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Lucky Mac mini buyer got Snow Leopard disc in the box?
If his story is to be believed (and it seems pretty believable), an anonymous tipster to Engadget Japanese got a nice surprise with his recent Mac mini purchase: a Snow Leopard install disc. It's one of those vanilla hardware-specific install discs, dubbing itself Mac OS version 10.6, and clearly packing the goods if the screenshots don't lie. This only adds confusion to the ship date, which has been listed as August 28th on Apple's online store, dubbed as "September" elsewhere, and obviously been totally disregarded in this specific case. No matter what, it looks like we won't have long to wait. Hit up the read link for a couple of Japanese-infused screencaps.
TUAW Guide: Setting up the Ultimate Mac mini Home Theater
The Mac mini has always been the perfect form factor for a media center appliance (often called a Home Theater PC/HTPC). It's extremely small, almost completely silent and it can easily blend into an existing electronics shelf - or be hidden away completely. The lack of a refresh (and rumors that the line was going to be discontinued), coupled with technical specs that didn't justify the price-point, have led many would-be HTPCers to write off the Mac mini as an option because they assume it is just too expensive. However, as more and more content moves online and people become accustomed to getting their media from a computer, the idea of a HTPC is starting to make sense to more and more families. Taking off where netbooks left off, nettops are starting to enter the marketplace. These low-priced machines are diminutive, low-powered and connect easily to a television set. There's just one problem. Although nettops are pretty good at playing back regular video content, they absolutely choke when it comes to Flash, Silverlight or any other streaming content. Still, when you look at the numbers, nettops aren't much more inexpensive than a Mac mini. You get what you pay for, too: the mini is much more powerful and can actually be used as a workhorse computer. Thanks to updated hardware and a much-improved graphics chipset, the current revision really hits the sweet-spot for the ultimate HTPC. Although many of us have longed for Apple to release an official media center product that brings the Mac mini and the Apple TV together, the current Mac mini is more than capable of serving as that product right now. Now that Apple has allowed the purchase/rental of some high-definition films via iTunes, the media content options for the Mac mini match that of the Apple TV and then some. Last month, Robert wrote about his experience transforming his "Switcher-Dad's" mini into a nice Mac media center. In mid-June, my fiance and I bought a 2009 Mac mini (the 1GB 2.0GHz model). For the last few months, I've been testing hardware, accessories and lots and lots of software to make it into the best HTPC around. My goal was simple: my Mac mini needed to work with my existing surround sound setup and it needed to seamlessly connect to the FreeNAS media server where several terabytes of audio and video files reside. It needed to connect and work with our other Macs -- as well as our Windows 7 machines -- and it needed to be silent and simple, with an interface that a visitor or guest could easily suss out. Read on for tips and tricks to get the most out of your machine's hardware and software, as we transform a 2009 Mac mini into the ultimate HTPC! Part I: the hardware side Part II: the software side
Boxee secures Series B round, plans for more features and more developers
Just eight-months after closing a Series A round of financing, media center startup Boxee has just closed another round of financing. The Boxee team has secured another $6 million in funding, led by Boston-based General Catalyst. Given the economic climate (especially for start-ups), two financing rounds in the span of a year is pretty impressive. What's really exciting, for Mac and Apple TV users (assuming they haven't gone all Aron on us) is that this means that Boxee can now focus on bringing users more features. As a company, they can also hire more developers to continue to make the experience as good as it can be. I talked to Andrew from Boxee last night and pointed out some of the plans that Boxee has in mind that are really exciting for fans of the home media center space. Make the Product Better -- the Boxee beta is scheduled tentatively for later this fall. The goal is to bring the Boxee experience to the mainstream. I often forget that Boxee is still in alpha, but more improvements and refinements to the interface and the platform is just a good thing. More Content -- The Hulu kerfuffle notwithstanding, more and more streaming media services are seeing the value in the 10-foot viewing experience. What will separate Boxee from the Vudu or Hulu Desktops of the world is what content it can deliver to users. Attract Developers -- Despite launching a big API campaign, the Boxee App Store really hasn't taken off the way that some users (and developers) have hoped. I personally think that the variety of different platforms that are based on the same framework (XBMC) is part of the problem. Deciding to write your plugin for Plex or XBMC or Boxee can be difficult, especially since converting amongst the services is possible, but not easy. The team wants to make this easier. Get Boxee on more devices -- The Apple TV and Boxee have been a great match (pure technical limitations for stuff like Netflix and full HD *.MKV files aside), but obviously getting onto more and more devices is the key to keeping development fresh and more content available. I think Boxee has been a tremendous boon to the Mac and the Apple TV communities (we got it first, which I think was recognition that Mac owners are frequently the first to do lots of HTPC stuff) and in the last few months, Boxee as a platform has really improved. My forthcoming (I swear!) Ultimate Mac mini HTPC series will dive into some more of my favorite Boxee Apps and features. What are some of your favorite Boxee apps and add-ons so I can make sure to try them out and add them to my list?
