Apple (continued)

l’ve posted before that I love Apple’s products.

So when they announce some new ones, I can’t help but write about them.

My first take on the Shuffle was "oh no, a flash player from Apple".  That’s because we are investors in Portal Player (PLAY) and they make the chipset that drives all the hard disk based iPods.

But once I got over that, I looked closer.  It’s a typical flash player in that it only holds 240 songs.  Apple’s marketing people figured they’d try to turn that into a plus by emphasizing the "shuffle" play mode and having some fun with that.

Jeff Jarvis points out that this emphasis on the device controling the playlist is a mistake.  I tend to agree.

But on to the most important test.  What do my kids think of it?

They like it.  It’s cool.  It’s a necklace with music on it.  It’s a nice addition to the iPod family. 

Would they choose this instead of their 20gig iPod.  No way!

My prediction – it will do OK, not great.  Apple needed a flash player in the iPod family and now they have one.  The hard disk based versions will still rule.

Here’s a del.icio.us page with some more comments on Shuffle that I found interesting.

The Mac Mini is more interesting in my opinion.

We have a Powerbook G4 that sits in our kitchen that only does a few things.  It serves as my iPod docking station and as our families’ iPhoto library.   We use it for web browsing all the time. And the kids use it for IM from time to time.

If we had the option of the Mac Mini, I’d have bought that, connected it to a 20" Cinema display and we’d have a much better solution for a lot less.

I think Apple is going to sell a lot more displays with this new box.  And it’s the perfect iLife box.

I want one.

My kids on the other hand were not impressed.