January 14, 2005
i might need a napkin for this one
t.s.o.a. rarely throws it's weight behind many products, but in all the hysteria over the iPod Shuffle (i'm not linking to that, i'm sure there's about 137,624 blog entries about it alreday) i almost missed the rolling out of the Mac Mini which has to be one of the most genius moves Apple has yet made. the article in yesterday's Circuits section didn't even mention it until over halfway through. but a $500 Mac? with a 40 GB Hard Drive, enough RAM for most people and CD burning capabilities? totally unbelievable. and you can double the hard drive size and get a fast processor for just $100 more. and have you seen it? it takes up the space of about four pieces of bread and it weighs only slightly more at 2.9 pounds. how much easier is that to cart around than a laptop? granted you need to have access to a monitor, keyboard and mouse and that gets into the drawbacks, but for the most part you can use any existing items you already have with it without having to necessarily buy new ones. the only other significant drawback that i can see is that it only has 2 USB ports, but a $40 USB hub can solve that problem if applicable. there's also the issue of software, but it comes with a lot of good stuff and how many of you paid for that copy of Photoshop or Microsoft Office on your computers right now anyway?
i've been a Mac supporter for quite some time (really, let's not have that argument. Windows certainly has its advantages and its good points), but never to the point that i would chastise someone for buying a PC. but now, if you can get a computer that looks great, is totally unobtrusive, with an incredibly stable OS on a platform that is almost totally free of viruses and spyware (though those threats are sure to increase if marketshare does) at the same price point more or less of the Dells of the world, i don't know how you can make another choice. actually i do know, but i can no longer condone it.
perhaps Britt Daniel will get royalties from every sale