Apple

The new Mac Mini is indeed $500 (£340). For the money, it’s downright superb, and it’s only a tuner box and some software away from being being a seriously cool video hub at some point later in the year. The only gotchas I can spot are that WiFi and Bluetooth are extra; it’s +£30 for the 80Gb drive rather than the stingy 40Gb standard; more RAM is pretty much essential; and a keyboard and mouse cost extra. Then again, the latter may be a good thing; sell previously-PC-users two-button mice from the start, and their main moan disappears. Oh – one more whine – my PowerMac desktop’s second-hand value just collapsed. But I can live with that. 🙂 The Mac Mini looks like a seriously good bit of kit, at a ludicrously low price. I’m hoping they sell them in the hundreds of thousands. Dad – this would plug into your giant monitor very nicely, then Mum could have the knackered PowerBook and all we need is a new flat-panel monitor, which could be only around £150 now.

The iPod Shuffle is also quite neat. A sensible solution to the whole problem of building an interface for cheap music players – don’t bother. And in so doing, make the price cheap enough that nobody much cares. Clever.

But I’m most impressed with Pages. Which is [modest cough] exactly what I speculated it would be, apart from the table/spreadsheet thing, and – apparently – it does do bibliographies. Page layout and beautiful templates for $79: rock on. Aside from basking in the apparent fact that what you read here was, evidently, closer to the truth than any of the rumour sites; I’ll be buying a copy.

Of particular note: it does widow and orphan control. Applescript permitting, this, with Tiger’s Automater, may be the workflow solution XML has been looking for. Which might, possibly, be Very Big Indeed.

6 thoughts on “Apple”

  1. There’s a few more niggles with the Mac mini. The harddisk seems to be a laptop model, so swapping it for a 400 Gb 7200 rpm drive isn’t going to be possible. Apple says the RAM isn’t user-upgradeable: the single photo of the machine sans cover shows lots of plastic tabs (the kind that always breaks when you open the case). And the video card seems to be aimed primarily at 16:9 displays. Without full specifications I can’t be sure, but it doesn’t look like 1600×1200 will be supported on the VGA port.
    Still, I want one. Finally I won’t have to buy secondhand PowerMacs anymore.

  2. Looks like we are due to be reorganised again.
    The Powerbook works fine if I prop it up on a couple of CDs. to give a little air circulation. So far!

  3. Am I supposed to be grateful for another “hand-me-down” ?? I am very fond of my old Imac. I recognise the winding up noises. !!

  4. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
    I was going to join in with your enthusiasm (yes, I might – gasp! – buy iWork meself) but then I read the comments from Mum and Dad.
    Aren’t parents embarrassing?
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

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