October 21st, 2008
The end of the line for the Mac mini?
Two major retailers in Europe have told Gizmodo that they can’t order any more Mac minis and “to expect no more of it.” While this could simply signal that Apple is clearing the channel to make room for a speed-bumped model Gizmodo’s sources are telling them that “the Mac Mini may be dead dead DEAD for real.”
The Mac mini was introduced in January 2005 as “the most affordable Mac ever”and was last updated in August 2007 (to Core 2 Duo), 441 days ago. The Mac mini has previously been updated, on average, every 188 days.
Giz notes that the Mac mini is Apple’s worst selling machine and that it lacks 802.11n, uses the older 667 MHz front side bus and 945GM chipset, “which is two generations behind everything else.”
While it’s conceivable that the Mac mini could be End Of Lifed (EOL) soon (they nuked the Cube after all) I don’t think that Apple should pull the plug on the mini permanently unless they’re planning to replace it with an updated Apple TV with a larger hard drive and support for the MacBook Air’s USB SuperDrive. Now, wouldn’t that be something?
Jason D. O'Grady is the editor of PowerPage.org, which has been publishing daily mobile technology news since December 1995. For disclosures on Jason's industry affiliations, click here or to view Jason's full profile click here.
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