Slashdot Mirror
Was the Mac mini Intended to Have an iPod dock?
RMH101 writes "Was the Mac mini originally designed to have an integrated iPod dock? The Register
has an article that appears to suggest it was. This opens up the option of homebrewing your own dock into a mini for yourself..."
Or in other words:
This opens up the option of homebrewing your own dock into a mini for yourself...
Ydco co
Making it an option would be nice for people that want it. Add the integrated dock for $50 or something.
While I think it's a good idea to add a "simple" feature like that, it might not be useful if the mini is just sitting on the middle shelf of a home theater system.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
I realy hope it's a iPod dock to come. If the next mini mac has the iPod dock installed i'll buy one. Read more here
Bits of News Giving you the latest bits.
You made me thing of something with this. Linksys made an amplifier for their 802.11b system called the BSB24. It was made to stack on top of the wireless hub. Here's a link. It stacks neatly on top of it and maintains the stackability of the hub. Is it possible this is what they had in mind?
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
I think in this case it was redundant with the article description. From what I can see.
Seems like a possibility. The extra control lines could be used to do things like change channels or even interface an IR Transmitter or receiver. What the MacMini is missing is an display on the front and IR controls.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I did the same thing... when that mac mini came out, I ran... not walked... to the Apple store to buy it. I got the ugpraded version, plus some software: iWork and Motion.
Oops!
I suppose had I looked at the specs closer I could have known, but Motion doesn't work with a Mac Mini. It won't even install. Somewhat depressing, but the graphics card isn't up to the task. And the installer won't let you even try with pokey response, it just doesn't let you install.
I admire Apple a lot. And to finally buy a Mac was a big step. But the mistake with Motion was compounded by the fact that the Apple Store would not allow me to return the software. The reason, of course, was because I had opened it. Nevermind that I didn't even know it wasn't compatible until the install informed me as such. Their web store sure didn't.
No appealing to reason worked with these guys. They were as cold, unhelpful and indifferent to my situation as the most arrogant companies I've ever dealt with.
Somehow I expected more from Apple. It's been so annoying that I just pusehd the Mini off to the side and haven't booted it up since. Having gotten nowhere with the "Apple Store Team" (as they don't respond to emails with their actual name) I just went and eBay'd the software off at a loss, in a bit of a protest auction. For what it's worth.
I still admire Apple for its cutting edge design talent, and astute strategy to capture the market. I think the mac mini was a dramatic step for them. But their customer service at the Apple Store is, in my opinion, completely out of step with what it takes to make Apple competitive.
And it's sad too... because I was telling everyone who'd listen about my jump to Machood. And later, when they came to ask me how my experience went.... that was a lot of sales lost for those guys because they wouldn't do the right thing. Ultimately this may not make a bit of difference in the scheme of things, but it certainly isn't optimal for them.
David Whatley
Neat idea, but I recently read a review stating that the Mini (at least the base version) lacked the processing testicular fortitude to be a full-blown media center. Plus, it does not have the storage to be a server (unless you upgrade the HD) Anandtech Review It still has some potential, but it does not seem to be designed for this role (at least without some serious upgrading)
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Apple has the best selling philosophy:
Sell version 1 w/ minimal features
get everyone hooked
release version two with extensive features
profit
look at the shuffle, the chip has the ability to recieve FM, they will add a screen and FM tuner in 1-2 versions to bump sales up. brilliant.
Replace the hard drive with a docking station for the iPod. The higher-end iPods already come with a bigger standard drive than the Mini, why make customers pay for two drives?
I can't decide if this post is interesting, funny, insightful, or flamebait.
If you're worried about design and looks, you need to think about laptops and their docking stations. Look at the bottom of the laptop and there are little flaps over the docking connector that gets opened up when you plop the laptop on the dock. Given this basic design + Apple's ingenuity, I'm sure adding an iPod docking station will not detract from the looks of the mini.
Get Paid to search
The fact that the mount has firewire integrated makes absolutely no difference. If you've been keeping up with the news, you'd know that Apple is now marketing the iPod as a USB2 device. It's no longer shipping with a firewire cable. Why would that make steps towards integrating the iPod with the mini via firewire when they're abandoning their whole stance on firewire to begin with?
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
Don't the different iPod models have different docks? So you could have a one-size-fits-all dock, but when you put a mini in it, there would be a gap around the edges, and Apple just wouldn't let that happen.
I'm not saying this was definitely a dock connector in the making here, but people are missing the obvious:
Replaceable plastic covers. Seriously. This thing has 'em, why not the Mac Mini? They can't cost more than about 3 cents each to make, and Apple could make 'em look better than these do. For those who don't want a dock port, just have the standard cover that the Mini's got right now. The only difference is you sell these snap-on dock port covers separately.
Maybe Apple considered something like this (it's the only way to make an integrated dock work) and then decided it was too unelegant, or that they didn't want users replacing the whole top of the Mac mini, or that having only the dock port itself be replaceable would leave an ugly hole in the system top normally (or a split off extra bit that would detract from the cosmetic appearance even if a dock connector was not attached by the user).
