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Will Mac mini Lead the Charge to Smaller Desktops?
elecngnr writes "Maybe size doesn't matter. ZDNet has a story about how the Mac mini may shift consumers away from the larger tower style desktops to smaller ones. Other computer makers, such as HP, have so far been unsuccessful in marketing small computers to consumers. However, Apple does have a history of leading the charge in paradigm shifts in certain aspects of consumer products (e.g. GUI's, color changes, the iPod, and the list goes on). It is also important to recognize that they have been wrong at times too (e.g. the Cube, the Newton, and the one button mouse). Time will tell which list the Mini will belong to."
"What we found was, at least at that time (before HP bought Compaq), that people were still concerned about expandability," Anderson said. "It's been an important feature of the PC for the last 20 years, but as the PC has gone mainstream, it's been something that people liked but that they haven't used."
;)
Will it make a shift to smaller sized desktops? Maybe. Most people never need to open their case for a memory upgrade or some other piece of hardware being added but a lot of people do enjoy the ability to do that. As long as these small form factor machines are still able to be upgraded fairly easily I don't see why they wouldn't be popular... Personally I am rearranging my computer desk to accommodate the Mini. Not because of its size but because I want to show off the fact that I have this sleek, little, quiet, box sitting on my desk (BTW - I took Slashdotter advice from yesterday's article about the Mini and hardware upgrades and went with 512MB. I couldn't justify the $210 for 1GB when 512 was only $80). I am not looking forward to using two thin putty knives to open my brand new machine though. Why couldn't they have just made it user serviceable for RAM?
For the first time since I was 12 I am nervous about opening a computer case and swapping out some stuff inside. To me, that's just wrong.
Most buyers tend to purchase PCs based more on price and quality of technical support than on design, analysts said. Yet executives such as HP's Anderson see a market for unobtrusive desktops that consumers would purchase as second or third computers and use in settings such as kitchens, where large desktops are impractical.
Ok, I'm a geek and I love to have the Internet wherever I am but why in the kitchen? Like I don't have enough shit on my crappy counter space... Why not do something like those failed Motorola wireless AIM clients and have a docking station and wlan? Why do we have to have a small form factor machine in the kitchen? Most people here seem to be using this machine in the media room because it's small, quiet, and has DVI. That makes more sense to me.
Building in 120GB, 160GB or higher capacity drives, for example, will mean miniature PCs able to match larger machines in storing large numbers of MP3 files or even digital photos.
Oh come on. Not many people have enough photos and MP3s to fill even 10GB nevermind 120GB or 160GB. I am still using a 10GB HD in my XP machine. Yeah, my music is stored elsewhere but it's still less than 7GB of MP3s and 10GB more for SHN/FLAC (which most people aren't into). I want to know how many regular computer userse have 100GB of music and photos. Geeks are in the minority when it comes to computer purchases from major vendors that would be hurt by this "gamble". I'm sure it won't be anything for them to worry about.
I didn't get the Mini because it was small, quiet, or good looking. I got it because OS X is not Windows, is built on BSD, is now affordable, and isn't as susceptible to all the bullshit that my Windows machines are. If anything the Mini might open the door to more users for Apple which may or may not be a good thing
Wrong on both counts. We know where you live!
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen.
They weren't wrong about the cube!
;)
....and I *don't* hear you dissing the Newton. I know many a fan sites that would come whuppin' your azz for talking like that! :P
I always wanted a toaster on my desk.
That, and the one button mouse rocks.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
People like big things. Big TVs, big SUVs, big houses... big computers. Size still matters. I bet if they started selling room-size computers again, people would be buying them.
The Mac Mini rocks.
First post!
How was the Newton wrong? It may not have taken off, but it definitely had an impact. Palm would likely never have existed if Apple hadn't tried the Newton.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
first post
Let's get this out of the way right now. Please make all your valuable n-button-mouse replies to this post.
Perhaps the title should be that size does matter. Rather, being small is becoming more important. Perhaps we can think of this as Maslow's Hierarchy of Computer Needs. First we just want a machine that has enough power to do what we want. Then we want a machine that is small and unobtrusive and with enough power to do what we want.
Sorry, garcia 0wn3d u again.
It would be a cost vs. other factors at work.
As long as Walmart would be selling $400 mammoth computers, it would be hard.
This paradigm shift cannot succeed without Apple lowering their users' TCO, of course.
paradigm shifts
-5, Idiotic Catch Phrase
Trolling is a art,
They were just too early and the right hardware wasn't available yet (i.e. the 20 MHz or so ARM CPU they used was too slow), but the user experience was superb, e.g. the way of deleting text (simply cross it out) or setting the current time (draw the watch hands on a clock).
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
I'm quite happy by using Apple's one button mouse :P
TraxNet
http://traxnet.asidesoft.com/
get my G4-Ipod-OSX-dualboot-Linux-fingertop machine
I have to clean my oven today
what, do they just not realise it or something? the cube and newton are certainly failures and are discontinued, but Apple continues to bundle one-button mice with their computers. what's more, a lot of mac users seem to be perfectly happy with it.
i can understand it as a personal preference, of course, but what you like or dislike doesn't define failure, does it?
Of course, the cube's problem wasn't the design, it was the price tag. If they'd sold the cube for $500, it would have been a big hit, and you'd see grey cubes everywhere, from other computer manufacturers to George Foreman CubeGrills.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
What strikes me is how similar the mac mini is to the xbox.
I can see no differences except the xbox is restricted to use for games.
It is also important to recognize that they have been wrong at times too (e.g. The Cube, the Newton, and the one button mouse)
God will you people PLEASE come up with something more original to pick at Apple with than the One Button Mouse. They obviously weren't THAT wrong about the one button mouse, they still use them. And they like it!
They don't seem to be too bad, but they aren't marketed very much by dell, and they probably aren't as high of quality as the Mac's. The only bad thing is the external power supply is rather large.
Smaller is cool. Saves you having to buy a desk with one of those PC tower compartments.
But you know what I'd like to see more of? Quieter PC's. Everything seems to be getting faster and/or smaller, but quieter would be nice.
That's because you are an iTool.
While I do think the Mac mini is a great idea, it's nice to have confirmation that multi-billion dollar industries are just as fad-conscious as the average middle school.
Just look at the success Shuttle has had, and their products aren't even all that superlative.
I don't know why you'd take a large desktop over a smaller form factor machine if you can get equivalent power out of the smaller machine.. As we start to get higher and higher performance out of smaller equipment (eg. laptop drives, etc..) I think smaller machines will be the norm.
I live in SF, so I'm anxious to have machines that take up less space =)
Just when you make it idiotproof, some idiot builds a better idiot.
I tend to think of it as more an issue of intended use, rather than size. This is the ultimate iteration of the iMac... the Console Computer. Now it just LOOKS more like a console. I remember the first iMac. When I looked at the side of the box, there were 3 steps listed for setup: step 1) take iMac out of the box. step 2) plug in power and keyboard. step 3) there is no step 3. this is just the next logical step. A small, unobtrusive computer that anyone can set up and use. As to the poster above saying he/she dislikes the inability to open this and modify it... that's the point. Like a console, it is intended to be "perfect" from the factory and never need modification. Just plug it in and turn it on.
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
You mean I have to give up my 2foot tower PC with 7 fans and a heat sink the size of my fist?! This is proposterous! How will I be able to achieve the ultimate in PC Cooling for no apparent reason?!
The cube was a brilliant design, and people I know that have it love it.
Only problem was that it was too frickin expensive.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
A lot of people rip their entire CD collection to MP3 so that they can use it throughout the house. I managed to munch my way through 30GB of disk space this way. If I had used FLAC instead of MP3, then it would be more than 100GB.
My other processor is big-endian.
think about this for a minute.
years ago the at chassis was built to sit on the desk and under the monitor (i'm sure that wasn't the design scheme but it worked out that way).
then came the upright boxes and the stands to turn your desktop box into a standup case to get it off of your desk.
and now it looks like we've come full circle and are going back to having a pc we can put on top of the desk again.
Is it 5:30 yet?
HP did not come close to having a 6"x6"x2" desktop pc. Also, their "small" pcs cost typically hundreds of dollars more than their normal-sized ones, whereas the Minimacs are of entry-level costs among the Mac lineup.
Don't forget, the Mac Mini is small and the X Box is probably big enough to be considered a deadly weapon.
I think its important to point out that size is lower on the list of reasons why the mini has been selling like hot cakes to all users (mac and pc)
For the simple fact that had the mini been 6x6 inches or 66x66 inches, the mini does not get infected with ad-ware spyware etc...
I think we are at a point in history, when a large number of people are finnaly just "getting sick" of dealing with windows... its almost that some have forgotten that they bought a computer to DO stuff with it NOT maintain it....
currently, support of windows is spiraling out of control..hatred of its inefficiencies is at an all time high.
people (especially that have bought ipods) are now realizing there is a better way. a way that simply let's them DO the things they really want to do with a computer...
What's 'unoriginal' about it? OS X may be great but the one button mouse is a serious misjudgment in interface design. They should *at least* give you the option of using a scroll wheel multibutton mouse, instead of giving only one offering. Granted this is changing with their crossover-enticing Mini, but it should have happened long ago.
Just because a product flops or isn't the mainstream flagship product of its type doesn't mean it's wrong.
Arguably, Apple was right with the Newton and the Cube - they were just a few years early on both counts. Arguably, Apple is right with the one-button mouse; just not right for everybody.
Within the context of pushing paradigm shifts, you could argue that these three were unsuccessful, but you can hardly argue they were "wrong."
Dell already has a small profile desktop. RTFA, it says will it increase the popularity of it? Maybe.
Well, Newton? They jumped their time, true. One-button mouse? Don't forget that there was one-button mouse when 99% of PCs had zero-button mouse (none) before Win 3.0. Anyway - anyone have any idea how many units have they _already_ sold?
Where the heck do you live?
Price.
When the Cube was announced, it was $200 more than the comparable G4 tower. If it had been priced like the Mini to begin with (or at least $100 less than the desktop) it would have had wider appeal.
(ex-Cube owner)
-tschak
When it came out, the only thing that was keeping me from buying one is that Apple was gouging for upgrades that would make the system minimally usable and that it isn't dual head. Since Apple has rethought their upgrade pricing, it is only the lack of dual head support. That said, I'd be happy to buy a mobile AMD64/Linux box in the similar form factor, so I hope Shuttle and some of the other micro PC vendors are paying attention. You would certainly need a fan for the AMD, but I could live with that is it was quite enough.
I actually built a small-form-factor computer a year ago that (somewhat) resembles the new Mac mini in layout. I did it more for the challenge of trying to squeeze components into a small space, but it ended up being a pretty cool design. The only problem that I have with the mac mini is that is has to be using a laptop-type hard disk, which I've always found to be noticeably slower than standard drives.
MacMini is just another part of the trend. Steve Jobs must have 9 lives or something like that; he always seems to know the fashion trend in technology.
One thing that most people have not mentioned is that the MacMini will be a smashing success in Japan. There, space is a premium, and small-form-factor computers and peripherals are a must.
Sorry, but a karma-whoring cheating subscriber got it instead.
Where do you work? I know that lots of businesses didn't sell any iPods over the holidays, e.g. McDonald's. Perhaps you work in that sector?
That is odd. I work in a major corporate office, most of the people around me are accounting people rather than programming people, and the iPod is very hot among them.
I think the size is what people are looking for. Just like with flat panel screens. It's going to change the landscape dramatically. And I suspect, as always, Dell and the like will try to copy the Mini, but will come out with something inferior.
Me, however? I prefer to geek around and I can't wait to get my hands on a nice manly G5 tower in a few months. The Mini is just way too limited for my tastes.
If the size of the mini is such a bit innovative hit, then I can't understand why more XPC small form factor PCs haven't been sold. Me? I'd take a small PC case over a tower anyday, as long as there was no loss of performance.
GET FREE APPLE STUFF!
But price and functionality. For 500-700 bucks you get more software, more power and more functionality then a $900.00 dell in an ugly large blue case could ever give you.
Form factor has its pluses but design and functionality wins.
I'm also Biased since i know Apple represents a better company than the other players in the market. Sure they all work you hard, but in return to what the corporations stand for with society i'll buy an Apple anyday. The fact Apple oozes design, functionality, thought, consistency and creativeness just screams liberal
After buying a 1 bedroom condo for over half million in a larger city in the US, or $1.2 million in manhattan, or even more than that in tokyo and other places, the miniature size for rather full sized functionality is worth every penny. Not to mention the relative silence.
Fewer drive bays than a Dell, no PCI. Lame.
I can see no differences except the xbox is restricted to use for games.
Not if you install a mod chip
The xbox makes a pretty neat entertainment center, as far as having a good media player goes. Mine has trouble with CDR but plays movies over the LAN just fine.
With no wireless and less space than a Nomad, I'm not surprised that most geeks consider the iPod to be "lame."
For more information, click here.
Some of these units are designed with 'portablity' in mind for use at LAN Parties. These compact systems often ave impressive stats for being as small as they are.
The only kind of 'paradigm shift' that could arise from the MacMini is the one regarding small form factor PCs now being on the radar for 'traditional' PC users/consumers.
It's not entirely innovative, it's not entirely ground breaking, unless you only see the world of Computers as being Apple Computers. (That's not meant to be a burn or a flamebait, it's the honest truth of the matter.)
All the MacMini really does is take small form factor PCs into a slightly smaller package then previously available and applies the Apple aestetics, internal hardware and Operating System to the design as well as brings such small units into the conscience of PC users.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Although it wasn't well worded, I don't think the OP was trying to say that all of those ideas from Apple were failures in the sense that they don't work or are bad ideas, but rather that they failed to inspire industry-wide trends. The one-button mouse works just fine for the Mac because it was designed with a one-button mouse in mind, so they continue to use it. Nobody else picked up on it, though.
This small form factor could turn out the same way, but I doubt it. Small seems to be the way to go, especially now that upgrades are getting less and less significant to most users (is 4 GHz really going to be better than 3.5?) If you can't make them faster, or if the consumers stop caring whether or not their computer is faster, form factor is a reasonable direction to push research.
