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Mac Mini and iPod Hi-Fi Over-Hyped?
RX8 writes "Analyst Michael Greeson takes a look at Apple's new products, the Mac Mini (Intel based) and iPod Hi-Fi and explains why they were over-hyped and how that can damage Apple. Michael explains that when you are 'an industry innovator - when your products fall short of being truly original, your own success becomes your worst enemy.'" Update: 03/04 00:07 GMT by Z : As many posters have pointed out, the article here has little to do with the synopsis. This article is mostly about the design for the mac mini and its remote, which is a fairly interesting topic. Mea culpa, folks.
For one, Greeson specifically states that he's not going to go into whether or not Apple overhyped their latest releases; by the tone he takes, one suspects that he sees the grumbling of "Apple's fanatical base" as a largely unavoidable cost of taking innovative risks. Beyond that, though, the focus of his article is on the remote control included with the mini; how it is simultaneously easy-to-use and powerful--he calls it "sophisticated simplicity"; and how he hopes and expects future devices to try to mimic Apple's design choice.
Instead, this summary takes a throwaway bit from the introduction and completely ignores the entire point of Mr. Greeson's article. The summary goes on to state that Mr Greeson thinks Apple over-hyped their latest product release--even though he explicitly says otherwise in his article. If I were Mr. Greeson, I'd be more than a little peeved that you'd so fundamentally butchered and misrepresented my work. Not even two minutes of the most basic editorial work would have revealed this.
You've been trolled, Zonk, and now it falls to us to clear the air. Of course, the joke's on us, too: we're not the ones who are getting paid to do the job in the first place.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
That's not what the article is about at all, really. He even comes out and specifically SAYS For the purpose of this essay, let's forget about whether Apple failed to live up to its own PR.
The article is praise about its remote.
As soon as the invitations hit the 'net, all sorts of rumours (note: these are *not* Apple-created) surface. Some people publicly projected their own desires onto the event, irrespective of how likely it is, and then these self-same people get all disappointed when their fantasy doesn't come true. These people need to (a) get out more, (b) have more sex, and (c) move on from the mental state of a five-year-old ("Me want", "Me want", "Me want"). [aside: note that (c), as applied to (b), is more likely after (a). Just a hint to get you started...]
The fault here lies solely, completely, and utterly with those who raise Apple on too high a pedestal. There's only so much cool stuff any one company can make (although I thought the new mini *was* pretty cool, personally).
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
So, he seems to be saying that like the "gifted" children that show higher interest and aptitude in certain areas, Apple must do better because they're clearly capable of it.
I've seen lots of kids drop out of college because of reasoning like that from their parents. They get discouraged and stop trying, because they are capable of doing better, even when they aren't interested in "doing better" at the time.
Just seems counter productive to expect something groundbreaking from Apple everytime there's an annoucement. Apple didn't overhype it - the press did. The rumors sites did. Apple will display innovation when they have something innovative to ship - they never promised that the Intel-based machines would be anything groundbreaking - just Macs with Intel processors - which is exactly what they are, and more (Front Row).
So don't expect the gifted child of the computer industry to display brilliance in every assignment. That's not what being "gifted" about - even Ansel Adams made more average-level work than masterpieces.
Apple held an event in it's 'Cafeteria(*)' fer chrissakes!
When they pull out the stops, it isn't in an event of this level.
Overpriced leather case aside, the stuff they rolled out was worth holding a minor event over...That's what this was, a minor event.
*=yeah, it wasn't the Cafeteria, but it was held in a location they already own, it's cheap floorspace to hold an announcement.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
I read the article (really, I did!) and it mostly talked about the new remote and how cool a 6 button remote is.
Kind of neat, but what about channels with 7 8 9 and 0?
www.christopherlewis.com
But not for us "normies." For the first time I'm really looking at Apple products. It's like I want them all. I don't own a single Apple product, and yet I spend forever on their store.
I'm thinking about taking out my school loans just to buy something cool. I think both the Mac mini and the iPod Hi-Fi are totally sweet.
Maybe I missed something, but how does this go about explaining how they were over-hyped?
He explains why the 6 button remote is a great idea.
The article clearly says:
For the purpose of this essay, let's forget about whether Apple failed to live up to its own PR. In fact, let's ignore the PR strategy altogether and focus on one of the product announcements: the new Mac Minis.
