iPod shuffle, Mac mini and more
Today’s SteveNote at MacWorld San Fransisco was a notable one.
In addition to an extended preview of Mac OS X Tiger (which looks great), details on the next release of Keynote and AppleWorks’ successor, Pages (bundled together as iWork), iLife 05 and QuickTime 7, he announced the real treats — Mac mini and iPod shuffle.
- Streaming QuickTime of Expo Keynote
- Mac mini (US link)
- iPod shuffle (US link)
- iWork (US link)
- Tiger
- iLife 05 (US link)
While the Mac mini is a bit reminiscent of the PowerMac G4 Cube, I think this one’s going to be a runaway hit. At $629 Canadian ($499 US), it’s the right computer at the right price. It’s reasonably configurable (although the price on a 1 GB RAM upgrade is monstrous) and unbelievably tiny. The real selling point though, is that Windows switchers can keep their monitors, keyboards, mice, and printers. Oh, and their iPods.
The iPod shuffle is going to be an even bigger hit. I’m betting that lots of these are going to be sold to current iPod users who want a second unit that’s a little less bulky, less droppable and more grab-it-and-go-able. Those who’ve been sitting on the fence can officially jump off at these prices.
Of course, there will be those who complain that it’s not also a GPS/camera phone/HD camcorder; they’ll be wrong if they predict sluggish sales.
Tiger’s looking interesting. Dashboard looks very cool, Spotlight could easily revolutionize everything I do (Mail 2.0 is going to be amazing), and I think developers are quickly going to embrace this system-wide search technology, pushing it far beyond anything Steve Jobs demoed this morning.
