Fans of Apple Computer may be a rare species, but the Penn contingent of Mac lovers -- including the 63 members of the "Apple iNation" group on thefacebook.com and 7 members of the "Why Yes, I am a Mac user," group -- are already raving about the new products that Apple recently announced at the Mac Expo in San Francisco.
The brand new Mini Mac computers and "iPod shuffles" will go on sale Jan. 22. These two products will be the notoriously expensive company's first foray into cheaper computer products.
These "innovative" products have already drawn significant interest from the Penn community, according to Computer Connection General Manager Jeffrey Rusling.
Basic models of the 40-gigabyte Mini Mac will cost $499 while the 512-Megabyte iPod shuffle will cost $99. Both items boast a reduced cost, but feature fewer features than regular Apple products.
The original iPod sells for up to $399, and some computer models are listed well over $1,000.
College sophomore John Kneeland recently convinced a friend to buy the new iPod model.
"It's really small and really cheap and it's an Apple so you know it's going to work," Kneeland said. "It's a new low end iPod type thing, it looks awesome ... I think it will sell pretty well."
While Nursing freshman Alexandra Kotsovos is not planning to buy the new model since she received a regular iPod for Christmas, she said she believed that they will become popular.
"A lot of people don't like iPods because they are so big ... but I bet now a lot of people who wouldn't buy an iPod would consider" the iPod shuffle, Kotsovos said.
Wharton junior Jocelyn Cheng disagreed. Cheng, who was recently looking for a portable music player, decided against an iPod because of the price. She added, however, that even if she had known about the cheaper version, she would have still bought her mini disc player because it was a better deal.
This Saturday, many Apple stores will open an hour earlier to allow customers to buy the new products, though Penn's Computer Connection will only be operating regular hours.
