Not a car or a laptop.

No, this mini is the smallest mainstream desktop computer. The Apple Mac Mini with a 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 1GB RAM is a small cute box of a computer with everything you need except a monitor and keyboard. It runs Macintosh OS X 10.4 (a.k.a Tiger) and comes with Apple’s iLife ‘08 digital media productivity suite. The Mini includes a 120BG Hard drive, slot-loading DVD writer, integrated video card and built-in 802.11b and 802.11g wireless, Bluetooth 2.0. For expansion there are 4 USB ports and one Firewire port.

There is a new class of buyer for the Mac Mini: the Mac-less Apple iPhone Developer. With the required peripherals, the iPhone SDK (Software Developer’s Kit) and an upgrade to Apple Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard (as well as possibly an upgrade of the Mini’s RAM to 2GB), the Mac Mini becomes a development machine for the killer iPhone app a lot of developers are hoping to write..

Naturally the Mac Mini should not be confused with the iPod Mini which was the predecessor to the iPod Nano.

Posted on July 31st, 2008 by mervyn