Behold! My Mac mini media center
For those of you that haven't heard me tell the beginning of this story on the TUAW talkcast, you might recall that my dad the switcher upgraded his Mac mini to a sweet new Mac Pro. So what could I do with an extra Mac mini? Maybe a server? Maybe a doorstop? I know! A media center! I had cable service, a DVD player, and a TiVo Series 2. My goal was to combine all of those things into one set-top-box -- the Mac mini -- and maybe even unsubscribe from some of the monthly services. After I bought the Mac mini from my dad (the switcher), I hooked it up to my old, standard-definition TV. The Mac mini Media Center -- M³C for short -- was born. The video experience was sub-optimal, owing mostly to my 10-year-old CRT that occasionally turned black-and-white (or lost video altogether). I knew it was time for a new TV. I promised myself that as a reward for finishing a series of challenging home improvement projects (replacing a bathroom sink and installing new floors, to name two) I would get myself the high-definition TV I always wanted. That TV arrived on Wednesday. Now, I can share with you how to set up the easiest, most awesome M³C of your own -- for less money than you think.
To AppleCare or not to AppleCare -- that is the question
The following is a re-enactment of the mysterious and sudden failure of Megan Lavey's MacBook. It was the evening of Tuesday, July 14, 2009. Megan Lavey heads out to the movies to watch the eagerly anticipated Harry Potter and Half-Blood Prince. But the excitement of the night was short lived. Upon her arrival home, Megan found her MacBook in an unconscious state. She tried several attempts to revive it: plugging it and unplugging it, removing and reinserting the battery, as well as performing an SMC reset. However, these attempts proved futile. In a last ditch effort, Megan made an emergency visit to her local Apple store to meet with a genius. They had both good news and bad news. The good news was that they identified the problem with her MacBook (the logic board) and could save it, but -- and here comes the bad news -- could cost up $750 to repair. What's worse, Megan didn't have AppleCare coverage. In a state of shock and sadness, Megan leaned on the shoulders of her fellow TUAWers, each of whom offered words of encouragement her: Chris Rawson: "My wife's mid-2007 MacBook is having the exact same issue right now. Luckily, it's covered by AppleCare, and going to the local repair place ASAP." Erica Sadun: "":( :( :("" Sang Tang: "Hey, this would make an interesting post. I'm going to write something on this." There are many Megans in the world, and each is faced with the difficult task of deciding whether or not a repair is worth its cost. It's also times like these that one regrets not purchasing AppleCare, for often times repair costs outweigh the cost of AppleCare. And this raises the question. Should you purchase AppleCare? Several months back, TUAW's Robert Palmer penned a piece on why he believes AppleCare is worth it. This post expands upon that and provides examples of when AppleCare is and isn't justified.
