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The upcoming PS3, current hacked X-boxes, the next X-box (using the yet to be produced next generation of G chip, to be made by Motorola), any of the barebone minicube PC systems, are faster, have larger hard drives, more RAM, more video mem, more input slots, more software, more games, play Mp3's equally as well, have the similar small dimensions, are UPGRADEABLE, and cost substantially less.

The $499 Mac mini comes with a 40 GB harddrive. That's pathetic.

That's without mentioning the very cool cases available for barebone PC's with or without Windows/Linux, that can be had for as little as $400, with mouse, monitor and keyboard. (Much cooler cases for mini-Pc's and mini-ATX can be bought for $15. For ~$40,000 up front, I can have a Taiwanese firm building clones of mini IMac cases for PC's in 4 days.)

And then there's the 3 ton gorilla, Wal-Mart's barebones Linspire system.

I don't see how between now and the introduction date of PS3 or Xbox2 to market, Apple will see any market share growth, or much increased profit from this product.

The mini Mac should have been introduced 3 years ago.

You are dead-on accurate. For some reason, the cheerleaders on this thread don't seem to get it. The target market for this computer doesn't exist. Sure some Macheads will buy one for "projects" or such, but this will not catch on.

First, the computer illiterates are not dependable. They will pick based on price, familiarity, easy-of-use, and at random (pretty much in that order). The killer for Apple is the familiarity part of the equation. A tremendous number of offices use PC based products, and a computer illiterate will be far more likely to have used a PC at work than a Mac (as Macs tend to be in computer-intensive professions: graphic design, etc.)

Second, single-issue purchasers won't be sold on the system due to its bare-bones setup. For example, my Mom recently had me build her a computer. She was only interested in a system for accounting, spreadsheets, and internet browsing. At her job, she used Excel. So a Mac would have imposed learning costs (no matter how "superior" or "easy" they might be after you learn them) that she didn't want. I specced up a system for her that was good performing in some areas (lots of RAM), but bare-bones in others (stock video card), and she was happy. It performed well for what she wanted, and she didn't care that it couldn't render high-end graphics. If one of these single-issue buyers gets a cheap Mac that doesn't do the one thing they want easily and quickly, it doesn't matter how great it is at other things... they won't like it.

Third, it is obvious that you guys must not be around kids very much. As someone who works with them 8 hours a day, I can tell you with complete surety that no computer literate kid in his right mind would so much as glance at one of these. Kids might want something to hook up to their I-pods, but from the discussions I hear from them at school, they want powerful machines (they compare video cards like past kids compared baseball cards. Probably the most impressed I've ever seen a class was when I told them I had an Nvidia 6800GT in one of my rigs at home [this was right after they were launched]... I thought they were going to knee and worship). Only the least computer saavy kids are going to even glance at this. The ones who want computers want something they can play Half Life 2 on.

I just don't see who is going to buy this machine...

The $499 Mac mini comes with a 40 GB harddrive. That's pathetic. That's without mentioning the very cool cases available for barebone PC's with or without Windows/Linux, that can be had for as little as $400, with mouse, monitor and keyboard.

For $599 you can double that disk capacity to 80G. Now consider that you get not only Apple hardware build quality but a better GUI than Windows and a better Unix than Linux, and you can run them both at the same time. Try doing that with a PC.