Personally, I'd probably rather just buy a separate dock anyway...
but it's a nice little hard drive with a nice fast connection on it you can carry about with you. Feel free to shoot my down if I'm spouting gibberish, but maybe you could carry your desktop around on your iPod? Imagine a world with tiny Mac minis dotted about the place. Don't lug your laptop into Starbucks, just drop in your ipod the slot and whoosh, it's your PC. Maybe you're strolling through town and fancy some music, just pop your ipod into a public mac mini and stick a couple of iTunes albums on. You've got an ipod. You've built a desktop on it when you stumbled in for a coffee one day, why not buy a mac for your house as well? Basically, the ipod's pretty dumb by itself, but can hold a lot of your personal data. Drop it into any mac mini and suddenly it could be your machine.
Could be firewire to an expansion box which would sit on top of the mini.
The expansion box could hold additional hard drive storage, along with video and audio hardware and connectors appropriate for a media box. The hard drive could be bigger and faster, because it would be in a separate box from the CPU.
The expansion box would match the Mini's size and shape, except with a UI on the front for controlling things, and maybe a remote control sensor.
Stacked, the two would still be only about 5" high.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
Instead of "Wow, this is a great computer for $499", people would think "This is a $499 iPod toy".
Great point!
Apple is already seen as "the iPod company" - they need to help people realize they make great computers too.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Shouldn't say publicly, but it's a small product design consulting firm in San Francisco. We help bridge the gap between good UI design/ID and economically viable mass production in China/Taiwan.
There's really quite a bit of subtlety in translating a high-design product idea into a high-build-quality consumer device that will actually be cheap enough to turn a profit. Takes a lot of experience dealing with ODMs, who in China are VERY good technically, but have little experience making decisions that relate to what Western consumers actually *want*. We help close that gap.
On the other hand, companies that design AND build in Asia are somewhat less beholden to the notion that one must cater to the absolute imbecile, and hence are more likely to implement cool peripheral features that American market-testing would cast aside as too complicated for the target audience. Hence the Japanese cellphones and iRiver music players.
As an example, a number of iRiver players and the iPods are both based the PortalPlayer platform -- start with an iPod and you get the slick out-of-box experience, but drill down into the iRiver firmware and you find a lot of random, cool little features that each might only interest 1% of the user base. Recording, special modes for language-learning materials, sleep-in-N-minutes, etc. Personally, I'm of the opinion that in firmware, more is better as long as it doesn't get in the way of usability. In any case, though, they're based on nearly identical core hardware.
Companies are finally starting to recover from the shock of the iPod's simplicity, and I think we'll start seeing more and more neat useful features and well-designed interfaces as time goes on. That's my main gripe about the iPod versus the Mac -- the Mac has a slick, simple interface with secondary access to good features. The iPod just has the slick simple interface, although the features are starting to show up, generation by generation. Just as it took a few years for cellphones to get to the point where people wanted to download ringtones and wallpaper, it will take a few more for people to figure out other neat ways that their music players can be useful to them.
You are right, I could have known. But if you follow the path through their web as I did, you don't see any of that. I knew I wanted Motion from seeing it demo'd in person (at SIGGRAPH), so I didn't go to the marketing part of the web site on it.
In many ways, I acted more like a typical customer... the kinda Apple tries to appeal too: the nontechnical user. I read the hype pages on the Mac mini (that talk about how they have great graphics power) and then just started filling my shopping cart with the Mac mini, keyboard, mouse and upgrades.
Then it encouraged me to buy some software and so I added iWorks and Motion to the cart. The shopping cart software COULD have seen that there was a potential problem since I was buying a mini and software that does not work on a mini at the same time. A warning would have surficed.
I understand why some companies do not let you return software. My company makes software (though piracy is not much of an issue for us). But fully understand the issues.
The problem is that Apple didn't deal with this in what, I would argue, is a customer-centric fashion. Their correspondence were cold and indifferent. They showed no flexibility, much less concern. Heck, they didn't even try to upsell me... what a perfect opportunity to say.. "Hey, how about upgrading to a G5... that'll do what you want!" I was not going to do that, but at least a well trained Apple Store Team (as they call themselves) should have made that play.
So, yes, I did make a mistake. But not an unreasonable mistake. And not one that should have been undoable. This is the sort of nonsense that really turns people off. And makes them complain loudly about how they were treated.
Given how much I like Apple, admire Apple, I wish this just wasn't how things went down. The cost of the software, frankly, is a non-issue for me. It was the principle of the thing.
David Whatley
Sorry to hear about your bad experience. Are you in the US? The reason I ask is two fold. One is that I've heard anecdotes that Apple customer service leaves a little something to be desired in Europe. The other is that if you had tried to return the software with the claim that you were unwilling to accept the click thru EULA instead of the claim that your system didn't meet the requirements, they would be required by law to accept the return.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I just got a Mac Mini BTO 1.42 with 512Mb of RAM and it runs WOW terrible. It is very choppy and barely playable, especially in Ironforge or around any water/fire effects. Does this improve by moving to 1G of RAM? Running top I see a lot of paging activity, but I want to see wht you think.
There is a little program called Keycaps that should let you know the default mappings of the keys and their modifier keys on the keyboard. There are also language packs that can be installed from the OS X CD.
Your wireless card definitely has drivers. Nothing ships with a Mac that has no drivers; they're part of the OS install. If the wireless card isn't working, it may be a hardware issue. Check with Apple for a warranty repair.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
c'mon - apple aren't moving away from Firewire they're just appealing to Windoze users who all have USB on their machines. You can still buy a Firewire cable - don't beleive the CNET FUD! Firewire is still superior for many data intensive tasks - HD DV, Hardrives etc
But those multi-button mice are so confusing!