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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..."
I doubt anyone would, I mean what does a doc cost versus the cost of replacing your Mac if you fsck it up
I've got some photographs, I'd like to show them to you. Though you don't know the girls You'll recognise the view..
Or in other words:
This opens up the option of homebrewing your own dock into a mini for yourself...
Ydco co
the real difficulty would be maintaining the smooth look of the mini... nothing like a jagged hole to keep the minimalists happy. A dock could be cool for all the ipoders out there.
I want Mac Mini. I do not want iPod. As far as I am concerned Apple made a right decision.
Pretty leet huh, I'm about to submit it as a full fledged story to /.
Look for me in the dupe.
Given some of the homemade cases I've seen, I suspect tinkering with the Mac Mini to give it an iPod dock would make it a bit less "mini" and considerably less stylish.
Slashdotters don't care about screwing perfectly good things up. Look at all the dissection topics!
But did anyone else notice the convientley placed R2 and D2 ?
It would a good to have this dock as optional, but that will be in the next flurry of updates?
"Sweet llamas of the Bahamas !"
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.
or we would have had YA device with a non-flat top surface (ie nonstackable).
This ties in nicely to the way that the mini seems tailor-made to be a media-center PC. If some sort of tuner card were plugged into this slot (say in a "Mac Mini Media-Center Edition" or something) you could plug a mini into your TV and be basically set with the ultimate convergence box.
That's my opinion, anyway. Be looking for a Media Center version of the Mini soon.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Use Coral proxy to avoid slashdotting the poor site.
-P
I hate people who quote
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.
The remnants of a possible iPod dock were found by the initial people ripping them open.
Whether the Firewire feature was dropped from the first incarnation, or was put in place ready for the Mac's next revision isn't clear. However, early rumours surrounding the so-called "headless iMac" that was to become the Mac Mini, did indeed mention an integrated iPod Dock, fitted to help encourage Windows-using iPod owners to switch to the Mac platform...
I'm sorry but what made ME (as a "PC" user) to switch to the Mac platform was the price. $499 for the base model is 100% perfect. I have said it here before (and I am saying it again)... Once Apple created a computer that was reasonably priced I would purchase one and I did.
It's nice that it runs cool, near silent, and that it is snappy for what I use it for (with 512MB) but it's super nice that it was priced right.
I don't own an iPod and I likely will never own an iPod so the iPod dock wouldn't make me switch. I highly doubt that PC users would switch just because of an iPod docking feature.
YMMV.
...the reality distortion field generator, duh!
...more importantly, I noticed that Safari was using much more memory than Firefox when I had both open. Therefore, certainly we must ask ourselves, "is the Mac mini preferring certain programs over others?"
Take off every sig. For great justice.
If you read the description, the firewire connection pins are directly next to the connection to the ATA optical disc drive. Maybe Apple wanted to have the option of shipping firewire based disc drives should they become cheaper.
A great deal of people are buying iPod's these days. If more of them would buy mac's too Apple's market share for personal computers would greatly increase. I'm sure they originally put the dock idea in the low-cost model to attract these windows iPod buyers but the purists at Apple fought to keep the box cheap, simple, and clean.
Also, since I have karma to spare, with I googled for mac mini ipod dock I got a picture of this crazy contraption. Just thought I'd share.
- Cary
--Fairfax Underground: Where Fairfax County comes out to play
"Microsoft intended to fix bugs in Windows?" All the signs are there, the half done architecture and comment code stating "To be enabled in Longhorn."
...is backing away from the iPod? Quick! Someone call CNet!
I think in this case it was redundant with the article description. From what I can see.
I had the opportunity not too long ago to speak with someone at Apple that worked on the Mac Mini project and I asked the same question as it had been speculated on a lot by the rumor sites. The answer was yes, it was considered early on in the project but killed because they didn't think that it would work aesthetically along with the possibility that it could interfere with the wireless performance of the Bluetooth and Airport antennas that are located on the top of the case.
In fact, the moderator was correct -- you managed the rare feat of an entirely redundant first post. Particularly impressive given that the blurb is only three sentences long!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
The only iPod-branded device lacking firewire is the iPod Shuffle. The new Minis have firewire, they just aren't bundled with a firewire cable.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
or perhaps... the mac mini 2 is intended to have an ipod dock.
This got me thinking - my Sawtooth G4/400 has an internal Firewire port. Clearly, the designers intended the next generation of G4s to have integrated iPod docks.
It's not uncommon for features to get added early in the mobo manufacturing process because it's cheap and relatively simple. This is probably an example of Apple doing a CYA 12 months ago and then abandoning the idea (whatever it was - dock or something else).
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
From what I heard, they haven't abandoned firewire, the cable is still available but they only ship ipods with the USB cable now.
I won't get one until they're free inside a box of specially marked cereal.... but only if the cereal is on sale and I have a dollar-off coupon.
Beat that cheapo.
