I drove over the Golden Gate bridge this morning to MacWorld Expo to see what Steve (Santa) would bring this year. I got lucky and was able to see most of the keynote standing about 15 feet outside the door (low fidelity, but the price was right and I could see the presentation). Steve looked his usual self and followed the usual program.
The pictured Mac mini really rocks! The price is just right $499 and $599. I would spring for the $599 - 80 gb hard drive, 1.42 mhz G4 version just because. But that $499 price point may well rock the consumer market. Thanks, Steve, for the bold move!
So, what is it like? Well, you can see it. It looks like a really cool CD-drive kind of like the iMac looks like a flat-panel display. It has what looks and feels like a white melanine top. The size is 6-1/2" per side and 2" high. That's my trusty pocket Moleskine there to give you some perspective. It is a full-fledged OS X computer that's tiny, weighs less than 3 pounds and is cheap. I am loving the prospect of watching this play out.
And then there is the great iPod shuffle. I strongly recommend it as the USB flash drive of choice! $99 gets you the 512 mb version and $149 gets you a gig. As expected, I want the 1 gig version. They say it plays 240 songs. That's nice especially if you buy into Apple's suggested use. Russell Beattie just bought the $99 version at the show. Good thing I didn't realize they were on sale. I'm getting one by the way. No question!
When you select the iPod shuffle in iTunes, a new configurable autofill button appears that lets you grab just enough music to fill it up with a shuffle of cuts. 
This is a usb device, so you can just stick it into one of your usb slots and synch and recharge. As a usb flash device, you can store regular computer files on it as well. I can totally see myself synching this and getting a random shot of music every day. And if the first random mix doesn't please you, just hit the button until you like what you see. This may be a good omen for Apple, one of my first thoughts was that I need to buy more music at the Apple store!
The new Pages "word processor with style" looks good too. That will take a little testing to verify, of course. Pages comes with Keynote 2 to make the new iWork bundle. This could be my big chance to, once and for all, abandon Word. Wouldn't that be great? It imports and exports Word, so there's a chance!
And iLife '05 was announced and looks like another solid upgrade. iPhoto 5 looks good, with movies now showing up in the photo library and more editing features. iMovie HD is said to be much faster with HD video support.
All and all, a great set of announcements! I can't wait to see if Apple gets a big marketshare pop from the new Mac mini. If not, they can go back to selling high-end stuff and nobody will be able to complain any more.
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