The mighty mini, take two: DIY video baby monitor
What do you get when you combine a new parent on maternity leave with a love of gadgets and Apple products? Why, you get "baby monitor overkill!" In response to Dave Caolo's recent ode to the Mac mini, I figured it was time to step up. I had two things gathering dust: my old standalone iSight, a gorgeous example of Apple design sadly idle since the advent of built-in iSights, and a lovely new Intel Mac Mini that was recently scored on sale at MicroCenter with plans to set it up for my older two kids once I could get my hands on a small LCD monitor. I figured in the meantime it would serve nicely as a baby monitor, since I couldn't find a matching transmitter/receiver pair among the various baby monitors I had accumulated over the years. My idea was that it would live discreetly, headless and tailless (monitor, keyboard, and mouse-free) in the baby's room, and broadcast both locally on my network and also wide-area so grandparents could tune in remotely. For the initial setup, I needed a monitor, but fortunately my TV has a PC (VGA) port, which I used to configure the mini. I set it to login automatically to the main account and join my Airport network. In System Preferences, I enabled screen sharing and added iChat as a login item. In iChat, I enabled Bonjour and instant messaging, added myself as a buddy, and restricted chats to preapproved users under security preferences. Because I didn't want to connect via screen sharing every time I wanted to initiate a chat, I typed the following into Terminal so that it would auto-accept any incoming video chats: defaults write com.apple.ichat AutoAcceptVCInvitations 1 After that, I set it adrift on the network. From my main computer, I watched the mini pop up on Bonjour after reboot, and we were off and running. While this worked great for my own local use, it had some inherent restrictions: remote users (aka "grandparents who love to watch sleeping grandsons") couldn't join the chat easily. Spouses at work had issues with company restrictions on AIM. Plus, it was iPhone-unfriendly; the holy grail for me was turning the iPhone into a video terminal that followed me around. I went through a few different ideas: private channel on Justin.tv (great for multiple viewers, but awash in advertising, restricted at work, and unavailable on iPhone), Skype (great video, automatic call acceptance and limited iPhone capabilities, but terrible for multiple viewers), and complicated setups involving QuickTime Broadcaster. Not wanting to reinvent the wheel (well, no more than I already was doing), I hit upon SJKM's iCam software, which is an iPhone application & accompanying cross-platform video streaming tool specifically designed for video monitoring, available in the iTunes store for $4.99. Initially dismissed for lack of audio, it has since enabled audio monitoring and non-iPhone web access, making it an almost perfect setup. Why "almost?" Well, for reasons I cannot quite figure out, the video is much choppier than AIM, Bonjour, Justin.tv, or Skype. But it works over 3G and Wi-Fi, and it connects multiple viewers without requiring conference setup. And now, with SJKM's latest update, iCam can run in the background and push notification will alert me to sound or video motion. I have not yet enabled that feature, as it is a $.99 add-on and still pending Apple approval in the store. Ultimately, I ended up using a variety of different applications, but I can report a lot of very satisfied relatives dreamily cooing at the computer screens from Portland, OR, to Philadelphia, PA. All thanks to the mac mini and the standalone iSight. And one very cute baby (if I do say so myself.)Upcoming: that's great, but can you make it work in the dark? Adventures in IR.....
Ask TUAW: OpenCL support in Snow Leopard, Boot Camp, automatic importing into iPhoto, and more
Wednesday means it's time for another Ask TUAW! For this edition we've got questions about what Macs will support Snow Leopard's forthcoming OpenCL acceleration, using Boot Camp with multiple partitions, connecting a Mac mini to HDMI, automatically importing images into iPhoto, and more. As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X (we'll assume you're running Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions.
Mac mini and Dropbox: Getting it done
Yesterday I wrote about my love of the Mac mini. So dependable and unobtrusive, it's the Honda Civic of computers. In the post, I briefly described how we use Dropbox to send routinely-updated Keynote files to the mini. A few of you wrote to ask for details, so I decided to share that information here on the blog. We use two pieces of software: Dropbox and iCal.DropboxHere's the setup. First, the Mac mini is connected to the projector in the Projection Room above the theater via DVI. Every day, it runs a slideshow before the orientation film. That slideshow contains sponsorship information, museum news, etc. It's updated once a week or so by someone in the art department (we'll call her "Janie"). Janie's desk is a couple hundred yards and two buildings away from the Projection Room. The Keynote file lives in a Dropbox folder that both Janie's PC and the mini can access. Of course, we don't want Janie editing the slideshow while it's running before a room full of guests. That's where iCal comes in.iCalWe stop showing the film at 4:00 PM and Janie arrives for the day at 9:00 AM, so we set up two repeating iCal events. The first event launches the slideshow in the morning. Every weekday at 8:45 AM (doors open at 9:00), there's a repeating iCal event with an alarm set to open the slideshow where it lives in Dropbox. Note that the show has been set to run at launch and loop indefinitely in Keynote.What about updating? Easy. We stop running the slideshow at 4:00 PM and Janie leaves for the day at 5:00 PM. A second repeating iCal event has an alarm that runs the following super-simple Applescript:Tell application "Keynote"quitEnd tellThe script does just what you expect -- it kills Keynote. This runs at 4:05 PM each weekday, and frees Janie to spend 10 or 15 minutes updating the file from her PC just before she goes home. The next morning, the first iCal event re-launches the slideshow and the cycle repeats.That's how two free pieces of software (iCal and Dropbox) combine with an inexpensive, consumer level one to create a simple and effective solution to a problem. Best of all, it doesn't require a computer science degree or even a week with a giant manual. The iCal events and script are invisible to Janie. All she knows is, "I open the folder on my PC, change the slideshow, hit Save and I'm done." Sure, we could have dumped it on a central server, set up some sort of FTP voodoo that would have given Janie a headache, etc. But why? If the simple solution works, use it.If you try something similar, let me know how it goes. Thanks to everyone who asked about this.
