Apple Announces Wonderful Toys

XMilkProject writes "Apple just released 5 new products, all of which should show up on the Apple Store within minutes. You can already see the most interesting new product, the iPod Hi-Fi, a supposed high fidelity boombox for your iPod. Other new products are an iPod Leather Case and three new media-center-style Intel Mac minis which will hit the Apple Store within the hour."

Comments

Two new Intel Mac Minis were announced today.

[Inoshiro]

Not three.

Standard features: Tiger + iLife '06, Apple Remote + Front Row, Airport Extreme + Bluetooth, DVI Video Out, USB, FireWire, Gigabit Ethernet. This is nice because you don't have to get an upgrade to get Airport Extreme and bluetooth.

"All Mac mini models also include an integrated Intel GMA950 graphics processor with 64MB of shared DDR2 SDRAM(1), 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet, four external USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 400 port, optical digital and analog audio in/out, and built-in mono speaker."

Optical out is a nice thing to have standard now, although I'm not sure about the video processor. The GMA950 is not capable of running games (see this Extremetech review). It uses a minimum of 80mb of the memory in the Mac Mini, further reducing what you can use for applications. In short, it's a major step down from the old Mac Minis, and not useful for those who liked running WoW on their Minis.

Low-end model: 1.5Ghz Core Solo 667 mhz fsb, 512mb memory, integrated graphics, 60GB drive, combo drive - $599 US, 699$ CDN reg.

High-end model with Core Duo - 1.67Ghz, 80GB drive + SuperDrive 8x (dual-layer capable) - $799 US, 949$ CDN reg.

They've also updated the iTunes and Frontrow capabilities; now you can stream any movies or music from any computer running iTunes, and it interfaces with the Frontrow software that is included (with a nice little remote).

A bettel looking option is the new universal dock + remote (about 100$) that lets you use a video iPod like a little media device attached to speakers or a TV. Very portable!