I wish that my inferiority complex were as good as yours.
-RenderHead
The one button mouse never made sense because you need two: one to select a noun and the other to select a verb. Fitt's law says that you want the verb button to pop up a pie menu in place. So, pick with the left, and act on it using the right.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Like a true iFanBoy. Congrats.
Surely you jest. They moved 4.5 million iPods just during the Holiday Season. The "geek circle" can't be that big. Go to a gym sometime; tell me that all the women working out with their shiny pink iPods are geeks.
Bloomingdales sells iPods; Nieman Marcus sells insanely expensive iPod cases. You can't possible believe that these are typical geek shopping venues.
I won't argue that Apple's been wrong, but the three issues listed are debatable:
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Help me find out, get me a....
CappuccinoPC has had similar sized units for years now. They are very powerful systems and offer PCMCIA expansion(wish the mini mac had one of those.)
http://www.cappuccinopc.com/default.asp
Two big problems with the One Button Mouse:
1: They continue to refuse to admit that it is a mistake, instead touting it as the supposed superiority of Mac over PC. (Note: Every time I sit down at my Mac to work with Maya, the first thing I do is plug in a three-button mouse with scroll wheel -- and so does everybody else.)
2: It is all a Big Lie to start with! Mouse click, mouse double-click, mouse click and drag, mouse+alt, mouse+option, mouse+shift, mouse+Apple, mouse+control, mouse+every combination of the above!
It has never been a single button mouse. It's just that the rest of the buttons are exceptionally inconveniently located on the keyboard, most of them in the lower left quadrant! It's all style over substance crap that doesn't endear me to Apple!!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I can just imagine it, another small fanless box with 250GB to 1TB in disks and just enough CPU power to serve it up to the network and play internet gateway, maybe even run some print queues.
This time not only no monitor, but not even a video out; Rendezous makes it easily available to all computers in the house.
Add "iVision", a dumb MPEG4 playback box for next to your television (plays just audio too!), the HDTV downloads predicted by Robert X. Cringely and you have the home multimedia promise delivered.
Apple was NOT wrong about the Newton, they were simply ahead of their time. Steve Jobs killed the Newton when he returned to Apple for no other reason than that it was John Scully's brainchild. Another foot-bullet in the history of Apple.
Thanks to Jobs' inability to grow up, PDA's are yet another area where Microsoft is gain dominance.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
No, the newton was not wrong, it just came out to early... Just like the quicktake (I think that was the name of their digital camera.) The newton was a great product that people who had them still use today. It was as small as could it could be considering when it came out. Unfortunatly they didn't stick with it long enough and they discontinued it around the time the Palm came out. It's major flaws were size and price, and both were high because of WHEN it came out.
Now, wouldn't it be wonderful if apple came out with a new PDA that was as successfull as the iPod? It will have to work with windows, have a wonderful color screen play MP3's (but not so well it competes with the Shuffle) bluetooth/Firewire/USB2, classic apple lines... Goodby Axim, iPaq, Clie, Zire, Tungsten. Oh yeah, sorry Clie.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
You are joking right?
On the average trip downtown or to college or the gym I see oodles of people with iPods.
Cubes hold their value better than probably any other Power Mac model - how's that for "wrong"? Nobody I know ever thought of a good explanation for the cancellation of the Cube; it certainly wasn't technical failings - the most likely reason was low margins. The Mini is another low margin product but the engineering is much less ambitious I suspect.
you had me at #!
I always use tower PCs because it's easy to swap in/out equipment. The miniature desktop type machines always seem to have some non-standard boards or inadequate expansion slots.
That's also the reason I rarely buy HP/Dell/Compaq/brand name machines, I can't do anything with them once i own them. I'd rather go buy a cheapo tower that can take an ATX motherboard of my choosing...it's cheaper to deal with.
What Apple does is probably good for the people who use Apples and want a smaller, cuter LOOKING computer, but the market of people that use Apple is different than the market of people who use PCs.
Apples are the closest thing you can get to a car with the hood welded shut. They can get away with form factor changes. PCs are the closest you can get to a "generic" car: any engine, any wheels, any frame, etc. It's still not totally generic, but 5 years ago a PC without an intel chip was essentially defunct, now a PC without an Intel chip is normal. All we have to do is get rid of MS.
Oooh look at my tiny computer. It's so sleek, small, and cute. The sky blue accents on the case match perfectly with my drapes just like the guys in Queer Eye said! I need to go get a pedicure now. Pick up your skirts and grab your balls ladies! Real men use towers! Fight the homosexualization of america!
"Then we want a machine that is small and unobtrusive and with enough power to do what we want."
Thin-clients for the home. Just you watch.
Plus we'll break the "everything is a box" fetish.
Each one of those things offers some benefit because it is larger, whereas things like computers can be made to offer the same service in less size. People also like small things, if smaller size doesn't make it less useful, such as with PDAs, cell phones, and pretty much anything one would want to carry around frequently or not want to take up unnecessary space. After all what good is that big old house if you have to fill up a room to get a computer.
For me, the Mini comes with perfect timing. I'm running three boxes now (dialup/firewall, and two multi-boot desktops), and the overall footprint and noise of having all three on most of the time is really starting to bother me. (Not so much 'quality of life' bother as much as 'environment aesthetics' bother... maybe that's the same to some though.) I just purchased a smaller form factor case for my dialup/firewall box and am generally happier with it compared to the waste-of-volume that was a mini-tower case. Given the mini is all of 'small', 'quiet', and 'OS X', they've sold me at least one (well, when I set aside money to order one) ... maybe two. Others are pointing out that expandability isn't such a bit issue what with USB/Firewire ports, and with lots of things going over to bluetooth/wifi ...
Go back to TheForum, dhlfx11.
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
I have a laptop for where I want a small computer. I can plug in external keyboards and mice when I want a larger size. I can plug in an external monitor if I want. Or I just unplug all that junk, and I can operate my computer for several hours where ever I happen to be.
Why do I want a mini on my desktop? For most people I cannot recommend a desktop at all anymore as laptops are so much more versatile. Those who cannot make use of a laptop need a large tower case for all the junk they want internal to their computer. (I don't know many hard core-gamers, and they don't ask for my opinion, but the mac mini won't work for that crowd anyway)
Take my advice: get a laptop as your main computer. Don't even think about anything else until you prove a need for two computers. There are some groups that this advice won't apply to, but they already know who they are.
Apple has _always_ led the charge in computer design philosophy. The Cube and Newton were, typically, a bit overpriced, but also way ahead of their time. The cube's time is now, and it's a Mini. The Newton's time went to Palm, only they did a poor copy and sold it to M$ users. The Newton tech is still in the Mac OS today (Inkpad?), and it's still one of the most capable PDA's around (best feature, it doesn't run CE). The one button mounse, well... I dont use one on my mac, but i get it. You can use a one-button or two or three or whatever button mouse on your Mac, but you can't use a one-button mouse within windows. You tell me which OS is more compatible.
The 1-button mouse was intended for beginning users. Claiming it sucks for CAD work is like claiming a Kia is inadequate for the NASCAR racing circuit. Aw, shit, I stumbled into a car analogy. Sorry. :-\
--- Ban humanity.
Also, I know some general consumers are actually less comfortable with all-in-one machines. My parents would not get an iMac because they thought if something went wrong they would have to bring the whole thing in. No, this doesn't make a lot of sense, but I've heard it from others as well.
We've all wanted to see MS's dominance challenged. We've been working hard to make Linux a viable candidate and it is. We've always known Mac's were a better GUI experience and really a better desktop than Windows. We've always known if they would just bring it to the masses it would go far. Well, now Apple is doing just that.
Companies like Compaq have tried to make small PC's with limited upgrade. Apple makes it look good at a low price (for Apple at least.) With the exception of the Slashdot crowd, most do not upgrade their PC's.
If you look at LCD panels, one of the reasons for buying is desk space. The cube is small and fits under / next to the display. If you live in a cubicle, this means no tower to kick.
I'm all for a small PC a person throws out every year. Better than dumping a bunch of money into a dying machine only to throw out a big nasty pile of junk in the end.
Form factor isn't that important. Smaller would be nicer, if it were cheaper. Expandability is no longer important. Computers have become disposable. Every 2-3 years you just spend another $300 and get the latest and almost greatest.
Mini-itx would have already taken over except for one thing: price. The vendor that builds a small gutless PC that can web, email, and mp3 for $199 will capture huge marketshare.
It doesn't need a fancy video card. Zero RS-232 ports. Zero PS2 ports. Zero parallel ports. Zero PCI slots. Just a simple SVGA port, an Ethernet port, and about 6 USB ports. A 1.5GHz CPU, 256MB RAM, 40GB drive. Monitor, keyboard, and mouse sold separately.
That puts it into the price range of a decent MP3 player, and affordable to buy a new one whenever the spyware bogs your computer down too much.
The desktop space was a little bit more important- so I got a 19 inch flat panel.
At home- the mini makes little sense for me. The space is already allocated for the midtower.
I was recently looking at flat panel TVs- and soon realized that I really had no place to put it (too wide). I think with all electronics- the flat panel TV- the mac mini-- it will take furniture manufacturers some time to catch up before huge amounts of people jump on board. Has to be asthetically pleasing.
Never- ever underestimate the WAF factor.
Again, let's say it right at the very top of the replies:
Just go to an Authorized Service Center and have them put it in for you, the way you would have an Authorized Service Center repair your television set or other piece of consumer electronics which would otherwise be warranty voided by an attempt to repair.
It's just $30, and you only have to pay it once. Well, the parent may twice since he went with 512 MB of RAM.
I have the main button mapped to normal click and the second button to normal context menu. But the combo of both brings up firefox, while the middle click takes it to google. The thumbclick changes weapons, and the ring and little finger buttons change me from mild mannered janitor to Hong Kong Fuey and back. There's a sneakly little button under my palm to hide my cheerleader upskirt porn stash from my g/f and motion sensors modded into the mouse case so that by shaking it I can get my ethernet enabled Robo Sapien to get a beer from the internet enabled fridge for me. The fridge 'repurchase beer' macro is automatically called if the mouse isn't moved or clicked for a while on the grounds that I must have drunk all the beer and passed out...
Interesting things are happening as we've pretty much plateau'd on system requirements for web browsing and light multimedia work...consumers might get sick of those big ass towers (or even medium ass) with expandibilty they never end up using.
Interesting in the "people's affection for small electronics" debate, there are only a few entrants in the inexpensive small laptop department (Sony has a knack for the so-tiny-but-so-expensive niche.) I got a $850 Averatech that is a superb living room browsing machine. A little warm, a few questionably placed keys, but with 802-11g and a DVD/CD-burner player built in.
Now what stops me from making it my only computer? I dunno, it's probably about as powerful as my 3 yr old PC. I don't know what it would take to put on a DVD burner, but other than that, it's probably just lack of a docking station and all those cables, I want to use my big screen and fullsize keyboard and regular mouse.
I guess it will come down to cost, in the competition of mini-PCs and laptops. And just the "damn that's so cute!" factor...laptops will always be constrained by the need to include screen and keyboard, both in cost and form factor.
(Assuming you could get it to read/burn normal sized CDs, I always thought the nintendo GameCube would be a great model for a PC case...)
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Hands on a clock?!
*beeps through different modes on watch*
My god man, what are you talking about?
I'm on my second 160GB HDD, and that one is filling up fast. Games these days are taking up several gigs EACH, and from what i've read iLife '05 for the Mac takes up over a gig for iDVD alone! I combine my music collection with another person I live with, and that's put it over 40GB(all legally owned). I know people with illegal collections over 80GB, and that's just music. Throw in DVD rips, TV recordings, software backups, and you'll quickly find yourself desperate for a Terabyte. Also, you must consider that many people looking to use a SFF PC want to use it in their media center as a PVR. Which, for HD content is likely going to take up a few gigs an hour.
Certainly you can say they were wrong about the cube, and the newton, as they were both pretty spectacular failures. But as far as the one button mouse, just because you're not used to it doesn't mean they were "wrong." It's still a mac standard to this day, and though I prefer a 2 button mouse myself, you can't argue with several year's staying power among the company's consumers. It's a streamlined mouse for a streamlined interface.
"As to the poster above saying he/she dislikes the inability to open this and modify it... that's the point. "
And that's the reason "geek" advice must be taken with a grain of salt. Geeks live in one kind of world (control freaks), and everyone else lives somewere else.
The other consideration is psychological, consumers tend to gravitate towards big things because they think their more powerful. I've seen so many people by the 17in powerbook for absolutely no logical reason whatsoever. Yes, people doing video editing, sound editing, and graphics work can make us of a 17in, but the vast majority of buyers are normal users. I joke around with my one 17in wielding coworker, and call it the SUV laptop phenomenon. People are buying 17in powerbooks much in the manner that others buy hummer H2s.
Steve Jobs obviously has good taste in sensing trends and managing to bring them to market just a little more quickly than others. You could make a list of things that were more or less in the air, that the Mac wasn't first to offer, but successfully offered on a large scale six to twelve months ahead of the PC world.
All of these points can of course be debated depending on how you count "introduced on a large scale" and "when," but...
--Introducing the Sony 3.5" floppy in the first place
--Screens with black text on a white background
--Easy-to-use workgroup-strength plug-and-play networking
--Laser printers
--SCSI interface
--DROPPING floppies as standard equipment
--USB ports (!)
--Optical mice as standard equipment
Of course, the standard PC answer is to any Mac innovation is "Who cares? If it's of any real importance PCs will have it in a year anyway. And it will be cheaper." To which the Mac answer is, "Yeah, and it won't work as well."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Apples failure with the Newton, Cube etc. haven't been because the innovation was wrong... The Newton concept lead to Palm and then to PocketPC. The Cube beat Shuttle to the SFF. Apple's failures in these cases were due mainly to a lack of conviction... (and possibly money)... and maybe coming to market too early. Have they learned thier lesson? They got the iPod spot on... they didn't invent MP3 players... but they pitched thier product at eactly the right time to capture the imagination. I'm sure the Mac mini will do well... for a start it's soo much cheaper than the other Macs... and sooo small. I'm buying one for my mother-in-law...
