TUAW is reporting that the Mac Mini will now be a little black and aluminum box which will match the color scheme of the iMac. The optical drive will now be a option according to the site and the lip of the box will partially conceal the nature of the optical drive much like the Time Capsule. While we are still trying to figure out exactly what this will look like, it does make some sense to move in that direction.
TUAW goes on to confirm that the launch will be at Macworld and the optional optical drive will likely be SATA which are both pretty standard rumor fare at this point. Also, expect a NVIDIA 9400 Chipset and updated processor and hard drive options that miror MacBook options.
Perhaps without the Optical drive we'll see a sub $500 price point? We can dream can't we?
BTW, that picture ain't it
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
Comments
any fool can guess it'd be
any fool can guess it'd be sata over pata, thats like saying "it will use a C2D instead of a G4 - duh".
Man I shoulda become a mac-blog-blag-artist like everyone else...
TUAW also says that the "lip"
TUAW also says that the "lip" will also provide cooling, so the vents on the back will be removed (Yeah!).
About the sub $500 price point: I doubt that, mainly because the optical drive should be replaces with a second HD if you choose that option (grat move for busnesses: more storage rather than tons of unused optical drives will be an appreciated move)
In general tuaw source add the "cooling lip"and the (probably obvious) aluminum+black design to the things that macminicolo.net told us here: http://www.macminicolo.net/state2008.html , so I think that these rumors are probably true.
I doubt the back plastic part
I doubt the back plastic part is true, it wouldn't work in the Mac mini form factor. More likely it will use Aluminum and chrome or aluminum and black glass.
I don't agree: there must be
I don't agree: there must be at least one plastic part for Wi-Fi, and I think that the white plastic top will be replaced whith black plastic covered from glass (a la iMac/Macbook)
Keeping cost low
I'm interested in Apple updating the Mac Mini but would also like to see them keep cost and power consumption low for consumers. They could easily do this by using the Intel Atom processor and NVIDIA Geforce 9400 instead of the Intel Core 2 Duo and NVIDIA Geforce 9600. This would then make the Mac Mini more affordable thus more competitive in the global market. For those looking to have access to a wider range of media Apple could include the option for consumers to pay extra to replace the standard Superdrive with a Blu-Ray DVD RW drive. This would of course increase overall cost but would be significantly less because of the use of Atom CPU and Geforce 9400 GPU.
I agree
I think a C2 Atom CPU for the Mac Mini would be an EXCELLENT CHOICE and it not only reduces power consumption but keeps the cost down. I have a netbook with the Atom CPU and it is fine for even modest photoshop work and it runs Windows well.
Here is hoping - but with Apple I am usually disappointed.
macmini CPU power
the Atom is great for small battery powered devices. yet lacks the processing power which apple put in the mac mini and macbook.
there is no point in releasing a mac mini which sacrifices power to save on a couple of watts and hour power usage. as it will only get people to look elsewhere for the computer they want.
I agree with JensonB. My
I agree with JensonB. My guess is it would look more like this:
http://www.macpredictions.com/2009/01/could-new-mac-mini-and-apple-tv-be...
Also, I suspect this new Mac mini will merge with the Apple TV product line - the two together would be far stronger than the sum of their parts.
design
that would be an amazing design, a design to fall in love with, so sexy!
Refresh
It'll be good to see a Mac mini refresh.
I can easily picture it being
I can easily picture it being a black glass and aluminum time capsule look a like.
"a option"
speaking of options, you might want to turn on that grammar checker.
It better has firewire
I so much hate grammer trolls..theys are about the most inoying around. Dis mini better not have the same debackle as the macbooks and have Firewire! Thats all I care about. My mac minis are all media servers with a lot of firewire hard drives...Faster video and firewire!
all i want is a mac mini that
all i want is a mac mini that is dual link dvi compatible, if so I will buy 5 of these!