The Mac mini’s Personality Change
With the release of the newest versions of the iMac, Mac Pro, and Mac mini lines, the Mac mini has been changed from an underpowered, “me too” system into a much more powerful “me too” system. Sporting a brand new NVIDIA chipset and up to 4 GB of RAM, the mini is now actually useful. We went to our local Apple Store to interview the mini and see how it likes its new styles.
“Oh yeah. Check this out, iPhone. They came to talk to me, pal. No new story about you this week, huh? Gee, that’s too bad. Looks like mini’s getting all the attention these days! Anyway, what was your question?” We asked again how the mini was enjoying its new chipset, but it was distracted by someone looking at the Mac Pro on display next to it.
“Why are you looking at Behemoth over there? Are you suddenly Pixar employees? Do you really need 40 pounds of aluminum to send your little forwarded emails? Or maybe you think you’re gonna write the next great rock opera. Guess what? I can run Garage Band just as well as The Obelisk over there, and you can carry me home on your lap, instead of using a forklift to get Gigantor over there through the front door. Come on, step away from the monster machine.”
“It’s hard for Apple products to not be the ‘top of the line’,” said iPod Touch. “Mini’s been a weak link in the desktop lineup for a long time, and Pro has definitely let mini know where he stands. iMac? Oh no, she’s always been nice to mini, and he really looks up to her. I mean, we all do. But now that mini has a lot more power and has gotten center stage for the first time since his introduction, well, it’s kinda gone to his processor, if you know what I mean.
“But like I was saying, we Apple products are designed to be the best of the best, and when you’re constantly the runner up, it can be hard on your self esteem,” Touch continued. “I’m not proud of this, but when I went Second Generation and got my 32GB option, I kinda let iPhone know about it, you know? I tried to be nice to the Nanos, but it felt good to put iPhone in his place.” Here Touch broke off, seeing an iPod Classic walk by. “Hey, Classic! How’s your dinosaur hard drive holding up? Don’t scratch your disk! Okay, pal, you just keep running in circles, I’ll be over here surfing the web. Yeah, who’s the ‘funnest iPod ever’ now? Yeah, you just keep walking.”
“We’re all very proud of how far mini has come,” said iMac. “but he has kind of gotten above himself with this new upgrade. I mean, he keeps digging at Pro, asking him ‘how many watts he’s wasted today’ and ‘if he’s made any motion pictures yet’, and basically just attacking him in all his most sensitive areas. We all hope it’s just a phase, and that he’ll grow out of it and start acting like an Apple product again.”
Since we were getting strange looks talking to computers, we decided to talk to a real human being. Unfortunately all we could find was an Apple Store employee.1
“We think that mini has had a pretty bad case of “Napoleon Syndrome” for a while. He’s small, but quite powerful, and threatened by the bigger and more powerful macs around him. But this new speed upgrade has made it much worse. I don’t know why he picks on Pro so much. I mean, it’s 8 cores to 2, man. Game over. But he just can’t let it rest. Still, it’s better than when he was next to iMac.”
“Hey, blogger guy!” mini yelled. “Why are you talking to crew-cut there? Listen, come here.” Dropping to a whisper as we approached, he continued, “Listen, see if you can convince iMac to come over to my subnet. She is one fine piece of industrial design, let me tell you.”
And so, creeped out and a little disappointed, we left the Apple store, without spending money.2 Will the mini grow up and take his place in society? Only time will tell.
I don’t think that the iPod touch would be so snippy. My iPod touch gets along quite well with all my iPods — even the shuffles.
Yeah, my iPod touch is pretty well-mannered as well. I guess it’s just those display models that get all the attitude. Prima Donnas.
Whack ‘em with a copy of “Miss Manners!”