Two New Products from Apple

Apple Computer fans descended on San Francisco this last week to see and hear the latest news and products at the Macworld Expo. Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs introduced a new budget PC dubbed the Mac Mini during his keynote address at the expo, promising that the machine will expand Apple's audience well beyond the current Mac faithful and make the Mac more appealing to us folks who use Windows-based computers. The Mac Mini, which will retail for $499, is a tiny machine with a processor, a hard drive and an optical drive. But you must supply the monitor, mouse and keyboard.

However, while the the starting price is low, it still costs about $100 more than similarly configured PCs from Gateway, Hewlett-Packard and others, according to analysts and price checks. And, when one market researcher started to add in all the normal options things that buyers want on their computers, the final price came to $1,300

The other new Apple product that Jobs introduced was a new version of its popular music player, the iPod Shuffle, priced as low as $99. Based on flash memory, rather than the more expensive computer-like hard drives that have been the centerpiece of all other iPods, the new player is aimed at the low end of the market.

The Shuffle comes in two sizes. The $99 version has 512MB of storage and holds about 120 songs; the $149 version has 1GB of storage and holds about 240 songs. Unlike most similar devices, the Shuffle has no display screen to show songs or playlists; it consists only of a slender white rectangle with the trademark iPod navigation wheel on one side.