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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."
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.
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Not being able to upgrade the video is a big deal to me. The radeon 9200 chip they have is ok for playing basic mpg's or tetris but that's about it.
Okay, I'm sick of this. You're a gamer, plain and simple. You have to play the latest games when they come out. You upgrade your video card every six months to a year (and it costs over half of a Mac Mini). How do I know this?
Because the built-in graphics on the Mini can handle anything but that particular subset, as can any damn video card today. You can playback any video format you want (especially since I can with an 800Mhz G3 and Radeon 7500) - they tend to be CPU bound these days, as the graphics cards are all insanely powerful. You can play any games up to a couple years ago just fine. If you're getting a Mac in the first place, you're not getting it as a gaming platform, so I see this as moot.
For example, it performs damn well in Quake 3 Arena, a standard for quick benchmarking. 96FPS at highest settings, on a budget $600 computer. Kick. Ass.
And, of course, Apple doesn't believe anyone could want better sound than what they have built in so *no* mac's have upgradable sound. wtf is that about?
Because Apple has always had integrated sound. How long did it take PC's to get beyond a simple startup beep? No, you can't buy a sound card for a Mac - Creative made a half-assed effort several years ago, but since we all already have sound, nobody bought them (that, and the drivers were some of the worst written - ATI worthy). On the other hand, since the G5's (and hopefully others with time) support fibre optic audio out, and OS X supports surround sound, what's the big deal? What would a new sound card add? You're already surround and pure digital - am I missing something?
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.