Well hmm how to respond to that, in the most basic root sense it already has, now as to whether the average consumer will embrace it (I’m sure he was speaking to the latter) remains to be seen, but as with anything else, and Apple knows this all to well, all it takes is one killer app and consumers will flock to it.

B.Greenway

filecat13: I predict it’ll be a software revolution, iControl.

Interesting guess, but obviously not this year.

Peter: Personally, I hope Apple goes for the dual-core PowerBooks. Intel is going to be pushing dual-core this year in their marketing and it would be nice to see Apple get a boost from that. They can already claim “dual CPU” in their pro lines, but no one would be offering dual-core notebooks except for Apple.

Oh so close yet so far.

GW: Media Center, A Movie downloading store, a Movie Player base on iPod idea
A new hand held computer Base on the Newton and the iPod, A game Console to compete with the XBOX from Microsoft, and last the biggest rumor out there The Quad G5 at 4+ GHZ” that last one would have been great, but apparently it just wasn’t to be.

This is what MacHTPC is all about; still crossing my fingers for something like this.

Brupe: filecat13 might be on to something. I’ve been thinking about the new tablet rumors, patents, Intel talks, etc. and wonder if Apple may be preparing a tablet-like LCD media controller for the living room that would act as wireless access – a window – to the computer in the den or home office. Instead of walking to your office to change audio or video, you access your computer through the wireless LCD. Perhaps it could recharge with a cable like any Apple laptop does and be priced at two or three hundred dollars. It seems to me that it would compliment a Mac mini nicely in the living room.

Again closer than we could have guessed, but still not quite.

Olivier: I thought Apple decided to stop announcing new hardware at confs, because of all the rumours sites selling their trade secrets during the preceding weeks.

Huh?

jim: I say a controller for Home Theater to extend mac mini.

I was actually thinking the same, oh well maybe next year.

joel: Airport 2.0 with video streaming.

I think easy video streaming is a ways off, at least on Apple hardware.

Keith: Maybe it’s a combined cell phone and iPod mini type device with a small portable HD drive and based around an Intel ARM processor? Something like the new Palm Life Drive but with built in telephony and of course live access to the iTunes Music Store.

May still be in the forthcoming

So there you have it, per usual when trying to guess what Apple may be up to next reality is often stranger than fiction.

B.Greenway

In his latest installment of I, Cringely, Bob reckons all this Intel hub-bub basically boils down to Intel buying Apple, with the goal of pummeling Microsoft into submission and for Job’s to exit Apple, devoting his full attentions to Pixar. Phew that was the longest line of fantasy I’ve typed since I tried to write a screenplay. While I absolutely agree with Cringely that AMD would have been a better fit for supplying processors to Apple, I just can’t see Job’s leaving the helm of Apple to go off and play studio head. And for that matter I cant realistically see Intel wanting to pick up the Apple torch with a merger, don’t see it happening.

That’s the story as I see it unfolding. Steve Jobs finally beats Bill Gates. And with the sale of Apple to Intel, Steve accepts the position of CEO of the Pixar/Disney/Sony Media Company

Bob if you happen to read this, no hard feelings ok? I still think your take on the Mac mini as a video hub was spot-on, but you really lost me with this one.

P.S If you’re right, I didn’t write this my alibi will be alien abduction. After all I didn’t believe the Intel rumors in the first place.

P.P.S Thanks to Jason.S for the cool Apple-Intel logo.
B.Greenway

Wil Shipley of Delicious Monster has posted a few pictures of a new feature that might be included with MS Longhorn, it ahem, shares quite a few similarities with DM, and to be honest a number of other already available media managers, some of which are free. At least the proceeds from CD’s/DVD’s you buy through the DM interface go to charity, will MS do the same? If you wondered about that more than .5 seconds please pinch yourself.

