Creative Toolbox

So two bits of news came out today that had disappointing prices attached to them: the new season of the Ricky Gervais Show and the new Mac mini.

One I’ll get right out of the way. Ricky Gervais and company have decided to be one of the first pay-to-listen podcasts on iTunes Music Store. This is certainly justifiable since the Ricky Gervais show is quite entertaining and hugely popular. What’s not so funny is the price: $1.99 for a 30 minute audio-only podcast. Keep in mind that full length TV shows are available on iTunes Music Store for the same price. I don’t know about you but I was thinking $0.49 or perhaps even $.99 would have been more in line.

It’s not that I don’t think Ricky, Steven, and Karl deserve compensation for their talent and time, but I just feel it sets a rather bad precendent to an emerging content delivery method. Pricing your 30 minute audio-only podcast episodes at two bucks this early in the podcast era I think is a detriment to the adoption of the technology. I’m sure people will shell out the money to listen to the show that are already hooked, but not as many if it was more reasonably priced. Check out the early reviews on iTMS for the general public opinion on this move.

Now the second bit of news is somewhat similar in theme. The new iMac mini was announced today sporting either a Intel Core Solo or Core Duo processor. There are a few other improvements such as the soon-to-be obligatory addition of Front Row and Apple Remote, but aside from some other improvements this is the Mac mini we we know (2006 edition). But what else is different is a bump in the prices. $599 for the 1.5GHz Core Solo (Combo Drive) edition or $799 for the 1.66GHz Core Duo (SuperDrive) edition. The base configuration is a $100 more than before and the better configuration is $200 more than that. Sure, they’re faster but the transition to Intel is going to be bumpy for most of us so we won’t fully realize these speed bumps for a year or so out.

One other thing to point out with these new Mac minis is that they use shared memory for video. Ugh. But lets keep in mind that these systems are intended as a starter Mac. If you’re serious about working on Mac, you’re probably going to want to opt for something more powerful anyway. But this leads me to why I’m slightly disappointed with the Intel-based Mac mini. I’m guessing as before, the Mac mini is intended to help switchers over to the Mac. So now, these switchers will have to throw down a bit more money to get a system that’s somewhat crippled for doing creative work on. Is this really the kind of initial experience Apple wants to present to a switcher? I guess so.