Another Stevenote come and gone, and man, it was a doozy, wasn't it? Sorry about the delay before our official reaction, but we wanted to make sure we watched the whole QuickTime stream of Steve's big annual SF throwdown before we said anything. And now we have-- yes, even that six-hour demonstration of Tiger's Spotlight technology-- and so we're pumped so full of time-delayed Reality Distortion Field energy that we glow in the dark. Why, knowing the half-life of this stuff, it'll be days before the radiation dies down and we can finally turn a critical eye toward Apple's various and sundry new products. In the meantime, we're just going to ride the wave, surrender to unconditional hero worship, and drool so much we flirt with dangerous levels of dehydration.

We know it's not fashionable to focus on the "M"-word when there are new iPod products to fawn over, but what the hey: we're giving the Mac mini top billing. After all, this is significant stuff; the mini is Apple's least expensive computer ever (even counting the Apple II line), and it represents the Mac platform's first true foray into that segment of the modern consumer market labeled by top economists as the "Cheap-Ass Skinflint" sector. Honestly, who would have ever thought that any of us would live to see Apple selling a full-fledged Mac OS X system complete with iLife digital hub apps and more or less a full complement of ports for just $499? Sure, it only packs a G4 processor, but it ought to have plenty enough ooomph to handle most consumers' day-to-day digital lifestyle tasks without turning blue and falling over.

And boy howdy, if you thought the iMac G5 was obviously designed to capitalize on the iPod "halo effect," with the Mac mini all subtlety has gone straight out the window. Sure, the iMac looks more like an iPod in a dock, but the Mac mini screams "hey Wintellians, try me on for size!" with every particle of its being from its concept outward. After all, if a Wintel user is willing to spend an average of about $300 for an iPod (and last quarter, well over 4 million of them did), it's not much of a stretch to think that a fair chunk of that market might also plunk down $500 for a small and sleek virus-free computer that can handle just about any digital lifestyle task they can throw at it.

The whole "Bring Your Own Display, Keyboard, and Mouse" thing invites Wintel users to reuse their existing hardware to lower their cost of entry. They can spring for a cheap display and input devices if they like, or buy a KVM switch to share their Wintel's I/O gear with the Mac mini, which is teensy enough to fit into any existing Wintel environment. Heck, that might be the ideal "stealth switcher" setup; use the Wintel for games and Windows-only apps, and then flick a switch and use Mac OS X for digital photography, video editing, music composition, iPod management, Internet tasks, etc. Eventually they might find that they're hardly ever switching back. If Apple's smart, it'll offer a bundle promo that gives a discount on any Mac mini purchased with a Belkin 2-Port KVM Switch.

Only time will tell if Apple's grand experiment with targeting the low-end market will work, but the fact that the "aimed at Wintel iPod-users" iMac G5 has become the company's top-selling Mac bodes well for the mini's future sales figures. And how cool is it that the mini just so happens to be a Power Mac G4 Cube that got caught in a hydraulic press? Apple yoinked its award-winning Cube from the market when it became clear that no one wanted to drop well over a thousand clams for a Mac with such limited expansion capabilities, but the company said the Cube might return someday in some other form-- and now it has. One third the Cube at one third the price: now that sounds like a recipe for success. Geez, we're even thinking of picking one up for the kid's room. And maybe one for the living room. And kitchen. At $499, how can you go wrong? Maybe Apple will start selling them in six-packs...