I always laugh at HP's moto... HP invent. Do they? Naa...
I hope the Mac mini will encourage people to think small.
return 0; }
I think that the Mini will definitely influence the small form factor crowd, but that's only a small portion of the overall market. It costs more money to make things very small like that. You can build a larger computer for cheaper using off the shelf parts.
The average computer buyer wants the fastest computer for the cheapest price. Buying a slower, more expensive computer that's real small probably isn't going to appeal to the mass market.
The small 2.5" laptop hard drives (like the one in the Mini) are lower capacity than the 3.5" desktop drives, slower, and more expensive. You'd have to pay much more to get the same capacity and performance that a budget priced desktop drive will deliver.
I think if Apple made a slightly larger Mini with a desktop hard drive and at least 1 expansion slot for a good graphics card, it would be cheaper and have more of an influence than the current Mini will.
Remember, we're all geeks on here so we'd be willing to pay extra for the "coolness" factor. Everyday joe isn't.
Please mod this linkspammer down.
... is that they still need some work in the cooling arena. Unless it's an under-powered machine, of course (which the Mac mini appears to be).
I tried the mini PC thing for a while, and now I've gone back to a regular sized mid-tower, and am much happier. The reason? Cooling. From the moment I bought my first mini PC, I suspected that it would run a bit hot. And it did with a 3.06GHz Pentium 4 in it. The CPU temperature was always running near the limit and occasionally on warmer days the temperature alarm would go off. So I added an additional fan and, since it seemed stable, I just ran with it that way for a long time. Then one day I remembered that Pentium 4 processors had a thermal throttling feature that inserts idle cycles when the temperature gets too high. So I did some searching and quickly found a utility that could tell me if the Pentium 4 in my mini PC was throttling. Sure enough, it was. All this time I had basically been running a crippled machine because the tiny case simply couldn't adequately ventilate the high-performance hardware. I tried a second model of mini PC, but returned it because it too had this same problem.
I moved the CPU and all the other hardware (except the mobo of course, since they're always proprietary in these mini PCs) into a normal sized mid-tower case. Now that same processor with the same heatsink/cooler runs well below the Pentium 4's thermal limits. And it never throttles itself.
And if you're thinking, "Well Mr. Smarty Pants, I'll just buy a mini PC and soup it up with the sweetest CPU cooler I can find!", then think again. These cases are far too small for your typical enthusiast to install a fancier cooling system. Someone with a lot of skill and specialized tools might be able to engineer a proper solution, but you won't find anything off-the-shelf anywhere.
The moral of the story? Mini PCs are for the weak. If you want performance in a mini PC case, they're just not there yet. And the Mac mini does not appear to be an exception. It too comes fairly weakly equipped.
Despite what EULAs say, most software is sold, not licensed.
Americans can't think small.
That's a verbose answer. Lose one word and you're on the money.
I think most people won't mind a bigger computer so long as they don't have to be Spiderman to connect all the necessary pieces or peripherals. The sleekness of the iMac was a big factor in its success. All you needed to plug in was the keyboard, the mouse and the power cord. If the Mini can be cabled as easily as a DVD player (probably the most complex appliance in a non-geek's living room) to a TV, then Apple has a winner.
I'm a sci-fi vegan: I don't want the aliens to think we have as much right to live as the fried chickens we eat.
Laptops are expandable and hatches reveal the slots for RAM and other optional extras like wifi modules. Why this cannot be done for a small form factor PC I don't know.
Research has indicated that a huge portion of any family's time is spent in the kitchen. At least one member of the family is usually hungry or thirsty at any one time, and so family members who are conversing will drift along to the kitchen while the hungry one prepares a snack or meal.
It's classic ape behaviour. Apes like to hang out near food, just in case they happen to want some.
For this reason, it's very useful to have a TV computer there for the kids to fiddle with while they talk to you. It keeps them from hovering around your feet in the range of hot oil.
The tendency of peope to hang out in the kitchen increased sharply in the 90s with the growing popularity of "islands" in the kitchen. A row of bar stools along one side allow people to socialize in range of food. And beer.
Households that don't have their kitchens set up for socialzing tend to have much messier living rooms with dirtier carpets from all the food that's been brought in.
It's not universal, naturally. Maybe you don't often have enough people in your house for this behaviour to set in. Maybe, as you say, you're always cooking when in the kitchen, so you don't really notice the people hovering around you as you do. Don't know.
As for putting a G5 mac in the kitchen, you have to hollow a much larger space out of the wall if you want to seal it away behind plexiglass. I'd really recommend the mini and a small screen. Possibly a cheaper projector aimed at the counter.
our mice didn't have any buttons. And we considered ourselves lucky!
You're reading Slashdot. Of course you like Linux and pc hardware
As the article points out the Mac Mini isn't a new idea but I see it as a better fit for the Mac community than the PC community.
My moms small business has several Dell SX270 small form factor desktops (similar to this) and they work well.
Decent little boxes, basically uses laptop technology with an external power supply, even uses notebook CD/DVD/Floppy drive modules, letting us do thing like buying only one floppy drive module for the whole office.
Upgrading the RAM is easy as is relplacing the hard drive though you couldn't add a second, let along a third hard drive. And of course there are no PCI or other expansion slots, which is fine since all the components are built in and if you ever did need to add something it's probably available as USB.
It wouldn't be a good choice for me or most geeks but for a lot of people who don't tinker with their PC beyond upgrading the RAM and maybe HD it fits the bill well.
Expandability used to be a concern, but hardware prices drop and platforms (motherboards) change so rapidly that it can be difficult to find repair or upgrade parts for a pc that's only a couple of years old. Even if you can find parts, prices almost always make simple repairs prohibitively expensive compared to simply replacing with new. Realizing this a couple of years ago, I built myself a Shuttle SN41G2 and other than the occasionally annoying fan noise (RRRRRrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrRRRRRRRRRR), it's a prefect fit for me.
I don't really buy desktop PCs with expandability in mind anymore -- especially with the emergence of USB and Firewire as truly usable expansion interfaces, I'll just add external hardware.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Ive been thinking about picking one of these babies up to use as an HTPC (not for recording...just for playback). Has anyone out there puchased one for this purpose and have any experience using these systems for it?
I think one new thing with computers getting so cheap will be the distribution of machines with software. When per-seat costs are $1500 and up, machines like the Mini Mac start to look very affordable, considering the cost of supporting unknown hardware.
People said Bill Gates was crazy when he said hardware will be free, but I can see it happening now.
Apple does have a history of leading the charge in paradigm shifts in certain aspects of consumer products (e.g. GUI's, color changes, the iPod, and the list goes on).
I hardly see how iPod was "leading charge in paradigm shifts" As there were several portable Mp3 devices out prior to the iPod with WAY more features and storage space than the iPod. I think Apple just jumped on the bandwagon with other products like the Rio, Nomad, Archos.
As for the Mini. Thats another story. Its probably one of the first real mainstream small desktop machines out. There were others, but none of them were marketing as Apple is marketing the Mini. IMHO, A Great Product.
i'm probably reading into it, but the suggestion seems to be that despite the repeated failures of other companies, this is likely to work for apple, just because they are apple and in the past have been able to influence the industry into things like using glass pills instead of standard buttons. i think it's pretty clear that people still want standard tower-sized powerhouses that they can easily modify. there is a whole industry built around "case modding" now, you think your average lanparty reveller wants to give their neon fans and plexi-panels and glow wires just for a smaller form factor? the computer towers in my house double as furniture - i set everything from cd spindles to scanners on them. another slashdotter made the joke that 'size does matter - i want BIGGER'... joking aside, i think there's a lot of truth to that. i sent some earlier years working in a mom-and-pop computer shop in the southern united states. you don't see many rednecks driving around in mazda miata's - and likewise you don't see them buying tiny computers... i cannot count how many times the buying decision came down to size, and how many times i quite literally heard "gimme the biggest dang case ya got!"... now, i will submit that "bigger is better" is probably largely an american ideal (look at the popularity of SUV's, 'biggie sized' portions, etc).. and the slashdotter who commented that this might be very popular in japan has a valid point...
Is Apple's latest success MS's move away from the VMS based crapware they have, and to something a little more clean and stable?
It's pretty well known that MS is involved with Apple - Gates "saved" Apple. Moreover, Word, Excel, etc. are availble.
With (apparently) rock solid security and stability AND clean remote administration - all things that MS does have, or perceived not to have, is this a way for Microsoft to stay on top, and squash Sun, IBM, and HP? (and perhaps punish Intel...)
If that is true, is it a bad thing? The only real crime that MS has commited, is being an overly agressive Capitalistic company.
We hate MS because they suck, not because they're successful, right?
I have to shake my head at what passes for "news" sometimes. The size of computer systems has been shrinking for years. The big, hulking crates of yesteryear are inexorably being replaced with smaller, slimmer boxes. This is obvious to anyone opening a catalog or viewing a manufacturer's website. Apple's done some good stuff, and they've also made mistakes. Big deal. Who hasn't? Tell me something I don't know.
As the submitter so succinctly states, "Time will tell which list the Mini will belong to." In other words, this is just idle speculation and a non-story.
I'm not good in groups. It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent. - Q
I maximize my desktop space by putting the computer case on the floor. I like my cases to resemble the layout of a '56 Ford pickup engine compartment... room to climb in and walk around. If I want to change out a drive, it shouldn't be necessary to route my screwdriver through an alternate unverse to reach the screws. I don't want to disconnect the IDE ribbons to see the memory chips. I don't want to worry about the audio cables getting sucked into the CPU fan. For those times when a small form factor is important, such as hotel room microdesks or college dorms, there are notebook computers. They work great.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
"It has never been a single button mouse. It's just that the rest of the buttons are exceptionally inconveniently located on the keyboard, most of them in the lower left quadrant!"
You need to switch to decaf. First and foremost, the Mac was developed to be used with the mouse and keyboard at the same time. The idea was that you had one hand on the mouse and the left hand on the keyboard (sorry lefties). The hand on the keyboard meant that you had all the modifier keys you needed already beneath your fingers, so extra buttons on the mouse aren't necessary if you work this way. Besides which, the common menu commands all have consistent keyboard shortcuts associated with them, and as you gain in experience with the Mac, you rarely find yourself mousing to the menu bar. Microsoft of course missed this with Windows and went to the philosophy that it was all about the mouse. I know Mac users who tell PC users that they only like multi-button mice because it leaves one hand free when they're surfing pr0n sites.
I use a PowerBook and I thank God for the trackpad, because it means that I never even have to remove my hands from the keyboard to reach for a mouse, which I absolutely hate doing. I also have tap-and-hold enabled so I don't even use the button at all, much to the amazement of my PC-using friends. So in effect I use a no-button mouse. I will grant however that the scroll wheel is a much more useful innovation. Not necessary for mouse-haters like me, but more useful.
When Everyone still wants more power?
Its not that silly... My wife uses her iBook in the Kitchen to pull up recipes when cooking, which isn't that absurd. I really want one of the flat panel machines for that purpose. However, I really don't want a Windows machine to maintain, and Linux still isn't the most userfriendly, but I'm considering it, but a Mac Mini with a small screen... tempting...
Alex
Excuse me? leading the charge with the iPod? Apple were most certainly not the first people with a hard drive player, they took a good idea, styled and marketed it and hit the jackpot. That's what they're good at.
The Mac Mini is NOT the first small machine out there. Shuttle and others like iDeq have seen a massive surge in SFF sales in the last couple of years. This is Apple responding to that surge by making their own SFF product. It is well styled and well executed. It will sell well. It is a good product. What it is not is groundbreaking or charge-leading.
If I understand you correctly, you are upset that the mouse that is bundled with most Macs only has one button. And yet, you seem to be aware that the operating system performs all the functions of multibutton mice, either by using the keyboard, or by allowing you to plug in a third party multibutton mouse.
Are you just upset that Apple won't sell you a multibutton mouse? I'm trying to understand whether you are a total moron, or just a slow learner.
Disclaimer: my cube-mate wrote it, but I would have paid for it anyway. Alex, dude, you need a link to the website in your prefs panel.
Macs may still be towering iceberg-like things, but the small-form-factor PC market has been big for a while now. It's even subdivided into three main submarkets:
-- 'Power' SFF PC's, like the higher end shuttles
-- Quiet, small 'hifi' PCs... don't know who makes them but they tend to be tiny and black and tucked under the TV
-- 'Stackable' PC's, eg for server farms. The less powerful shuttles and I guess the 'blade' form factor are in this market space
Nice to see the concept percolating down to the Mac community!
NB The above sentence is a JOKE! You do understand jokes? I know that Apple has been the leader in many areas, really.
NB The sentence above this one is also a joke! I don't really think Mac users are thin skinned, literal minded and a bit silly. OR DO I? Ohhh... I'll never dig myself out of this hole now...
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Even though they are a small fraction of the entire user base, Apple can make sure by shipping one button mice that they won't left behind confused with mutiple buttons. For the rest of us, there are always other options available.
...penis reduction SPAM (to correct over-enlargement from previous SPAM) hasn't shifted the general tide.
Someone needs to just say it: Apple got it really really really right this time.
And I'm sure the first one to do it, too!
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
You forgot Firewire.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
...but, really, we all know it does.
A lot of the excitement for the mini is because it's not a Windows PC. People really want to try something different. And the mini fits that bill nicely. I'm sure tons of Windows copycats will be out in six months or less but I don't think they'll capture people interest the way the mini has.
The Mac Mini is FAR smaller than ANY mini-ITX I have seen and also WAY more powerful. Most small form factor PCs use low power processors that are weak at best - the G4 in the Mac Mini is throwing out some impressive results.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
And so the jury is still out on the Mac Mini.
...
