The rumors came to pass at today's Apple Event at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, CA. Today, Steve Jobs unveiled the Intel-based Mac mini, Apple's latest step in the march towards an all-Intel lineup by the end of the year. If you thought the mini as an impressive little box before, have a look at what Apple is offering with the new mini:

• Intel 1.5GHz Core Solo or 1.66GHz Core Duo w/ 2MB L2 cache
• 667MHz frontside bus
• 512MB PC2-5300 (667MHz) DDR2 SDRAM
• Intel GMA950 graphics w/ 64MB DDR2 SDRAM shared w/ main memory
• DVI output of 1920x1200 pixel max res.
• VGA output of 1920x1080 pixel max res.
• S-video and composite output with adapter
• Serial ATA hard drive
• Core Solo: 60GB 5400-rpm drive
• Core Duo: 80GB 5400-rpm drive
• Optical drive
• Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
• Double-layer SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
• Expansion
• Single FireWire 400 port (8 watt)
• Four USB 2.0 ports
• Audio
• Built-in speaker
• Combined optical digital input/audio line in
• Combined optical digital output/headphone out
• Communications
• 54Mbps AirPort Extreme (802.11g) networking
• Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
• 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet
• Bundled 6-button Apple Remote
• Bundled iLife '06 suite, Front Row

Not a bad specsheet for Apple's low-end, consumer box. The power-up came at a price, however: $599 for the Core Solo and $799 for the Core Duo (up $100 and $200 from the G4 models, respectively). That seems hard to lament, really, given that Apple claims the Core Duo mini is 4-5x the speed of the G4 model. True, the on-board, Intel graphics chipset (which shares memory with system RAM) is nothing compared to the Radeon X1600 found in the Intel-based iMac and MacBook Pro, but users aren't likely to be expecting bleeding edge 3D gaming with these low-end, consumer machines. And it supports Core Graphics, unlike the previous mini's Radeon. This might even fix the dim analog video problem (fingers crossed).

Apple also unveiled the iPod Hi-Fi, a high-quality speaker array with integrated iPod dock at today's event. Looks like we'll be waiting a bit longer for the Intel iBook (or "MacBook"?) or anything...cooler.