So I spent some time at the Apple store today.
First off, was fortunate to spend a little time with one of the guys that had a demo Magic Mouse so I got to play with one - I was actually quite impressed. It's got a solid aluminum bottom, presumably because it needs to be more solid and steady when you finger stroke the top. The are no distinct buttons, but right and left clicks were clear, easy and natural. It felt good in my hand, being much less wimpy, delicate and plastic feeling than previous mice. Unfortunately, you need 10.6.2 to open up the finger actions on the surface, so I was unable to demo that.
But anyway, I spent some time talking about the new 27" and the video input port. It's a MiniDisplay, so a simply male-to-male will allow a notebook to take advantage of the larger screen. But much more intriguing is the notion of a HDMI to MiniDisplay cable as I've talked about above. Since the iPhone can act as a remote for the computer (and they just came out with a new aluminum remote that looks more stylish, but not necessarily any more functional) it seems that they are steadily making their way towards the holy grail.
Wrapping up my earlier blather, since you need a TV port into the Mac (if you want to watch live TV) then a Tivo HD is a perfect companion. Cable/digital in to that will do your digital decoding (and pay per view channels and such as well) and TV to HDMI conversion. Then simply connect the TiVo to the iMac and you've got a pretty darn sturdy and solid mid-room media center I think. Certainly not huge, but great for a mid-sized application. Of course what comes with a full computer in the den is well known.
One challenge will be multiple inputs, which it is not designed for. A manual switcher to connected your XBox OR Wii OR your TiVo would be necessary, but for many this might not be too big a compromise physically, to get the best of both worlds.
There aren't any open on the store floor yet, that should be tomorrow which I am looking forward to. Also just noticed the newest high end iMac for sale - quite a large package for a reasonable price:
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/imac?mco=MTA4MTg1MDA... quad core i7 with 4G ram, 1TB drive and of course that gorgeous monitor for 2199... I just tried to build a quad core with the same memory, HD, processor and display and the price was $5288 ... I must have done something wrong because I built an HP with reasonably the same specs for just over 2 grand, although it looked monumentally cheesy.
In the final analysis, considering the value perspective, I think this is a smoking machine & deal, both for the desktop and the living room (obviously you'd need a lot less whoomf in the living room...)
The only thing that is not yet known, is how exactly you switch between looking at the Mac's output and then switching to the video port's input. That would have to be something really easy to do and, frankly, on the remote control or it'd add too much complexity to the process. Let's hope they get that right - they've not been spot on with monitors and adaptors lately.
