Apple Special Event Today..

By betasp
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fudgetunnel

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I like Apple products too, and have owned MANY of them. But this just seems like a cash grab on their part. The Mini made a really good bare-bones PC for doing the basics. But trying to morph it into a half-ass media center while knocking on more full-featured products deserves ridicule. I'd rather see them put out products that perform their intended purposes well, than see them try to spread their products too thin and do it mediocre.

betasp; this is what I'm referring to;

Memory available to Mac OS X may vary depending on graphics needs. Minimum graphics memory usage is 80MB, resulting in 432MB of system memory available.
Minimum.
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betasp

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I like Apple products too, and have owned MANY of them. But this just seems like a cash grab on their part. The Mini made a really good bare-bones PC for doing the basics. But trying to morph it into a half-ass media center while knocking on more full-featured products deserves ridicule. I'd rather see them put out products that perform their intended purposes well, than see them try to spread their products too thin and do it mediocre.

I'm still better off building my own media center w/ an XPC. And with Shuttle's newer smaller form factors, I might as well price out one of those and see the comparison.

1) What is missing from this half-assed media center?

2) You will not get the integration of the Apple "dog food" or OSX with the Shuttle, but I bet you would save some money. It would be tought to get internal 802.11 and bluetooth, but it could be done. I but in the end, without discounts it would be close to a wash once you factor in the PC equivent of the iLife suite.

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fudgetunnel

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1) What is missing from this half-assed media center?

2) You will not get the integration of the Apple "dog food" or OSX with the Shuttle, but I bet you would save some money. It would be tought to get internal 802.11 and bluetooth, but it could be done. I but in the end, without discounts it would be close to a wash once you factor in the PC equivent of the iLife suite.

Um..maybe recording and watching TV from my couch? Something I'm able to do with MCE2005, along with every other "feature" offered with the Mac Mini, with the exception that I got a Pentium D 830 64bit proc, twice the ram, dedicated video memory and card, triple the hard disk space, and it cost $50 more than the upper-scale Mac Mini with Core Duo (which has a processor so rare that I found 5 major laptop manufacturers shipping systems with that chip with a 10 second google search).

Down side is that I don't get a cute little case, and I have to put up with a oh-so-confusing remote control...and I can't run iLife apps from my couch across the room. Oh. Darn.

I'm sorry...as a Media Center, the mini is a ripoff.

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betasp

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Um..maybe recording and watching TV from my couch? Something I'm able to do with MCE2005, along with every other "feature" offered with the Mac Mini, with the exception that I got a Pentium D 830 64bit proc, twice the ram, dedicated video memory and card, triple the hard disk space, and it cost $50 more than the upper-scale Mac Mini with Core Duo (which has a processor so rare that I found 5 major laptop manufacturers shipping systems with that chip with a 10 second google search).

Down side is that I don't get a cute little case, and I have to put up with a oh-so-confusing remote control...and I can't run iLife apps from my couch across the room. Oh. Darn.

I'm sorry...as a Media Center, the mini is a ripoff.

Seems to me your only gripe is the lack of a DVR. Then maybe the mini is not for you. I ahve a TIVO, so I could care less. Then again, you are heavily invested in MS stuff. You can't have the integration of Apple's "dog food." For you, it is not worth the money. For someone like myself, the money is less of a factor.

This will soon be my workflow...

Record TV shows on my TIVO and send them to iTunes to archive or transfer to my iPod. Rip DVDs on Mac into iTunes. Rip music into iTunes for listening. Add photos into iPhoto. Access all of the above from anywhere on my network with any machine. Play music though my stereo(s) in any room. Watch my videos on any computer or output to any TV (including photos and ripped DVDs). Download any of the above to my, or my wifes's ipod for the road/car viewing or listening (through car's entertainment system).

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jackwanders

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2) You will not get the integration of the Apple "dog food" or OSX with the Shuttle, but I bet you would save some money. It would be tought to get internal 802.11 and bluetooth, but it could be done. I but in the end, without discounts it would be close to a wash once you factor in the PC equivent of the iLife suite.

