Approximately 100 Apple Computer retail stores opened 1 hour early on Saturday in anticipation of a flood of Apple hungry people looking to take a bite of the Mac Mini, Apple's new $499 budget computer and the $99 iPod Shuffle portable music player. Fans hope to forgo the three to four weeks behind on the Mini and Shuffle when purchased on the company's website, Apple executives say some Minis will be available in stores this weekend, along with a greater supply of the Shuffle, no word on how many. Apple hopes the Mac Mini will take the brand beyond the creative folk and touch the hearts of the not so creative. Analysts believe Apple's mini cheap price will probably entice users of rival Microsoft Corp.'s Windows to switch operating systems and go with the Mac and its Mac OS X operating system. There is a snag however while the mini is pleasing to the eye, and cheap by Apple standards it comes without display, keyboard, or mouse. Forbes reports Office Depot on Thursday advertised a Compaq PC with monitor for $300, after rebates. Dell on Thursday advertised a PC with a 15-inch flat-panel monitor for $349, after rebates.
The Mac mini measures a mere 16.51cm wide, 5.08cm high and weighs less than 1.5kg, touted as the cheapest Apple ever the basic model at $500 features a 40gb hard drive, 256mb of Ram, a DVD player and CD Writer drive, a modem, a network port, USB ports, a FireWire port and a monitor port. Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller cautions consumers not to think of the Mini as anything but a small, second computer or first Mac.
