the iRule Mini.

I may have been about 18 months early with my prediction, but holy shit I was spot on:

A lower-end G5 I can understand being 'needed' by a consumer to do things reasonably with iPhoto and iMovie. Hence why I think Apple might introduce an iBox deal. It may be crippled, sure, but in price/performance it'll be an attractive deal to a lot of potential switchers. Specs aren't everything to alot of people - its the Apps too! Apple just needs to get into the ballpark performance-wise against the Intel and AMD with their consumer models to start shifting units.

[snip]

Then they'll introduce a 1.4 iBox (or MacBox). It will take a hit on the fancy additions like PCI-X but it'll sell for less than the PM G5. It'll be the switcher machine. Buy this for this price (which will be relatively competitive with dell - mb a $100 difference?) and you'll get a good machine with iLife and you can use your old PC monitor!

Who knows. the iBox is purely speculation on my part, but I think everyone is pretty damn sure Apple needs an entry level tower including Apple. Apple will never compete price/perfoormance wise with the crap-no-brand-boxes but they can compete with HP/Shuttle etc. if they desire. I don't think they'll ever get as cheap as dell but they can come reasonably close and offer a better user experience.

-- written on 23 June 2003, speculating about WDDC. Emphasis added.