Three years ago - almost to the day - I bought an 24" iMac, together with the EyeTV receiver for watching and recording digital tv. This was a really smart thing to do. The iMac has been for the family many things: TV, VCR, DVD player, CD jukebox, gaming machine, and of course a computer - all at the same time.
All family members have their accounts on the machine, and Parental Controls make it easy to set rules for how the children access the iMac. All children have learned their computer skills (which are rather impressive) on the iMac.
The biggest new thing was how the iMac affected our TV viewing. Thanks to the EyeTV dual tuner, it is possible to watch and record two channels simultaneuously. This makes it possible to watch TV when you want, instead of when something is broadcasted. Within a very short time this changed TV viewing dramatically, cutting the time spent watching TV to a fraction.
There have been occational problems (such as this), but overall these things have been minor, and often due to doing something wrong at the computer.
I checked at the Apple site how computer hardware has changed in three years. Instead of 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo one gets - for the same price - 3.60 GHz Intel Core i5 processor, twice the memory, three times the hard disc, and a 27" display instead of 24". And the graphics card is very much faster.
But there is no need to switch yet. The iMac works well, like a workhorse, and despite occasional situations when the 4 GB memory is a bit too little, everything works as smoothly as you wish. Part of this is due to software improvements - upgrading to Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) gave a significant boost to the machine. Maybe Apple shoots itself in the fool by optimizing the software, but I don't mind.
And at work, my Macbook Pro is still doing great, at one year and nine months of use. My previous laptop (Titanium Powerbook) lasted six years, maybe this will do the same?
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Pole
1 hour ago
2 comments:
Hmm ... there were times when I couldn't afford a Mac, there were times when I just hated their habit to lock in their users, and now is a time when I can't imagine why I should buy such an expensive make-up mirror :)
Nope. Windows on a glare-free Sony laptop and on two glare-free desktops here, and at work Xubuntu 10.04. Couldn't be happier :D
No, really, I admire the technology and its consistent application. Macs are fantastic consumer appliances, or at least as good as a computer can be as an appliance.
Ideologically though, I loath this company. They are all that I want to avoid: closed, proprietary, hostile to open source.
Years ago, at a time when I still went around using a music player, before photography, I would have bought an iPod. It was clearly the best player on the market, but they wouldn't let me play my OGG Vorbis files. Why? Hostility against open source. It wouldn't have cost them a thing. I even filed a bug report :)
It never happened, and consequentially I never bought an iPod. They don't care about me as a user, and so I don't care about pods and phones and pads and macs. No problem. There are still alternatives around.
Btw: The fact that Rupert Murdoch sees Steve Jobs as his savior does not help either :D
A-haa! Here we have a promising start for a prolonged ideological war...
Well, perhaps not.
For me, the reason for using a Mac is simple: laziness. And I find it harder and harder to motivate to learn new things. If "old" stuff works, I used it, especially when it is a matter of using it everyday.
Of course, it isn't hard to question this "no invest" strategy, and probably be right. Maybe it is I who is shooting oneself in the foot.
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