The First Sealed Computer – The Mac mini

The new Apple Mac mini is HERE! It is SHIPPING already!

(Source: Apple Computers)

I understand our need to open things, and to show off our native ability to bust things open. Therefore, it is already understood that this new Mac mini will be modded like crazy! Especially for autos. Some companies are already producing third party products for this.

Yet I think the new Apple Mac mini is “Something Different.”

Those who know, are saying that the mini can be successfully opened by an Apple service technician with a spatula or putty knife. (mymac.com)

Does nobody get it?

Apple actually designed the Mini so that it should not be opened by anyone. (Not since the days of the first Macs, has this been true. But back then, they needed to be opened – a lot. Thus many of us owned a long Torx wrench, right?)

So, I am naming the Mac mini the first Sealed Computer. One so elegant, so full featured, that it need never be opened during its product life. And for the vast majority of mini owners, this will be true.

Imagine if one of the car companies made their new cars with hoods that were welded shut – or if their fronts were made all in one piece, with no opening at all? Suppose they told their customers that their engines were sealed, and were never to be opened for the life of the car?

This is exactly the new paradigm we are dealing with here with the new mini.

Of course Apple Computers provided NO TOOL to their employees or customers to get to the insides of these minis. Apple has made none.

This is why people posting the mini’s dissection on the web are resorting to stupid butter knives!

Look closely at the design of the mini.

(Source: Macminute.com)

Do you see any screws or latches anywhere? It is perfectly sealed, and it is purposely designed that way.

Therefore, if you are going to upgrade your Mini, I recommend that you do so BEFORE you buy it!

Cheap personal computers are an open box, which easily allows anyone’s dirty hands to be inside of it.

But Apple has made something new. An ultra reliable, long lasting, cheap, throwaway computer.

It is very small, isn’t it? It’s made with minimal materials, and it is LOCKED SHUT. This means that the Mac mini was designed to be pristine, and perfect – and I think, never to be opened by anyone.

This is as alien as device as I think you or I will ever see.

All these guys out there on the Web, posting photos about taking apart the new mini – they are like those monkeys around the Monolith, trying to make it fit into their paradigm – their world view. Instead of seeing the mini for what it really is: “Something Different!”

Regards,
Roger Born
– who is finally seeing what ‘Think Different’ really means.

PS

If you look at the new iPod Shuffle, you will see the very same design paradigm.

That guy that cut a new Shuffle open (applematters.com) took photos of the operation. Those photos were called “disturbing” (Gizmodo.com) Why? It was like the guy was dissecting a living animal!

The Shuffle was designed to perfectly sealed, and not meant to ever be opened either. A long lasting, throwaway iPod?

Think about it.

– rb

(This article idea was adapted and edited with permission from Adam Arbourne)

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