The base configuration may be adequate for some
users, but many (including myself) want more:
(1) video ram (64MB) may be inadequate for the
next release of OS X.
(2) base memory (256MB) is inadequate, even
for casual users who will not shut down
running applications, only minimize them.
(3) Apple could have lowered the base-line cost
further by incorporating a 3.5" hard disk
rather than a slower, lower capacity 2.5"
laptop HD.
(4) Bluetooth and WiFi should have been included
in the base-line package. Use of a cheaper
3.5" HD could have made this fiscally doable.
(5) the sealed case is a serious drawback to
anyone wishing to perform their own upgrades
and/or servicing.
That said, Apple has lower the cost of some
desired upgrades. The inclusion of Firewire
is rarely seen on any standard Wintel box
(NIH syndrome), while Apple has embraced the
USB/USB2 standard. And, of course, there is
the best commercially successful *nix-based
client OS on the market today, OS X.
Decisions, decisions
The limitations on the Mac Mini; slow processors, expensive memory and slow hard drives can be remedied wihout spending any more money than if you ordered the upgrades from Apple. Same cost, better box. Reports have been coming in that if you have to reload OSX on the Mini, you cannot reload AppleWorks after the initial install.
Linux (and even XP) boxes based on the SFF are going to become more mainstream now people have opened their eyes to the Mac Mini.
I really don't think Apple have been particularly original with the design of the Mini. We've been seeing mini-barebones systems from manufacturers like Shuttle for all over the place for the last few years, and they've driven the idea well and truly into the mainstream. Non-tech friends of mine regularly present the XPC style as their first requirement in a new system, before any other spec like RAM, CPU or video. Gamers often have an XPC machine so they can cart them easily to LAN parties. They're all really common, so I think the paradigm shift to small cases already happened, and quite a while ago.
Of course, the original seed of the whole style might've just been the Apple Cube, I won't argue too hard against that.
Size doesn't mean much to the average consumer. They put it under a desk and forget about it.
What the average consumer cares aobut:
1. Simple to setup and use
2. Safe (spyware/virus wise)
3. Cost
4. Astetics
That's really all there is to it.
1. It takes minutes to setup, and it's simple to use, Mac OS X is by far the most usable OS on the market right now.
2. Mac OS X doesn't have any real known threats. There are virus scanning products available. It comes with a firewall. 99.9% of known threats are Windows only.
3. It's a pretty low cost unit, and you can reuse just about all of your PC (or Mac) peripherals. Keyboard, Mouse, Display. No problem. Don't buy new ones.
4. It's pretty cool looking. Apple is a trendy brand. It's known for quality and style. It's got a nice big logo on the top. It's also an inovative style.
Size isn't everything Dr. Freud.
I guess you can say "it's not about size, but how you use it"
If you go through my comment history, you'll see I'm fed up with Slashdot's obession with Apple products. Jobs is the devil, basically, and none of you seem to notice that.
HOWEVER, the Cube was a great idea for a computer, albeit a little risky with an open top and the tendency for the plastic sides to crack after about a year of solid use.
The Newton is argubly the reason why we have PDAs nowadays anyway. Sure, someone had to be the first and fail, but Apple's only problem is they were trying to enter a market for geeks at a time when geeks weren't rich. They were about 5-10 years too early.
And the one button mouse? Well, yeah, I gotta be honest, it really sucks that Jobs refuses to wake up about that. But aside from that, there is little else for me to hate about him. Aside from the fact that he is, as I mentioned earlier, the devil.
I personally like the Microsoft Bluetooth mice, 2 buttons, scrollwheel, two thumb buttons. Intuitive design that logically places buttons without just throwing them willy-nilly and hoping the user can figure them out.
So yeah, while the one-button mouse wasn't a big hit, I don't know if the 17-button mice are big hits either.
You may not void your warranty if you break something yourself, which is common sense as you say, but Apple seems to have gone to some lengths to make it especially difficult to crack this sucker open making the likelihood of voiding your warranty that much higher than under normal circumstances. Therefore the risk is high enough that it is a legitimate concern.
We have a small laptop in the kitchen. My wife and I use it as a recipe book and calender. Another added benefit is that we can read news and /. in the morning over a cup of coffee at the kitchen table.
I wish I had a tablet PC so I could hide the keyboard, though. Most of what we do with it is point-and-click mouse work, and a keyboard is rather useless for that.
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
USB and Firewire have taken the high road to expanding a computer without having to add another PCI card. The reasons the Cube failed are price point, and there wasn't much in USB/FW devices, vendors just didn't get it. The reason the Cube beats the Mini is that the Cube has an actual AGP card, so upgradeable graphics.
:-p
Just as with x86 desktops & servers, how often do you do an upgrade? Add more memory and replace the video card after a year so you can play the lastest game. But for $500, who cares, go buy another one
...because all the mini-itx stuff hangs on so tightly to legacy crap.
I have been looking for YEARS for a legacy-free mini-itx type (SFF) motherboard and have yet to see one.
By legacy-free I mean: no PS/2, no parallel, no VGA, no serial (9-pin or 25-pin). I want USB 2.0, DVI, and gigE. Give it a mini-PCI and/or mini-AGP and I'd be happy.
I've seen Via *announce* a line with just VGA/USB/Ethernet and the rest as headers, but nothing else that fits the bill.
My only "issue" with the mini Mac is the 10/100 Ethernet instead of 10/100/1000. That, however, is what I consider a very minor flaw in what otherwise is my dream machine.
The only other Apple product I owned was the Newton, so it isn't a Mac fan-boy thing.
The mini-itx industry was just too damn hung up on legacy crap for me to ever really be more than just mildly interested in their products.
-Charles
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
They didn't sell well enough.
It doesn't matter if they were technically good, they were, as you say, products, and their purpose was to make money for the company. Not selling well enough to be worth continuing to make is a pretty major flaw from the companies point of view.
it is as much symbolic of the simplicity of the Macintosh's OS. yes there are keyboard/mouse shortcuts, but you can do everything you need to with click or click and hold. it makes it a LOT easier for newbies to use.
i am sure most power users of any platform go out and buy a mouse that they personally like. if it is to get a good size for their hand, or the number of buttons they want. personally i HATE sitting down to a computer (that is not mine) with more than 2 buttons and a scroll wheel. how would you ever know what the extra 5 buttons do till you start clicking them. hell, i even know people that really really liked the Apple hockey puck mouse.
i always saw it like a high end bicycle..... they don't ship with pedals. if you are buying a bike that expensive, you know what kind of pedals you want. the Mac ships with a great mouse out of the box so you can get started... but any power user is going to know what they want. i am somewhat surprised there is not an Apple branded scrolling mouse of some sort (rumors say they have had them in the R&D lab for years)..... maybe they think offering one is like saying the Mac got more complicated.
OS X supports multibutton scrolling mice out of the box. you just plug in a 2 button scrolling wheel and you do not even have to tweak anything in system prefs. setting 5+ button mice is cake as well (nice for exposé). it's not that Apple refuses to acknowledge the usefulness of the multibutton mouse.... they just know you do not NEED it to use a Mac.
With Firewire and USB many hardware upgrades are now much easier. Unlike the old days where most external devices were connected with SCSI, Parallel, and Serial. Parallel and Serial Devices the computer needed a Port for each Device. So if you had 3 External Modems you needed 3 Serial Ports, or if you had 2 Printers you needed 2 Parallel Ports. SCSI stuff as always been expensive and the never really standardized it much so you had to check to see what type of external scsi drive you have and see if it matches your system and they were hooked up in a chain so if you removed one device you would need to rewire the one above it and the one below it. So with all these devices in order to upgrade you will still need expansion ports for the extra scsi cards, Serial, and Parallel cards. So you were better off saving money for internal equipment because you will fill up the space anyways, and will need to get into your system.
Now with USB and FireWire (The topic of this post) you can add a USB or FireWire hubs to your system and expand the ability without opening your system and adding new cards. Plus if you unplug one device you don't need to rewire the others. Plus the cost of these external devices are getting close to the same price as internal devices. Not 2 to 3 times the cost like in the old days. So we don't need 10 open PCI Slots anymore because external is much easier.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Hell if most users would not like more power, a larger screen, a full card slot... Let alone what would be in the device by now. My Tablet PC was in many ways too big, and problematic for all of the standard reasons that windows facilitates, but the last Newton was still a bit too small--in screen size anyway. Imagine what the device would be like today!
I miss mine already.
You mention the Cube as a mistake. Hmm, wasn't that a small computer? And was it successful? Personally, I would love a small computer, but given that the cost is typically the same an a larger machine, isn't nearly as expandable, and I can't get dual CPU's, it's not going to happen soon.
But here's why FWIW:
I want/need a new computer, but don't want to drop a big dime on it
I need to learn PHP and MySQL
I prefer to learn those things on *nix
I would like to learn some UNIX
I don't have the expertise to build my own box
I prefer a "package deal" to get me started
And I'm perfectly willing to admit there is a "cool factor" I'm responding to. If people think that Jobs is partially trying to target some developers who have previously done all work on Windows, then that's me. But as I've told all the Mac-zealots I know, I'M NOT A FRIGGIN' SWITCHER!
Yep, I've seen iPod Mini ads in Vogue.
I fear that it's on it's way to cell phone status! ^__^
Cube - I don't see any major differences between the Cube's form factor and the MacMini's form factor. The Cube started the trend.
Newton - PDA's are all the rage these days, the Newton also lead the way in this area.
Of course, the standard PC answer is to any Mac innovation is "Who cares? If it's of any real importance PCs will have it in a year anyway. And it will be cheaper." To which the Mac answer is, "Yeah, and it won't work as well."
As a lifelong Apple customer, I say this without a hint of troll:
Apple often miscalculates the value delta between "cheaper" and "won't work as well". People will find a way to deal with the latter, if the former is significantly true.
The "as well" chasm must be wide and painful before most people will throw money at it.
For my money Macs are a great value. But I don't suspect that's true for everyone.
I guess that was my point really....
Shuttle is getting quite big with gamers, and hard drive players were quite big with geeks before the iPod. What my point was is that apple takes a small trend that hasn't hit big because it's stuck in a niche market with no major force behind it, it sexes up the design and the interface (significantly usually) and then somehow makes it 'cool'.
I don't mean to sound like I think this is a bad thing, I don't. But I also think apple is getting way too much kudos for 'original' and 'groundbreaking' ideas from geeks who should (and do) know better.
Stop saying it's a failure. There's a very good reason why Macintoshes have a single button mouse. Right-clicking just plain sucks as a user interface. You have no visual way of knowing what is right-clickable or not, and you have no clue what features will be available before you click. That is something you get to learn on your own, and that's certainly not a user-friendly interface. Remember that Mac OS has a long history of being intuitive and right-clicking is a geek thing. If you want to go the geek way, you can, as Mac OS X supports buttons-endowed mice, but it should not be that way by default for the beginner. It sucks even more on Windows as contextual menus only pop up once you release the button (makes absolutely no sense, isn't consistent with left-clicking, doesn't allow for mistake correction, etc etc), so at least it's done right on Mac OS X.
Moreover, in softwares properly designed at least, the options available under the right-click are also available in the menu bar, and have keyboad shortcuts.
So while you might disagree with using a single button mouse (I myself have bought a Logitech replacement), you have to agree that such choice does make sense and is consistent with Apple's politics regarding user interface.
Really now. Isn't it about time they started building low-end computers the way they did in the 1980's? It's possible, once again, to put the entire guts of the computer inside the keyboard. Just plug in your mouse, screen, power, and maybe a network cable ... turn it on and get to work.
... let's ditch the "box" altogether. The iMac is great, but do you really want to have to throw away a perfectly good LCD monitor every time you want a faster computer?
Full-height hard disks and insanely hot Intel CPU's made this form factor disappear in the 1990's, but it's time to bring it back. It makes sense for a lot of installations -- homes, schools, cubicles
The Zero Footprint PC is a good idea, now let's start seeing them in volume and in the mainstream.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
It was just early..
And i dont think the appeal to the miniMAC is just its size, its cheap.. great for those that want a mac but just cant afford a 'regular' one which are priced slightly out of reach of the 'white box PC' owner crowd.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I mean, even Dell offers the 4700C desktop, which is 60% smaller than their normal desktop, very slim and slightly more stylish. We've had them at work for nearly a year now. They even came with some sort of docking station that let you bolt the computer to the underside of a desk. Personally, I hated um and stuck with my old computer that I could rest my feet on and upgrade easily at will.
Mini-PCs are nothing new, Apple wasn't first. Get off the high horse. It's a market that has existed before now and never caught on because it's not what people have wanted (especially since it normally meant paying more for the smaller design)
I don't see this Mini-PC really taking off. I mean, it has substandard parts in it in the first place....GeForce 9200 integrated?!? Man, that's like beyond obsolete these days. Why not just sell the box?
it came out years before the mac, and has far FAR superior components.
Last time I looked just about everyone had a PDA. Sure apple didnt stay in the PDA market, but they did create the market as it is known today. Why would you consider the Newton a failure when all that went wrong is that it came too soon for there to even be a market for it?
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
The mini is basically a cheap no frills cube.
I hate one-button mice - their terriable and disgusting. But my Mom bought her iMac three years ago and guess what she loves the one-button mouse compared to my Dad's three button mouse on her PC. In fact so does my Dad because he was conned into buying the PC (I told him to buy an iMac but he was told that Mac's were harder to learn and run?!?!?) with the three button and he hasn't used his Dell in 3 years - a waste of $599. Of course he likes my Mom's iMac with it's one button mouse even thought she paid $1199. And he liked that everything he needs is in the dock - now they fight over using the iMac - and he wonders why I never told him to buy an iMac.
My point is that the Mac mini - which he has already ordered since his Dell monitor will work with it - is not for the poweruser but for the everyday consumer who knows nothing about computers, and doesn't want to, but just wants it to work and use it and not feel like the first computer was a total waste of their time. He's already auctioned it off on eBay (the CPU and mouse) and I got him a one-button mouse like Mom's!
