Steve Jobs

The Economist, my newspaper (their term for themselves) of choice, in an article on the (frankly obvious) joys of netbooks reported, “Steve Jobs says Apple does not know how to make a $500 computer ‘that’s not a piece of junk’.”

Yet the original Mac Mini, released in early 2005 with a 1.25GHz PowerPC CPU, 256MB RAM, and a combo drive retailed for $499 and was actively positioned as an OS X rival to cheapo boxes from Wintel makers. As Jobs himself proclaimed, “This is the most affordable Mac ever. People who are thinking of switching will have no more excuses.”

Today, it boasts a Core 2 Duo CPU and 1GB RAM for $599. But for education customers (a significant chunk of Apple’s sales), it’s only $499.

Of course, the Apple TV is a computer and Colo companies such as Mythic Beasts use them as dedicated servers. And that’s only $199. Which is a lot for an itunes shill though not much for a server.

And so it appears Jobs only wants you to buy fancy laptops…

Disclaimer: I’ve had a Mac Mini since April, 2005 and, using Seamonkey, it comfortably runs multiple tabs and iPlayer. It’s not total junk.

2nd Disclaimer: The Aleutia H1 (pictured) is also $599, runs the same Core 2 Duo 1.83GHz CPU, but it has 2GB RAM, a 250GB 7200RPM Drive, is completely sealed and is passively cooled through a custom heatsink.