Yeah, I know. The Apple Cube, as advanced as it was way back when, (August, 2000) with its exiting 450 MHz G4 technology packed into a super small, sleek clear plastic and silver cube, was pretty cool.
Not as cool, however as the Mac Mini Steve Jobs demonstrated here at MacWorld on Tuesday!
Apple, you see, had a couple of hundred thousand Cubes laying around, that never sold, seeing that they were priced at two grand a piece.
So, the manufacturing guys got together and sawed all of the Cubes into small slices, 1/4th the height of the Cube, and put new tops and bottoms on each of them, to sell them as the new Apple Mac Mini, at 1/4th the price of the old Cubes….
You believe me, right?
Actually, looking at the new Mac Mini, it doesn’t have the same 8 INCH SQUARE footprint as the old Cube. In fact, it is MUCH SMALLER!
The new Mac Mini ROCKS!
• 6 x 6 x 2.5-inches
• 1.25GHz PowerPC G4
• 40GB Ultra ATA drive
• Combo Drive
• 256MB RAM
• 32MB ATI Radeon 9200
• 56K v.92 Modem
• Mac OS X Panther
• Includes iLife Suite
• $499
What’s not to love?
This is a completely NEW DIRECTION for Apple Computers. Now they are selling Macs on a smaller margin. In fact, they are selling flash-based 512MB iPod Shuttles for $99!
Give it a year and see if Apple doesn’t command a much larger market share than it does today, because of this new, very INEXPENSIVE Mac Mini!
Even I want one, and I already have half a dozen Macs of various linage, both old and new.
Here are a few up-close pictures from after the Keynote (Watch out! This is my first time uploading pictures)
(Photos by Chris Born)
My impression of the new Mac Mini is that it seems unreal. It is so small and light weight that you can find yourself incredulous, thinking it can do anything at all, much less drive that fast and beautiful OS X desktop on the monitor next to the Mac Mini. For a similar effect, try setting your monitor next to an external CD Burner, and sit back and look at the layout. Apple is the King of TINY COMPUTING!
When you pick up the new Mac Mini, you notice that it does have a fan of some kind. (The computer is sealed, and not to be opened by the consumer.) But you can feel air coming out of the surrounding slots underneath of the rubbery bottom.
The new Mac Mini can be set flat, like the Cube, or it can be set on its side, like a fat book. Either way, the cords coming out of the back of this device threaten to overwhelm its diminutive size. Power is provided externally with a brick-like power supply (photos).
I can only guess, since I can’t look inside, but it is easy to imagine that all the components of this computer are taken from the iBook, or the PowerBook. It will be interesting to see the photos when someone dismantles one of these and posts the pictures on Slashdot.
Apple clearly has a real winner here, with the new Mac Mini. And not just because it’s a new cheap Mac. This device has the same DNA as the iPod, and thus by it’s very shape, color and feel, people are going to want one on their desk to show off their coolness at owning one.
Regards, from the 2005 MacWorld Expo.
Roger Born
ps
We won’t say we told you so a week ago, but – we told you so! Remember this?
Actually, the only thing we did not get (on my wish list for Christmas in January) at MacWorld, was the GarageBand device.
Steve gave us the Mac Mini, the flash-based iPod Shuffle, the Motorola iPod cell phone, and iWorks with Pages. Unexpected were all the cool new features in iLife and the forthcoming Tiger version of OS X.
rb
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