The latest Mac Mini configuration may be puzzling to a few since they completely took out the optical drive. Other than the aesthetics portion, I believe there are a few reasons why Apple did it.
First and foremost is that Apple is trying to nudge people to go online and download their software instead of using CDs/DVDs/Blu-rays.It's good for them because it will
- increase the usage of their AppStore
- slightly decrease piracy unless there's a loophole around the AppStore
- encourage users to use all the software that comes by default on the Mac
The other reason is that I feel that they are positioning the Mac Mini as the server of choice for SMEs. The Mac OSX Lion has elements of the Mac OSX server operating system within. In fact, I call the Mac mini the shelf rack server because you can put it on a shelf rack in the data centre. Furthermore with the increasing usage of USB thumbdrives which can also be configured to boot up, CDs are becoming increasingly redundant. Anyway, it's not often that you will need to install an application on the server. Most of the time, it's just on and it just needs to be functional.
The last reason is that they do not want the Mac Mini to canabalise sales from the Apple TV. Without the optical drive, the Apple TV may a better choice for a digital media player.
The funny thing though is that Apple Stores in Singapore rarely sells Mac Mini, and definitely not at their discount fairs. I wonder why...
No comments:
Post a Comment