Because of the close proximity to CES, I couldn't make it down to Mac World, which is a bit of a shame considering all of the interesting suff that was announced there. Now that some of the announcements have been made I thought I'd chime in on things:
Mac mini
The Mac mini is interesting, especially given how small it is. It's basically Apple's answer to the Shuttle XPC, except a lot smaller. The thing weighs 2.9 lbs and measures 6.5" on all sides (and is only 2" high), it's basically a laptop without the integrated display and reproportioned to maximize desktop space. The specs are quite similar to Apple's PowerBook line - offering either a 1.25GHz G4 or a 1.42GHz G4 as a CPU option. The CPU options are strong enough to be competitive with the Celerons that Dell offers in their equivalently priced systems, but definitely not strong enough to compete with something like a 2.8 - 3.0GHz Pentium 4. Honestly I think the CPU is powerful enough, but where Apple really dropped the ball is on the amount of memory. After extensively using the iMac G5 I found that even on the 1.8GHz 20" model the system is basically bound by memory size more than CPU performance (it only ships with 256MB). The move from 256MB to 512MB in OS X 10.3.7 results in a tremendous reduction in disk swapping, which is very important to the overall user experience and one area where the cheap PCs generally fall behind in.
The price points are higher than I would've liked to have seen them, but honestly $499 and $599 are still competitive. My main complaint here continues to be the memory size. I'd like to see at least the $599 model have 512MB of memory, although I wouldn't want to give up the faster processor for it. Unfortunately for $499 I don't think it will be cheap enough for PC users to pick up as a secondary system; an OS X experiment box if you will. I'd say the limit for that crowd would be $399, although then you could be compromising performance specs which would be detrimental to the idea of giving people a positive OS X experience.
I'm impressed by the integrated DVI output as well as the overall design of the system, which I think give it the edge over competing ultracheap PCs. The Radeon 9200 GPU isn't anything to get excited about, so it won't be a gaming machine, but then again Macs really aren't these days to begin with.
My only other complaint from a personal standpoint are the sizes of the HDDs, I'd like to see a massive HDD size option as this thing would make for a great personal server. It sounds like the Mac mini is using a standard 3.5" IDE HDD, if so, replacing that drive with a larger one shouldn't be a problem... :)
Overall, I think the Mac mini is a positive move for Apple and it looks to be a decent product. I was definitely skeptical of the "cheap Mac" at first, but I can say I'm quite impressed at this stage.
iWork
I've never used Keynote so Keynote 2 looks interesting to me, but there's not much I can talk about there. What truly interests me is Pages - finally a MS Word replacement for OS X. I'd do anything to replace MS Office and Dreamweaver with better native OS X applications on the Mac, while still retaining full functionality. While I'm not so sure about its HTML export capabilities, Pages does look like the application that could rid my Mac of MS Word.
iPod shuffle
I'm not as excited about the iPod shuffle because it is screenless and thus you lose one of the major strengths of the iPod - its interface. That being said, I think including a slider that lets you randomize your music or play it sequentially on the actual unit itself was a very smart move.
I'm not so sure how well organizing your playlists at sync time would work simply because I can see myself forgetting the order over time. That being said, I can also see the music itself being a reminder of the order I put the songs in while I'm actually using the unit.
I'm not much of a flash based MP3 player fan but the iPod shuffle is interesting.
The rest...
The iLife updates are also interesting, but I have yet to try iMovie or iDVD so I can't truly appreciate the updates.
Anyone else have any inputs on the announcements?
Mac mini
The Mac mini is interesting, especially given how small it is. It's basically Apple's answer to the Shuttle XPC, except a lot smaller. The thing weighs 2.9 lbs and measures 6.5" on all sides (and is only 2" high), it's basically a laptop without the integrated display and reproportioned to maximize desktop space. The specs are quite similar to Apple's PowerBook line - offering either a 1.25GHz G4 or a 1.42GHz G4 as a CPU option. The CPU options are strong enough to be competitive with the Celerons that Dell offers in their equivalently priced systems, but definitely not strong enough to compete with something like a 2.8 - 3.0GHz Pentium 4. Honestly I think the CPU is powerful enough, but where Apple really dropped the ball is on the amount of memory. After extensively using the iMac G5 I found that even on the 1.8GHz 20" model the system is basically bound by memory size more than CPU performance (it only ships with 256MB). The move from 256MB to 512MB in OS X 10.3.7 results in a tremendous reduction in disk swapping, which is very important to the overall user experience and one area where the cheap PCs generally fall behind in.
The price points are higher than I would've liked to have seen them, but honestly $499 and $599 are still competitive. My main complaint here continues to be the memory size. I'd like to see at least the $599 model have 512MB of memory, although I wouldn't want to give up the faster processor for it. Unfortunately for $499 I don't think it will be cheap enough for PC users to pick up as a secondary system; an OS X experiment box if you will. I'd say the limit for that crowd would be $399, although then you could be compromising performance specs which would be detrimental to the idea of giving people a positive OS X experience.