(Score:-1, Offtopic)
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
It's my belief that if Apple TRULY wanted market share, they'd follow Microsoft's lead on the Xbox and sell it at a loss but then make it up in other ways. If they sold the Mac Mini for $299 or even $349, they'd sell millions overnight, still make money on dot-Mac, iWork, keyboards, iTunes songs, iPods, etc. And they'd get a hugely larger share of the market. Then, when mom and dad send junior off to college, give him the mini and buy an iMac for at home, or buy junior an iBook, etc.
"Frequency response: 53Hz to 16kHz ± 3 dB" should never be regarded as hi-fi, Apple must have picked some really cheap drivers, especially for the high end. I don't have Karma to burn, but I must say that this really makes me question Apples supposed superior engineering.
I usually pay pretty close attention to the products Apple introduces, and I have to say that I nearly missed the most recent introduction entirely. I may have been a bit inattentive, but when there's a really big announcement coming from Apple, everybody knows about it. For one thing, Apple generally introduces important products at major events, such as MacWorld or WWDC. This time, though, they just invited a bunch of reporters to show up and see their new products.
Overhyped? More like hardly hyped at all.
I used to work for a consumer electronics manufacturer in product design. I learned several things about remote controls. The thing that I learned that is relevant to this conversation is that there is a "regional trend" on how remote controls are designed.
In the European market things like design and elegance and simplicity are percieved to be important. Therefore a "good" remote control for the european market has very few buttons.
In the US, a remote control with a button for every feature and not as much software menus/interactions is more normal.
In Japan/Asia/Pacific, a remote control is considered to be "macho" if it has lots and lots of buttons. The more buttons, the better. A "lady's" remote control will be a little bit smaller and have a few less buttons. According to the folks who I learned this from, the average family would have a remote for the man of the house and a smaller lady's remote.
In the US, there would just be one remote and no one would think of it as a "macho" thing to have more buttons.
With regards to the Front Row remote, Steve Jobs (as usual) takes his queus from european sophisticates on his notions of design, simplicity, etc.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
When you are simply downloading media from ITMS (and other sources), what use do you have for "channels".
Apple is bypassing the whole legacy model of Broadcast that is so ingraned, even technical people think we need "channels" instead of browsing for video content like we browse the web. Do you visit a web page on channel 8, then browse it for 30 minutes only to have it suddenly vanish?
The Mac MINI is primarily a home media center, not a PVR (though you can use it as such).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
An iPod ghetto blaster? Kinda goes against the whole portable movement, doesn't it?
Not really. It runs on d-cells just like any other portable boom-box.
That said, it has several strikes against it:
1. It costs to much to take it with you while tubing down the Apple river or to a tailgate party at a St. Paul Saints game. For the kind of places one usually hauls a boom box, you want to bring something that won't make you break down in tears if it gets run over by a car or smashed against rocks.
2. It's called a "Hi-Fi" in spite of sounding like a piece of turd fished out of the Bose washroom. Seriously. Go listen to it, then go to your mall's Bose outlet and compare. Same goofy sound; different branding.
3. The iPod rests gingerly on top of it instead of loading into a nice, sturdy enclosure.
4. There's no top handle, so carrying it around with one hand is kind of awkward.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I thought I was I going stupid there for a moment. I read the article and it had nothing with the slashdot title. If anything, it seem to praise Apple. But I realized from post, it wasn't I going stupid- it was Zonk. Zonk, you need to buck up man and pay attention!!!
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Yes, they are already in the Apple Stores.
As I said elsewhere, they sound a lot like the compact Bose offerings.
In other words: Fancy use of fake imaging, exaggerated bass boost with no real bottom end, and overall unsettlingly nothing like true high fidelity.
In other words, it's designed with the intention to dazzle the casual observer long enough to run their credit card through the register, not to faithfully reproduce music.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
There wasn't any hype. "Come and see some fun new products" was all they said. How exactly could they have played it any less? "We've some new stuff, it's pretty crappy, but someone might want it I suppose."
