14 DAY TRIAL // We've just come across another Mac mini mod, but this time it's only a concept. San Francisco artist Benjamin Harvey has thought up a Touch Pad that would make great friends with a Mac mini, eliminating the need of buying peripherals for the mini desktop computer.
The TouchPad + Mac mini concept was posted by Harvey (SONofWRONG) via DeviantArt. Explaining that “instead of creating a full-fledged touch-capable Mac [Harvey] devised a touch input device that would be wirelessly paired to any Mac on your local network.” According to the designer, “the most ideal of situations would be to pair it with my redesigned version of the Mac mini, which doesn't come packaged with peripherals. Instead of buying a Bluetooth keyboard and Mighty Mouse, you could pick up a TouchPad,” Harvey asserts.
The artist's comments further reveal that “like a giant iPod touch, the TouchPad supports multi-touch, an on-screen keyboard, and some streamlined OSX interface adjustments optimized for media, document processing, web browsing, and instant messaging. There's an iSight built in for iChat and Photo Booth that allows you to touch the screen to manipulate photos.”
According to the concept, the image is in secure pairing mode, with the peripheral-pairing process being simplified. “Whenever the Mac mini is powered on, it searches for a nearby powered up TouchPad,” Harvey says, adding that “the Pad automatically boots to the pairing screen on which you'll select what flavor Mac you wish to pair with.” Users are prompted for a unique passcode, once the mouse is selected.
“Each new Mac will ship with their own passcode printed in the product documentation,” the concept goes. If another Mac is detected, the TouchPad will alert its user to the presence of another system, allowing it to pair with the new computer as well.