I saw this on Jason's blog and was going to write a comment. Then I realized my comment was becoming a book.
To be fair, I think Macs are cute, sleek, cool, whatever. They fit a specific need for some users. The biggest drawback, in my opinion, is that they are too expensive for what you receive with your purchase.
Back to the new entries in the Mac world.
1) Until it can natively run all of the Windows based apps I already own then the difference in price is moot. The one thing that caught my eye as a photographer was Apple's Aperture. It looked to be the end and be all for the photography industry and could have been the ONE reason I switched. I could get everything done on one platform with only a $2500 (Macbook Pro/Aperture) investment in hardware and software vs. a $4000 (Mac book pro/Photoshop CS 2/Capture One Pro/Office, etc) investment. Then we found out, as a surprise to most of us, Aperture doesn't manage color profiles well. Mac has always been a dominate force in the graphic industry because they were the first to integrate management into their platforms. Now they release Aperture with bugs. Adobe may have smartened up with Lightroom. We will see when the final versions come out.
Back to the original bit about the Mini. I seriously considered getting a Mini for Marlene last year. They were cute and the price point at $499 was VERY attractive at first. However, and typical with every time I look at Apple, when you start adding extras that $499 price is way out the window. I felt like I was on a bait and switch car lot. $499 at the time got you an cute underpowered box. Then you have to add a keyboard ($70), a mouse ($40), and a screen (gazillion dollars. However, let's say you find a cheap LCD for it at around $250. All of the sudden you are $1000 for, albeit cute, underpowered PC. For a $399(
From Dell website today) I can a get a 2.53 GHZ Celeron. Tower with 512GB of ram and a nice LCD monitor. So I don't think the $599 will make that much of a difference to the average user. I think if you already own larger Mac then the Mini might be a cute addition. If you are in the PC world then go look at any of the thousands of PC deals out right now.
2) I am surprised they didn't do it earlier. However, I would never own one even if I had an Ipod. You might as well have stamped "Steal ME" on the side with the IPOD logo. All it does is advertised that you have a mutli-hundred dollar gadget to steal
3) HUH? I think Mac has some of the most aesthetically looking products on the market. How did there engineers come up with the idea of mounting the thing on the top? Heck, make it black and have it look like the monolith from 2001 a Space Odyssey.
Also, I would buy BOSE equipment any day over something put out by a computer manufacturer.