The Little BIG Mac

Apple, Inc. has created a new market, a new consumer, and they have a variety of products to feed the need to spend of those in their newly created market of media consumers, but as these people spend more and more on digital content they run into a small problem...

Apple doesn't provide the one product that can take all of the digital content that a user or family of users have and manage it. iTunes works fine for a while. Front Row is great for now, but over a very short period of time the user interface starts to degrade as the amount of a consumers content starts to overwhelm the interface with long lists. And then there are the storage requirements, the necessity for redundant storage to preserve these digital purchases from the all too likely event of a storage failure.

What fits into this niche that Apple has created and that only Apple can fill (due to the DRM on the digital content)?

Enter the Little Big Mac, a hybrid between a Mac Mini and a Mac Pro. Shipping standard with a 10 license copy of Snow Leopard Server and a special iTunes server, a redundant hard disk RAID, easily filled by slotting in two 750GB 3.5" SATA drives, but the primary storage for iTunes content will be in the form of a third party eSATA RAID array, an external, optional accessory that will turn out to be a necessity for avid digital consumers. Yes, this tiny little big Mac will feature two firewire 800 and one firewire 400 port, one eSATA port, and 4 USB ports. It will be a headless unit, remotely administered using Apple's server admin software and VNC. A DVI port with a very basic graphics chip set will enable the unit to be used at a desktop or hooked up to an HDTV, but that wouldn't be ideal.

Servicing the Little Big Mac will be simple, and the average Joe will be able to order a parts kit.