Was the Mac mini Intended to Have an iPod dock?

RMH101 writes "Was the Mac mini originally designed to have an integrated iPod dock? The Register has an article that appears to suggest it was. This opens up the option of homebrewing your own dock into a mini for yourself..."

Coralized link

[panum]

Use Coral proxy [coralcdn.org] to avoid slashdotting the poor site [nyud.net].

-P

Old news

[white1827]

The remnants of a possible iPod dock were found by the initial people ripping them open.

Probably a little internal fight over it

[caryw]

A great deal of people are buying iPod's these days. If more of them would buy mac's too Apple's market share for personal computers would greatly increase. I'm sure they originally put the dock idea in the low-cost model to attract these windows iPod buyers but the purists at Apple fought to keep the box cheap, simple, and clean.
Also, since I have karma to spare, with I googled for mac mini ipod dock I got a picture of this crazy contraption [hackaday.com]. Just thought I'd share.
- Cary
--Fairfax Underground [fairfaxunderground.com]: Where Fairfax County comes out to play

Re:Good thing Apple changed their mind

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not supposed to stack them anyway, because it interferes with the optical drive on top and the cooling system on the bottom.

Re:Not an iPod doc

[cybercyph]

not lacking firewire support-- the ipod end of the connection is agnostic, a proprietary dock connector. Ipods are now coming with only the USB 2.0 cable-- no doubt to increase profit margins. All new macs come with USB 2.0 support, as do the majority of PCs, whereas many PCs do not come with firewire support.

Yes, But Killed Early On

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the opportunity not too long ago to speak with someone at Apple that worked on the Mac Mini project and I asked the same question as it had been speculated on a lot by the rumor sites. The answer was yes, it was considered early on in the project but killed because they didn't think that it would work aesthetically along with the possibility that it could interfere with the wireless performance of the Bluetooth and Airport antennas that are located on the top of the case.

Re:Not an iPod doc

[troc]

Erm, wrong. The new iPods are lacking a Firewire cable. That's all. The functionality is still there. It's a cost-cutting measure, USB 2.0 is ubiquitous and therefore they include that cable. You want to connect with Firewire, no problem, just get the FW cable (and/or dock)

Troc :)

You're mixing up your 'pods.

[argent]

The only iPod-branded device lacking firewire is the iPod Shuffle. The new Minis have firewire, they just aren't bundled with a firewire cable.

Re:hasnt the ipod line abandoned firewire?

[shadowsurfr1]

From what I heard, they haven't abandoned firewire, the cable is still available but they only ship ipods with the USB cable now.

Re:Not an iPod doc

[Fahrvergnuugen]

Apple has already reaffirmed that they have no intentions of making a media center:

from MacWorld [macworld.com]

Media Centers and digital video players

Oppenheimer articulated Apple's current philosophy when it comes to "media center" computers -- PCs designed to work in the living room as a component of a home entertainment system, recording video, playing back music and more. While Oppenheimer admitted some consumers may be interested in media center PCs and that a Mac mini might be suitable, he said that "most customers" would prefer to have a more powerful computer in their office or den and leverage wireless networking to stream content to their home entertainment system.

As a practical example, Oppenheimer pointed to AirTunes -- a feature of iTunes that works in conjunction with Apple's AirPort Express wireless networking hub. The AirPort Express features an audio jack that can connect to the home entertainment system using a mini jack or a digital optical cable. Music can then be streamed from the computer playing iTunes to the stereo.

The iPod won't be getting video capabilities any time soon if current players are any indication, said Oppenheimer. Today's crop of portable media viewers are too bulky to carry as comfortably as the iPod, yet have screens he said are too small to enjoy a movie the same way you would on a TV or laptop. "Our view is that they've failed in the marketplace," said Oppenheimer.

Re:Sorry it was the price...

[Arcady13]

You blame Apple because you are unable to read the system requirements [apple.com] or try out the free 30-day trial [apple.com] of the software? The trial page even has a compatibility checker application you can download.

Next time, try blaming the real source of the problem: yourself.

wrong pinout

[morcheeba]

That looks interesting but the mac mini connecctor has 20 pins, while the ipod dock connector [ipoding.com] has 30 pins. The placement of the firewire pins are also different - the mini has the data on pins 1,2,11, and 12, while the ipod has them on 3,5,7, and 9 [ipoding.com].

Re:Y'know, its still about $150 too much...

[claussenvenable]

mod parent up:
This is more about players than the Mini, but...

I'm an embedded/firmware developer doing audio players.

The solutions used by virtually *everyone*, Apple included, for their music players are built around overloaded (in a good way) platforms from PortalPlayer and Sigmatel. Typically they're designed so that the platform can do anything from simple flash player to full-fledged multicodec recording and video playback.

The cost of the silicon is basically the same in all of these cases, and makes it possible for the platform developers to support customers in the entire product range (from Shuffle to Portable Media Player) with very little overhead.

The savings come in reducing the peripheral devices that have to go in, as well as the mechanical construction and battery. Flash players, for example, don't have a 20 dollar (in high volume!) LCD, and typically only use a few MB of SDRAM cache since they don't have to worry about HDD duty cycle to conserve power.