Save Pangaea!! Stop Continental Drift!!
Thanks alot.
Hush MCE Fanless Media Center Edition 2005
Definitely a case designed for media center applications. Too bad about the price I guess ($2,600).
As for the SFF PC's aside from the Shuttle ones the concentration was on the tiny boxes for corporate use.
Here's a mini-ITX system that comes pretty close. info
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
look at everything your parents did for you.
payback time.
"from other computer manufacturers to George Foreman CubeGrills."
Here ya go, then! Your own iGrill!
Apple's target audiences are switchers, and believe it or not, mostly novice to "experienced but has never undone the case screw on their PC" users.
You're not Apple's main target audience. Just because you're buying one doesn't mean you're the target audience. Repeat after me. "I am not the target audience." Neither are the people who whined the video card can't be changed, or you can't put in more than 1GB of ram, or it doesn't have a G5, etc. Apple targets specific markets and usually does very well in them. Apple will sell every Mac Mini they can make, virtually guaranteed.
Furthermore, a slashdot user talking about being nervous about using a screwdriver to pop a latch on a case strikes me as pretty absurd. Turn in your slashdot membership- NOW.
Oh come on. Not many people have enough photos and MP3s to fill even 10GB nevermind 120GB or 160GB
With 5-8MP consumer cameras these days? With miniDV camcorders all over the place? Games taking 1-2GB? 40GB being the mid-level iPod? Are you joking? Garageband takes up 1GB, iDVD 2, the rest of the system about 2GB or so. Nevermind that to operate efficiently, you need about 20% free disk space no matter what the filesystem to keep things from getting badly fragmented.
Please help metamoderate.
are a system where the users files, applications and settings are stored in in a hdd thats independent of the base system. like say i can remove it from the desktop at home, plug it into the laptop and bring it to work, remove it from the laptop and plug it into the desktop at work and so on. the os however would follow the terminal, not the users storage device. this to handle drivers and so on.
it can in theory be done allready but the desktop guis needs to support it so that one can locate the apps and present them in the menu for the user and so on. it would in many ways change the idea of licences as then the licence can follow the user, not the system its installed on.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Oh!, That's why my flirt tactics didn't work. (wanna see my new shiny genetic algorithme? )
"Use cases are fairy tales..." I. S. 2005
Which is nearly forever in tech circles.
I personally like to see a company constantly swing for the fence. In a brand awareness sence, it gets their name known for being innovative (rather than playing it safe). To continue the baseball analogy, how often do you hear about the person with the highest batting average (Ichiro Suzuki). More often you will hear all about that guy hitting a ton of homers - sure he may strike out a lot, but watch out when he DOES connect. Similarly, with Apple - they will either crash and burn with the new tech, or revolutionize the industry....AGAIN.
Actually, I find that a good kitchen computer is an older laptop that is too slow for much else. I resurrected an old IBM Thinkpad...slapped in a wireless card, and this stays in my kitchen. It is really useful when cooking to look up recipes, and check on my email (one is a cooking listserv)...
And since it's old and basically worthless for anything else...if it gets trashed, no big loss.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Jobs' record as a visionary in this regard is impeccable, all the way back to the first Apples. NeXT was also such a product; 10+ years ahead of when its ideas, as manifested in products like OS X, became acceptable to volume markets.
you had me at #!
How the heck is this useful? I imagine it was intended to bridge a conceptual gap between paper documents and computing, but it's a nightmare to my retina.
On most screens (barring reflective LCDs) the white colour is just light, shining right into your eyes. With paper documents this is not quite the case. Terminal style is much easier on the eyes, as you need much less light to convey the same information. Even then, it's not wise to use full white and full black.
If you think black-on-white is the best way, try reading black text written on a lightbulb that's turned on. I think it's a much closer analogy to black-on-white on a computer screen, than a paper document is.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Apple was soooooo far ahead of the industry on these two, that the ingnorant, stupid public did not know what to do! Go Apple !!!!
Size does matter.... No matter what system you like to use. The big proplem with size on PC's has been over heating. G4's have run great without the heat problems of PC's. It seems that Apple is moving in more of a PC marketing stratgy and that is a big plus for Apple. Remember that Beta tapes were better than VHS but VHS won out because it won the market. Same is true with Microsoft. Apple is moving in the right direction
Danger Will Robinson! You are now entering a condescending Unix user zone!
It is interesting to me that the Mac Mini uses a Laptop hard drive. The Mac Mini and iMac G5 also share the same laptop slot-loading drive as the PowerBooks. Airport cards in desktops and laptops are identical too. The Mac Mini does NOT use laptop ram but the iMac line does. Obviously the iPod is using some small hard drive, perhaps one also used in laptops, but I am only guessing.
The point is that Apple is enjoying some economies of scale. By buying larger quantities of laptop parts, they not only get better per unit pricing, but also reduce inventories, support costs, engineering overhead, etc.
If they are smart, the big PC makers will follow suite inroder to reduce costs for their laptops as well as provide cooler desktops.
Apple recognized with the iMac that the computer needed to move from boxy to foxy. Dell, Gateway, and others tried but couldn't think outside the box. They just used black cases or rounded some edges. The Mac mini is really an evolution from the original iMac and is no smaller than the iMac G4's housing and no more an engineering wonder than the iMac G5 behind the monitor.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
The idiots on here will just want the power guzzling monsters machines. They don't really need them.
The goal & achievement of much more energy efficient PCs/Macs would be a great thing if people actually cared.
Plus, if you're putting a Mac in your kitchen, the best option is an iMac G5 (which can be easily mounted on a wall), not a Mac Mini.
I have a website. It's about Macs.
I hope the size doesn't change... with big cases one can add more extra hardware.
No, it is not a flaw. It is built into the design of the OS and to the interface guidelines from day one. What you may not realize is that everything that is accessible from a right click contextual menu on OS X apps is (or should be in the case of 3rd parties) completely accessible by some other method that does not require a multi-button mouse. The menu is optional for those that get used to using control-click often (and it's just control--nothing else!) or who choose to have a multi-button mouse.
This is not the case for Windows or X11. For those of us that do use those systems regularly (myself included), a multi-button mouse make more sense because we've been forced to use it to access complete functionality of applications. The mind-share of the one-button mouse users are even smaller than those of us devoted to OS X, but the design of that mouse and it's use in OS X is most definitely not "flawed". Just different. Maybe too different these days, but there you go...
I get along fine with my PB when I don't have the space to attach an extra mouse. The thing that bugs me more than having to use control is the fact that the function key is where my finger wants control to be, but that's a problem with many more laptops than just Apple's.
I have to say, as a long time PC user I'm intrigued. The $600 (yeah, 600) price to get a mini-mac going may make it something I would play with.
That said, I don't see much leading happening with this product. Mini-sized PCs have been out for some time and are pretty popular in certain areas. The lan party and home theater areas are really nice places. To say the mac will lead to smaller desktops is just revisionist history.
Smaller PCs were catching on the desktop and then Apple came out with a mini-box. I suppose you could argue the iMac was in this class but I don't really think so. Anyway, I applaud Apples move to try and compete in new markets. If more games were out I might really consider one for my main machine.
One should not theorize before one has data. -Sherlock Holmes-
Did she have to "memorize" using the right mouse button when she was using a multi-button centric OS interface?
I wish I could give single button mice to newbie (or stubborn) windows users. If I had a nickle for every time somebody asked me "what do you mean 'right-click'" back when I used to do system administration I'd have retired a rich man at age 18. And explaining how to drag with the right mouse button? Forget it.
It's not a design flaw. It makes the system easier to learn, while maintaining options (albiet different options than Windows has) for power users. Just because it works differently than what you're used to doesn't mean it's bad.
I agree -- but here's an observation. Often I think of windows users as being people subject to a kind of Stockholm syndrome: They've been abused for so long that they can't imagine life without that abuse. And when challenged, they defend their abuser because they're afraid of losing the abuse.
Now, OS X users don't have the same sorts of problems to deal with as Windows users, except for the damned one-button mouse. But Apple users have used one-button mice for so long they've become accustomed to it as well.
For reference, I'm a die-hard apple user -- but I had to adapt 3 years ago coming from linux on a thinkpad, where the trackpoint had a blessed three buttons. it was heaven, being able to use X11 properly with three buttons.
And now, I can't imagine life with two buttons, let alone three.
That said, I wish people would just let it drop.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
I don't think that apple did anything wrong with the newton. Maybe they were so far ahead of the curve no one understood it.
Peace
Funny that you mentioned carpal tunnel. I was a muli-button mouse fanatic and I also developed quite a serious case of carpal tunnel. I switched to the other hand, and got carpal tunnel on that one too.
After I started using a Mac, my carpal tunnel has mostly disappeared. I find the one-button mouse fair less irritating. I also think that the keyboard is layed out better for the shortcuts, but that is just my opionion.
BTW, i googled a bit and found this:So the user has the freedom to choose their favorite n-button mouse. Now those who were complaining about the one-button mouse, can complain that it doesn't come with one.
Ah, the old 640K is good enough for anybody line... I hardly do anything, yet find my drive filling up faster than I'd have ever dreamed on my old Amiga 2000 (which has a measely 80 MB HD) thanks to all the extra bloat in everything.
People are packrats, they fill drives with everything they ever received as an email attachment or downloaded from the internet. Every PDF, XLS, DOC, ZIP, etc. It adds up fast, especially if you do what I do, which is archive my email on my HD since the policy is to clear the server of any over 6 months old. I keep the junk because I inevitably have to look back in it to see what was decided, done, not done, or how something was/was not done, and so on.
I don't even have any MP3's on my computer at work and only a few flash, mov or such stashed anywhere.
Installs are another thing, it seems every few years an install doubles the number of CD's in a distro of anything from Microsoft (yeah, we're pretty much one of their shops, but I still fiddle with other stuff as needed.)
As to the initial question of smaller desktops, foo, there've been smaller desktops for years and people still go with the big boxes. The main thing people opt for now is LCD monitors as that imediately impacts desktop realestate.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
We are all thinking it is still a desktop computer, but actually it is not. Maybe we can call it a "mini desktop", as if we call a dodge caravan a "mini van".
When caravan first arrived, people said "it is not large enough." And aparently, a caravan won't hold 10 or more people, and the idea of caravan is very succesful, and we shouldn't have used the standard of van to look at a mini van.
So the same idea apply to Mac mini, it is not a desktop computer anymore, so we need t think different.
BTW, didn't this happened many times? When the PC arrived, people said, "not power enough". When the notebook arrived, people said, "not power enough, can not insert my isa cards and pricy". When iPod arrived, people said, "who will bring this piece of brick around?"
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
I just read another article (reg. required) that describes how Apple with their Genius Bars give person to person tech support for free. With this computer being so light weight, it is convenient just to carry it over to an Apple store when there is a problem. That is much better than Dell's approach which relies on wasting time having an automated system diagnose your problem before a technician will talk to you.
Also, I don't think the cube was such a failure in light of the Mac Mini. I am sure whatever Apple learned from designing the Cube was apply to designing the Mini. The first thing I thought when the Mini was introduced was that it is the Cube was reborn. Also, one button mouse is debateable. Apple still ships computers with them. Moreover, I have never really needed a second button.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
My business does a fair bit of on-site support for small businesses running consumer-grade PC's.
One of the major issues with the smaller systems (and why I steer my customers away from them) is heat dissipation. This was especially bad with the HP Pavillions. Basically, all those cables get in the way of airflow and it becomes easier for the processor to overheat. The fact that the case is smaller also makes for smaller air intake areas which get clogged by dust more easily, etc.
Now, Mac has had small form-factor systems in the past that were very reliable hardware-wise. So they might be able to do it again. But as chips get hotter, it becomes harder.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Check this nice Samsung Trution 3 button mouse in Mac style:
Photo of black edition and white edition
Official site:
http://www.trutionclub.co.kr/
Click on 'Crystal Edition'
Move along, nothing to see here! It's not upgradable! Apple is dying! The iPod costs too much! BTW, could we get OS X for the X86?
Crushing my karma one post at a time.
Funny you should mention that. I've shifted Macs lately, and the d@mn new one doesn't handle it correctly. I plug in the 3-button scroll-wheel mouse, the latest MouseWare driver loads (I know it's the latest, I've checked their update site - v5.2.1) and it refuses to let me set the middle button as Middle Button. The option doesn't allow itself to be changed in Preferences. And this is a major navigation tool in Maya. Some identical (as identical as our Sys Admin can make them) Macs next to mine work fine, but some others don't in this regard. SA still doesn't know what the problem is.
So don't tell me how hassle free this is compared to a PC. Chances are good if I was running Windows Maya with a stardard scroll-wheel mouse permanently installed and used for all Windows work including Maya, I wouldn't be having this problem.
The real truth in Windows vs Mac is: Once you're inside the application, be it Maya, Photoshop, Microsoft Office, or anything else that runs similar versions on both platforms, it's all the same because the application's interface is the one you're using.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
1) De gustibus, no disputandum est. 2) YMMV. 3) I didn't say it was good I said that Apple did it earlier than PCs. And, yes, I know that many workstations, including the Alto, had done it much earlier.
Actually, the legibility and pleasingness of black text on a white screen varies A LOT depending not only on the individual observer but the SPECIFIC display, room lighting, etc. For example, in the days when screens were dim, curved, and didn't have AR coatings, I personally found white backgrounds preferable because it minimized the distracting effect of reflections.
The original Mac screen, for whatever reason, appeared crisp and legible. Black-on-white, on typical stock monitors with lower video bandwidth, did not look nearly as good.
Many, many human factors people have argued for years that book pages should be a grey-green color rather than white, and in the fifties there was a vogue for it; elementary-school children used yellowish or greenish writing paper, and a magazine called Children's Digest was printed on it.
Since white paper is actually more expensive to produce than grey-green-snot-colored paper, I think the continued dominance for white paper suggests that the supposed legibility advantages are negligible.
