You'll note I said they exited the market with these new iMacs (Apple used to sell a 17" iMac for a grand). The Mac Mini is still available at a very low price, but it's:

1) Anemic, even for a $600 computer

2) Not nearly as easy to setup or as feature-laden as an iMac, since you have to attach a monitor and other devices by hand

It's small, but that isn't a huge advantage for most users, and its overall footprint is probably larger than that of the iMac, what with the separate monitor and all the cables and such you have to run out of it.

I think Apple could easily make a stripped-down 20" iMac that sold for under $1000 - well under - while still featuring performance greatly superior to that of the Mini. In fact I was kind of shocked they didn't offer such a machine this time around, as there's a pretty big gap in their lineup between the Mini and the iMac.

I do love OS X, but newer versions of Windows - in particular XP - are pretty stable and reliable if properly configured, and Vista seems to be stable at least on new systems with new hardware (legacy drivers are another matter, at least for now). I think a lot of the folks who are having trouble with Windows are still running dogs like Windows 98 and Windows ME. Most of the rest have machines infected with viruses and spyware, which is not a huge problem on a properly configured XP system, and even less of a problem with Vista as configured out of the box.

This brings up another point which I don't often see made when discussing the merits of Apple's hardware. One of the big advantages of the switch to Intel processors was opening up the Macs to run Windows, for the many folks out there who need Windows compatibility at least some of the time, for work applications, games and the like. The downside to this is that performance under Windows matters, and right now you can buy a lot more performance for your dollar with a PC than with a Mac.

I think Apple is ultimately being foolish by not closing this performance gap, because there are a LOT of users out there who'd probably switch to the Mac if the premium were under a couple hundred dollars, as opposed to $200 - $500 (or more), depending upon the market segment. What Apple would lose in margins they'd more than gain in volume, increasing the number of OS X systems in the field and the amount of software produced for their operating system. This in turn would encourage more people to switch.

I could see Apple eventually capturing up to 25% of the PC market - probably over 50% of the lucrative high end home and small business market - if they pursued a more aggressive growth strategy. Even at 10-15%, I think they'd ensure the longterm survival of the Mac and OS X. It would make them too large for other developers to ignore, and give them an installed base and guaranteed demand that would support them through any economic downturns.

If you own, oh, 50 movies, that's up to 1.5 terabytes. Depending on what you buy, that's $300 to $400 worth of hard drives.

Even today, that's not $400 worth of hard drives. You could pickup 3 500GB drives for around $350 if you shop around. 1TB drives are now hitting the market. I'd expect to see 2TB drives within 2 years selling for about $300.

Both of these formats are DOA. Most consumers aren't particularly interested in them. Cable companies are already rolling out HD on demand, for a lot less than $20 a movie. Most folks don't want to see something more than once or twice anyhow.

Remember DVD-Audio and Sony's goofball Super Audio CD's? HD-DVD and BluRay are the video equivalents. Nobody gives a crap. They want to download their video and watch it on their iPhone or on their cable box. They don't want to hook up yet another stupid player to their television, jump thru more tedious DRM hoops and re-purchase their libraries all over again in some new format that's destined for the scrapheap in 5 to 10 years.

If these two formats had come out a couple of years earlier - or better yet if the industry greedheads had been able to settle on a single format - hi-def discs might have stood a chance. They missed their window of opportunity. By the time they even begin to become established, the market will have passed them by.

Even if, by some miracle, downloaded content doesn't bury HD-DVD and BluRay it's likely technological progress probably will. The Japanese are already making noises about the NEXT hi-def format, probably holographic discs, which will sport capacities theoretically in excess of a terabyte. They'll make BluRay look like an old 5.25" floppy drive.

Time Warner cable is already offering HD on-demand downloads to many of its customers. They'll be rolling it out to the rest over the next couple of years. These downloads don't go thru your computer but thru your cable box - Time Warner (and the other cable providers) prioritize that content, so it downloads much faster than your computer can, and you don't have to wait for the whole file to download before you begin viewing the content.

The current high-def disc formats are all doomed. They'll be squeezed by cable and PC downloaded content from below, and by higher-capacity disc formats from above.