The Year of High-Definition Video?

Why the Mac Mini may be more than just a low-cost Mac for “switchers”

Waking up the afternoon of the MacWorld Keynote is a bit like waking up on Christmas morning, but better. Not only is one spared the need to interact with family, but the gifts are certainly leagues ahead of underwear and chocolate.

This morning, I awoke to find that Apple had graced us with many new products, which seem to confirm most of the rumours, and put to rest some people’s concerns.

While the iPod Shuffle is nifty, I already have an iPod and I could not imagine having anything less than my entire music collection with me at all times. Still, it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that it will quickly dominate the low-end flash-based digital music player market—especially considering that it has the brand recognition advantage as well as the more verbose feature set.

The iLife ’05 suite’s applications featured some rather nice improvements. I’ll most likely end up getting it, but it’s not really the sort of thing that makes for really exciting writing. I mean, how many of you out there really want to hear me go off about the HD features in the new iMovie HD, or the multi-track audio recording ability of GarageBand 2, or the new books and editing features available in iPhoto 5? They’re definitely cool things if you’re in to them (which I am), but they’re like stocking-stuffers.

iWork is new, and definitely cool. Keynote 2 still beats the pants off of Microsoft PowerPoint. And while iWork definitely needs a spreadsheet application, Pages seems to be worth the price of iWork on its own. You’d probably think that there’s something wrong with me if I told you that a new word-processing and page-layout application can get me aroused—and I’d probably agree with you—but Pages is definitely exciting to me. It’s basically all that I’ve been looking for in a word-processing application, but with the page-layout abilities of applications like Adobe InDesign—and it’s less than 1/8 the price. As soon as I’m able to get my hands on a copy, you better believe I’m going to write a review on it.

By far, though, I believe that the one thing revealed at MacWorld San Fransisco ’05 that will have the most impact will be the Mac Mini. Simply, it is the low-cost, bare-bones, entry-level Mac for which hesitant “switchers” have been waiting so long. I cannot count the number of times that I’ve heard “I’d get a Mac if they weren’t so expensive” from my non-Mac-using friends. Now my reply can be a simple “It’s only $500.”

I had been hesitant about getting a computer for my TV, since I would inevitably want it to be a Mac—I’ve had too many bad experiences with Windows machines used for TV-boxes. But the main dilemma, of course, was having to spend that much money just on a computer to hook up to the TV. Thanks to the Mac Mini, I can now get a computer that’s the size of a video-game console—and that already supports wide-screen resolutions out of the box—to hook up to my TV for only $500.

I’m probably not alone in this thought, either.

As a Mac user, I’ve heard all the ignorant Mac-bashing apologies out there: “They’re good for graphics”, “They’re good for video”, et cetera. While those statements are true, Macs are (of course) “good for everything else” as well. However, when all of these people are shopping around for a low-cost computer to hook up to their TV, they’ll still remember that statement: “Macs are good for video.” Although it does remain to be seen, the Mac-bashers might have provided more steam for Apple’s train than anything else.

Nevertheless, this is clearly going to be bigger than just having a cheap, bare-bones Mac tower to entice PC users to the Mac platform—the compact design and low cost ensures that people who weren’t even necessarily thinking of switching might just take the dive. After all, it’s only $500. This is the Power Mac G4 Cube the way it should have been.

My main computer is an 800MHz G4 iMac, and while I could certainly use a faster machine, I find it adequate for all my computing needs; it handles any job I throw at it quite well. This is not to say that I’m one of the “I just use the Web and email” crowd— I use my iMac for everything—however I think that the Mac Mini will appeal to both consumers and power-users alike. A friend of mine uses a PowerBook G4 that runs at 1.5GHz—the current top-of-the-line model—and it is noticeably faster than my iMac. Aside from a scant 250MHz in the processor department, the base-model Mac Mini is just as fast. This machine may not be a G5, but it should be more than adequate as a living room multimedia centre.

Noticing a theme?

This computer isn’t just about enticing “switchers”; I believe that it is also part of Apple’s drive to enter the “living room” market. Why the living room? Because that’s where we watch our movies and relax to our music.

It seems clear, after watching the development of everything that led to the release of the iTunes Music Store, that we’re witnessing a similar gradual build towards an online movie store. Notice, for example, the special emphasis that Apple keeps putting on H.264 video; it looks rather similar to the hoopla that was given to the AAC codec prior to the iTunes Music Store being unveiled.

Is it any coincidence that the Mac Mini is smaller than most video-game consoles? Make no mistake: Apple wants this computer in your living room. For proof you need look no further than the Mac Mini’s Accessories page, where an Apple DVI to S-Video/composite video converter is only the 6th item listed. Look two rows below that, and you’ll see a device that gives you optical sound output through USB (the Mac Mini already has a headphone output jack on it). Four rows below that? A remote control for your Mac Mini’s media applications. Everything about this computer seems to scream “plug me in to your TV!” And all without Apple saying a word about it; just like they didn’t say a word about the iTunes Music Store.

Of course, only time will tell if I’m correct or not, but I can’t help but see this as a grab for more than just PC market share. And even if that’s all it is, it’s still a pretty good attempt.