I’m really surprised at how many sites are “breaking” the rumor that there will be a new Mac mini at Macworld Expo. I was telling people at public meetings weeks ago that it was a lock for Macworld… and I’ve been talking about the new mini since the MacBook went GeForce 9400M.

The Mac mini has the longest lifecycle of any modern (post-1998) Mac. If you bought the Core 2 Duo Mac mini when it came out, you’d better have AppleCare Protection on it, or you’d be out of warranty already.

The Mac mini is the only system that requires a significant revision to be OpenCL-ready, so, well, it’s a no-brainer at this point. The Mac Pro just needs a graphics card swap.

My wish list for the new Mac mini? eSATA. I can understand losing FireWire, but eSATA would be a huge improvement, and would allow the Mac mini to sit for lots longer without a product rev. By making the mini the first Mac with eSATA, Apple can spend the next year adding it to the rest of the lineup. FireWire? I’ll miss it, but eSATA would be a happy tradeoff right now.

(Note, I seriously doubt Apple will embrace eSATA until it is on every single PC on the planet, in self-powered configuration no less).

P.S. I haven’t had a chance to say it on this blog, but cheers to Apple on the new MacBooks. I know it’s long overdue, but I was a key critic of the graphics in the MacBook and MacBook Air. There really aren’t any major complaints that I have with either system now… I just have to chose between the two for my next portable.