As is no doubt being reported across the entire blogosphere and tech news feeds everywhere, Apple had a bit of a bumper Macworld 2005, introducing in particular a new desktop, a new iPod and a new software suite.
First off the latter, iWork. About time too, I say. iWork contains Pages, a word processor and Keynote 2, the presentation package. The incumbent OS X office suite, AppleWorks 6, feels like the OS 9 port it is, and MS Office is as expensive and unstable as you might expect – at least the Office X that I use is. It will be nice to use an alternative to Word for once. And for £49 (or $79) this looks like pretty good value. Unfortunately there is no spreadsheet software included, so Office will have to be retained for Excel. Actually Excel on a PC is one of Microsoft’s best pieces of software. Sure it’s bloated (what MS software isn’t?) but it’s incredibly good at what it does. The usability of the Mac version isn’t a patch on the PC original though – anyone who has tried to edit complicated formulae referencing lots of cells will know this.
And so to the iPod Shuffle. What no screen? Time for some humble pie Mr Gruber. At £69 ($99) for 512 Mb, I reckon these will fly off the shelves. Getting around the lack of screen by simply running in shuffle is one those genius ‘not a bug but a feature’ moments. And for me, it works.
Finally, the Mac Mini. What a crap name. That aside, I wondered who this is aimed at? Perhaps Apple wants to convert those remaining PC switchers – give them a cheapo Mac so they can use their existing screens, keyboards etc. If I was in that position I’d probably look to buying a second hand iMac G4 instead. However, Apple may well end up selling a lot of these machines to companies instead. Multimap for example, had some budget set aside for an iMac G5 or two but that may well be spent on a bunch more Mac Minis which could happily be used with the plethora of LCD monitors about the place. This seems quite likely as most of the dev team are itching to move over to OS X (those that don’t already use their own iBooks and PowerBooks). I daresay Multimap is not alone in that thinking.
Patrick wrote:
As a PC user, I have to say that the Mac Mini interests me. I’m not too keen on buying any second hand computer and I couldn’t justify the price of a new iMac. 300 I can do. As a test machine and as a way of dipping my foot into the intriguing world of Apple…
Small Paul wrote:
Yup, it’s aimed at people who have a Wintel with a monitor, and want to switch to a Mac for little money. (Also geeks who just want to play with a Mac a bir, for cheaps).
Now we’ll see just how many of those folks there are.
But yup, I hadn’t thought of companies, that makes sense. Roger Johansson noted (http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200501/mac_mini/) it’s also a pretty good solution for web developers who want to Mac test.
I do think it might fail with people who want to try switching to a Mac, but keep their Wintel running simultaneously. They’d need 2 monitors. It’s pretty much all or nothing (“switch or stick”), unless you have a spare monitor.
Aleksandar wrote:
Small Paul, if you have some fairly newer TFT, you can run both PC and Mac on it. They usually have DVI + VGA , and Mac mini has DVI-I which allows you to connect both VGA (over adapter) and DVI cables.
I use LG 1730B to run two PCs at my home in the same way.
patrick h. lauke wrote:
the mini does look quite interesting, and for once the price point seems about right, and i may even consider getting one for cross-platform testing.
oh, it’s “formulae”, not “formuli”
Small Paul wrote:
Alexsandar: ah, that’s pretty cool. So some TFT monitors have 2 inputs, so you plug the PC in one and the Mac mini in the other? Sweet.
Rich wrote:
Duh. I knew something was wrong. Corrected, thanks.
patrick h. lauke wrote:
Paul, no you need some kind of switch. what Alex meant was that most PC monitors can actually be hooked up to the Mac (something that wasn’t always true for older models).
incidentally, in the usual “great design, but one giant blooper” tradition of apple design: why the heck is the power button around the back? made me laugh out loud, as it precludes so many nice uses (e.g. in a shelf, as part of the home entertainment system)...
Stevo wrote:
Just ordered the first Multimap Mac Mini. Anyone want an old G3?
iSwitch wrote:
Quite a few TFTs have dual inputs (DVI + D-SUB) that can both be connected at the same time and switched between from the monitor’s menus. It’s not necessarily straightforward though.
Small Paul wrote:
Ah, thanks Patrick. There are, of course, also KVMs.
dave wrote:
I wouldn’t be so hard on Gruber, reading his post in light of what we now know, his comments seem much more intelligent than the MacMind report that he was quoting e.g. they say firewire only, he thinks that’s unlikely for well explained reasons. Score one for Gruber.
Where I think he gets (understandably) hung up is that he’s talking about an iPod and, unlike the mini, photo and classic, the iPod shuffle, despite the name, clearly lacks many of the features that define an iPod:
This is clearly an “if you can’t beat them join them” move though obviously with the classic Apple twist that ensures it does more by doing less.
Mike Purvis wrote:
I’m absolutely interested in the Mac Mini, as a PC user looking for a change, but not really into Linux.
But the biggest plus-point of the Mini is the enormous software bundle. If you check their site, you get a ton of stuff for free, including the entire iLife suite.
Most PC-buffs who buy this will probably pick up the DVD burner upgrade and maybe the memory one too, but it’s definitely a solid system.
Rich wrote:
I wasn’t being that hard on Gruber, certainly no harder than he is being on himself.
Burkhard wrote:
“What a crap name.”
There is already a product called MiniMAC, that might be one reason for the weird name.