Remember the iMac

[Anonymous Coward]

On the first few generations iMacs, there was a "Mezzanine" port which you could attach a floppy drive to or a vodoo 2 card (yea the times have changed). Apple never did anything with it, it was just there. I think this port on the Mac Mini will be similarly exploited by some company.

why have a sales rep at the store?

[sum.zero]

it sounds like he bought the software at the same time as he bought the hardware. if so, the sales rep should have pointed out that the software wouldn't run on the machine he was buying. likely, the rep was more focused on earning the commission and not on servicing the customer.

sum.zero

Re:Not an iPod doc

[swillden]

you could plug a mini into your TV and be basically set with the ultimate convergence box.

The mini would also need better sound outputs. The single 1/8" stereo jack doesn't cut it in most home theatres. You need SP/DIF or TOSLINK output for 5.1 and 6.1.

Re:Where's the USB dock?

[Anonymous Coward]

It only needs FireWire to dock the iPod -- since only one interface is used at a time. FireWire would be chosen for an internal dock both because it is Apple technology and it runs better than USB 2. That doesn't mean this is the remnants of a dock connector. But lack of USB does not discredit the possibility.

Re:Not an iPod doc

[Golias]

Neat idea, but I recently read a review stating that the Mini (at least the base version) lacked the processing testicular fortitude to be a full-blown media center.

That's funny.

My Mac mini (the 1.42 version) is currently providing HDTV PVR functions (via the EyeTV 500), DVD movies, Other MPEG movies via VLC, music via iTunes, and wide-screen World of Warcraft, all while hosting my personal web page in the background.

In spite of EyeTV's box specs claiming that full-frame HD requires a dual-G5 tower, the mini seems to be handling it without a hitch. I even recorded some prime-time HDTV wide-screen broadcasts onto the mini's internal drive, and was able to watch them in full-screen mode with no trouble at all.

Not bad for a $600 computer with no mods other than a single 1GB stick of after-market RAM in it.

Re:Not an iPod doc

[Jeremy Erwin]

Nah. An atsc stream is already digital. Storing it takes very little horsepower, although it does take a "fast" hard drive-- the stream is 19.39 Mbs. Decompression could be a problem, but semimodern video cards have partial MPEG-2 decoding hardware built in, which substantially lightens the load. IIRC, wintel PCs only need a 800 MHz PIII to decode, assuming that video card acceleration is available.

Apple hasn't exposed the necessary APIs, but if they wanted too, they could. But personally, I wouldn't expect any movement in this area until CoreVideo and CoreImage are finished.

Re:It's a Macintosh, not a throwaway Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

Garsh. I'm running Fedora Core 3 on a PII 350Mhz with 256MB RAM. Before it ran FC3, it ran Windows XP Pro, and it was very usable. This computer is 7 years old too! Let's cuddle over our 7 year old technology.

Re:iPod dock for next gen of Sawtooth G4

[Jeremy Erwin]

No. The empty slot just a redundant part on a re-purposed motherboard. Does nobody remember the notorious "mezzanine" mystery header on the original iMac?

Sure. You could plug a Voodoo 2 card [theimac.com] or a SCSI card [theimac.com] into it. It was sweet-- at least until big bad Apple removed the slot from the Rev C's.

Re:Not an iPod doc

[karmatic]

I can't speak for the Mac version, but on a stock 1.5GHz P4 pc (XP, Radeon 9800) with 512mb of RAM, it's practically unplayable.

Throw in another 512MB, it's only choppy when a lot of people (20+) are in the same spot.

Re:Not an iPod doc

[Golias]

Yes, more RAM helps. No need to BTO. The "putty knife" trick works like a champ (although I find it works better if you use the knife to bend back all the tines, instead of just bending the first couple and popping the rest out) and then you will have a spare stick of memory left over which you can drop into another system.

Crowded cities still get a little laggy, but with 1GB, it plays smoothly enough that I became willing to sell off my game PC (as WoW was the only remaining non-console game I find myself playing.)

Does it do as well as an Athlon tower or a G5 with a beefy bleeding-edge card? Of course not... but if you have enough memory, take the reccomended graphics settings the game selects, and then turn off the floating player-character names (which makes a huge difference in town), you will probably be fairly happy with it.

Re:iPod Docks

[macintaz]

Look at the Bose SoundDock Digital Music System Supports iPod models with Dock Connector. (iPod and iPod Mini)

Does not support iPod photo (this may get revised soon) or iPod shuffle (May Never be Supported) My two cents

Re:Not an iPod doc

[ansleybean]

my mac mini 1.42 with 1GB RAM runs WoW beautifully. Unless there's something odd afoot, my guess is that 1GB is WoW's sweet spot.

Re:Doesn't it figure?

[cosmic_0x526179]

A review of Apple hardware reveals that there are often pieces of architecture that go into the product that are not used (iMac's mezzanine slot anyone?).

Locate a 128K or early 512K Mac (1984-vintage). Get out the torx-drivers and open the case. Look back under the monitor where the 3.5 floppy drive is located. The metal frame has a cutout for the 5.25-in Twiggy drive that was supposed to be used early in the design. I guess Apple was covering their ass in case they changed their mind at the last minute.