I must be showing my age, you're right, IR is soooooo twentieth century!Cosmo_ said:IR?! bluetooth
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Mac mini add-ons: image mockups
- Thread starter dejo
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Peyote said:I guess I'm the only one that would prefer a headphone port on the front?!
Yeah, that mighta been real nice on the Mac mini itself but I had mocked up an audio/USB/FW hub; just forgot to post it. So, here goes:
Has both audio in (left side) and audio out (right side).
its so small it actual probably wouldn't really matter. It would be like putting a port on the bottom of an iPod so you don't have to turn it. When you see one in person you will be shocked in how small it is.Peyote said:I guess I'm the only one that would prefer a headphone port on the front?!
TheInevitable said:I threw this in another thread before I found this thread. Check how we hook up the bluetooth.
Nice design. Makes sense for the Mini to rest atop of the hub. Appears there needs to be vent holes as the mini draws cold air from the bottom.
TheInevitable said:
Yup. Maybe just alter your design a little to have some vents near the edge of the surface that can draw air from other vents on the bottom or back into the bottom of the Mac mini case.
I like your design, though. Even though it's different than my mockups that more closely imitate the look of the mini, it still compliments it very nicely. Plus your photoshop skills seem significantly better than mine, what with the table reflection underneath and all. Curious: how did you create the view of the mini from the front but slightly above but with CD missing? Did you use Apple's pics as source?
P.S. I'm getting picky here but your FireWire logo looks like it needs to be rotated 90 degrees clockwise.
Thanks for the compliments. I used the photo of the Mac Mini with the disk sticking out as a model. The firewire logo was turned sideways so that you could turn it upside-down and stick it on top of the Mac Mini without it looking upside-down.
TheInevitable said:
Well kudos for removing the disc from the pic. Looks very clean.
Stick in on top, eh? Hmm. Interesting. Yeah, makes complete sense, then. (But then what about the USB logo? I'm just asking for trouble, aren't I?
)
TheInevitable said:
That is a cool feature, although I'll never cop to it's existence, not even under oath.
I posted this in the other thread about the power plug's extra connectors-- but it may have been more appropriate here. There's speculation all over that the mini is just phase one in a plan for a home entertainment system that uses an external box to provide elgato type DVR functions:
http://www.studio2f.com/misc/2005/01/12mac_mini_less_is_more.php
http://www.studio2f.com/misc/2005/01/12mac_mini_less_is_more.php
Reality check?
This thread is sure fun but let's have a little reality check here. As a sales and marketing guy, here's the questions I would ask.
The mini is an entry level box, would users pay for all these types of add-ons? Would they need them? Many of these things would cost 25% or more of the mini's price. If users wanted or needed this functionality, wouldn't they have chosen another Apple computer?
Is the mini even a sales success? We hardly know at this point. Before you point to its 3-4 week lead time after being on the market for only a week, let's look at Apple's poor history of forecasting demand. (I'm convinced they couldn't forecast demand for water in the Sahara desert)
Who is buying these? Is it the faithful scarfing up the new cool Mac or is Apple really growing their market share? If the former, then they have other Apple computers that do these things. What will sales be like after the initial hype dies down?
Some will point to the iPod economy that has thrived and compare these proposed products to it but the iPod reaches many more users than this ever will. Most iPod accessories are well under 50 bucks.
If this market really does exist, Apple will never leave it to third parties. Maybe this is a test for selling a true modular Mac.
Off my soapbox, any other cool ideas for mini add-ons?
Just found this on AI:
Finally, sources note that the mini's non-standard power connector contains too many leads to serve solely as a power source, and could provide hints of upcoming add-ons...
Let the speculation continue.
This thread is sure fun but let's have a little reality check here. As a sales and marketing guy, here's the questions I would ask.
The mini is an entry level box, would users pay for all these types of add-ons? Would they need them? Many of these things would cost 25% or more of the mini's price. If users wanted or needed this functionality, wouldn't they have chosen another Apple computer?
Is the mini even a sales success? We hardly know at this point. Before you point to its 3-4 week lead time after being on the market for only a week, let's look at Apple's poor history of forecasting demand. (I'm convinced they couldn't forecast demand for water in the Sahara desert)
Who is buying these? Is it the faithful scarfing up the new cool Mac or is Apple really growing their market share? If the former, then they have other Apple computers that do these things. What will sales be like after the initial hype dies down?
Some will point to the iPod economy that has thrived and compare these proposed products to it but the iPod reaches many more users than this ever will. Most iPod accessories are well under 50 bucks.
If this market really does exist, Apple will never leave it to third parties. Maybe this is a test for selling a true modular Mac.
Off my soapbox, any other cool ideas for mini add-ons?
Just found this on AI:
Finally, sources note that the mini's non-standard power connector contains too many leads to serve solely as a power source, and could provide hints of upcoming add-ons...
Let the speculation continue.
If you want to use your own display (or want to have the flexibility to change display without changing your computer), the only choices you have are the Mini or the Power Mac. You can buy a LOT of accessories for the Mini for the price difference.rdowns said:
rdowns said:
Sorry. Reality checks are not allowed in this thread. It's just meant as a way to pass the time and inspire crazy ideas. But if I were to dip my head into reality for a second, I think a well-priced USB/FW/etc. hub would draw enough customers to make it worth producing. But the price would have to be right.
rdowns said:
That hopeful theory had been pretty well debunked by a number of EEs on other threads. Too bad but it's just for power. But there's still other ports that could be used for those "add-ons"...
Speaker mini
Apple can work with Bose on this one.
dejo said:Threw in headphone, USB and FW ports.
Apple can work with Bose on this one.
Cosmo_ said:it's too late..
<< PICTURE OF INTEGRATED ADDON >>
(i know it's the wrong font - sorry
It is nice, and I'm sure that someone will make something like that, possibly with a one or two drive 2.5" Firewire attached hard drive caddy inside.
This is where I will ask for some technical aspects to be taken into account. Namely, there isn't a magical communication port underneath the Mac Mini, so all add-ons will have to attach with either Firewire or USB, or both.
That means that they'll need the input USB or Firewire port on them as well.
So replace the TV In / Out port with a USB2 in and Firewire in port. Add a couple of LEDs on the front to denote hard drive access. Err, maybe power could be split off the Mac Mini input, but it'll still need to be powered. Thinking technically, you'd most likely have a 4 port USB hub - one on front, three on the rear. Dunno about Firewire hubs[*], but with an internal Firewire IDE interface, and a front Firewire port, that'd probably leave 2 firewire ports for the back with a 4 port FW hub. A special interconnect could be made to connect the Mac Mini's USB and Firewire port to the inputs on the Mac Mini Expansion and look reasonably tidy.
Maybe Creative could make a Mac Mini styled version of their USB sound card, Extigy.
[* edit] it seems that Firewire hubs come in 2, 3, 4 and 6 port version, at reasonable prices. I imagine that something mid-range would be used in a general expansion.
This is what it'd probably look like, although I'm crap at drawing so the connector probably looks a bit crappy. I forgot that the media card slots would use up another USB port, so I removed the media card slots, they don't strike me as a very Apple thing to include. I edited the image someone else did of course.
