New From Apple and Other Musings

Today saw the release of an updated line of iMacs from Apple. This update expands the iMac line in both directions, going both toward the low end as well as the high end.

In releasing the new 24" iMac Apple has filled the space between the iMac line and the Mac Pro line. What puzzles me, however, is what the expansion toward the low end (in the form of the $1000 17" iMac) does for Apple, as the new iMac encroaches on the Mac mini line. Specifically, only $200 separate the high-end mini from the low-end iMac, and while it's true that the iMac actually has weaker stats in some areas than the mini (specifically in the optical drive), you get a nice wide-screen 17" display, faster and larger HDD, keyboard and mouse, iSight camera and significantly more powerful Inter Core 2 Duo (as opposed to Core Duo in the mini) processor in the iMac.

So what this is resulting in, for me, is a little confusion about what Apple is intending to do with their mini. It seems that the current price of the computer makes it unattractive in relation to the iMac. If Apple doesn't come out with a significant price reduction or feature increase for the mini, Apple will have itself to blame for turning the mini into a dog.

This confusion about product specs and led me to reflect back on my thoughts on creating a new hardware paradigm/platform (ref. Utopian View (of Hardware)). I'd like to think that, under a sufficiently elevated model, products could be intelligently designed and promoted in such a way as to make understanding them simple and free of drama. Maybe that's naive.