May 25, 2001 03:39 AM
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History
The iMac was introduced a number of years ago (in the ancient days when OS 8 had just come out...), and caused a bit of a stir in the PC market. It was the only computer that shipped at the time WITHOUT a floppy drive. Cos the Mac ain't floppy, it is always hard. (sorry...).
The iMac has been, probably without a doubt, Apple's saving glory. It saved the PC world from the hum-drum of boring grey-white PC's. Brilliant blues, groovy greens and great graphites are the answer!
The Hardware
I must admit, that with a Mac, you don't get as MUCH as you get with a PC. The basic iMac is £650, and hasn't got any FireWire ports, and weighs in at 350Mhz, and 7Gb Hard disk drive. Wheras with a new PC, you might be on the 600-800 Mhz mark for that sort of money. But, because all the PC 'dorks' out there get all wound up on clock speed, i'd just like to quote some bloke at Apple...
''Everybody gets hung up on clock speed, but it's overall system performance that counts...''
Quite true. It's no use having a 2000Ghz PC, if it runs like crap, and can't even run Windows! With a Mac, you plug it all in, and unless you are doing some REAL hardcore editing (such as making a full length movie, or trying to sequence 500,000,000 million MIDI tracks at once) it should work!
The CD-drive is very good quality. No more stupid little trays that pop out, with the Macintosh you get a funky drive that pulls the CD in. The other really good thing is the new keyboard comes with a CD eject key. Press that and your CD comes spinning out. No more scrabbling around on your CPU, you just move your little finger about 5 inches, and your done.
USB: lovely! Instead of 'serial' or 'parallel' ports, you can use USB. To be precise, with a new iMac, you get a lovely USB keyboard and mouse, but the keyboard is a USB hub: 2 ports. So, the super-easy way to set up your Mac: mouse - keyboard - Mac. Then turn on. Currently I have a Zip drive and Epson printer plugged in, and I can freely hotplug things in to my Mac! With my Zip drive, I plugged it in and it worked. Brothers PC... plugged it in, tried about 4 times to install software, restarted about 4 times, and eventually got it working.
Setup
As the 'manual' says: plug in the keyboard, mouse, phone and power. Then turn on. It really is that simple. I had my iMac up, connected to the internet and downloading MP3's (from naughty Napster) within all of 30 minutes. Can you say that about any PC?
The OS
When you install the OS, it takes about 10 minutes, and most of the OS is pre-installed, you just shove in the CD for a few minutes, and your away. Lovely laid out OS. The Apple menu is your 'start' menu (rip off or what on Microsofts part huh?), the desktop is like your desktop, your ''Macintosh HD'' is like your C: drive. Your old ''Recycle Bin'' is just like Apple's ingenious Trash can.
Default Applications
Apple DVD - if you buy a Mac with a DVD drive. (haven't tried it... guess why?)
Apple CD Player. (plays CD's - either via the Control Strip addition, or via the application)
Apple iTunes. (plays CD's, MP3's, AIFF's, WAV's etc...) - BTW, if you didn't get this when you bought your Mac, go to Apple.com and download it now. It's the best piece of software available for your Mac at the moment!!
Apple iMovie - if you buy a Mac with FireWire. (haven't tried it... 3 guesses alright..., but looks quite groovy, because you can stitch together your own movies).
AppleWorks (like a feature-limited copy of Word, Excel, Access, Paint and Publisher).
Bugdom & Nanosaur - two lovely Mac-only games!
QuickTime - plays QuickTime films, MP3's, avis, etc... (basically what Windows Media Player was nicked from...)
Faxstf6 - send faxes from your Mac.
SimpleText - like Notepad (super-handy).
SimpleSound - like Sound Recorder (also pretty darn handy.)
Internet Explorer & Netscape - quite useful if you think about it.
Outlook Express - also has hints of complete and utter usefulness.
And lots of other funky stuff...
Gaming...
Not the Macintosh's highlight, o'course. You can buy from Amazon.co.uk Mac games, such as Quake 3, Unreal (which I have bought and is brilliant), and other stuff. The iMac also comes with Bugdom (gets installed with your computer), and also on the OS 9 CD Nanosaur, and some racing game on new iMacs (doh!). Warning! These games are not gonna be the next Metal Gear, but they are a damn sight more entertaining than Windows' Solitare, Hearts etc...
And for the Download...
Your first essential stop once on the internet is the Software Update. This automatically downloads all the latest patches, and somehow unlike the Windows Update software, seems to WORK!
Next stop, Apple.com. If you are lucky enough to have a DV camera, you'll want to download the updates to iMovie, including new wipes, transitions and effects. If you bought your iMac a few months ago (before they started including iTunes with it) you'll want to download iTunes 1.1! The latest version supports faster ripping of CD's, and if you are using OS 8.1 CD-R burning via a USB CD-R(W) drive. You can also use the inbuilt CD-R drive in some iMacs not mine :-(
Then move on to Download.com. Those clever people at CNET, have worked out some funky JavaScript that shows you Mac software instead of Windoze! Unlike when starting a Windows system, you don't have to download tons of software (I only needed to get an FTP and Telnet program). Another good site for downloading Mac software is MacDownload.com
How come I can't use my PC software?!?! WAAAAHHHH....
Short answer: you can't. It's not a PC duhhh....
Long answer: Yes you can, if you purchase Connectix Virtual PC (around £150), you can install Windows 98 or 2000 and run PC software. This is not ultimately reliable though, and don't expect that if you are using a 500Mhz iMac, that you'll be able to play 500Mhz PC games. The Mac OS and Virtual PC don't disappear once you boot up Command & Conquer, you know.
How about Linux compatibility?
Short answer: Hmmm...
Long answer: Yes you can. 2 ways: Connectix Virtual Linux (like the PC one above). Or wait until OS X is a little more developed, and you can quite easily use many UNIX and Linux programs, and you even get a terminal. Enough about OS X, it's a completely different cup-of-tea, a completely different kettle-of-fish, and all those other crap cliches we use, and a review of the iMac can't even sum up what OS X is going to mean.
Do I want to move to OS X?
Maybe. Personally, I am not going to move to OS X until all the software scene for it stops jumping up and down so much! Also, with any MAJOR OS release (think going 3.1 to 95, not 98 to ME), there is going to be bugs. And until all them buggies are ironed out, I am gonna stay with lovely OS 9.
So, does it crash as much as Windows?
No. Contrary to popular belief, unless you really strain your system, it won't crash. Much.
AAAH. It crashed... I lost my work!
No way. Believe me, compared to my PC, where I would beaver away on a document (that usually had a dead line for the next day), and then the PC would crash, and I would die. My friend (a PC maniac) suggested ''save every minute...''. That shows PC reliability quite well. On the Mac, extend that to half an hour.
I am soon (as in in a few weeks) will be writing my own guide to using an iMac, and will be posting this guide up on my website. I will put an address up here as soon as it is ready.
