Going to give Apple a try. What to buy?

Penetrex · Mar 11, 2013

Well I'm mostly here about backing up a numbered version of Word files but I'll chip in this thread...

Last night I gave wifey a massage. There's no PC or sound system in the bedroom so I put my MCB near the bed, popped my fav' meditation CD in it and played the music in the background.

When travelling, which I do a lot, I often buy DVDs or CDs for entertainment, as hotel TV is often pants or in a foreign language. It would be rather tricky to put such things on a USB drive - if I don't have an optical drive in the first place?

As for lugging an optical drive around in my suitcase, or having to find the thing and connect it up for a quick massage session or similar, nope. Aint gonna happen.

Regarding problems with PCs, have recently replaced my PC and had one heck of a job trying to get my little B&W laser printer working. I repeatedly downloaded various drivers from the company (fujixerox) but none of those drivers were a Windows .exe file. However the buttons for updating the printer's driver were grayed out. Ultimately, after wasting nearly 3 hours I had a printer that would whirr and make noises when I told the computer to print something. But that was it; it would show docs in the printing spool yet they'd never, ever, print.

Finally I hunted around and found the installation disk. Worked instantly.

I could mention another recent example where some files on an external HDD turned out to be corrupt, and the day was saved by digging through some boxes for some old CD-ROM disks.

My point is that to me, my Macbook would never have been purchased if it didn't have a disc drive, and yes, I do use it. I've also lived with a little Asus 10" notebook, without such a drive - and that is exactly why I no longer bother packing it when travelling, just relying on my phone for email and web or my wife's laptop if I need more.

I should also add that I'm one of those people who really doesn't give a flying squirrel about shaving off a bit of weight or a few millimeters, and would MUCH rather have a longer lasting battery and more ports.

And waterproof.

Your results may vary.

P

Just Waltzing · Mar 11, 2013

Well, it has been purchased. Ready for pickup at the Apple store in a little over a week :O
It is a 27 inch iMac with an upgraded fusion drive.
Cant wait to finally have at my place! Thanks yall for you comments and suggestions on this thread

Penetrex · Mar 11, 2013

Well I'm still at the stage where I'm not sure if I love or hate Macs but any brand new 27" incher has to be fun

I think you'd be glad of it compared to a 15" laptop. Congratulations!

P

Demapples · Mar 12, 2013

Rod Sprague said:
Funny how these threads evolve isn't it? We forget the original question and end up talking the pros and cons of built in optical drives. That is the idea of course and very interesting too.
But to return to your question. ... Personally I use Open Office a lot now which is a free fully featured suite of apps just like Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc and you can save in Microsoft format ....

I agree with most of Rod's advice to the OP except this one. Had a co-author once who opened a complex Word document in Open Office that our team was working on. That munged the document's complex formatting. Took a week to rebuild it. Led to banning OO on similar projects and changes in version management. MS Office 2011 works best for me.

Hard to know what to recommend to university students regarding iMac verses MBP. At this later stage of my life I like having a solid, stationary iMac at home, and iOS devices for mobility. But student-aged folks are a mobile lot. Our kids in uni seem happier with their MBPs and iPhones.

Demapples · Mar 12, 2013

Just Waltzing said:
Well, it has been purchased. Ready for pickup at the Apple store in a little over a week :O
It is a 27 inch iMac with an upgraded fusion drive.
Cant wait to finally have at my place! Thanks yall for you comments and suggestions on this thread

Good choice. Enjoy!

mdurkin · Mar 12, 2013

Penetrex said:
Well I'm still at the stage where I'm not sure if I love or hate Macs but any brand new 27" incher has to be fun

P

Demapples said:
Good choice. Enjoy!

The iMac 27" is a beautiful piece of machinery. I thought about getting one, but portability is too important to me.

mdurkin · Mar 12, 2013

Demapples said:
At this later stage of my life I like having a solid, stationary iMac at home, and iOS devices for mobility. But student-aged folks are a mobile lot. Our kids in uni seem happier with their MBPs and iPhones.

My wife and I are in the second half of life (most likely), so we're not a young 'lot'. Still, portability is critical to us. Even in our house. I can't imagine relaxing on the couch while doing some computer work with an iMac on my lap!

MacInWin · Mar 12, 2013

Just Waltzing, congratulations on the new machine. One thought for you: With the Fusion drive, backups are really important. Given how the drives work, if either of them fails, you lose everything on both of them. So make sure you establish some sort of backup routine.

