“What is Mac Mini? Is it a computer? A computer at 1.3kg with dimensions 6.5â€x6.5â€x2â€? You’re kidding me right?â€
This is what every one says before looking at my Mac Mini.
So what exactly is Mac Mini? Mac Mini is a computer from Apple Inc. which comes without a monitor, keyboard and mouse. It is directed at PC users who want to “switch†to the other side.
For more info on Mac Mini, read my article for Indian Express here
I got this machine from a dealer in Grant Road, A1 Enterprises. I bought the top end model i.e. 1.42 ghz/AE/BT/Superdrive for 35k. It was a good deal considering that the retail price is 39k. What’s more we got 2k back from ICICI Bank. So that makes it just 33k!
We bought the machine home and the first thing I did was to take pics
It looks even smaller when you see it in real time!
I also got an iBall mouse, which looks exactly like the Apple Mouse, to match my mini.
Nice, ain’t it?
Now let’s move on to the hardware. It features a G4 1.42 ghz processor with 512k L2 Cache. In PC terms, you can say it is equal to a P4 2.6-2.8 ghz. Apple provide 512 MB DDR Ram which is expandable upto 1 GB which is sufficient considering that each subsequent version of Mac OS is faster than its preceeder. Yes, Tiger is Faster than Panther and Leopard will be faster than Tiger! They provide a Seagate 80 GB hard disk and a single layer DVD-writer. To add to it, it has inbuilt Bluetooth and Airport Express(Wi-fi). The updated Mac Mini, which will be announced shortly but is already shipping, features a dual layer DVD writer.
All this packed in a box weighing 1.3 kg!
Now, let’s move to the real beauty, the OS! Mac OS X is the most advanced operating system in the world which is based on Darwin which in turn is a fully-featured Unix OS. Darwin is based on the micro-kernel architecture.
The graphics engine in OS X is called “Quartz†and is based upon Adobe’s PDF format. The 3-D graphics are handled by OpenGL.
Mac OS X boots in 25-30 seconds straight on my Mini! The GUI on OS X is called “Aqua†and is far far ahead of anything Microsoft can offer. Yes, compare Vista’s GUI to Aqua.
Take this screenshot as an example.
Look at the border of VLC which is playing a movie. Looks so natural! Such refined bordering is a result of the Quartz engine whose competitior will be introduced by Microsoft in Vista only 5 years late.
Another great feature of Tiger is Spotlight i.e. instant search. No “search†buttons and no waiting, you get instant results within seconds! Take a look at this screenshot.
Yes, no “search†buttons and no waiting for minutes to find a single document. Spotlight even searches the contents of documents to find matches for the keyword you entered!
Another feature I loved is the highlighting of options in the system preferences. Watch how possible options are highlighted when I enter a particular keyword.
Isn’t it awesome?
Another noticeable feature in OS X is its dock! That’s exactly like your Windows menu bar, but so elegant! I won’t go much deeper into this subject as most of us already know about the dock. Of course, you would’ve heard about the Genie Effect while minimizing/maximizing windows!
Another thing you’ll notice in OS X is its highly realistic icons. You can watch these icons in the previous screenshots I posted. My more knowledgeable graphics friends will tell you that Mac icons are “freely scaleable†i.e. they can be easily resized upto a maxium of 128x128 resolution without any loss in quality! Compare these to the XP icons.
“Finder†is Apple’s answer to Windows Explorer. Just that it loads within a second and doesn’t hang when a corrupt or a scratched disk is inserted in the optical drive.
Cute.. isn’t it?
Then comes the networking part. Just configure your TCP/IP settings and in Finder’s menu bar, click on “Go†and select “Connect to serverâ€. Enter the IP address of the other machine and voila, you can share the other person’s files. Just 2 steps! Can any thing be as easy as this!
Installation of files is a breeze! Just double click the “.dmg†file and drag it to the Applications folder. Want to delete it? Just right click and click on “Send to Trashâ€.
Another feature to be noted is “fast user switchingâ€. Click on your user name in the menu bar and select the other user account to log in. With full 3-D glory, the screen seems to turn around.. and on the other side, you get the other user’s desktop! Can anything be so elegant!
Dashboard! How can anyone forget that! Apple's thinking that all widgets should have a common place rather than consuming the desktop is correct. Hence, they created Dashboard which contains all widgets and disappears on a mouse click It is extremely useful for people who need quick and brief information and for those who love eye-candy. Take a look...
As Aqua itself is based on PDF, you can save any file from any application in the PDF format. Now, that is a very solid feature and will be very difficult for Windows to ever match.
People who say there are no software for Mac, can take a break. These are the same people who say there are no software for Linux. The best thing to do with these people is to ignore them or ask them to visit versiontracker.com or macupdate.com. Any knowledgeable person will tell you that for each task there is an application for Mac. Yes, there aren’t 45454 bug-ridden, spyware-prone software but even 5 quality applications are better than 45454 poor ones! Quality is, indeed, better than quantity!
If all this wasn’t enough, then here is another beauty! People think Mac is just for newbies as it is so simple to use. But no, it is equally useful for the professionals and the geeks. Remember you can do anything on a Mac using its unix-based Terminal. I call it the combination of the greatest command-line OS and the best GUI there is.
Alll in all, the Total Cost of Ownership(TCO) of a Mac is much lower than the PC in the long run. I got 15k worth of software free with my Macintosh and be rest assured, 512 MB ram will suffice for Leopard too…
But, there are some people who game a lot. For them, Windows is still a better option. The only real drawback on a Mac is Games. But with Apple going the x86 way and people installing Xp on the dev kits without any probz.. the future is bright
- Anand Batra
This is what every one says before looking at my Mac Mini.
