It has been six months now since I got my Apple iMac and I have never regretted buying it.
Perhaps it is the combination of the more powerful hardware compared to my old slow Dell along with the more efficient Mac OS, but it seems that I can get more done faster on the Mac. Straight from the outset when booting up the Mac, I can start working on it in 30 seconds whereas on the old Dell, I had to wait over 2 minutes for the system to boot and be operational. Similar effect with powering down. It does not seem like much to be concern about but it was those sort of aggravations that made me want to switch to the Mac.
It has taken some time to get comfortable with the different operating system. Certain habits I have picked up in the Windows world have no counterpart with the Mac OS; whenever I am editing a document on the Mac, I continually use CTRl-End to get to the end of the line. That keystroke combination does not exist on Mac programs. Still, I do not mind giving up those little things for what I received in return.
Everything about the OS seems so intutive. When I think about doing something in whatever program, I try it and it works. No guessing, no cryptic series of steps to do something. A simple click or keystroke and it works. Having said that, though, I find many things sort of hidden from the user but when I discover them, it uncovers some powerful functionality. For example, using the Option+Shift+4 key combination gives me a cursor to snag parts of the screen to save as an image. In Windows, you could use Alt+Prt Scrn to get the whole screen or buy a program that allows what the Mac gives you for free.
The Preview application is a wonder of a program that allows me to see any file, text document or image. It is quick and powerful. No more separate photo viewing programs. It even allows basic photo editing.
Another great thing about the Mac is the integration of the applications with each other particularly with the Apple branded applications. Using iMovie to make videos, I found it could add in photos from iPhoto or Aperture, music from iTunes or Garage Band. Now this sort of coupling of applications with the OS was considered to be bad when Microsoft did it but I do not think Microsoft ever made it as easy and effective as Apple has done with its products.
Still, I had to make some compromises. Giving up all of the software I accumulated over the years, meant losing some nice games and utilities. Indeed, losing access to games is probably the most significant loss as most game developers only develop for Windows or consoles; the Mac world is still relatively small compared to the rest of the computer world in number of homes using the system.
Using the Mac has been a great learning experience and one that I am continually learning every day to become more productive and creative as well.
Nope, no regrets at all.
Apple has it big media conference this week. This conference highlights the innovations in Apple’s music business which is focused on the combination of iTunes and the iPod lines. As usual, there is always something to talk about from this conference. Relative to previous conferences, the announced updates were modest. The Nano line of iPods were updated with a new look, sleeker & thinner with a larger screen for showing video. More colours too. I have never really understand the attraction of seeing video on a screen the size of four postage stamps. On the other hand, the iPod Touch, which as adopted the new look of the iPhone is a much better way video viewer with its larger screen.
As it has in the past, buyers will get the iPods for a lower price and/or larger storage ability.
Of course, anytime there is an update in the iPod line, iTunes gets an update too to handle the new technology. Much of it is under the covers and if you do not have an iPod now, it is sort of irrelevant except for two things. There is a new way of viewing your music which is by album through a mechanism similar to cover flow. Looks better than the old list view of albums and if you are a listener of music by the album collection, this may work out well.
The second thing is the new Genius suggestions. part marketing ploy and part organiser, the Genius API will scan your music collection to suggest like music for a particular song based on genre and other factors. In some ways, it is like a smart Shuffle function.
Also, Genius will suggest songs from the iTunes Store library that could complement your selection based on how other iTunes users bought in concert for the same song. For example, if I am playing Bruce Springsteen song, it will suggest buying the album the song came from, similar Springsteen tracks from other albums and then songs that other people bought or playing with the song you have. Much of the benefit of the new feature depends on other iTunes user uploading IDs of their song collection to Apple’s iTunes Store and allow the service to do the cross-referencing.
On both counts, Genius seems to be a good feature to have and appears to be implemented well. Of course, I could do without the blatant marketing pitch on buying more songs but I will endure it.
Playing with Apple’s Aperture program for photography editing. First impressions are that it looks to be a solid application that provides most of the functionality that Adobe’s Lightroom provides. The interface is similar enough to Lightroom that it did not take too long to come up to speed on it. Probably will need some more practice on it before making a firm decision on whether to go with that program or Lightroom.
Speaking of photography, Flickr is revamping its site in a big way. Users will be getting a new home page which you can get now ahead of the official release which I did. It looks better organised in some respects. Groups you belong to are more visible now as is the stats page of all of the views of your photos. One thing I do not like though is the comments listing. Before comments for your photos and comments you left on other photos were kept in two distinct lists. Now they are combined in one listing. this makes it a bit more difficult to see what is happening in terms of activity on your photostream especially after a recent posting. Let’s see if that changes in the official release.