New Toys
As I am sure you’ve both heard, Apple released a few new toys today.
iPod Hi-Fi is an iPod speaker system featuring two 80mm mid-range speakers and one 130mm woofer. According to Mr. Jobs it’s “audiophile quality” sound. Any iPod with a dock connector can plug into it, as can almost any device via an audio-in mini-jack (so you iPod shuffle users are not SOL, nor are you AirPort Express users). The down side? It’s three hundred and fifty frickin’ dollars (USD, plus any tax), which seems excessive. Right up until you compare it to the next item released today, that is.
Leather cases for your iPod from Apple. They’re good looking and made from real Italian cow hide, but they don’t close at the top and they cost ninety nine US dollars. Now, I won’t deny that they are fairly attractive cases, but this just seems like fanboy milking to me.
Lastly, Apple refreshed the Mac mini line with Intel CPUs. The new specs are:
- 1.5 GHz Intel Core Solo or 1.66 GHz Intel Core Duo
- 667 MHz system bus
- 512 MB DDR2 667 RAM
- 60 GB or 80 GB hard drive
- Slot-loading combo drive or slot-loading super drive
- Integrated Intel GMA950 graphics
Now, I wasn’t surprised that it’s the Core Solo CPU in the low end machine, but the Core Duo in the higher end one caught me off guard. Not only is the Core Solo more than adequate for everything Apple advertises the Mac mini as being a good machine for, but having a Core Duo in it conceivably takes away from the mind share of the iMac (as in, the iMac has the same CPU as Apple’s lowest end machine).
There is also the integrated graphics card to think about, which is good enough for the video play back that Apple is now hyping for the Mac mini, but it seems funny given that it was just a year ago Apple was mocking low end PCs for having integrated graphics on their Mac mini page.
The price jumped too, to $599 USD and $799 USD respectively for the low and high end models.
Perhaps the prize difference between the Solo and Duo is not too high. More important, maybe the future iBooks share the architecture of the Mini, so we will see a cheap low-end iBook with Solo and a more capable with Duo, and I think this would have sense. With respect to the graphic subsystem, I suspect it will perform far better than expected.
In any case the Mini does not compete with the iMac: if you buy a good 17″ TFT display and a big, fast (external!) HD you will end up spending almost the same money you would have paid for the (superb) iMac.
I too was very surprised by the Core Duo in the Mini, and I am somewhat dissapointed by the intergrated graphics chip. Apparently this is a pretty good one though, so I guess we’ll see. The price jump is more than worth it, it would be nice if they released a (slightly) more stripped down version of the Mini at $399 though, just so they can have a real budget offering. Celeron processor, 40GB HDD, 4200 rpm if it saves much money, no Airport, Bluetooth or Gigabit ethernet. Getting a machine that inexpensive would be nice to have in the line up, but stripped down machines aren’t really what Apple does, so, whatever.
The iPod HiFi seems like a pretty good device, and probably worth the price.
The cases on the otherhand . . . yowza.
bendala,
I am not saying hte mini competes with the iMac directly, I am saying the fact that they share a CPU will detract from the iMacs prestige (for lack of a better word) as they share a CPU and the mini is significantly cheaper, and that is all a lot of regular folk will see.
Zak,
I don’t anticipate Apple releasing a machine with a Celeron CPU because as you say they don’t do stripped down machines. At least not really.
I am dubious as to whether the iPod Hi-Fi is worth the price, it’ll depend on a lot of stuff.