So what exactly is Mac Mini? Mac Mini is a computer from Apple Inc. which comes without a monitor, keyboard and mouse. It is directed at PC users who want to “switch†to the other side.
For more info on Mac Mini, read my article for Indian Express here
I got this machine from a dealer in Grant Road, A1 Enterprises. I bought the top end model i.e. 1.42 ghz/AE/BT/Superdrive for 35k. It was a good deal considering that the retail price is 39k. What’s more we got 2k back from ICICI Bank. So that makes it just 33k!
We bought the machine home and the first thing I did was to take pics
It looks even smaller when you see it in real time!
I also got an iBall mouse, which looks exactly like the Apple Mouse, to match my mini.
Nice, ain’t it?
Now let’s move on to the hardware. It features a G4 1.42 ghz processor with 512k L2 Cache. In PC terms, you can say it is equal to a P4 2.6-2.8 ghz. Apple provide 512 MB DDR Ram which is expandable upto 1 GB which is sufficient considering that each subsequent version of Mac OS is faster than its preceeder. Yes, Tiger is Faster than Panther and Leopard will be faster than Tiger! They provide a Seagate 80 GB hard disk and a single layer DVD-writer. To add to it, it has inbuilt Bluetooth and Airport Express(Wi-fi). The updated Mac Mini, which will be announced shortly but is already shipping, features a dual layer DVD writer.
All this packed in a box weighing 1.3 kg!
Now, let’s move to the real beauty, the OS! Mac OS X is the most advanced operating system in the world which is based on Darwin which in turn is a fully-featured Unix OS. Darwin is based on the micro-kernel architecture.
The graphics engine in OS X is called “Quartz†and is based upon Adobe’s PDF format. The 3-D graphics are handled by OpenGL.
Mac OS X boots in 25-30 seconds straight on my Mini! The GUI on OS X is called “Aqua†and is far far ahead of anything Microsoft can offer. Yes, compare Vista’s GUI to Aqua.
Take this screenshot as an example.
Look at the border of VLC which is playing a movie. Looks so natural! Such refined bordering is a result of the Quartz engine whose competitior will be introduced by Microsoft in Vista only 5 years late.
Another great feature of Tiger is Spotlight i.e. instant search. No “search†buttons and no waiting, you get instant results within seconds! Take a look at this screenshot.
Yes, no “search†buttons and no waiting for minutes to find a single document. Spotlight even searches the contents of documents to find matches for the keyword you entered!
Another feature I loved is the highlighting of options in the system preferences. Watch how possible options are highlighted when I enter a particular keyword.
Isn’t it awesome?
Another noticeable feature in OS X is its dock! That’s exactly like your Windows menu bar, but so elegant! I won’t go much deeper into this subject as most of us already know about the dock. Of course, you would’ve heard about the Genie Effect while minimizing/maximizing windows!
Another thing you’ll notice in OS X is its highly realistic icons. You can watch these icons in the previous screenshots I posted. My more knowledgeable graphics friends will tell you that Mac icons are “freely scaleable†i.e. they can be easily resized upto a maxium of 128x128 resolution without any loss in quality! Compare these to the XP icons.
“Finder†is Apple’s answer to Windows Explorer. Just that it loads within a second and doesn’t hang when a corrupt or a scratched disk is inserted in the optical drive.
Cute.. isn’t it?
Then comes the networking part. Just configure your TCP/IP settings and in Finder’s menu bar, click on “Go†and select “Connect to serverâ€. Enter the IP address of the other machine and voila, you can share the other person’s files. Just 2 steps! Can any thing be as easy as this!
Installation of files is a breeze! Just double click the “.dmg†file and drag it to the Applications folder. Want to delete it? Just right click and click on “Send to Trashâ€.
Another feature to be noted is “fast user switchingâ€. Click on your user name in the menu bar and select the other user account to log in. With full 3-D glory, the screen seems to turn around.. and on the other side, you get the other user’s desktop! Can anything be so elegant!
Dashboard! How can anyone forget that! Apple's thinking that all widgets should have a common place rather than consuming the desktop is correct. Hence, they created Dashboard which contains all widgets and disappears on a mouse click
It is extremely useful for people who need quick and brief information and for those who love eye-candy. Take a look...
As Aqua itself is based on PDF, you can save any file from any application in the PDF format. Now, that is a very solid feature and will be very difficult for Windows to ever match.
People who say there are no software for Mac, can take a break. These are the same people who say there are no software for Linux. The best thing to do with these people is to ignore them or ask them to visit versiontracker.com or macupdate.com. Any knowledgeable person will tell you that for each task there is an application for Mac. Yes, there aren’t 45454 bug-ridden, spyware-prone software but even 5 quality applications are better than 45454 poor ones! Quality is, indeed, better than quantity!
If all this wasn’t enough, then here is another beauty! People think Mac is just for newbies as it is so simple to use. But no, it is equally useful for the professionals and the geeks. Remember you can do anything on a Mac using its unix-based Terminal. I call it the combination of the greatest command-line OS and the best GUI there is.
Alll in all, the Total Cost of Ownership(TCO) of a Mac is much lower than the PC in the long run. I got 15k worth of software free with my Macintosh and be rest assured, 512 MB ram will suffice for Leopard too…
But, there are some people who game a lot. For them, Windows is still a better option. The only real drawback on a Mac is Games. But with Apple going the x86 way and people installing Xp on the dev kits without any probz.. the future is bright
- Anand Batra