Personally, I find the texture of RGB dots to be far, far more irritating than any differences between black-on-white, green-on-white, or European-ergonomic-amber on white. I really miss the smooth clarify of black-and-white monochrome screens. Not enough to use one, however.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
compact, monitor built in etc etc.......
Vote Quimby!
... they're called laptops. I think that if size is a problem people prefer to go the whole hog and get something portable.
(Yes, I did RTFA, where they make this point, but who else reads the articles around here)
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
You can't just take a machine, make it a bit smaller, and expect to sell. You have to sell "cool." How to do that? Make it pretty. Make it small. And make it expensive, because people don't show off cheap things.
Thus, the difference between HP and Apple. One could argue which is better, but any company would kill for Apple's margins, if not their volume.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Apple makes MacOS.
Microsoft makes Windows.
Apple makes Pippin.
Microsoft makes X-Box.
Apple makes Newton.
3C makes Palm.
Apple seems to drop the ball a lot.
SoftwareDispatch was before its time.
The Cube was before its time.
Apple seems to be going in Job's direction of consumer appliances. Throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. The iPod cell phone is next.
Will form factor make any difference? It didn't with the cube, but the cube was mucho expensive.
A sub $600 Mac? Who cares really. Microsoft has more of a chance at digital convergence than Apple... then there is MythTV. (Wait, my Q630 had tv... and that other Mac I had onboard DSP Apple never published specs for...)
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Will Mac mini Lead the Charge to Smaller Desktops?
YES.
And the price.... Oy. I just love that price, LOVE IT. I can't wait to see how the El Cheapo model performs for just email and surfing the web. Working at a small ISP I get lots of customers who "just want a computer for email and the web." Grandma doesn't care if it takes 10 seconds to load the email app, or if the hard drive isn't 7200rpm.....
I happened upon a homebrew PC mini worth taking a look at.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
http://www.freeminimacs.com/?r=13908694
SideTrack.
Look it up.
Essentially the mini and the cube are quite similar products, just different price points.
As for the one button mouse being 'wrong', I don't think wrong is the word, unsuitable for Windows yes.. suitable for the mac 'yes', as the first advert for the one button mouse stated "one button mouse, it's very difficult to press the wrong button."
Anyone who thinks the one-button mouse is a failure has clearly never tried to talk a n00b friend or relative who bought a cheap Windows PC through troubleshooting it over the phone.
The conversation usually goes something like this:
You: "Okay, now right-click on 'My Computer' and choose 'Properties' from the menu that pops up."
Them: "I clicked, but it just made the little picture go dark. I don't see any menu."
You: "No, no, *right* click on 'My Computer.'"
Them: "What do you mean, 'right-click'?"
You: "Right-click, as in 'click the right mouse button.'"
Them (completely astonished): "You mean it does something else???"
~Philly
Apple made the Cube pretty easy and slick to open, but nobody cared really once the novelty wore off.
The original poster of this article and the parent here both seem to think the Cube was a failure. Maybe it didn't really push a paradigm shift like the iMac did, but history has left it as still a very desireable computer. Checking Ebay, it sells for $350. That's a pretty hefty resale price for a computer of its age. Probably the availability of the iMac mini will impact that resale price, but it seems as though the novelty hasn't worn off for a fair number of people.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
(Idea courtesy Drew Sullivan)
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
one button mouse, it's very difficult to press the wrong button
:)
Look, if a person can handle a keyboard full of keys, surely they can handle a measley two button mouse! By having only one button on the mouse, even a normal user can make very good use of the right mouse button under Windows. With the Mac, one has to use a combination of holding down a key on the keyboard at the same time as pressing the mouse button to get equivalent functionality. I'd argue that's much more complex than having a second mouse button.
Not that that will stop me from buying a Mac mini when I have the money. But I sure as hell won't be using a one button mouse with it.
I don't understand why there have been so many comments about the one-button mouse.
The Mac mini doesn't even come with one of them.
What, really, is the gripe? There is nothing stopping you from using a multi-button mouse. There isn't even the disincentive of having the machine come with a mouse that you'd won't use. Is it really that offensive that Apple doesn't want to sell you something that you can get elsewhere, or that you might already own?
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
I know alot folks that have already shifted, they bought laptops... I thought about that, but really want a small formfactor PC. In the x86 small form factor PC's can be expensive. I have a nice (19 in) LCD screen, so something like the Mac Mini might be just what I'm looking for.
I like BSD, I like the size.
BTW for Keyboards you can buy a USB converter on ebay for like $5 that takes in a standard PC keyboard and Mouse and converts it to USB and it comes with Mac OSX drivers.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
Once again, the Apple detractors fail to notice that just because the way it's done on Windows boxes isn't implemented on the Mac doesn't mean the Mac has no good way.
Firewire drives are better cooled, easy to take around, run faster than the Mini's hard drive, are very cheap, and are about the size of the mini itself.
Why build 20 pounds of alumninum to encase all of the components with poor heat flow that needs to be moved by fans when you can put the Mini and four Firewire drives on a bookshelf for a terabyte of fast, quiet storage in the living room?
--Screens with black text on a white background
Gee thanks Apple. It may be OK on a CRT, but on my LCD, light text on a dark background is much more pleasant to use.
In konqueror I right-click to "save image as" and center-click to open a link in a new window. Having just one mouse button may not make things impossible, but it's certainly an inconvenience. Take this post, for instance. I center-clicked on the "reply" link. After I click "submit", I will close the window and the window where I started from is still there. If I had left-clicked the reply button, I would have to use the "back" button and wait for the page to load again. After you get used to it, you start wondering why don't all mice come with three buttons.
at least it will emphasize it more.
The small form factors have been around since at least 2000. I remember Compaq or HP selling legacy free systems that were really small. For the Mini to lead it, it would have to be closer to starting it. Plus, it just came out, give it a few months for it to have a market share first, instead of relying on the buzz.
I've been using a small form factor system since 2001, with the SV24 from Shuttle. I started with 2 of them, then upgraded to the SS51G from Shuttle again in 2004.
Smaller desktops will happen and here's why:
1. It costs less in raw matterials to busild something smaller.
2. It costs less to ship smaller, lighter devices.
3. The devices can be built to accomidate a larger market by adding features that offer extra value without costing a lot to build in.
3A. By offering a feature laden product that can't be internally accessorized easily, they build a market that will want to replace their computers more frequently. Building future market for the manufacturer (planned obsolecence). Note: this will also create a market for USB style accessories.
4. Less space for retailer's stock.
Look for computers to evolve into machines that don't have sockets to add RAM (it will be soldered on the motherboard) and are fabricated more like the new PS/2 from Sony. All the ports will be USB and or Firewire. Much of the design will be borrowed from Notebooks and use "mobile technology" including power-bricks, 2.5" HDD's, and thin style accessories. Things like internal speakers and fans will go away. The CPU heat sink will be a large aluminum panel which will double as a part of the case.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
if "colour changes" is a paradigm shift....
I see a worldwide market for maybe 5 mice, and a 640-button mouse is more than anyone should ever need.
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
It's not the box that takes up most of the space anyhow. I use a laptop which is maybe 288 in^3. Then there's the stuff:
keyboard (180 in^3)
mouse (trackball) (30 in^3)
crappy free inkjet printer (300 in^3)
external drive (100 in^3)
cd storage book (150 in^3)
hardware firewall (100 in^3)
surge protector (150 in^3)
radio/speaker assembly (2500 in^3)
Sure, I could switch to a mac mini, but even ignoring the fact that I'd have to buy a monitor, it would make no significant difference to the obtrusiveness of my system. Nor would switching to a dell tower monstrosity. Now, when they actually manage to fit an entire system into that space, I'll be impressed. Still won't buy it, though: I like my equipment large enough that I can tell when part of it is catching on fire or needs to be plugged in.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
Oh, I almost forgot... ever see a Charactron tube? Oh, my goodness. It used a set of cathodes, each one having the shape of one character in the font. That is, the characters were not built up out of pixels. Green screen, 132 characters wide. Those were by far the sharpest, crispest, easiest to read, most legible screens I have ever, ever, ever seen. Ever.
I play UT a lot, and have a 9200 in my G5 tower. It handles fairly high resolutions just fine.
The Mac mini would handle most gaming (ESPECIALLY at TV or HDTV resolutions) just fine.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The performance of the Cube wasn't that fantastic, and apple stopped production of it within about a year.
The ~$1500-$2200 initial price tag of the Cube didn't exactly help, and probably contributed to it's downfall.
Here are details.
Well, the Mac Mini won't kill you if it falls on you, for one.
Why would you create something that is so difficult to open?
Because most people will never need to, and making the case easier to open would also cost more (in terms of latches or screws or whatever) plus make it look uglier (especially if screws were involved).
It also adds complexity to case design.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
pda - portability 10, upgradeability 2, price 2
laptop - portability 8, upgradeability 4, price 4
mini desktop - portability 3, upgradeability 5, price ?
big desktop - portability 1, upgradeability 10, price 10
Mini desktops behave like a laptop with a detached monitor (which is bad for travel, but can be upgraded). There will be a market for them only if they price near big desktops.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
It runs on USB, and works equally well with Mac, Windows and Linux (for those rare occasions when she'll let you borrow it). It's very smooth and sensitive, and you can move as quickly or slowly as you need to. It has no moving parts, and requires you to move nothing more than your hand.
It has no buttons - everything is controlled by the tips of your fingers and thumb. It works the same for left-handed and right-handed users - you can even switch hands whenever you like, with no reconfiguration. It emulates mouse events, with up to 5 buttons available. (The default setting for Mac is 2-button, but 3-button is an easy switch, and more can be configured.)
It comes programmed by default with a set of easy-to-remember gestures, including pointing, left- and right-clicking, dragging, arrow keys, page/text navigation keys, and others. The learning curve is fairly easy - you only have to learn the gestures you need to use. Basic "mouse" gestures should be easily mastered within 10-15 minutes of practice.
It's completely customizable with a free configuration utility. You can map pretty much *any* mouse or keyboard action to any gesture. The configuration utility gives you enough rope to hang yourself, if you so desire, but it is very powerful. The iGesture will store your settings in onboard memory, so you can use it with other computers, no drivers or software required.
It even comes with XWinder, a driver for Mac and Windows that lets you move and resize any window under the pointer with a special drag gesture, without needing to move the pointer to the window's title bar. This part is really slick.
Best of all, it's substantially bigger than any of the glidepoint-style pointing devices on the market today - about 5" by 7". This gives you an incredible pointing area. It's flat and thin, and can be placed beside the keyboard, or even on top of a Powerbook's touchpad or built-in keyboard.
Downsides:
No, I don't work for Fingerworks. I'm just a very happy customer - I own an iGesture NumPad, and a TouchStream keyboard, and they're both excellent - I use them on all 3 of the OS's, including my 15" Powerbook. They really go easier on the hands, too - my tendonitis has improved quite a bit.
Super ninja monkeys will one day rule the world!
That's why they call it morse CODE.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I waited in line for an hour Saturday morning to be one of the first to get the Mini.
;-) If you find it, the site you land on is served from the Mini.
... I upgraded the RAM in the Mini an hour after powering it up. Putty knife operation is not scary. Interestingly, I had a more difficult time _closing_ the case than opening it. But all in all an easy job and I didn't damage a thing.
Why was I so excited about it?
- unix kernel and shell
- all the apps I use come run natively in OSX (Ableton Live, Propellerheads Reason, PhaseOne CaptureOne, Adobe Photoshop, etc...)
- i could replace the WinXP machine hooked up to my 37" LCD TV _and_ the FreeBSD server (apache, mysql, php, slimserver) in my office with this slick little box for $600.
So far, I'm VERY impressed. Never before have I set up a machine that worked so well out of the box, and continued to work well after installing all the apps. The developer tools that come with OS 10.3 are FANTASTIC -- you get gcc3 and a bunch of example programs to get started building apps.
This _IS_ the best of both worlds -- a good desktop environment that runs all my apps, and a solid UNIX foundation that lets me geek out on the command line.
This $600 machine (1.42GHz/80GB) has given me a taste of what my uber-nerd friends have been talking about for years, and now I want more!
To all you folks who think you can pass judgement on OSX without owning a mac, you're blowing hot air. You have to own one to really know what it's all about.
If you do some searching on Yahoo! or Google for "nobot mini", you may find some photos and a writeup of my Mini experience. No way I'm putting the URL here
---
ps
Also, as far as upgrading the system, I pulled an 80GB drive from my FreeBSD machine to serve as a nightly backup. Need more storage, get another firewire enclosure and a big drive. Done and done. OSX will see the new drive immediately and "do the right thing".
SIGUSR1
My impression was that it was a failure IN geek circles, what with most of apple's products being designed for noobs. It was in the standard-user category that they sold 8 jillion ipods.
I personally attributed this to the penny arcade factor (My cd player doesn't skip either, it's padded by a couple hundred dollars in cash), but perhaps the geeks i hang out with are just atypical.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
'Eat up Martha', maybe?
Has anyone heard anything in regards to the availability of stackable firewire storage devices for the mini? ;)
One would imagine that there are many niches to fill.......
USB/Firewire hubs, "Media Center" devices (Video encoding/decoding, remote), Hard drives, battery packs (for portable use), and a million other novelty devices (LED lit aquariums come to mind...
If they had firewire passthrough ports, and -exactly- matched the physical characteristics of the mini,
one could grow quite a mega-mini! This thing has "upgrade path" written all over it.
When MAC announced their "I-Mini" McIntosh, it caught my eye. Wanting to buy/build a small computer for my already cramped breakfast bar, I started pricing out similar hardware. The results startled me. Most of the configurations I found were more than the humble US$499 of the "I-Mini" McIntosh. To match price I had to configure with a much bigger shuttle-style case.
My question is this. What PCs are currently on the market to compete with this? When my wife asks for the "cute little MAC", what real computer can I buy instead?
Why would someone want to change the single best input device in the world? Who will make a single button mouse if Apple ceases to?
but the Newton was wrongi on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_laws_of_mot
All your Sybase are belong to us.
