Despite yesterday's "fun" announcement from Apple, it's been a slow news week. In fact, the whole of February's been pretty dull.
Yesterday Apple unveiled one new and one revised product. The new product is Apple's iPod Hi-Fi, which is essentially a speaker set for your iPod. Now I'm not a big iPod fan. I just don't get the appeal of listening to music while walking around. Call me old fashioned. So the iPod Hi-Fi really leaves me understandably cold. And that new iPod leather case? If you listen closely you can hear my head hitting the desk as I pass out from boredom.
The revised product is only slightly less thrilling: a revamped Mac mini. The most hyped feature of the new machine is that it now sports a fast Intel processor — quite a step up from the G4 of the previous models. Apple's getting a lot of mileage out of this Intel switch, and they're being very smart about updating the slow, G4-based machines first. Personally, though, I'm more excited about the fact that the new Mac mini comes with gigabit ethernet. This makes it much more viable as a server, which is what I use my (well, the school's) Mac mini for currently. Other cool features: The high-end model boasts a faster DVD Burner that is capable of burning dual-layer discs, and memory can now be upgraded to 2GB. So, aside from the obvious processor enhancement, there is a lot to recommend the new Mac mini over it's predecessor. I will go out on a limb and say that the high-end model gives you a faster processor with an extra core, a larger hard drive, and a much better optical drive, so in my opinion, it's well worth the extra $200 clams. The only bummer about the Mac mini is the use of integrated Intel graphics, which uses free processor power and system memory to enhance graphics performance. (Not that this was a great graphics performer anyway.) The impact of this on overall system performance remains to be seen, but I tend to think it will be negligible.
Still, it's hard for me to get excited about any of this. Lately the rumors have been so much cooler than the reality. That fake video iPod might just have got me to finally cough up the cash for one, just for the cool factor alone. And the idea of a tablet or an ultra-portable gets me pretty hot as well. I'm definitely in the unimpressed column and have really been itching for a new Apple product for some reason. What we got yesterday just doesn't do it for me.
Man, I'm bored. I'm so bored I'm actually writing a post about things I'm not even very interested in. Now that's bored.