Not in time for Christmas – Mac “Kaleidoscope” digital hub: Think Secret, the go-to source for Apple rumors (so go-to, Apple is suing him), is reporting that at Macworld (I’m guessing, on January 10 at 9 a.m. PDT), “Apple’s Mac mini will be reborn as the digital hub centerpiece it was originally conceived to be. The new Mac mini project, code-named Kaleidoscope, will feature an Intel processor and include both Front Row 2.0 and TiVo-like DVR functionality.”
It’s no secret that Apple will one day introduce something it hopes to be for the “home-entertainment” market what the iPod is for the in-your-pocket-and-ears entertainment market. Personally (and I’m biased, so take this with a grain of salt), I think Apple will be the company that finally succeeds — at least, at the top end of this market — with a fully “converged” digital hub (but I doubt they’ll ever use the word goofy term “digital hub” in describing it) that brings together audio, video, computing and online media…and hangs flatly against your wall.
Why Apple? Its product will be elegantly simple and beautifully designed. More importantly, the user interface won’t be created by Microsoft or Sony others who don’t typically display Apple’s unique insight into how to make things simple to understand and use.
Update: Dave Winer can’t overlook the attitude Apple sometimes displays with their software. He’s right.
Also, I remembered this morning that I said the following back in October: “I can predict one thing. In about 2-3 years, I’ll be purchasing a TV-media center flat screen something-or-other that will hang on my wall and be fairly large — and it will have the Apple brand on it. I won’t be disappointed in the previous model because I’ll wait until they have exactly what I want.”
I stand by that prediction. Except knock off a year.
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