... because I don't drink a lot of tea, its hard to read tea leaves.... so its coffee grounds for me. Anyway, after reading coffee grounds, rolling the skunk bones, and communing with the oracle at the hot springs of the Salish Sea I have been enlightened as to Apple's intentions regarding the Mini. This is the truth.... I swear it, and I will have photo of the new Mini in an elevator soon.
In the fall, Apple will introduce the new Mini. It will be rolled out at the same time as
A) a new touch screen Tablet, and
B) an updated Mac Book Air.
The Mini will wirelessly dock with the Tablet and Air (or perhaps there will be single cable to tie them together).
The Mini will act as the local connection and "storage" facility for the Tablet and the Air (both of which have/will have small HDs to conserve space. Using Mobile Me or similar tech, the Air and Tablet will have access to the files on the Mini, even while on the road.
This means the new Mini will need to be updated with a bigger HD, or Apple will provide a storage solution that mimics the already existing external HDs by 3rd parties that fit under the Mini.
Why do the coffee grounds tell me this?
1) Despite the complaints that the Mac Book Air is underpowered, it is selling well. It is listed as a best seller on the Apple store. It fits the needs of a corporate type who travels outside the office, perfectly. However - it works best if there is a "home" computer, and Apple acknowledges this.
The Air is seen as a secondary machine. Apple wants to sell the primary machine to you as well. So far, there is no system that is designed specifically to be Air's home machine. There is an opportunity here.
2) I think (and so does the oracle) that an Apple Tablet is imminent. I like the names Mac Book Touch, or Mac Book Tablet, or Mac Book Pad. Why is the Tablet imminent? Because Apple is can do it. Some of their products (ie Air) are as much conceptual as practical. All the parts are there. Multitouch, Mobile Me push, small low power CPUs, and engineering experience with a really light, thin system. This is not a system for the masses (nor is the Air). But like the Air, a Tablet will perfectly fit the needs of a particular group of people, who will pay good money for this perfect solution. I don't know specifically what this group is, but I believe they will be in field that pulls information out of a computer, rather than entering information in (ie, don't do a lot of typing). People who comment on and mark up long documents, people who want access to masses of detailed manuals, people who watch or read different types of media,etc. A Tablet is perfect for someone who travels inside or close to their office.
A Tablet would also need a "home" computer, like the Air.
3) The Mini is still being sold, and yet has not been updated for a long time. If you were going to be introducing a completely new version of a product, then you wouldn't put a lot of resources into minor updates - but you would keep that product in the system for continuity.
Put that all together, and you get a new Mini.
It will wirelessly dock (most likely) with the Air and the Tablet. If there is a cable, the cable will both charge the battery and synch the systems. In corporate environments (the target audience for the Air and the Tablet) you don't necessarily want your corporate documents sitting on an outside server (Mobile Me), so the new Mini would connect to the corporate servers, but provide local (desk top) services such as an optical drive, keyboard/mouse/monitor connections.
The only thing that could mess up a new Mini is an iMac designed specifically to dock with the Air and the Tablet. In that case I think there will be single model of iMac that will be fully "dockable", and the other iMacs will only have limited (if any) capabilities to dock.
There you have it..... the grounds and bones don't lie.