Need to move text around? Select it, drag, and drop.
Need to move images around? Drag and drop.
Need to import a file into a document? Select the file in the Finder, drag it into the document, and drop it.
Need to save an image off of a web page? Drag it to the desktop and drop it.
Need to copy text from a web page? Three guesses.
Your girlfriend's Mac is not a Windows PC. It's not a Linux/BSD/Solaris/HPUX/Bob'sSuperUnix box. It's a Mac. It works in a specific way, like every other machine. Learn to use it, or get something she does understand.
Go ahead and make Macs as small as you want. But experience has shown me that the smaller and more integrated a PC, the more likely it is to require Windows-only software and drivers to run. Not being a Windows user, this would not be good for me.
I can sort of imagine how the engineers of this tiny systems think: "Let's integrate all functionality into a single nonstandard chip, then write a cheap ass driver for Windows, and ignore any requests from Open Source troublemakers asking for specs. We'll make millions!"
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
A perfect example of the "as well" chasm is Linux. It's significantly cheaper than Windows, yet for most folks, doesn't work as well.
I do run Linux, and I'm not trying to troll, but Linux has a long way to go when it comes to some things. Compare installing a new piece of hardware in Linux vs. Windows*:
And I haven't even covered the cases where the drivers won't compile, or the vendor changes chipsets and the device won't work with Linux at all.
Granted, you only have to setup Linux once. But I've found that installing Linux and getting the hardware to work typically takes between two and three times what it would take under Windows, if it is supported at all. I can talk someone through reinstalling Windows over the phone, but I wouldn't dare try that with Linux. (Of course, you might never have to do the latter, so it might be a moot point).
* - based on a true story...
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
It's not a bug - it's a feature. Really. Every Mac user I know still uses the one-button mouse that came with it and has zero expressed interest in "upgrading" to a multi-button mouse. I'm personally spoiled by my Microsoft Trackball Optical with extra side buttons (they're a good peripheral manufacturer, what can I say?), but that's horses for courses.
Whenever I build a new database server, the first thing I do is plug in a set of SCSI 320 drives. That doesn't mean that Dell is dumb for shipping other configurations; rather, they've made the smart decision of using components that the majority of their users want and letting power users do their own upgrades.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
So expect a smaller George Foreman grill, not necessarily a smaller pc.
- Universal Health Care, including if it means raising taxes
- Child Day Care Assistance, including if it means raising taxes
- Significant investments in Homeland Security (which we haven't seen so far), including if it means raising taxes
There were more in the study, but I don't recall what they were. If I can find it again, I'll post it here.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Other computer makers, such as HP, have so far been unsuccessful in marketing small computers to consumers.
That's because everything HP makes is ugly and boring, like a plastic wastebasket from Wal-Mart.
The appearance of the Cube was also diminished by the wire-connected peripherals - it would actually be much cooler looking now with Bluetooth and WiFi.
-G
www.pixelstatic.com
Apple knows very well how to design a case for memory upgrades. They must've made it so hard to open by design, and not just to soak folks on that memory upgrade. My guess is that Robert Cringely has the future plan for the mini nailed. It's the iPod for your HDTV and part of an iTunes Music Store for movies and television. The unserviceable case is part of the data rights management security package.
i think it's important to note that the cube and newton were not bad ideas by any means. the newton led the pda revolution, and the cube is damn near the same thing as the mini. they were both wonderful devices.
the point that we have to realize is that some of apple's significant failures, such as the cube and newton, were products of bad timing. the market was simply not ready for those devices, particularly at the price point they were at. apple was still innovating, but we didn't see the rewards until later (in some cases other companies such as palm, etc, and in other cases we see apple winning now with the mini).
it's the same reason why NeXT failed but OS X is succeeding, bad timing.
Whenever i fill up my hard disk, or need to change the batteries in the mouse, or some spam sneaks past the filter, or the dvd drive can't read a disk, or the dhcp is acting up, or a process won't shut down, or the cat treads on the keyboard, or someone has turned the audio up to max for a laugh, or any other annoyance that disturbs my geeking, I invariably scream "If only the case were slightly smaller!!!".
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Ironically, Apple's one button corded mouse still costs $30. It held steady at $60 until only recently. So not only is the one button interface inferior, but they have the gall to charge a premium for the privilege of using it.
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
First of all you left out leading the market to CDs and DVDs, Firewire, USB, aintercompatibility (with Win removables since the early 90s, Win networking since OSX) And more. The Cube wasn;t a mistake, it was too expensive. I don;t know about now with the advent of the mini, but last year when I was shopping for a used, discontinued Cube the aftermarket price was still in the $700-900. Mistakes are not highly valued. The Newton was a ground maker just like the colored iMacs. It established all the qualities that Palm embraced and made core to its very successful product. As for one button mouse - thats a myth. The Mac's one button mouse does BOTH the functions of the left button and right button on a WIN machine. Before one critiques the Apple/Mac legacy they have to familar with it. ie expandibility. The Mac Mini is intended to compete with other lowend machines. Expandibility isn;t an important criteria (although I guarantee that you'll be able to expand it just like a Cube: new HDs, RAM, video cards, CPUS. JUst like a WINtel!) Apple's desktops have always been expandible. Ask me and I give you a detailed history of the upgrades I have done - and some that will knock your socks off! Another little tidbit about Apple machine's 99% of the time you don't even have to add a driver for new devices because the OS can figure itout (since OS9) - and those are devices built for Wintels! The only thing the Mac community lacks are scores of half-assed components that are never compatible and make the machine crash more than it boots.
Windows: Go to store. Buy hardware. (30 minutes)
Windows: Install hardware. (15 minutes)
Windows: Insert drivers CD and install drivers (15 minutes)
Windows: Reboot machine. (4 minutes)
Windows: Shit. Now I have 6 cd-rom drives (should have 1), and none of them work. (5 minutes)
Windows: Fool around in control panel trying to find out where things went wrong. (10 minutes)
Windows: IDE controllers are double installed. I guess I'll revert to the generic MS drivers. (5 minutes)
Windows: I'm not allowed to uninstall the IDE controller devices with the custom vendor drivers, so I need to reinstall Windows (2.5 hours)
Windows: Reinstall all of my software (4 hours)
Windows: Your device works! But now for some reason the machine randomly turns off when your network card is plugged in...
So let's not pretend that everything always goes 100% correct the first time in Windows.
(Also based on a true story)
I've come for the woman, and your head.
When they originally did this, the screens where special monochrome monitors (original Macs) that were much easier on the eyes than full RGB color monitors.
White on a color monitor means RGB at full intensity. For me this causes much higher eyestrain than white on black or green on black. For my terminals and code editing apps I always use a black background with colored text. This significantly reduces fatigue during long programming sessions.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22I+spoke+with+th
Kewl! Where do I sign up to buy a 1.25 GHz G4 in a full size case for $449?
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
A lot of people are talking about hooking up a Mac mini in their living rooms to be used as a home multi-media server. These people have the right idea but are too stuck using older paradigms.
They complain about small hard drives.
They complain about the hard drives being slow (4200 rpm)
They complain about the possibility of noise.
They complain about non-expandability.
Most of these people are not thinking using the obvious features of OS X. Want to load MP3s onto the mini sitting in the living room? Why? Just use a huge server somewhere else in the house. iTunes supports streaming. it is the easiest thing in the world to set up.
Want to show photos and slide shows on your big television? What do you know - iPhoto supports photo sharing. You can have 100 gigs worth of photos sitting on your huge desktop in your office, and with one checkbox you can view them all on the mini in the living room.
People that have not played around with Rendezvous and iTunes/iPhoto sharing under OS X have no idea how easy this is. Two checkboxes. No networking knowledge needed *at all*.
The only thing right now you cannot do out of the box is stream video. There is a solution to that, though, as well - VideoLAN.
The advantages of these solutions is also to keep noise down in the actual living room. No big server hard drive going means it is more quiet, and means that the Mac mini can remain small.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
It's a smaller version that mere mortals can actually afford.
Apple is finally getting somewhat serious about tapping the great unwashed windows user base. The only thing pricey about these components is the hard drive, but it probably only added $40 or so to the cost of the machine. Many first time pc buyers (or first pc in 5-10 years) have no preference between Win or Mac, but they decide pretty quickly when they see the minimum cost difference between the two. Apple's market share has always been small because their entry level pc has always been so much more expensive than the Windows side. I understand you can get a used g4 on ebay for about $350, but nearly all novice computer users refuse to buy a used machine. Especially one that won't come with any warranty or tech support, and may not include every manual or OS/software CD that was originally included.
I still think Apple's about $100-150 over where they should be for this product. It doesn't come with WiFi, and you have to supply the KVM. Adding an LCD and 802.11b/g (keyboard and mouse can be scrounged up) will probably set you back another $250+. I recently bought (on sale, but not an uncommon deal) a new Windows laptop with 802.11g, DVD/CDrw, 256MB, 60Gig, 15.4LCD, firewire, 3USB, Svideo, VGA out, 56k, 10/100lan, 1.4ghz, crappy 3D shipset for $650 (about $720 with tax). I added a $15 mouse I had laying around. Smaller, cheaper and a tighter package, the notebook goes anywhere at a seconds notice. The only way the MiniMac is a better deal is if you have a clear preference for the Mac OS and included software (superior native video editing, good luck with the 256MB ram).
This is crazy, Shuttle's done more for SFF computers than this ever will! Shuttle's have some room for expansion at least and you can put the same components as a tower in them.
The Mini is Apple's next step in the direction PCs have already been taking.
NeXT Cube
I read the effing article up to the phrase "paradigm shifts", then decided I would rather post a snide comment than read the rest of this corporatespeak infested fluff peice. Get over yourselves, tech writers. Industrialization was a paradigm shift. The Italian rennaissance was a paradigm shift. People buying small form factor computers instead of mini-towers is not!
0 1 - just my two bits
(And not to play with what I wrote in the last line just shows how much I have grown as a person ...)
I am completely out of the loop on this topic. Why would anyone spend more money on a smaller computer? If you want something that you can carry around then buy a laptop. Otherwise you are spending time and money shrinking down something that sits on your floor next to your desk. How much time do you spend lugging that thing around. What if you want to throw in a second hard drive? What if you want a capture card. I worried that in five years there won't be a home for us geeks who actually want to use a system for more than downloading mp3 and movies on line.
You CAN buy sound cards for the mac, they fit in the nifty PCI slots on the PowerMacs. Check out www.midiman.com If you don't have PCI slots, then you just use a USB or FireWire sound output box.
My Mac mini next to my Shuttle SB61G2 V3.
And a side shot.
I'd argue that neither the Cube or Newton were as failed as the blurb purports. They were in fact too far ahead of their time. The Mini is very much an evolution of the Cube, and a great one at that. The Newton pre-dated the age of the Palm, PocketPC, and Blackberry. While Apple never dominated those arenas, it was most definitely ahead of the curve and leading the way. The difference with the latest products, Mini, iPod, iTunes, etc., is that Apple not only led the way, but kept its lead with broad appeal and great usability.
And the best part is that neither having the source to Linux nor having Microsoft support make any real difference when it comes getting hardware working. I don't have time to debug the Linux source code, and the Windows support folks (on the hw vendor end) don't have a clue...
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I just turn the contrast and brightness down to 50%.
Funny you should mention that. I've shifted Macs lately, and the d@mn new one doesn't handle it correctly. I plug in the 3-button scroll-wheel mouse, the latest MouseWare driver loads (I know it's the latest, I've checked their update site - v5.2.1) and it refuses to let me set the middle button as Middle Button.
Uh, you don't have to install drivers at all. Mac OS X automatically recognizes up to three mouse buttons and the scroll wheel.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
big deal.
you can fit a cappucino pc into a mac mini.
"Big" is almost _never_ a plus, in and by itself. Usually people take "big" because it also means they get more of something else in the process.
E.g., those 17" laptops are bought for the... big screen. Reducing everything to "either it's graphics editing, or it doesn't need high resolution" is so over-simplified, it's not even funny. E.g., most programmers on our floor work in 1600x1200, because they can see more of the program. E.g., some of us actually like large fonts that we can't read without squinting. Especially on a laptop where you might have to put up with piss-poor lighting conditions, it can make all the difference in the world for eye comfort when working on it. Etc.
Ditto for a lot of other things. A bigger car means you can haul more stuff, if needed. A bigger house gets you more space. A bigger TV is a comfort factor, if you don't watch it from 2 ft distance. Ditto for monitors: there have actually been studies that show that, for example, people actually do better in games with a bigger monitor, or rather with it filling more of their vision angle. A bigger computer case, for those who prefer those, lets you use more expansion slots and it's easier to work in. (And yes, I do know people that filled all the PCI slots on a standard size ATX motherboard.) Etc.
Yes, people tend to over-estimate how much of that extra something they need. Or rather include a hefty safety margin, just to be on the safe side.
On the other hand, when size _doesn't_ bring you anything useful, it's actually a perceived disadvantage. I could fill a mile long list of products where small is a perceived advantage, or at least doing damn well. (Assuming, of course, comparable price and performance to the bigger versions.) E.g.:
- Palmtops vs the Apple Newton, which is mentioned right in the summary. The huge Newton _wasn't_ perceived as being better.
- Walkmen/DiskMen/MP3-players vs a big huge boombox. When was the last time you saw someone on the bus with their headphones plugged into a bloody huge boombox?
- Apple's iPod vs a lot of the lame huge clones of old, that packed a freaking 5.25" drive. Which one sold better?
- SFF PCs. Last I've heard, Shuttle was doing a thriving business with those.
- Laptops vs the old "luggable" computers. (In case you haven't seen one of those, it was a bloody huge and heavy PC with a small CRT on one side. Think lugging around a full size tower, with a handle and small CRT on the top side.) When was the last time you saw a company announcing a new one of those?
- TFT vs CRT. Probably _the_ most invoked reason to go TFT is "but it doesn't take as much space on my small desk."