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
And if it drops to $10, you have a price point some people would STILL bitch about. Seriously, people will always want a price point below that which its currently selling for. Oh, and Ive kept my Mini with 256mb ram, and Ive not had any issues with it regarding speed or memory issues - dont take the 'must have 512mb ram minimum' crowd too seriously.
That looks interesting but the mac mini connecctor has 20 pins, while the ipod dock connector has 30 pins. The placement of the firewire pins are also different - the mini has the data on pins 1,2,11, and 12, while the ipod has them on 3,5,7, and 9.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
mod parent up:
This is more about players than the Mini, but...
I'm an embedded/firmware developer doing audio players.
The solutions used by virtually *everyone*, Apple included, for their music players are built around overloaded (in a good way) platforms from PortalPlayer and Sigmatel. Typically they're designed so that the platform can do anything from simple flash player to full-fledged multicodec recording and video playback.
The cost of the silicon is basically the same in all of these cases, and makes it possible for the platform developers to support customers in the entire product range (from Shuffle to Portable Media Player) with very little overhead.
The savings come in reducing the peripheral devices that have to go in, as well as the mechanical construction and battery. Flash players, for example, don't have a 20 dollar (in high volume!) LCD, and typically only use a few MB of SDRAM cache since they don't have to worry about HDD duty cycle to conserve power.
" Because slashdot still does not have a "-1, RTF summary you insolent clod"" Should be a -5 RTFM with a 2 week ban from posting on slashdot.
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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."
One of the things about buying a Mac is that you can still use it after 7 years. I've got a 400Mhz G4 that I've been using as my main macintosh until a year ago when I got a PowerBook. It runs the latest version of OS X and it usually benefits from the OS upgrades.
I don't understand how whiners like you get modded up. Here we have the finest combination of a UNIX machine, a excellent UI, and decent market support, and you want it for the price of the crappiest computer you can whip up on Newegg?
Please. Apple did a great job of trying to meet the demands of the cheapskates. One of my friends who bitched about the price forever finally admitted he had to have a Mini when they were announced.
If you can't afford it, that's ok. However, nobody owes anything to you, the least of which, a cheaper Macintosh.
You're apparently just not too choosy about speed, or don't run a lot of apps at once. 256MB is exhausted rapidly under OSX. The OS itself consumes more than 128MB, not counting caching.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
When it drops to around $349 then I will jump. I know a few others that want a $299 price point. As it stands now its not truly a $499 machine either as you need a minimum of 512mb of ram to have a good system.
Mmmkay. The Mini comes with about $200 in software which makes the hardware about $300. Even in the PC world, you can get a minimal piece of crap PC for like $200. A copy of XP will run you about $150. So for your target price of $350^H^H49 you will get a bottom of the line PC with no real end user software. If that floats your boat, then a Mac is not targeted for someone like you. Go talk to someone at a computer retailer like CompUSA. Ask them the difference between PC buyers and Macs. PC buyers come in buy their cheap computer, and are forever coming back buying more crap for it. Typically, a Mac buyer comes in, buys their mac, and they never see them again.
Oh, and go look on ebay sometime for used computers. Compare the Macs to PCs, and then tell me if the initial purchase price was worth the extra couple of bucks.
the mac mini 2 is intended to have an ipod dock.
Actually, what with the relative sizes and all, it's believed that the next iPod will have a Mac Mini dock.
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
it sounds like he bought the software at the same time as he bought the hardware. if so, the sales rep should have pointed out that the software wouldn't run on the machine he was buying. likely, the rep was more focused on earning the commission and not on servicing the customer.
sum.zero
If people get banned for not R'ing TFA, who will be left to post on /.?
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
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.
Every dockable iPod ever made supports both Firewire and USB through the dock connection. There's no reason for Apple to use a USB connection for an internal dock.
My reasoning is that they left it off to save money and because an integrated dock would taint people's perception of the Mac mini. Instead of "Wow, this is a great computer for $499", people would think "This is a $499 iPod toy".
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
But what you want personally doesnt matter, its what the apple people belive the MARKET wants..
Currently they belive the market does not.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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.
I've never understood what the point is of a docking station. Yes, it puts the iPod (or PDA) in a possition that I can read the information on the screen. But I would get that *and* the possibility of using the keys if it was lying flat on my desk. Difficult to knock over as well. I possitively hate the docking station that came with my Palm(s).
The only reason I see for including a docking station is for them to sell us a "special travel cable", which is basically a wire with their own proprietary connector. That and maybe supplying power, but a powered USB hub could handle that as well.
Don't be silly. This is not for the iPod. It's the controller for the Reality Distortion Field.
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)
Locate a 128K or early 512K Mac (1984-vintage). Get out the torx-drivers and open the case. Look back under the monitor where the 3.5 floppy drive is located. The metal frame has a cutout for the 5.25-in Twiggy drive that was supposed to be used early in the design. I guess Apple was covering their ass in case they changed their mind at the last minute.
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