The $500 Mac
The rumors of the inexpensive "headless" Macintosh seem to be pretty close to coming true. Think Secret just got sued by Apple for several of their articles, including the one with the $500 Mac. This is great!
Remember when I bought my PowerMac from eBay just a few months ago? That was a 5 year old Mac that barely ran OSX, yet it cost me almost this exact price in the world's most efficient marketplace. Two thoughts: First, that means there's a fair amount of demand for a inexpensive Mac, regardless of its power and secondly, the used Mac marketplace is about to get hammered. If you haven't sold your old PowerMac by now, you can pretty much assume it's going to be a doorstop pretty soon.
*Everyone* I've talked to is interested in this machine. Everyone wants a Mac, but most people can't afford it or can't justify the premium you have to pay. But for $500? They'd fly off the shelves. Hell, people are paying that much for iPods and other audio players, for the whole Macintosh? It's a no brainer. The strategy I've read is that Apple would use this as a Windows-machine replacement. Basically, it's made to just slide into the same spot as your current Windows box. Perfect.
More - people are talking about buying these boxes and using them as home media centers. This is a pretty interesting thought and could open the way for Apple to enter the TiVo/Media Center world that everyone has been predicting for quite a while. In fact, maybe this is more than just a cheap computer. Maybe this is a Consumer Electronics PC. In other words, I just saw someone talking about how the next version of the X-Box will be a powerful, yet generic computer that could be "re-branded" for different purposes: Game Machine, 2nd computer, Media Center and more. This machine from Apple could be along the same lines.
I guess we'll just have to wait another few days and find out, won't we. :-)
-Russ