The mighty mini
While the iPhone, iPod and laptops get most of the glory, the Mac mini chugs quietly along, doing its job well and making owners happy. Earlier at my day job, I was working with one of our minis and recognized how I rely on it to perform a critical function without the slightest hesitation. In other words, it's time to give the little guy some recognition.When I'm not blogging for you folks, I'm managing the web presence and other tech goodies of a large museum here in balmy Massachusetts. When customers arrive in our lobby, they can view a slide show of what's new via a gorgeous HDTV hung above the ticket counter. Behind the HDTV is a Mac mini running Keynote. Once a week, the art department sends an updated Keynote presentation to the mini via Dropbox. This simple and reliable system is powered by an Intel-based mini.Here's the best part. Before our guests move on to the exhibits, they view a brief orientation film and slide show that displays sponsor information. Thousands of people watch both the orientation movie and slideshow every week. Behind it all is a G4 Mac mini (pictured on the right*). This machine has been absolutely rock solid. Again, the art department uploads new slide shows to it via Dropbox and the whole operation couldn't be simpler. When I look at the Laptop Hunter ads, and I see Lauren squealing over her Dell, I think, "Would I trust that machine to do what this mini does when it's 4 or 5 years old? Heck, no." The G4 in question is stock from the factory. Plus, if its HD croaks tomorrow, the only critical bit of data -- the slide show and movie -- lives on Dropbox so we're covered. In a pinch, we've got a Mac Pro that could take on the workload in under 10 minutes.In a world where the new and shiny gets most of the attention, the plain and reliable is often overlooked. So here's a post to praise the Mac mini. The tiny, go-anywhere, do-anything, ultra-reliable computer that I absolutely love. No wonder there are racks full of them at Macminicolo and other facilities.Now I'm certain there are others out there with dutiful minis. Home servers, media centers, carputers, etc. If that's you, send a snapshot to Flickr and tag it TUAWmini. We'll post some of our favorites this weekend.*No, it doesn't live on the floor. I moved it to compose the shot. Rest assured that it was returned to its cozy shelf immediately after.
Volleyball-playing robot has Mac mini brain, heart of a champion
Volleyball-playing robots may only come around every ten years or so, but they at least bring along some fairly big improvements when they do show up -- like actual mobility, in this case. Of course, "volleyball-playing" is still a bit of a stretch. The bot is actually designed to be more of a training aid, with it making use of a range of sensors, built-in GPS, a compass, and an iSight camera (all linked to a Mac mini) to track down balls and set them up for spiking drills. As you can see in the unfortunately short video after the break, all of that more or less works as advertised, although it seems that we'll still have to wait quite a while for the inevitable robot vs. robot match.
The ViBook, additional displays via USB
I reviewed the Village Tronic ViDock a while back, and I was happy to have the opportunity to take a look at one of their more entry-level solutions for adding additional monitors to machines without an additional video port. This one, the ViBook, is a USB-to-DVI solution. As was the case with my previous experience with Village Tronic products, I was duly impressed by their classy packaging. But I won't dwell on the shell here (no more rhyming, I mean it!). The device itself is compact, well-engineered and, yes, shiny. It connects to your computer via a standard USB cable plugged into any powered USB 2.0 slot. It's designed to connect in one of several ways to the monitor: directly attached to the monitor's video port via a compact male-to-male adapter, via a cable directly connected to its embedded female adapter, or -- in a related manner -- via a short cable with the body of the device semi-permanently mounted on the back of the monitor with the included cradle and 3M adhesive pads. It's designed well enough that no matter where you put it, it will fit nicely and stay put (it has a studded rubber base, too). It is, by the way, both Mac and PC compatible. Read on for the rest of the review ...