- For that matter, notice how in the last 20 years, CRTs (both monitors and TVs) have become shorter. There's a lot of money invested in R&D each year to hopefully shave an extra inch off the depth of TVs or monitors.
- The X-Box controller. _The_ number one reason to dis the X-Box at launch was that the controller was too big for some people's hands. Penny Arcade had their grizzly-bear-for-a-controller strip about it. Not many people thought "W00T! Big gamepads are sooo macho."
- Or speaking of consoles, see how the PS/2 getting slimmer didn't hurt its sales at all.
Etc.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I have the DP 1.8 from when they had the single 1.6.
I'll check when I get home, but I'm pretty sure it's the 9200, and was standard at the time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Low contrast between text and background also causes eyestrain after prolonged viewing.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Apple does not know how to build small. 12" Powerbooks are heavy (4.6 pounds is anything but light) 12' Powerbooks are big and heavy and dont even have a PC card slot. Compare that to MM20 sharp actius (only 1.99 pounds),Even though it is much smaller and lighter than a 12'" inch powerbook, IT DOES have a PC card slot. There are lots of light laptops, Toshiba Libretto, Fujitsu p 1000 series, etc; they are all around 2 pounds and have PC card slots.
Maybe a bit more info is required...
Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act
disclaimer: IANAL, nor do I know for certain that this act requires the warranty to stand regardless of reasonable upgrades. However in my jurisdiction we have legistlation that basically means that a manufacturer must warranty a product in light of 'reasonable' modifications... which ram, add on cards, and hdd upgrades would certainly be included under (where a mod chip would not).
l4h
Steve Jobs obviously has good taste in sensing trends and managing to bring them to market just a little more quickly than others. You could make a list of things that were more or less in the air, that the Mac wasn't first to offer, but successfully offered on a large scale six to twelve months ahead of the PC world.
You could also make a list of stupid nonstandard things the Macintosh has introduced which increased the cost of the system and made it much more proprietary:
--NuBus expansion slots (which followed from 1988 onto early PowerPC models)
--Apple AAUI transceiver plug for Ethernet
--The ADC video connector
--MiniVGA ports
Most of these were ultimately retarded ideas with no basis other than milking Macintosh users with pricey addons. With your "innovation" you also get a lot of suspicious design choices.
SCSI interface
As a side note, if you read some of the backstory on the development of the Macintosh, Jobs was very much against the idea of a SCSI interface or for that matter, any expansion at all. That's why the introduction of a hard disk expandable Macintosh was delayed until the Mac Plus.
The trend that this story cites is not news in Japan, and perhaps other countries in Asia. When I walk into most PC shops, and DIY PC shops, a good number of the models use a small form factor. Shuttle (http://www.shuttle.com/) seems to be the company that is well positioned for this "mini-revolution."
Carlos
---
http://www.idevgames.com/
Mac Game Development Community
Since we are talking about a small form-factor computer, wouldn't a better analogy be that Apple is bunting?
A USB2 keyboard (with a lengthy cable) that has two 5" external drive caddies built in underneath it on either side & also a USB2 hub built in, that a USB mouse can plug into.
This way (with keyboard on/off enabled in the bias) one need not ever have axcess to the noisy PC tower & it can be hidden away behind noise insulating closed doors under the desk or in a cupboard next to it. You see then a DVD/CDRW burner could be installed in the keyboard under one side & a another optical drive or a PCI floppy drive (like those LS one's) inside HHD pullout caddie could be installed in the USB2 5" caddie in the keyboard under the opposite side.
It would be a neat arrangement as one would need only 2 cables running between the tower & the desk, the monitor cable & a USB cable
Or it could be
1. download Knoppix (1.5 hr - ? depending on connection)
2. burn Knoppix to CD (10 minutes)
3. boot up in Linux, with most things working (1 minute)
If you hadn't installed any software at all and just plugged it in, it would be working perfectly (like the MS intellimouse optical I have plugged into my powerbook with no drivers installed)
I realise you're new to the platform, but with time you'll learn that simple things like firewire analog DV interfaces, CD/DVD burners, hard drives, mice, most printers/scanners/cameras simply don't need the drivers installed.
How can you say that the sound on Apples isn't upgradable? I'd say about half of the albums that you own that have been made in the past 10 years were made on Apples, if not more? Do you think that they were using the built in sound cards? I've used Apple systems that had 7 PCI slots filled with sound cards from Digidesign, and over 96 inputs and outputs on them!
My G4 personally has 18 inputs and outputs via a Digi001 interface. Saying that the sound on Apples isn't upgradeable is insane.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
You might have read where I posted this elsewhere, but hang on to that 256 MB stick. Put it into a static free bag, label the bag, put it somewhere safe, and remember where you put it.
If you ever need to troubleshoot, it will come in handy not only because it is known good RAM but because it's known good RAM on that machine. God forbid that the 512 MB stick ever go bad, or that Apple updates the Mac Mini firmware to a stricter spec, but if these ever happen, you'll be very glad you saved that stick.
On the other hand, if you sell it, you'll get what? $10? $20 at most?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
So the same idea apply to Mac mini, it is not a desktop computer anymore, so we need t think different.
DIFFERENT--LY!
DIFFERENT--LY!
What is it with you people, you drink the koolaid or stand to close to Steve Jobs, and suddenly you can't form an adverb?
I'm going to make a paradigm shift in my cola drinking habits and change from 500ml bottles to 330ml tins.... I think it'll really make the difference to my cola drinking experience.
-- Howto: Get +5 (1) Whine about M$ (2) Namedrop Gentoo (3) Casually Abuse Mods (4) Namedrop Early Computer Model
When iPod arrived, people said, "who will bring this piece of brick around?"
No, I was there. What they said was, "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."
Then I think someone said something about Ogg Vorbis, but about another 100 people started to kick the shit out of him. Then we all laughed and went out and bought iPods. Except for that Ogg Vorbis guy.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I checked system profiler, and sure enough I have a GeForce FX 5200.
I guess I translated "5200" to "9200" in my head, though any way you look at it I have to be embarassed at not even having the manufacturer correct... perhaps I helped someone upgrade to an ATi 9200 in the past. It sure seems familiar.
So, I guess I have to say I have no idea at all how the 9200 will fare for UT (or anything else).
Anyway, thanks for the correction so I can avoid further embarassment.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Oh yea the normal person will be having a SCSI Raid. Why don't you just give them a fiber card and hook up a storage array. Most peoples upgrades would be an external drive to backup their old stuff (20% of the data is used 80% of the time) in resionable speed. or store files that don't need the super fast IO like MP3s, or Images, An external Modem, or a USB wireless interface, a DVD Burner. Sure SCSI is faster but the speed is not worth the price for home users.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Cubes hold their value better than probably any other Power Mac model - how's that for "wrong"?
Now that the Mini is out, I doubt anyone in their right mind will pay more than $200 for a Cube.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
No, but it will lead the charge to the holy grail of the PC industry. A place right next to the TV set in the living room and bedrooms. After numerous failed attempts by MS and Gateway, Apple will put the pieces together in away that will drive yet another new industry just as iTunes created the online music store.
Use the trackpad pointing area itself for single and double click, and click and drag. It takes like maybe fifteen minutes to get the feel of working this way. After you see for yourself how well this works, and given Apple's penchant for the zero button mouse on the desktop, you will become appropriately grateful the PowerBook includes even the single button!
Once you get used to tapping the trackpad, the same System Preference dialog box also has a setting to change the physical mouse button to act like the right click you insist that you need. Problem solved!
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
Actually, it's PHBs and cheapskates who miscalculate the cost of "won't work as well". Eliminating bottlenecks, troubleshooting, and clunky workflow saves Mac users a ton of labor. If you factor the cost of even a few hours spent troubleshooting dodgy Windows-based technologies, the Mac comes out ahead, even with the premium up-front cost.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
All of the above is quite true, but for WYSIWYG page layout as well as graphic design, you can't beat black-on-white. Apple was THE platform for page layout and artists back in the day.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Due to the business I am in, I have always been more windows than other platforms biased however the new mini changes the rules. The bulk of the Windows OS code needs higher energy chips and equipment to have an acceptable user experience. Even when using the Via mini-Itx boards the heat/energy load to run Windows acceptably requires fans (=Noise) and a trade off on speed and experience. The mini gives users a small quiet low wattage package that provides a user experience in most uses that is comparable to any other hardware. The term that I feel applies is elegance, users will adopt because the device does what they need efficiently without any major drawbacks. This combined with X-Serve has made me have to accept the gloating of my old Mac-head friends as justified.
Check ebay to be proved wrong any time.
Current price is more like $600. Dual processor Cubes were selling for A$2000 last year. Remember that the Mini is the same processor and in almost all respects (including video card) not very much higher spec than the Cube. A dual processor Cube should match a Mini in speed.
But the main reason why they'll hold their price - apart from being competitive in performance - is scarcity: they're not being made any more. They're one of the most collectable Mac models.
you had me at #!
People on eBay aren't always in their right mind:) I forgot about the dual cube, though. Those might be worth more if you really want to run a dual proc system in a small form factor.
They're collectible, but again, collectors aren't prone to being in their right minds, either. For practical use, the Mini is a better machine in nearly every way. They're scarse for a reason -- they were overpriced and less powerful/expandible compared to the full-sized mini tower G4s of the day, and thus did not sell very well. I've also heard that they were prone to overheating.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
But they do keep prices up on ebay. The systems that I am generally into collecting are from the 1970s and 1980s, and they typically fetch multiples of the Cube price on ebay. Go figure.
Well, this is something that I can comment on, since for the last 10 years I was in charge of specifying and purchasing systems for a medium sized Mac studio. We bought 3 Cubes, because they were the best value at that time. They are all still in full time production use and outlived their 17" CRTs, all now upgraded to the outstanding Apple LCDs. We never had an issue with overheating, expandability or reliability with any of the Cubes*. RAM and system software was upgraded over time, of course. (Or with any of the 30-40 other Macs we purchased, all of which from B&W G3s forward are still in useful service and all run the latest O/S release.)
(*Except one minor issue: several years after purchase, it would have been nice to upgrade to gigabit Ethernet. But on the upside, we had onboard 10/100 out of the box, for years before we installed gigabit. In fact we didn't upgrade most of the towers to gigabit either, because the cards were too expensive anyway.)
you had me at #!
If you're the kind of power gamer that can't live with a Radeon 9200, you're probably not buying $500 Windows boxes to play games on either - you're probably going for $300-500 video cards, and machine prices over $1000 including the fastest Pentium or AMD chip you can get for the CPU, over 1GB of some overclocked flavor of RAM, kilowatt power supply, and various blinkylights, so if you want a Mac, you're probably in G5 territory, not Mac Mini territory.
The real question for a Mac Mini is whether it's good enough to do basic video editing (presumably with extra RAM added, and probably with a Firewire/USB2 external disk, though possibly just an Ethernet back to another server box if 40-80GB will handle your active storage needs.) If it does, then you can use it for everything that you'd expect from a $500 box, and just about everything you'd expect from a Mac, and it's got a good enough sound system to run GarageBand (I'm assuming there's some way to plug in MIDI instruments without having to buy too much extra adapter hardware.) (Urrrk, wait, it looks like there's no microphone jack, just a headphone output? That *would* suck!)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Overrated, and Troll? THat's the worst job of moderation I've ever seen.
Seriously, I'm in metro Detroit. I've never even -seen- an iPod, except in the displays at the places where they are sold. I work in an electronics store.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Actually, it's PHBs and cheapskates who miscalculate the cost of "won't work as well".
:-)
The most ardent Windows folks I know are not PHBs, they're LAN admins. Well, to be fair, they're probably "cheapskate" LAN admins.
Eliminating bottlenecks, troubleshooting, and clunky workflow saves Mac users a ton of labor. If you factor the cost of even a few hours spent troubleshooting dodgy Windows-based technologies, the Mac comes out ahead, even with the premium up-front cost.
We totally agree on this. As I said, for my money Macs are a great value. While Macs cost more upfront, they're much more "worry free" long term, and they're top-performing tools in the applications I require--even more so with OSX and its development toolkits.
Part of my point was that Apple over-estmates how many of us fairly weight labor in the value equation. The majority of buyers will always marginalize labor value as soon as the first stage of sticker-shock sweeps over them.
And it'll take *a lot* of Windows frustration, fist-pounding and despair before they'll turn their heads back towards Apple, because they're desperate to salvage their original investment.
Honestly, most of the Windows users I know don't stress their computers much (written schoolwork, mild surfing, & gaming) so they never really reach a pain threshold. The Windows "power users" I know are, I must assume, numb to the pain by now.
You lost me when you said "Go to a gym"
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
CPU family: Unchanged (G4)
Clock: 1.25/1.42GHz (Mini) vs 400/500MHz (Cube)
Bus: 167MHz (Mini) vs 100MHz (Cube)
Cache: 512KB L2 (Mini) vs 1MB L2+64K L1 (Cube)
Standard RAM: Unchanged (256MB)
Max RAM: 1GB (Mini) vs 1.5GB (Cube)
Video: AGP 4x, 32MB (Mini) vs AGP 2x, 32 MB (Cube)
Hard disk: 40GB (Mini) vs 60GB (Cube)
Optical drive: Combo (Mini) vs DVD/CDRW/SuperDrive (Cube)
Ethernet: Unchanged 10/100 (although Cube offered Gigabit as an option)
USB: Unchanged (2, Mini offers USB2.0)
FW: 1 (Mini) vs 2 (Cube)
Airport: Unchanged (option)
Modem: Unchanged (built in 56Kbps)
Power rating: 85W (Mini) vs 200W (Cube)
Plus, the Cube could be upgraded to at least 1.25GHz, 64MB VRAM, and dual processor. Try that with a Mini.
you had me at #!
That means you can't just run voice chat software or VOIP telephony, and you can't usefully run GarageBand, unless you add on some extra-cost hardware or have USB-flavored instruments. Seems like an odd choice for Apple, since they're trying to steal desktops from Wintel, and a small quiet portable mac would fit much of the artist market almost as well as a laptop would.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks