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  • From: Evan Zimmerman <evan.zimmerman AT gmail.com>
  • To: "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] Apple goes for market share
  • Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 09:56:12 -0500

I'm of the opinion that this little box isn't designed for the
computer savvy so much as it is for impulse buyers who want to have a
new computer, or for niche buyers.

I have a friend here at work who saw it and immediately said "yes!" --
he's been looking for a minimal maintenance, cheap machine to setup
for his dad that he won't have to "clean" every month or so or leave a
detailed list of instructions for maintenance and use (reboot, run
this, delete that, don't open IE, etc...).
That guy, and those of us who'd love a little internet machine for a
spare room or the like, are who this is for IMO. And of course the
folks who would never give a mac a second look unless it's a cheap as
the emachines one they saw at compusa.

Alternatively, you could for $100 at the apple store add bluetooth and
keyboard and mouse and plug it into the tv...

On a side note -- I saw sooo many posts, emails etc when the iPod mini
came out saying 'it doesn't do this' 'it's too expensive for that' 'i
can buy a rio for this' ... I bet there is a pretty big market for
this machine even if we can't see it right away :-)


Evan


On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 13:48:16 -0500 (EST), Sil Greene <quack AT ibiblio.org>
wrote:
>
>
> from Scott:
> > On Jan 11, 2005, at 7:28 PM, Sil Greene wrote:
> >>
> >>>> 1.4GHz G4 processor
> >>>> 80gig HD
> >>>> 256MB of PC2700 (333MHz) DDR SRAM, supports up to 1GB
> >>>> ATI Radeon 9200 with 32MB of DDR SDRAM with AGP 4X support
> >>>> Slot-loading Combo Drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
> >>>> One FireWire 400 port; two USB 2.0 ports; DVI output
> >>>> Built-in 10/100BASE-T Ethernet and 56K V.92 modem
> >>>>
> >>
> >> Base price: $599
> >>
> >> Add:
> >> + 75 RAM upgrade to 512
> >> + 100 SuperDrive
> >> + 79 Airport Express card
> >> + 58 wired keybd/mouse
> >> + 149 AppleCare "Enrollment Kit" (?)
> >> ------
> >> $1060
> >
> > Bah. 256 is plenty for doing web / mail / and chat along with typical
> > house
> > hold stuff like Quicken and Word. I can see the need for a SuperDrive,
> > though
> > I have to say, we've had one in this house for the last 3 years and I can
> > recall only burning one DVD with it.
>
> If you're going to do anything with that SuperDrive other than copying a
> DVD, ie, any video/audio processing whatsoever, 256 ain't enough. I
> agree, for what you've listed, it's plenty.
>
>
> > I suppose a keyboard and mouse are needed if you don't have some laying
> > around already.
> >
>
> I have plenty, but my keyboards are PS/2-style only. Though I could
> probably get them cheaper from someone other than Apple, so nix that.
> Still over a grand: $1002.
>
> > Do you get the extended warranty at Best Buy too? ;)
> >
>
> Umm, yes, when I bought my POS (that's not Point-Of-Sale) eMachines
> laptop. I've already used it to replace the original hard drive. I
> expect to get a new laptop through it one of these days. Of course, that
> was my first (and last) major purchase from BestBuy.
>
>
> > I'm thinking of getting one to run as a headless server. (Access would be
> > by
> > vnc and ssh.) I think the base CPU and RAM would be more than enough to
> > handle web and file serving in the house along with odd ball tasks like
> > DNS.
> > For storage I can take my existing IDE drives and put them into a external
> > USB/Firewire enclosure. My only question is will it boot without a
> > keyboard,
> > mouse and display attached and if not what do I need to do to it to fool
> > it
> > into booting. :)
> >
> > I'm on a few DVR/PVR lists as well and see lots of excitement as people
> > trying to figure out the best way to turn this cheap box into full fledge
> > media center. I think in the next 6 months we'll see a lot of development
> > work put in towards this goal, both in Open Source and 3rd party vendors.
> >
>
> I don't know why you'd get one of these just to play web-and-dns server.
> There's a 486 in my closet I'll let you have for $25 that can do just as
> good a job.
>
> Sure, this little Mac would probably be a great media center box, but
> again if it's doing any *processing* of that media (not simply
> capture-and-playback -- think transcoding, editing, or streaming to
> [multiple] other devices) then you definitely want more RAM.
> ---
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