Small Is Beautiful.

This section presents the author's observation on new products showcased at the 2005 Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco, California. Mac mini's $499 price--the lowest ever for a Mac--is the only second most startling thing about the new machine. Its looks recall the ill-fated G4 Cube, but the Cube was nearly five times taller, not to mention nearly four times more expensive. In the mini's 85 cubic inches, Apple fit a G4 processor, a 40 gigabyte or 80 gigabyte hard drive, the standard ports and room for the optional AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth. The Mac mini should also be of interest to those of us who are already in the Mac camp. At Macworld Expo, the Mac mini was upstaged by the tiny iPod shuffle, which costs as little as $99 and weighs less than an ounce. But consider this: If one want a pretty interface and a big collection of music, Apple has a few other products one may have heard of--the iPod photo, the iPod and the iPod mini. The iPod shuffle is a different product, designed for people who want to have an ultrasmall, ultra-expensive player that lets them make take along a respectable slice of their music collection. I doubt the iPod shuffle will ever be as popular as the other members of the iPod family. But, like the Mac mini, it fills some important niches.