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iPod Shuffle, Mac Mini, iLife '05, iWork
A number of announcements from the Mac World keynote this afternoon.
The iPod Shuffle is pack-of-gum sized, no screen, weighs less than an ounce. Ships today, $99 for the half gig, $149 for a gig.
The Mac Mini is the headless iMac... 6x6x2.5 with all the expected plugs, starting at $499.
Lot's of tiger bits, spotlight, virtual folders in Mail.app. iLife '05 will ship Jan 22. iPhoto gets folders and video support. iMovie supports HD. GarageBand gets 8 channel recording. iWork includes Keynote 2, and 'Pages' the new word processor and ships the same day as iLife.
Well now that's it's true...damn, even I might buy one!
I'm begining to get the feeling that Steve Jobs might be trying to reposition Apple. Hardware is a mugs game, after all. We all know what happened the last time Apple tried to licence the Mac to clone builders..but what if they tried it now?
It seems to me that over the last two or three years Apple has been working to reposition itself from a hardware company to a more diverse place, where the OS and the services it offers (E.g. iTunes) are what matters more than the hardware. The $499 Mac would seem to enforce that point. The idea is obviously to try and penetrate into the mid range market; make the Mac an everymans computer. If they can do it, and if they can increase their market share, they would certainly seem to have enough room to manovour and licence the Mac to clone builders again..
i think this is just the beginning. if apple stays in this market, we'll see more powerful iterations of the mac mini in a similar price point with more powerful features down the road.
kudos apple!
That's not the point, the point is it makes it marketable as a PC replacement. A cheap replacement.
;)
Apple started hooking PC users in with the iPod, now they can reel them in with a plug and play replacement.
Gotta admit it's pretty clever.
And yes, Mac mini will take advantage of your two-button USB mouse with scroll-wheel and your favorite USB keyboard. Just plug them in.
Since you supply the mouse and keyboard, they've essentially nipped that perennial argument in the bud.
The box is - get this - smaller than the standard iPod box.
That's what they'll complain about. No mouse sold with the computer. Cheap-ass Apple, expecting me to already have a USB mouse... oh, wait...
Disclaimer: I am a developer for Mac OS X OpenOffice.org and a founder of the NeoOffice project.
Just the fact that you can import and export doesn't exactly mean it's 100% compatible. Heck, even Office v.X/2004 isn't 100% compatible with Windows Office generated files. One of the strengths of OpenOffice.org and NeoOffice is the accuracy of their import and export filters.
I wouldn't suspect Pages would be successful converting Word documents that have embedded Excel spreadsheets and charts those that go trapesing off to do database queries with macros. I suspect Pages would convert them to tatters.
While Pages may be sufficient for doing the basics of letter writing and entry-level document preparation, many of the more complex business level documents still will require Microsoft Office or an equivalent alternative. Office may be bloatware, but that doesn't prevent people from finding a way to use all of those features and then complaining when they don't work in another product. That makes true document compatibility a difficult task that can't fully be addrsesed by a word processing application alone.
ed
There are two reasons that Apple doesn't ship two-button mice - one is simplicity for beginning users, the other is that it forces lazy developers to expose functionality in the UI and NOT just bury it in a contextual menu. Windows drives me batty because features are commonly implemented that way.
As Jobs noted, the iPod Mini took a nice chunk out of the Flash MP3 player market and thus the Shuffle is meant to take the remainder (low end). However, if the Shuffle were to have a screen (and thus be fully functional) it would almost certainly eat into Mini sales. Thus, the lack of screen is not only a design (elegant) and engineering (fewer parts) triumph, but also a marketing coup (increase marketshare without cannabalizing sales). Impressive.
It's all so beautiful...[sniff].
Okay, the new Mac Mini is going to be perfect for my mother. It's certainly going onto the "iWant List".
iLife 05 and iWork I'm going to put on order today (if I can get through to the Apple Store -- that's for /.'ing Apple everyone ;) ).
Damn. I had prepared myself this morning to find out that maybe one of the rumours was true, but all of the major rumours turned out to be true. Joy oh joy! It's like having another Christmas all over again :).
Please allow me to point one last thing out: to all of those here (and elsewhere) who complained that Macs were too expensive, it's now time to put up or shut up. Buy the new Mac Mini, or never speak of the purported high cost of Apple hardware again.
Yaz.
A bold move?
OS X has never been limitd to a 1 button mouse. IN fact, every mac user I've seen who uses a mouse uses a typical multi-button optical mouse, or other exotic device. Almost nobody uses the stock 1 button mouse.
The only reason it's even mentioned here is because apple doens't supply peripherals with the mini.
You plug in a two button mouse, and it behaves as you would expect, it's not a "kludge" or anything like that. THis is nothing new, macs haven't been limited to one button mice since along, long time ago.
If you'd ever been on a phone call with your grandmother trying to explain the difference between the right and the left mouse button, you'll know...APPLE WAS NOT WRONG.
The one-button mouse is a good default. The fact that they support a richer interface for the people that want one is great.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
The Mac Mini is aimed clearly at PC users looking to switch, but featurewise it is a disappointment.
It has OS X and is an affordable Apple computer. That is all it needs to succeed in the market Apple is shooting for.
The fact that I can't carry a few spare AAA batteries
... Extend the playback time of your iPod shuffle with the Battery Pack, powered by two AAA batteries..."
..." ...Closed systems ... gouge me on a replacement battery ... doesn't play OGGs...
Ahem.
"
Won't work as a plain ole' USB thumb device
Ahem.
"... Store files along with your music
Nobody. In. The. Target. Market. Gives. A. Flying. Fuck.
Should I keep going?
Well, you haven't actually started yet, so please.
Who in their right mind buys memory from an OEM? Don't get on Apple's case about expensive memory, because it's true in the PC world too! Whether it's Dell, Sony, IBM, whoever - you're almost always better off dollarwise to buy your system with the least available memory, then buy the upgrade from someone else. With the exception of the occasional special deal, this has been true for as long as I can remember.
Of course, this begs the question: does the mini allow user upgrades? Can't check because the Apple site isn't responding at the moment, but that little box looks to be shut tighter than a virgin's iPod.
All of the points you got wrong are related to who is going to buy this in droves - people have have PC's who like iPods and are tired of the PC world.
In that world, the computer might be a little old - and slowed further by virus/spyware that have crept in. This computer will seem like a rocket.
Plus of course it's like 1/10 the size of a clunky Dell box, a plus for anyone.
The firewire port is also not a "slight win" for anyone that likes to play with video, which is all parents in the US.
It's a box for people that want to buy a computer without having to worry about a computer. It's for people who like iPods and wonder what else Apple can do. Shortly it may well be anyone looking for a high-end DVD player and PVR. It's basically a computer for anyone that has not got a PC yet, or wants something different - dare I say a PC for the rest of us?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Look at all the icons in your system tray. Take an inventory of all the functions that are available with the right click, and then all the things that happen with a left click. I've been using computers for 20 years, and I not infrequently have to try both.
This is poor, poor design. Yes, it's poor design by the coders, but it's abetted by the availability of a right mouse button. Too many UI designers use that as a crutch. Don't know where a function should go? Sure, put it in a contextual menu.
With the Mac, all contextual menus are optional. I simply don't use them very much. I use middle-click for new tabs in Safari, and I like the scroll wheel, but neither of those features are critical to making the operating system function.
Try to run Windows without a right mouse button. It's possible, but MUCH harder.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Many people find the hold-down-one-button paradigm to be easier to learn and use than multiple buttons. Other people find having multiple buttons easier to learn than multiple actions with the same button. Curse Apple for trying to make their computers useful to both kinds of users!