New Apple TV…I mean Mac mini
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Apple TV, Mac Media
Apple has introduced an all new Mac mini featuring a new uni-body aluminum casing, as well as HDMI port and an SD card slot. Which makes it sound to me like they have introduced a new Apple TV, this time with a DVD drive, which I think is an excellent addition. Certainly a better addition to the product than it’s $699 starting price tag, which does make it more expensive than most standard Blue-ray DVD players and the new TiVo Premeire XL.
That doesn’t bode well considering it can’t be hooked up to cable or satellite without some sort of third party jerry-rig such as El Gato’s EyeTV line of products. The EyeTV also allows you to channel surf on your Mac in the same way that a TiVo does. It stands to reason that a cable input with a cable-card slot would have been a killer application for this product. By the way, the EyeTV capable of recording HD cable/satellite to a Mac is an extra $200.
However, putting the lack of native DVR functionality aside, why is it that this machine doesn’t come with the Apple TV software. As far as I can tell, it only comes with the standard version of Mac OS X with the standard version of Front Row which looks like the Apple TV back in 2007. Why not make Apple TV a Mac OS X application that replaces Front Row? Steve Jobs himself as called the Apple TV a “hobby” in the past and it doesn’t seem like it would hurt their margins in any way. Steve Jobs had a lot of interesting things to say about this at the recent D8: All Things Digital conference.
Clearly, Apple added an HDMI to the new Mac mini for the hobbyists who have been asking for it since 2008 or so. But, it looks like thos same hobbyists will have to turn to interfaces such as the EyeTV or my personal favorite for this application, Boxee which allows development of applications such as for TWiT.tv and NetFlix streaming.
Speaking of which, is anyone at Apple paying attention to my idea about apps on the Apple TV? That also applies here.
