Mac minis with Intel processors and a slightly revamped version of Front Row. For $100 and $300 more than the previous base model.
A $350 boom box that you can plug an iPod into.
This is "fun"?
Maybe I'm missing something, but these seem quite overpriced. I thought the whole idea of a Mac mini was that it was supposed to be the cheapest Mac ever. It's starting to resemble the Power Mac Cube more and more, from a marketing standpoint. Apple needs to remember that it's fighting for the dollars of people who are used to walking home with an entire system (keyboard, mouse, display and all) for less than what the Mac mini now costs.
And who thought that a $350 add-on to a $300 - $400 product would be at all appealing? It's portable...great. For $350, it had better be the best sounding boom box EVER. I'm glad they made it portable, because at that price, I certainly won't be buying one for each room of the house.
I'm fairly disappointed that we didn't see more. I was certainly expecting more from the revamped Mac mini. Maybe Apple's saving the good stuff for their 30th anniversary on April 1.
I sure hope so.
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Actually, you're missing a lot about the new Mac Mini -- but so is Apple. Let me explain.
You're missing the fact that, for another $100.00, you;re getting several nice features that those PC beige boxes on the CostCo palette don't have: digital audio optical i/o, Bluetooth, Front Row with remote, Firewire, DVI out (many at the bottom off the price-range are STILL VGA), Gigabit Ethernet, iLife 06 and of course Mac OS X instead of the hassle-inducing Windows platform. But the main aspects are the hardware ones, and on this front the Mini has more robust features.
On the other side of the coin, however, there are a lot of people who just "aren't there" in terms of using a computer beyond its typical, traditional usage. For these people, even a Mac Mini is over-configured, and Apple should offer a cheaper Mini with an Intel Core Solo, no wireless, 10/100 Ethernet only, no digital, i/o, no Front Row and remote, and even iLife would be questionable. What it would need, however, is a full license for iWork. I really miss the fact that, at least with Appleworks bundled in the past, there was some semblance of Word/Excel compatibility right out of the box.
So, despite Front Row and the Mini not being the PVR some folks were hoping it would be, to me it seems like Apple is laying the pipes for more all-encompassing home entertainment capabilities down the road. From a hardware perspective and with Front Row's improve streaming and media sharing (that Gigabit Ethernet comes in handy in this case), they're poised to push further into the living room. The question is, WHEN do they go for XP Media Center's throat?
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