New mini owners stung with display incompatibilities, update on the way
It seems like just yesterday we heard from David Thomas that his Samsung Syncmaster 910 MP display wasn't working with his shiny new 2009 Mac mini. Oh, wait, it was yesterday -- and David's not alone, judging by the traffic on Apple's support boards. VGA display owners who are using a Mini DisplayPort-VGA adapter should be aware that older displays seem to be having some trouble with the newfangled setup; in fact, Apple's troubleshooting steps for lack of video on the mini suggest replacing your display if it's not lighting up with the mini, even though it may still work with other machines. If your existing display is a Samsung or is more than four years old, you may want to cross-check with Apple before trying to use it with a new mini.There's some light at the end of the tunnel, however. While it hasn't appeared on Apple's download page for the mini yet, reader Nikolay sent in word that the Mini DisplayPort to VGA Firmware Update is showing up for him in Software Update on his MacBook Pro. Since one of the listed fixes is "no video on some external displays," if you've got the VGA adapter in use and are having video troubles you may want to borrow a monitor long enough to run the update and see if that clears the issue for you.Thanks David & Nikolay
My Dad, the Switcher: Day 140
Yesterday, Robert talked about setting up a new Mac Pro for his switcher Dad. Today, setting up Windows proves to be a bit of a headache. When I mentioned to my best buddy Cameron that Dad was getting a Mac Pro to replace his just-months-old Mac mini, he said "Wow. He sure moves quickly when it comes to toys!" That he does. Just three or four months ago, he had bought his Mac mini. Now here we were, installing Windows on his tricked-out refurb Mac Pro. This was proving to be a problem. For me, mostly. He wanted to install Windows XP Service Pack 2, which, as far as we knew, would work fine. We started Boot Camp Assistant, and printed out the instructions. We had a whole 750GB hard disk to give to Windows, so we chose it and were restarting into that purgatory of Windows Setup in DOSville. After loading its various components ("Human Interface Parser" was our favorite), Windows Setup displayed the volumes available to install Windows, but our newly-created Boot Camp partition wasn't listed. Uh oh.
My Dad, the Switcher: Day 139
Last October, Robert's dad -- a hard-core Windows developer -- bought himself a Mac mini to see what the fuss was all about. The first two installments of the series are available here. Now, we find out what's happened since. Mom sent me an email about two weeks ago now, irritated. She said that Dad's old PC was making loud, awful noises, and it probably needed to be replaced. She said that he had been looking at new Macs all morning, after they talked about it over breakfast. She had given him the blessing of the purse-strings -- always a scary thing to give Dad -- and I gave him a call to see what he had in mind. The fan, apparently, in Dad's old PC power supply was wearing out, and the bearings were squealing. I had an old Power Mac G4 at work that had this happen, and replacing the power supply was something I could do. I offered to do that, but Dad was already miles ahead of me, looking at the newly-released Mac Pros. "Isn't that a little, uh, more than you need?" I asked, tentatively. "It's not a question of need," he said jokingly, noting that his financial ship had come in with the payment of a long-overdue check from a completed project. Dad was most interested in combining his Mac and his PC. Ever since he and I started working on the same project (which has expanded to projects, plural) he's finding that he uses the Mac more than the PC. The PC, he says, became just for email and Microsoft Office. Then, the perennial switcher question: "Do they make Office for Mac?" Yes, I said with a smile.
Screen Grabs: '24' offers up OQO, Mac mini BOGO special
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dt com. We'll be honest: we haven't seen 24 for many a season now, but, thanks to a few sweet tips, we decided to take a look at a recent episode, and bam! Right after a nefarious-looking doctor suffocates an elderly gentlemen in his hospital bed, the evil chap shoots over to the nurses' station on the down low to download some hyper-rad schematics from the terminal. So... he whips out his OQO (not the device's first appearance on Screen Grabs), plugs 'er into the nearby Mac mini (ditto) and goes about his suspicious, suspicious business. Dude, we gotta get to this magical hospital, where technology rules and the "doctors" are plotting stuff. Jack into some more evidence after the break. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Mac mini gets ripped to shreds, isn't so dull
There's something slightly disconcerting about seeing a fine, new piece of hardware torn apart before your very eyes, but we'll freely admit that we get some satisfaction out of it. The new Mac mini (above) looks about like what you'd expect it to on the inside, and very similar to the previous model, albeit slightly rearranged. It's a fairly sparse affair, nothing wildly unexpected going on in there -- well, with the exception of the tiny magical troll running at a steady pace to keep the gears grinding -- ever-so-silently, of course. There are a few more shots after the break, but hit the read link for the entire, supremely interesting set.[Via Engadget Spanish]
Apple Mac mini (GeForce 9400M) unboxing and hands-on
Sure, it may not look too different on the outside (save for that Mini DisplayPort jack and copious USB 2.0 slots), but the Mac mini is all... newish. Two variations of the tiny desktop just hit the doorstep here, and we're going to be putting them into a few use cases to see how much they sweat, but until that goes down, check out the unboxing and hands-on pics below!%Gallery-46665%
Mac mini unboxing and dissection
The guys at Macminicolo.net have already gotten their hands on a new Mac mini, and they offer not only the obligatory unboxing, but a dis-assembly as well. As before it seems you can take the mini apart with a putty knife. A few parts have been moved around or re-oriented, and there are now three antennas as well as a SATA optical drive (i.e. SuperDrive).Now that they've got a look at the guts they promise to start benchmarking the new minis in server performance. Needless to say, they're optimistic that the new machines will make even better servers than the last model.Thanks Brian![via 9to5Mac]
Mac mini refresh, what's new?
