Mac mini / iPod shuffle / iLife '05 Store Event

On Saturday, Jan. 22, 2005 Apple opened its U.S. retail stores one hour early to allow customers to purchase or go hands-on with the products introduced at the Mac Expo the previous week: iLife '05, the iPod shuffle and the Mac mini.

At the stores I visited in the San Francisco Bay Area, no iPod shuffles were available. In fact, there was a wait-list at the stores, which made about 25 persons angry at one store.

However, there were adequate supplies of the Mac mini in both 1.25 GHz and 1.42 GHz versions, and adequate supplies of iLife '05 and iWork. At the stores I visited, sales of the new products were constant for the first 30 minutes, and then occasional after that. At one store, about 20 Mac minis were sold during the first 30 minutes.

The Mac mini computers were located at the front-most, side-counter locations in the 'pro' and 'home' sections, and in the left-most position on the side-counter in the 'photo' section. All were hooked up to 20-inch Cinema Displays. You can see the arrangement in the photos below, including the tangle of cables from the back of the Mac mini if every port is connected. What you can't see is the shiny white power brick, which is similar to the Cinema Display power adaptor, only longer.

Not shown is the iPod shuffle display in the 'music' section, where the the adhesive security cable connector is almost larger than the shuffle to which it's attached!