Aaron Adams’s Blowhard Blog

The plural of anecdote is not data. As a Mac user, I’ve exposed a number of people to Macs who otherwise never would have bothered looking at one. Many of those people are interested in trying out a Mac if they can find the combination of price and features they like.

Many in the Mac community have heralded the concept of a headless Mac, now known as the Mac mini, as Apple’s one needed giant step toward attracting switchers. Now that the product is out there and Windows users have had a chance to digest the information, I intend to provide a series of case studies where I question potential switchers I’m acquainted with in an attempt to discover their thoughts about the Mac mini. What I present is anecdotal evidence at best, taken from a small but, I believe, valid cross-section of computer users who represent potential switchers. As I have no way to collect actual, verifiable data, anecdotes will have to do.

My first case study is Scott, a long-time Windows-using friend of mine who I spoke to first about a possible Mac mini purchase. Below I state my thesis, and then present Scott’s circumstances, options, and opinions, and leave the comparison between my thesis and Scott’s situation up to the reader.

Thesis:
The Mac mini will sell primarily to persons interested in an additional Mac, to persons or institutions with special needs or circumstances, and organizations that already own Macs. The Mac mini will do little to draw switchers from other platforms. The best way for Apple to attract switchers is through a sustained marketing campaign highlighting the advantages of products such as, but not limited to, OS X and the iLife suite, not via an inexpensively priced headless computer.

My friend Scott, known as BuckNut on this site, has been considering purchasing a Macintosh of some kind for several months now. To be succinct, Scott is cheap. He doesn’t want to spend what Apple is asking for a new low-end Mac. Instead, he has spent time watching the web, the refurb piles, the specials, Amazon deals, ebay, and other bargain spots. He’s come close to buying a few times, but he hasn’t yet found the perfect combination of price and features that will open his wallet.

What made Scott interested in Macs to begin with? He has been exposed to my own Mac use for more than two years now, and after much demonstration and discussion, he’s interested enough to give one a try. Scott isn’t ready to ditch his Windows machine for a Mac, rather, he’d like to use a Mac alongside his existing Windows box to compare and learn something new. Scott sees his Mac purchase as an experiment of sorts, to find out if the talk he’s heard and the uses he’s observed are for real, or if it’s all smoke and mirrors. Scott’s desire to switch isn’t driven by price or technical idealogy, by inconveniences and hassles caused by his current machine, rather by exposure and example, by seeing and doing.

Scott is also a home theatre enthusiast. He recently purchased a very nice HD projector with a DVI input with which to view his HDTV and movies. To play DVDs, he built a PC from new and used parts. He prefers to spend several hundred dollars on a PC to play DVDs as opposed to a DVD player because the PC, with the right software, gives him a greater ability to tweak and customize the picture for this HD projector.

When the Mac mini was introduced, it wasn’t long before I thought of Scott and his home theater arrangement. Scott is interested in purchasing a Mac, and a small, quiet, inexpensive machine such as the Mac mini seems like a good fit into his home theater arrangement. It could be a dual purpose Mac, serving part time as a DVD player and the other part as Scott’s experimental Mac, projected in giant size on his living room wall. The former DVD-playing PC would still act as Scott’s primary desktop machine.

I approached Scott with this idea and his first reaction was to ask about the DVD software. He explained the features his current software had and asked if there was an equivalent for the Mac. I responded that the default player in Panther did not have things such as sharpening and color correction, and I was not sure whether a third-party application existed with those features. Scott stated that losing that ability in software would be a step back for him, and he’s correct. However, since neither of us knows whether third-party applications are available at this point, the question of software capabilities is up in the air. It’s not necessarily a strike against the Mac mini, but it’s not a point in its favor either.

Scott spent $500 building his DVD PC, which matches the price of the lower Mac mini model. The DVD PC has 512 MB RAM, and in order to, again, avoid taking a step backwards, and to efficiently run the iLife suite that comes bundled with the Mac mini, I would recommend, and he would want, 512 MB. That increases the price an additional $75. The drive in the DVD PC is 80 GB and holds non-DVD content that he also plays back onto his living room wall. Forty GB would be cutting it close, he says, and 80 GB would be more comfortable and equivalent to the machine he’d replace. Add $50. Scott controls the DVD PC from a wireless keyboard and mouse that do not use Bluetooth. To get equivalent functionality from a Mac mini, Scott would need to factor in a bluetooth module for $50 and a wireless keyboard and mouse set for $99. The total of a $499 Mac mini equivalent to the DVD PC Scott currently has is now $773.

The price doesn’t rule out the Mac mini, however Ñ the next factor does. Scott’s final question about the Mac mini was, what kind of audio out does it have? It has a 1/8-inch line out, I responded. No good, says Scott. Audio is an important part of home theater also, and a simple line out won’t do it for Scott. He has, and would want on a Mac mini, an SPDIF out for his 5.1 channel surround sound. There’s no way to overcome that limitation on the Mac mini.

So the Mac mini is ruled out as Scott’s DVD playback computer, but he’s still interested in purchasing a Mac for personal edification. So how does the Mac mini compare to other Macs? As we stated earlier, Scott is cheap, and he would buy the lower-end Mac mini simply by virtue of price. If Scott is going to run iLife, I would strongly recommend 512 MB RAM, and he independently stated he would prefer to have at least that much in any case. He also doesn’t believe that 40 GB would be enough disk space, so the 80 GB drive would be added. Bluetooth isn’t important to him, but 802.11g wireless is, and that adds $29. For all the computer parts Scott has lying around home, he does not have an extra USB keyboard or mouse. Add $58. The $499 Mac mini is now $761, clearly in eMac territory, as desktops go.

I asked Scott if he’d rather purchase the Mac mini he configured or a base-model eMac for similar money ($1003 similarly configured), the advantage being that Scott could add third-party RAM to the eMac much more cheaply than the Mac mini (cutting the additional Apple RAM from the eMac takes the price down to $928). Scott decided it would be a toss-up, but he would rather have an iBook than either a Mac mini or an eMac. He’s willing to pay a little extra for the portability and versatility of a brand new iBook, and considering some of the specials and deals he’s seen on the web the past several months, he could purchase a similarly configured iBook for the same money or less than the Mac mini constructed in this study. The iBook could be used the same way as a Mac mini, says Scott, by plugging in an external monitor, mouse and keyboard, and it has the advantage of being more portable. If Scott buys any Mac this year, I have no doubt it will be an iBook.

The Mac mini lost out when Scott and I attempted to find a specific use for it in his home. As a desktop machine, the Mac mini had competition from two other Macs, and in the end an iBook will likely turn out to be Scott’s machine of choice. The presence and price of the Mac mini did not cause Scott to purchase one simply because it was there and it was cheap. There were many other factors for Scott to consider.

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