I'm a big fan of the Mac mini: a surprisingly capable machine in an impossibly small size. There have only been a few major snags for me in the time I've owned Mac minis, and most of those were cleared up this morning. I know some will be disappointed to lose the FireWire 400 port, but I'm ecstatic about the FireWire 800 replacement. Second, I've always had to put a 4-port USB hub on my mini, and really only ever needed one more port ... I'm apparently not alone, as Apple added a fifth USB port as well. The graphics boost will be a great upgrade for my media center. I'm still waiting for the Apple TV/Mac mini mashup to happen, but for now the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics card with Mini DisplayPort and Mini-DVI video out will do nicely. Have you been waiting to run 2 monitors on your Mac mini without expensive additional hardware? That Mini DisplayPort should open up new possibilities. The memory in the new minis can be expanded up to 4GB, and the 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo is more than capable of handling any daily computing task. Sure, you might want to look at the new Mac Pros if you're doing some serious video editing or CPU-intensive work, but I've found the Mac mini makes a great machine for tethered photography, writing, office work, development, even running my home web server. The refreshed mini comes in two models, the major difference being RAM and hard drive space: 1GB of memory and 120GB HD will run you $599US, and for $799US you can double your RAM (2GB) and almost triple your drive space (320GB). With the FireWire 800 port, I'm more than happy running large external drives, and I'm not shy about putty knives, either. It appears that the leaks/rumors we saw yesterday were spot-on. It's not an explosive update to these rugged little computers, but it covers a few bases I was hoping for and proves that, for now, the Mac mini is not dead (despite rumors from the not-too-distant past).
Tuesday is upon us: new Apple hardware
It's been busy in the dwarven mines of Cupertino, we can tell: much new iron has arrived today, and the store is back up (though getting hammered at the moment)! We'll go into detail on each of the announcements in the next hour or so, but here's the basic scoop:All of Apple's consumer desktops have been updated, with new iMacs and new minis. The iMacs offer 'twice the memory, twice the storage' in the new $1499 base 24" model, and all have been updated with the GeForce 9400M graphics subsystem. BTO options on the 24" iMac include up to a 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, a 640GB or 1TB HD, and a rogues' gallery of graphics upgrade options: the NVIDIA GeForce GT 130 or the ATI Radeon HD 4850 instead of the 9400M. Gamers, start your engines. The mini... well, Dave and I have to eat our words on the mini, because the new models do indeed come with five frickin' USB ports, FW800 and both DVI and DisplayPort video-out, as well as the 9400M integrated graphics. The spy shots, the video and the box picture appear to have been spot-on (despite the 'scientific' scoffing analysis of Photoshop artifacts in the original shot). $599US gets you the base model with a 2GHz C2D and 120GB hard drive/1GB of RAM (really? 1GB?), $799 doubles the RAM to 2GB and bumps the HD to 320GB. The new mini also uses less power than before, only 13 watts at idle. For all of you that had 'five USB ports' in the pool, instead of 'sharks with lasers on their heads' -- congratulations. Who knew that Gillette was collaborating with the Onion and Apple on product design?The pro desktop has been revved with new Mac Pro hardware: shipping next week, the new models start $300US cheaper than before and now feature Intel's Nehalem chip, along with a redesigned interior, DisplayPort + DVI standard and more spec upgrades -- but no 16-core model.The Airport Extreme and Time Capsule were also updated with dual-band support (allowing Apple TV and iPhones to use the older 2.4GHz band without dragging other devices down) and 'Guest Network' capability for your no-account friends who come over and mooch your wireless. Yes, you know who you are.Macworld also notes that there was apparently a 'stealth' update to the MacBook Pro today, bumping the top processor speed to 2.66GHz.Our complete coverage:Mac ProMac miniTime CapsuleiMacMacBook ProFull press releases in the 2nd half of the post.
