personally, I think e600-based systems with the potential for the dual-core in the 17″ (and possibly the 15″), although I think that might be a bit premature.
If they do ship dual-core, Apple can look forward to a whole year of strong performance as every broadcaster and small edit house re-equip their mobile edit suites.
Mac Zealot: I agree it is worrying that Apple is going to be choked by a sea of illiterate users who will manage to screw up any computer they touch. If anyone has recently been into a pc repair shop and seen the hoards of people handing over Wintels saying: ‘its all yours – it doesn’t work -I don’t know why’ etc you’ll understand what I mean!
I hope we won’t regret the sea-change that’s -probably- started.
Amble ass adore..
nice FUD, but Apples units last quarter were up 26% beating the industry’s 10% growth..
That was before the introduction of a cheaper-than-an-iPod Mac..
It’s not a matter of if, but how much..
Ben, as i said.. increasing marketshare is not hard, because the way it’s measured is quarter by quarter in shipments.. NOT installed base.. which means as long as there’s demand, Apple can ramp up production of these minis (backlogged 4 weeks.. i think there’s demand)
Purely by the mini’s existence we know that Apple’s shipments will beat the industry average again this year.. so marketshare will keep going up.
Dell still has roots in the business sectors.. so they won’t really feel much a dent.. Apple can easily take business away from guys like.. geee…. eMachines? Gateway?