Mac mini: PC or CE?

Joe Wilcox | January 14, 2005, 02:43 PM

In a Macobserver story posted late yesterday, reporter Misha Sakellaropoulo reveals some startling details about Apple's new Mac mini. Apparently, for the $499 or $599 price, depending on base configuration, what the buyer sees is pretty much all he or she gets. Extra memory, W-Fi and Bluetooth are either factory-install options or need to be added later at an Apple retail store or by a certified dealer.

In a Tuesday blog, I suggested that competitors should look at Mac mini more as media hub, a point I'd like to re-emphasize based on the Macobserver story.

Apple has long sold fairly integrated computers, but for many years most Macs have been somewhat upgradable, or highly so in the case of Power Macs. Even on the most integrated Apple computers--three generations of iMacs--users could install memory (granted difficult on first-rev iMacs) or AirPort wireless cards. By contrast, Mac mini is designed more to be a closed container, so to speak.

From one perspective, the move doesn't much make sense; after all, user access to the memory slot is nearly as old as the personal computer. From another, it makes a helluva lot of sense, if the Mac mini is seen more as a consumer electronics device than a computer; most consumers simply don't ever open up or upgrade CE devices.

So when is a Mac a CE device? Basically, when Steve Jobs says it is. He officially hasn't in so many words, but the product's compact and fairly nailed-shut design does. Such a move wouldn't be inconsistent with Apple's longstanding marketing position of the Mac as a digital media hub for consuming or creating content and connecting devices. Then there is the booming success of iPod, which is as much about CE as it is about computing.

I would have recommended 512MB of RAM if asked, particularly in a fairly locked-down box designed for memory-hogging digital media and to woo Windows users. Apple should want Windows users, which might be more use to cracking open their PC, to have a great experience so that they might buy up later on.

But, that's nitpicking. I don't see a problem with a fairly sealed-boxed approach, which is consistent with consumer electronics devices and the CE path on which Apple apparently is headed.