It seems that the theme of this year’s Macworld Expo is going to be affordability . With the keynote speech announcements of the headless iMac, called the Mac mini, as well as the sporty iPod Shuffle; Apple seems to be taking the Target approach to design. That is to say, great design needn’t be expensive. You’ll make up the cost of the design in volume.
There was a great deal of speculation about the “headless” iMac online, leading to some law suits. It appears that the iHome was indeed a hoax, but on the right track when you take into consideration the Mac mini as well as the announcement of Final Cut Express HD. Of course, I’ve yet to play around with one, but a G4 Mac in a small square-ish box (stop me if you’ve heard this one) sounds like a cool little computer. Provided it doesn’t overheat like the cube. Based on what I know about the performance of the new iMac, I’d say it’s safe from overheating. They’re putting little fans in there just for good measure these days. All of that aside, I’m glad to see a well-designed Mac with some decent specs at what seems like a super price. Particularly since most of us already have a monitor, mouse, keyboard, & speakers we can plug into one. While I love the design of the iMac (which is, by the way, a G5 now, instead of a G4), if you already have those things on your desk, buying them again seems wasteful. Just buy a KVMS switch (like the one I have from Belkin for my PC & Linux box).
I am impressed with the iPod shuffle as well. Do I realize it’s just a USB key drive with a speaker jack & music player buttons? Of course I do. However, it’s a nicely priced one that happens to have the über-cool name of iPod attached. Demand greater than supply? Unless they’ve already produced these things buy the 100’s of thousands, than you bet. I bought a 1GB USB key for about $70 a few weeks ago, and I’m already wishing I’d just waited and bought this thing for twice that. I’m happy to pay premium for this kind of cool.
I think the new Apple products rock. I followed the keynote and the follow-up very closely. The only problem I have with the Mac Mini is that–apparently–the RAM is not user upgradeable. This thing is like a gaming console. If you want to mess around with the insides of it, you’ll be breaking the warrantee. Am I right here?
I am currently trying to get my mother to buy one. She has lots of problems with her Dell.
Not having had an Apple computer in my house in about 18 years, I couldn’t say for sure how they feel about user modifications vs. warranties. I found this article on their site, but it doesn’t really go into what defines “user upgradable” or which products this applies to.
I think they’re pretty cool with people replacing batteries in their iPods, althought that would be most likely to occur long after the warranty was up. However, since they kind of got caught with their pants down on the issue of lousy batteries which they weren’t willing to replace, that may be a one-of type thing.
I mentioned these computers to my younger brother, Dave (who reads this site, I hope). I thought a Mac would be perfect for him and this is a nice option for someone who isn’t prepared to lay down $1,300 for an iMac.