That's just it. With only one computer, what do I need 802.11 for? And I don't own a single bluetooth device.

While I used iPhoto a lot when I had my powerbook, I'm once again accustomed to managing my photos manually. I never used iMovie much, or iDVD.

If the price was closer to the previous mac minis, I might have gotten it regardless, because I really do like using Macs. But considering I could cannibalize my current PC for parts to go into an XPC media center, I think I'd wind up saving a few hundred bucks in the process. All I'd really need is an XPC barebones, a good card for DVR functionality, an extra storage hdd, and perhaps a new processor. I'd be able to transfer my memory, primary hdd and optical drive.

But on the other hand, there'd be less 'extra' PC stuff for me to sell in an attempt to recoup my losses. So there's pros and cons on both sides. Like I said, i've gotta look it over and price everything out.

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REM2000

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the new mac mini is very interesting and i will in the future grab one.

DVR is a funny issue for the mac mini, as you have people(not all) who use MCE (like myself) who can see the possibility of have DVR on something as small as the mini, and will apple's flare for software design it would be nice to see how they approach the DVR environment. As front row is very elegant and easy to use.

The only thing i don't like seeing during the presentations, is that steve jobs compares the remote controls of the front row system and the MCE system. The MCE will of course have more buttons as it will first have to use a numeric keypad for quick channel access, channel navigation and the ability to record and quickly access recorded content. My Panasonic DVD-RAM / HDD DVR has as many buttons as a MCE, as does the remote for my Mac's EyeTV TV adapter, it's the nature of DVR devices. So i think thats a bit of an unfair comparison.

However the mac mini has always been about tempting windows users to purchase a brand new cheap mac to play with, as they are usually curious about OS X but don't want to pay ?1000+ for a machine they may not like.

I thought the $99 leather cover for the iPod was a little extreme/pricey. The boom box / iPod Hi-Fi looks very good though. I would hold off until some reviews are posted online of the sound quaility, but im up for one.

Overall i happy with the event, i think a nice couple of products have been added, and really this isn't a very special time of year, as macworld has just gone and the next real event is in summer.

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.Neo

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$800 for a system with limited upgrade potential, mediocre hardware, and without a keyboard, mouse or display isn't exactly "cheap" anymore.

No I agree. I don't find the prize very acceptable compared tot the iMac either.

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sundayx Veteran

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Here are the facts on the specifications of the older Radeon 9200 and the new GMA950:

ATI Radeon 9200

- DirectX 8.1 compliant

- Uses R200 technology which was used for the 8500-9200 cards

- The 9200 is actually a *slower* version than the 8500 based cards

- The 9200s use a RV280 core

- Have a core speed of 250Mhz

- Memory speed of 200Mhz

- 128 bit memory interface (12.8GB/s)

- AGP8x connection

- Does support hardware T&L (but very very old)

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon

Intel GMA 950

- DirectX 9.0 compliant.

- Have a core speed of 400Mhz

- Memory speed of 667Mhz (The system's DDR-2)

- Pixel Shader 2.0

- Memory bandwidth of 20GB/s if using 8 lane PCIe or 40GB/s if using 16 lane PCIe

- PCIe connection

- Does not support hardware T&L

So the integrated GMA950 system is faster in every way technically but does not include hardware T&L. But the 9200 uses 2nd generation AI T&L. The X1300-X1800 graphics cards all use 5th generation T&L. That's how old it is.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=183454&page=26

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AppleDave Veteran

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6 D-cell batteries?

Kind of reminds me of my 10 year old radio...

Thats exactly what I thought......the new iBoombox (or whatever) is IMO one of the worst iPod accessories released thus far. I've seen some bad ones (ex: iPod Sex Toy, iPod Boxers, the iPillow etc.) but the design and bulkiness looks horid.