And they could have hyped this. Look, they announced the switch to Intel last year and said they'd have Intel Macs in June this year. It's March, and already they have a mid-range desktop, high-end notebook, and two low-end desktop machines out.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Where? I see a Firewire and a DVI port, no composite, S-Video, 75ohm coax, or component video you'd expect for the term "dedicated TV output". Indeed, from the specifications:
So Apple makes a scan converter, which could probably be used with any of their machines. It still doesn't make the DVI port a "dedicated TV output".
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
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"Um, it adds 802.11 and Bluetooth, a larger HD (80 vs 40 GB) and a faster processor (1.5 vs 1.25 GHz) for an extra $100. Otherwise the specs are the same. If you're disappointed by that, I don't see how it's Apple's problem. They're laughing all the way to the bank."
Which, if you added those options to the "old" Mac Mini, would have sent the price to about $700. It's actually a better deal. Plus, if it is 2 to 4 times faster, where's the beef?
I wish every one of my relatives running Windows would switch to a Mini; my annual free family support hours would drop to ZERO.
And that would be PRICELESS!
I am my own gestalt.
Maybe what you want is a full scale Mac. The Mac mini compromises power for compactness and price. What, do you expect a $359 Walmart box to play Doom 3, too? Do you expect a $13K compact car to have a V8, 450 HP, handle like a GP car, and get 150 mpg, in addition to the leather seats and 1500 watt stereo system?
there are already multiple stand-alone speaker systems for the ipod from Bose, JBL, and others
Have you listened to any of them?
I sepnt some time in an Apple store comparing them (not even to buy, just curious) and frankly all of them soundly really weak. Yet people buy them.
If the Apple unit produces much better sound then the extra cost may well be worth it for the same people that are buying these things already (I must admit I am not quite sure who they are, though I suppose they'd be nice for a sewing room or shop or something).
and the Intel Mac mini is simply a retool of the same offering on a faster chip.
Sort of true but it also offers improved graphics support for video (even with the dreaded integrated Intel video chip), and standard bluetooth/wireless. These are really important features so that third party makers of things like bluetooth or IP remotes know that there will be a substantial market for such if enough minis are sold.
these 2 products are more evolutionary than REVolutionary, and hardly deserves the fanfare of a separate launch party hosted by Jobs himself
I agree they are more evolutionary, though in the case of the mini it jumps from a device that is not really usable as an HTPC for a number of reasons to a device that is actually well suited to the task - that is something more of a jump than a basic evolutionary step. It's like going from cro-magnon to wall street stock broker, I was pretty happy as I thought it would take more models to really add HTPC support.
And it was not a party but a press briefing! He came on stage, announced the two items, and took off. Actually the mini alone probably deserved a little more fanfare than that but they wanted to keep it low key I iamgine until other products that tie into it (like HD video on ITMS) are released.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There are non-Apple products that do what you want -- check the Roku WiFi Radio at http://www.rokulabs.com/
Some people get too caught up in their own world. Just because everybody is talking about the Mac Mini on the few Apple fansites that the submitter visits daily doesn't mean that it has reached anybody else's collective conciousness. Aside from a mention on Slashdot, I haven't heard much of anything of the Mac Mini, and I certainly know next to nothing about the Ipod Hi-Fi that the submitter refers to.
The submitter talks about "over-hype", I say what hype?
The iPod line, up to and including the Nano, are powered by various versions of PortalPlayer's system on a chip technology. However the iPod Shuffle, released only a few months after Steve Jobs declared flash based players where useless, marks the single deviantion for the iPod line.
Instead of the PortalPlayer chipset, it switches to the SigmaTel 3500 series, the chipset that powers many no-brand "memory stick" style flash mp3 players (most end up getting stamped with a generic brand name by whatever company buys them in bulk, so you may have a "mercury" player that is 100% identical except for the paintjob to a "powermp3" player).
A few names of SigmaTel based player include models from Xelo, Curtis and Lenco. Note that most of these players are not 100% identical to the Shuffle. In the name of making something so fast, most features the chipset supports where ignored: it can support a basic 1/2 line LCD screens, it can use a microphone, it can support an FM tuner, it can work with FAT filesystems on memory cards, it can even play wma files, and ogg files with the right firmware version. The main difference between the Shuffle and the players that choose to throw out even a screen in the pursuit of a low retail price, is that the Shuffle is one of the few that uses the 3500's abiliy to regulate li-ion battery charging (the chipset can be run off a AAA battery or a li-ion pack, most generic players use a AAA battery)