Anyone familiar with Delicious Monster (yeah two DM themed posts in a row, sue me) should recognize the similarities between DM and the pictures posted on Shipley’s blog. Am I outright stating MS stole some design cues from DM? Well no but Wil seems more than a bit ticked off about it. What’s more annoying than some not so subtle “inspiration” being derived from an existing product, is that the same company will throw out terms like “innovative” and “new” or even berate us with the dreaded “have more fun” “get more done” “stay in touch” campaign.

But wait it gets worse, unbelievable but true, Microsoft’s Windows VP Jim Allchin actually had the audacity to call Tiger “a peripheral to the iPod”, hahaha does that mean windows is the illegitimate love child of the TRS-80 and the Altair? Peripheral to the iPod? What special brand of hallucinogen is he on?

I might be a tad venomous here, but I’m already sick of hearing how “innovative” Longhorn will be, and we’re what a year and a half from its launch? Oh brother, 18 months of hearing about the many ways year-delayed-horn is going to make my life better. Friday is looking especially good this week.

p.s To my dear friends who still run windows, please don’t take my comments personally, Tiger is almost here, sell that PC and invest in an Apple. Shortly after purchasing your new Apple the text above won’t seem so weird.

B.Greenway

The first on my list of soon to be orphans was a 1Ghz Sony Vaio laptop, not a terrible machine mind you; just one whose day has come and gone. So with this is mind, I sat out to find a replacement, oh those Powerbooks are sexy, but significantly out of my price range, hey how about an iBook I thought.

I started pricing them out, not too bad, of course a little more than a windows machine, but it’s worth it, what’s this a 1.33Ghz on the Apple refurb site for almost 300.00 (shipped) less than new? Ok I thought, I’m ready to buy, but one nagging thought kept popping up in my head, what about the battery? After all the battery is the number one expendable item in a laptop, I wonder if they put new batteries in the refurbished laptops?

All right, I’m looking all over Apple’s site, cant find any mention of it, the refurbishment process description seems purposely vague, I know I’ll give’em a call! Seemed plausible enough right? I mean I’m about to spend over 1100.00 dollars with them, surely they wont mind a few questions. Wrong, to put it bluntly, a prick answered my call, made me feel like a degenerate for even asking such a stupid question, and then proceeded to insult me three different ways. He went on to press me into making a decision on the spot, and gave me grief for letting him know, I’d just buy it on-line if he wanted to be a putz about it.

Already long story short, I went ahead and bought an iBook, not through him (to bad about that commission – oh yeah they get a commission according to him) but through the on-line store. I couldn’t have been more displeased with my buying experience, but I have no doubt the actual product will be more enjoyable. Without sounding overly whiney, what I really want to impart here is this, it’s your hard-earned dollars large companies are after, make sure and let them know if you feel you’re treated poorly during the purchase. It may or may not do a damn thing, but the alternative, just letting it go as status quo, will surely mean more of the same down the road.

B.Greenway

Listen don’t get me wrong, I’m a believer, but you have to admit it’s quite an undertaking, the whole premise of going to existing bandwidth suppliers (Digital CATV and Direct Broadcast Satellite) with the goal of piggybacking on their networks, to deliver content to those same customer’s, sounds a little far fetched.

Lets say your Apple (lucky you) and I’m oh say Comcast (yay I’m rich) you say, we’d like about 10 to 15% of your current bandwidth please. Of course I’ll sit there and wait for the punch line, I might even try to crack a joke and say you need to download something big? Yeah that’s a silly analogy, but my point remains, where’s the benefit for those with the big data pipes? Which gets me to the point, I know, about time.

Those of us, who live in the real world, understand that such an arrangement would boil down to cold hard cash. Of course Apple has it, but why spend it? If I had to take the magic eight ball approach here, I’d say that this content delivery mechanism will become a reality, but not quite as fast or with the same depth that some are predicting. Even with H.264 a hi-def movie would be well over today’s 6 or 7 gigabytes that a standard definition DVD takes up.

