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Mac mini Concept – Why Not?

By Lonnie Lazar (1:44 am, Dec 23 2008)

Mac mini Concept – Why Not?

Image © 2008 Victor Anselme

Brazilian designer and Apple fan Victor Anselme has a few ideas about how the Mac mini might evolve into a useful and desirable product.

From his description, helpfully translated by Google from the original Portuguese, as amended by your humble correspondent:

The case would be done in mostly aluminum; the largest piece would be the top along with the four sides. The bottom is black plastic similar to the back of the iMac, with a lever here to open the case, enabling easy upgrades to memory or the hard drive.

Air circulation is much higher now and is pretty much like the MacBook Pro, and this Mac Mini now comes with internal speakers.

In keeping with configuration of new Apple products the Mac mini will no longer support FireWire (note: say it isn’t so, Victor!) and the new Mini Display Port is used for output of digital audio and video.

iPhoneSavior reported on Anselme’s concept the other day, noting it appears inspired by a recent Mac Rumors report showing evidence that a refreshed Mac Mini would be based on the NVIDIA MCP79 chipset.

Along with rumors of an iPhone Nano, detailed below, talk of a refreshed Mac mini and iMac, as well as a 32GB iPhone 3G dominate pre-Macworld chatter leading up to the actual event kickoff on January 5.

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About the author

Lonnie Lazar

Lonnie Lazar is a writer-musician-web designer-attorney. He writes about Apple for Cult of Mac and Mac|Life, and about VoIP and telecommunications for Voxilla. Follow Lonnie on Twitter @LonnieLazar, join the Cult of Mac on Facebook, and find Lonnie's photos on Flickr.

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Posted in Hardware, Macintosh, Macworld, Rumors, Top stories |

  • http://ahoysailors.com Brad

    “and this Mac Mini now comes with internal speakers.” -FTA

    The Mac Mini already comes with internal speakers. This may be a translation error though. :)

  • Camperton

    I’d probably buy one.

  • Camperton

    … but I’d like them to come standard with 7200rpm HDD’s and Apple bringing HD movies to the iTunes store. Not to mention I’d need a minidisplay to HDMI cable… when are those going to be available again?

  • http://Marcos.Kirsch.com.mx Marcos

    It’s Mac mini, not MacMini. Also, currently the Mac mini has a tiny internal speaker.

    I doubt Apple will do a modular design like described above, but I can see them releasing a low end model without an optical drive, like the MacBook Air.

    A Mac mini with nVidia chipset would be great. Probably won’t have Firewire. I hope it comes with a MagSafe connector though, so it can be powered by Apple’s latest monitors.

  • mattet

    why because you know apple can only do limited restricted and basic i know lets make a laptop that dousent do anything!!!

  • tenjay

    Rather than make the Mac mini smaller, I’d make it bigger. Not a whole lot bigger, but big enough to use a cheaper, 3.5″ desktop hard drive instead of a more expensive, 2.5″ laptop hard drive. 3.5″ drives tend to have larger capacities as well.

  • stm1

    No 400 or 800 FW? My iMac does, my LaCie does,… just USB’s is an oversight.
    I like tenjays concepts of 3.5″ HD like my LaCie (which also has 400 & 800 FW’s. And no, I am not an employee of LaCie either, the Rugged 160 Gig is just so right sized. But then again, in a few years, everything will be flash drives eh?

  • Peter

    Why just a MAC Mini, why not a ‘MAC Mini TV’. An all in one set up, great for just about everybody. The Internet TV is expanding at a rapid pace so why not embrace it with a computer that can sit comfortably under the screen use the Internet whilst watching and recording a program or use it to watch iPlayer or whatever setup the TV stations are using. With an HDMI connection (a must) it would make a fantastic Media centre.

  • Chili Relleno

    Why not, Peter? Because what you suggests makes much too much sense. If the product name doesn’t have a little ‘i’ in front, it doesn’t interest the iApple Company. Instead of making the Mac mini a feature-rich media center for family entertainment, I’m expecting iApple to announce a crippled, underpowered box in 24 different colors but with too few i/o ports, no FW, and no HDMI, built in China but packaging designed in California. Big whoop indeed.

  • DouglasGottlieb

    None of the Mac Mini rumors mention video *IN* or HDMI out? HDMI for the Mac Mini is key for me as I want this to be a living room device. Apparently, Apple does not…