I'm impressed by the integrated DVI output as well as the overall design of the system, which I think give it the edge over competing ultracheap PCs. The Radeon 9200 GPU isn't anything to get excited about, so it won't be a gaming machine, but then again Macs really aren't these days to begin with.
My only other complaint from a personal standpoint are the sizes of the HDDs, I'd like to see a massive HDD size option as this thing would make for a great personal server. It sounds like the Mac mini is using a standard 3.5" IDE HDD, if so, replacing that drive with a larger one shouldn't be a problem... :)
Overall, I think the Mac mini is a positive move for Apple and it looks to be a decent product. I was definitely skeptical of the "cheap Mac" at first, but I can say I'm quite impressed at this stage.
iWork
I've never used Keynote so Keynote 2 looks interesting to me, but there's not much I can talk about there. What truly interests me is Pages - finally a MS Word replacement for OS X. I'd do anything to replace MS Office and Dreamweaver with better native OS X applications on the Mac, while still retaining full functionality. While I'm not so sure about its HTML export capabilities, Pages does look like the application that could rid my Mac of MS Word.
iPod shuffle
I'm not as excited about the iPod shuffle because it is screenless and thus you lose one of the major strengths of the iPod - its interface. That being said, I think including a slider that lets you randomize your music or play it sequentially on the actual unit itself was a very smart move.
I'm not so sure how well organizing your playlists at sync time would work simply because I can see myself forgetting the order over time. That being said, I can also see the music itself being a reminder of the order I put the songs in while I'm actually using the unit.
I'm not much of a flash based MP3 player fan but the iPod shuffle is interesting.
The rest...
The iLife updates are also interesting, but I have yet to try iMovie or iDVD so I can't truly appreciate the updates.
Anyone else have any inputs on the announcements?
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msva124 - Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - link
I'm not saying office for mac is not slow and buggy - it could very well be. But that is not because it was written in carbon or because it is not mac osx native.msva124 - Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - link
>I'd do anything to replace MS Office and Dreamweaver with better native OS X applications on the MacOffice is written in carbon, which is as OS X native as anything else on the mac platform. Also it is typically faster than cocoa, which is why apple writes some of its own IApps in it.
hopejr - Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - link
I'm sick of Office 2k4. It's really annoying how it was written in Carbon and doesn't integrate with OS X properly. This also makes it slow as hell. I'm glad that Apple is bringing out a good product in competition with Word.Michael2k - Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - link
I think the Mac mini is a good product for three categories of people:Someone who is tired of dealing with Windows exploits and only needs to browse porn, read email, and write a few documents.
Someone who wants to do pictures, play with the iPod, movies, etc, but doesn't want to deal with building a system capable of doing so. Essentially this is the perfect accessory to a digital camera, an iPod, a DV camera, a midi keyboard, etc.
A switcher who couldn't afford a Mac otherwise, can now afford the mini.
GL - Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - link
My PC-only brother in law was the first to e-mail me (I was at work so I couldn't catch this on the web) with confirmation of the xMac...err Mac Mini :-) That's probably a good sign! Honestly, I haven't made my mind up about it's appeal to me. I just picked up an iMac G5. I could see using a Mini as a server (IMAP, simple HTTP, DB, etc.). I'd also like to use one with MythTV frontend now that it's been ported to Mac OS X*. But I wouldn't actually use one as my main Mac box. I've got 1 GB of memory in my iMac and I'm looking to upgrade to 2 GB. So, a G4 with a maximum of 1 GB memory isn't too appealing. That being said, this would be a great Mac to buy if you want to experiment with OS X. I think the best way to sum this up is that this is a Mac for people who don't already own a Mac, or for those who have a much older one and couldn't afford to upgrade to the existing models. This won't be some miracle product that boosts marketshare ten-fold. But those people who deep down want a Mac and have been keeping a set of excuses for not doing so now have one less reason.*FYI for any MythTV Mac users, there is now Altvec'd code in the CVS version that ups performance noticeably.
brichpmr - Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - link
I agree that the mini should come standard with 512mb ram at least, but it can be ordered with that amount (I think additional $75). I don't see any cheap Dells out there with a dedicated graphics card, so I think this machine (given sufficient ram) will meet the computing needs of a bunch of folks who aren't heavy gamers or computer enthusiasts. Windows users who are looking for an affordable entry into the Apple experience now have a viable choice, imho.Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - link
xypeOne step ahead of you... :)
Take care,
Anand
xype - Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - link
How about getting a Mac mini with iWork and writing a short article about it, maybe 4-5 pages? :o)ProviaFan - Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - link
The mac mini looks neat in some ways, but I would have liked to see some sort of dual-display option, at least for the more expensive model. :(kuk - Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - link
What the mac mini lacks, compared to an XPC is the integrated composite and s-video output. I know it's available as a dongle, but it adds to the cost of the system.