Can you really see a system that takes many hours worth of downloading at current speeds and takes up 5 to 10% of the average hard drive’s space as a viable approach to deliver one movie? I might be a little narrow sighted here, but I don’t see it given current compression schemes and typical end user connection speeds. Which is why I’m perplexed, it’s the technical issues around the premise that have me scratching my head, not Apple’s potential in pulling it off.

B.Greenway

New! 30 GB iPod photo, only $349

Carlos has a really informative site, and by all accounts has recording hi-def on a Mac down to a science. We’re always looking for confidants or ‘elders’ in the scene, so chalk him up to ‘been there done that’. I really really like his Kill Bill Vol.1 HD-to-DVD PQ Comparison, it’ll go into my tool bag as a perfect reference for what up-converting can do to hi-def images.

Well after a world wind tour of the Far East and extreme northwestern part of the United States, my mini finally made its way to Atlanta this morning. I don’t think their going to fall for my ’sick routine’ again at work, one dentist and doctor trip already this month. Oh well needless to say I’ll be busy this evening.

Apple is pleased to report that a shipment for the following order is on its way to you.

Web Order Number: *********
PO Number: **********
Apple Sales Order Number: **********
Apple Delivery Number: **********
Apple Customer Number: ******

The following products shipped on 01/29/2005.

Product # Product Description Qty Ext Price
______________________________________________

Z0B807C26 MAC MINI/512/80G/CMD/OS-X/LL 1 ***.**
With the following configuration:

Memory 065-5337 512 MB DDR400 – 1 DIMM.
Hard Drive 065-5326 80 GB ULTRA ATA DRIVE
Optical Drive 065-5329 Combo (CD-RW/DVD-ROM)
Wireless 065-5346 None
Modem 065-5328 56k V.92 Modem
Custom SW I 065-4683 None
Custom SW II 065-4681 None
Country Kit 065-5321 Country Kit
MAC OS LANGUAGE 065-5323 Mac OS X

B.Greenway

P.S I know this isn’t really earth shattering news, but I’m damn excited.

Thomas Hawk posted today about some bad news he got following an upgrade to the 2005 edition on his Windows Media Center HP system:

In the back of my mind I remembered something about a MPEG decoder and finally after more searching I remembered that I needed to download and install a new DVD decoder. Ok, so I should have known better — but, geez, so should the HP tech. Anyways, I download the 30 day trial decoder from Nvidia and everything was fine. My wife of course was not happy with me as she had to sit there without television in the living room for the four hours that I dealt with this.

I still can’t believe that Microsoft did not include some kind of free DVD decoder with the 2005 upgrade — or at least hit me with an error message that said, “hey idiot, you need a DVD decoder,” instead of the very random, “the required video files are missing or corrupt.” By choosing to cheap out on the DVD decoder they add to the aggravation and decrease the WAF (wife acceptance factor) immeasurably.

Everything is fine now but it reminded me why so many people hate computers and why there still may be quite a bit of hesitancy for people to move them into their living rooms. I barely have the patience to deal with issues like installing a new DVD decoder, uninstalling corrupted drivers and reinstalling new drivers, going to websites and downloading patches etc. And although I’m nowhere near the PC expert that I should be, there are a hell of a lot of people who know a lot less about PCs than I do. I can only imagine the fear of moving a PC into their living room and dealing with these complexities.

As the market for the MacHTPC develops, developers and product designers will need to keep a single mantra in mind – Keep it Simple. Features are great to have, but they are not required because if you fail at ease of use what difference does it really make? Make sure your application or device connects simply and works everytime it is called into action.

While there are already more than a few dare I say “bolt on” components for the mini as well as any other Mac for that matter, you can’t current buy an out of box configuration that matches what Windows Media Center can offer, though as our readers here will certainly agree, that would mean running Windows. This pending market needs to focus intensely on simple installation procedures if any are needed at all other than basic connectivity to announce the device as a part of your system.

I’m torturing my wife enough with the developing changes in our living room… help me prove it’s a worthwhile and wonderful change.

– Jonathan Greene

Get a Mac mini from Amazon today!