Apple set to axe Mac Mini?

Apple's diminutive Mac Mini is due to be discontinued, it has been claimed, quite possibly the victim of the even smaller but no less Mac OS X friendly Apple TV. According to an AppleInsider report, Apple sources claim the Mini's for the chop - maybe after a near-term upgrade, or maybe sooner. If the allegation is true, it's …

[Martin Saunders]

Shame....

I've been using a Mini as my home PVR, DVD and general media player for a year now, and I've been very pleased with it. There are a few issues:

*EyeTV (the most commonly used PVR software) is rubbish, for reasons that have been discussed on El Reg in the past

*Matroska (.mkv) files won't play cleanly in FrontRow - although the guys working on Perian (www.perian.org) are doing a great job at trying to fix that.

*No Windows-DRM support for things like 4OD - although the PVR catches everything I want to watch on real TV.

..but aside from these the hardware is excellent. With more effort on the software it could easily be a Sky + beating package without a subscription charge. None of this is going to earn Jobs a dime though, so I can understand why its being dropped..