The only innovation is the size. I've been a computer hobbyist for over twenty years and have owned dozens of different computers, notebooks and handhelds, often just for the amusement factor. Nowadays the typical guy in the street has a choice of Windows, Linux or Apple - and that's usually boiled down to Windows. For an awful lot of people (like my Dad, hopefully) the Mac Mini could allow them to get back into computers after frustrating experiences with Windows machines. Who doesn't know someone who's given up on the internet and email because of security problems with WinXP and inboxes stuffed with spam? I'm no Mac apostle, the closest I've been to Apple harware is a Newton that delighted me for quite literally hours with the sage interpretations it made of my handwriting (since donated to a niece as a doodling pad), but upgraded with a "Super Drive" what more do most people need from their hardware? As I said, if only it had dolby digital sound output it would make a sweet little media centre (no HD TV in the UK yet, though I know that'll be an issue in the US - Cringely wrote something about Apple using the mini as the basis of a HD movies version of iTunes. Truth be told from what I've seen it doesn't have the welly to decode HD smoothly but who knows.)