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MonkeyClaw Veteran

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My take on this is that the community, the fans, we, we alone hyped this event. Not Apple, they made it from the beginning a low key. No hints (besides the iCal thing but that just meant there might be some Mac stuff), no big auditorium like most of the major announcements are at, just a simple update with some well fun new products.

This wasn't supposed to be the huge bang, look at all of this stuff, take that competitors kinda of event. This was meant to be, well what it turned out to be, a low key Macworld Keynote clean up. And considering that, this was pretty good.

Now April 1st, that will be the big one. If they screw that up, then we have all the right to be angry. But in all reality, the media even predicted what we saw. MSNBC has a report saying we would see the hifi and the mini. I was disappointed but now I think about it, it was our own faults and I for one am anxious to see what April has in store.

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User6060

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My take on this is that the community, the fans, we, we alone hyped this event. Not Apple, they made it from the beginning a low key. No hints (besides the iCal thing but that just meant there might be some Mac stuff), no big auditorium like most of the major announcements are at, just a simple update with some well fun new products.

This wasn't supposed to be the huge bang, look at all of this stuff, take that competitors kinda of event. This was meant to be, well what it turned out to be, a low key Macworld Keynote clean up. And considering that, this was pretty good.

Now April 1st, that will be the big one. If they screw that up, then we have all the right to be angry. But in all reality, the media even predicted what we saw. MSNBC has a report saying we would see the hifi and the mini. I was disappointed but now I think about it, it was our own faults and I for one am anxious to see what April has in store.

true, we did get carried away, who read countless mac-tablet stories that never turn out true, or the fake ipod video pics, and frontrow with dvr and such

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MonkeyClaw Veteran

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Hahaha, I'm guilty of that, I reported some of those stories, lol. But hey there is always April, and thats when I think they will bring out the big guns. I mean really, its the 30th anniversary!!!

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Matt T

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My take on this is that the community, the fans, we, we alone hyped this event. Not Apple, they made it from the beginning a low key. No hints (besides the iCal thing but that just meant there might be some Mac stuff), no big auditorium like most of the major announcements are at, just a simple update with some well fun new products.

This wasn't supposed to be the huge bang, look at all of this stuff, take that competitors kinda of event. This was meant to be, well what it turned out to be, a low key Macworld Keynote clean up. And considering that, this was pretty good.

Now April 1st, that will be the big one. If they screw that up, then we have all the right to be angry. But in all reality, the media even predicted what we saw. MSNBC has a report saying we would see the hifi and the mini. I was disappointed but now I think about it, it was our own faults and I for one am anxious to see what April has in store.

Well said.

We're all disappointed because we were expecting a lot more - that's our fault, not Apple's. Like MonkeyClaw said, they're probably saving all the big stuff for April 1st.

One thing I don't understand is why everyone is disappointed that the Mac mini has no DVR features. The Mac mini has always been intended to be a budget Mac to help entice PC users - it was never intended to be a media center. I'm surprised they gave it Front Row and the Apple remote, to be honest. Although I agree that both the graphics and the price hike are a huge setback on Apple's behalf, I think we all need to take note of a few things here;

• The low-end Mac mini now has Airport Extreme and Bluetooth as standard

• The high-end Mac mini is so expensive because it has a dual-core processor

• It's faster - maybe not 4x faster like Apple claim, but it's still faster than the PPC models

• You won't find anything that comes close to iLife or OS X on a budget PC

It's plain and simple; the Mac mini is more expensive because it gives you more.

And as for the iPod Hi-Fi, that thing looks sexy IMO. I won't be buying one because I have no use for it, but it looks great. The leather cases seem like a waste of money to me though - $149 (AUD) for a bloody iPod case?! I'll stick to my iPod sock and pocket thanks.

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MonkeyClaw Veteran

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Yea really, that was the only real thing I was mad about, 100 bucks for a leather case. Yes yes yes, its fancy nice hand crafted Italian leather, but still 100 dollars USD!!! And I mean I thought Apple was more environmentally friendly, lol

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