Elegant Design

Ben was the first to comment on the new Mac mini, but I have a few thoughts of my own to share. Some of you my be surprised by this statement, or even outraged, but I have been secretly wanting to purchase a Mac for the past several months. In fact, I seriously considered purchasing an iMac G5 for Christmas. I don't expect to become a Mac fanatic (Wired refers to these people as members of the 'Cult of Mac'), nor do I look at the Mac to replace my PC, but it's something I'd like to have to play around with.

I've thought a lot about what I've come to refer to as 'Elegant Design' over the past couple years. My criteria for something that would fall into that category would be a product that does what it does well, doesn't suffer from feature bloat, and 'looks cool.' If I find something like that, I tend to evangelize said product.

Case in point: the TiVo. I'm sure you've all heard me talking about it ad nauseum. It handles the 'time-shifting' of television programs flawlessly. It does not suffer from superfluous features. And, it has the coolness factor. The well-designed and often-praised remote control actually feels good in your hand and after a day or two of initial use, you don't have to look at it to use it. The screens with their animated backgrounds are fun. Text is easily readable and navigation is intuitive. And, unlike my PC, it has never crashed!

Another product I own that I'm also in love with is the iPod. Like the TiVo, it does what it does well, and doesn't do anything it doesn't need to do. (Why would you want a flashlight that has a built-in black-and-white TV, siren, radio, and mosquito repeller, for Pete's sake, that probably sucks as a flashlight when you'd be a hundred times better off with a simple Maglite!) The iPod Click Wheel makes it easy to navigate through your music collection, the screen is readable, the menu system is simple to follow, and it looks cool. I am anxious to get an up-close look at the new iPod shuffle to see how it compares to the original and if it's navigation is intuitive since it has no screen.

This brings me back to the Mac mini. They've packed a lot of computer into a very small package. I figure I can tuck this thing under my desk and hook it up to my existing keyboard, monitor, mouse, and speakers with a nice KVM switch. At $500, I feel like this would be a better investment than the $1300 iMac, especially since I won't know how much use I'll actually get out of the thing until I have it. Although, I've found over time that things I originally thought were overpriced now seem like a bargain if they fit my criteria for 'Elegant Design.'

[UPDATE: Here's a nice chart that sums up Apple's latest business strategy of trying to penetrate the mass market.]