Just Waltzing · Mar 13, 2013

MacInWin said:
Just Waltzing, congratulations on the new machine. One thought for you: With the Fusion drive, backups are really important. Given how the drives work, if either of them fails, you lose everything on both of them. So make sure you establish some sort of backup routine.

I do have an external hard drive, but I keep hearing about TimeMachine and how important it is. Do you think I'll be okay just backing up my data on my external hard drive?
Shmanks

chas_m · Mar 14, 2013

Yes, Time Machine is a great option. There are other options available, but you can choose to use those or not as you like. But some backup is better than no backup, and TM makes the process ridiculously easy.

MacInWin · Mar 14, 2013

+1 for TM. Comes with the machine, works well. IF you need to restore from a hardware failure, you fix the hardware, then reinstall the OS and restore from TM. Easy and reliable.

burnedfaceless · Mar 15, 2013

I have a macbook pro. I couldn't be happier with it.

As far as compatability pretty much everything I want to run runs on osx. I'm running Windows as well though.

If you run Windows I would recommend buying a magic mouse because it seems to work better with Windows than the trackpad.

MacJuen · Mar 26, 2013

Cwa nailed it. The rMBP is not all its cracked up to be. If one doesn't have AppleCare after the first year, it might be wise to set back some money because repairs won't be cheap.

IMO, the iMac 27" is best when considering spending that much money. Or, what I feel might be another great option is upgrading the regular MBP. I just purchased my 15" MBP anti glare display, 2.6ghz quad core i7, 256gb SSD & will be throwing in 16GB RAM myself. $2499 but it'll last forever.

asavvyman · Apr 7, 2013

The age old iMac MBP question

I joined today purely to add my congrats on buying the iMac and I hope it is everything and more than expected. I usually do all this stuff on MacTalk - another Apple community in Australia.
I have had the exact same question but chose the 2012 15" MBP; having had a MacBook 2.1 (the second white MacBook) for years which I recently gave a significant upgrade birthday: changed the optical CD drive for a DVD, increased the RAM, replaced the HHD for an SSD, I also have the Bluetooth KB and a magic Mouse since it adds some functionality the track pad doesn't have, and a 27 inch display. I gave the lot to my niece who started university this year, and spent a weekend teaching her the basics of OS X Lion (which apparently that old MacBook isn't supposed to run) and pointed her to the apple.com/business/theater/mac video tutorials that Apple don't seem to produce anymore. For new OS X users I recommend watching them.

It astonishes me that a new member has written extensively about his choice to buy, not one but two, rMBP and then proceeds to ask what all the fuss is about for Apple products, reminds us of Apples decision to make hardware which cannot be upgraded after the fact, and adds that the loss of an optical drive is a PITA! I suppose I am one of those who likes to research and research some more before I spend upwards of $3.5K on a machine.

I remember when Apple released the first iMac with a CD drive, I think Apple was the first, at the time Steve Jobs did not want a retractable tray, and then introduced the slot drive, also a first. It seems Apple are also the sort of company that introduces a lot of 'firsts' over the history of PC technology, and the abandonment of an optical drive is again led by Apple. I have optical drives on my past and current macs, but am ambivalent about it. At least you can buy an external from Apple or any cheap supplier if necessary, but is it's a deal breaker, then choose your machine more wisely. As for big screens, I now have an Apple TV and Airplay my MBP to it and use an Bluetooth KB and track pad, I suppose yet another 'Apple First'!

Finally, I also use Windows 7 at work with Office 2010 (being a government employee I have no choice about this) I also use Pages, Numbers and keynote, as well as Office 2011 for mac on my own machine. I like the Apple products for their simplicity, their use of iCloud so I can continue working on them with my iPad, and I like how well iWorks and Office successfully work together. I haven't bothered with Adobe reader since OS X native Preview happily opens PDF's, and you can also annotate as well as markup PDF's using Preview, in fact Preview will allow you to view just about any document and photo.

In my almost 10 years of being and Apple OS and hardware owner/user, it's not so much about whether it's better than Windows, Linux, or other OS, but rather what 'fits' the way I work and think. Which ever machine and OS you choose, it's always going to be the 'right' one, provided you know what you want to use it for in the first place.
I hope you enjoy your iMac, and get to learn how wonderful OS X can be, even more, to be a power user who learns to 'finesse' OS X in ways you didn't think possible with any other OS.

mdurkin · Apr 7, 2013

I may as well reply since you are obviously talking about me.

I said in my post that it was my mistake for not knowing it when I bought it, I admit to that. Not only did I buy one, but I actually bought 2 rMBP's. My wife said if I was getting one, so was she. So we both got them. The total price with taxes and warranty was about $6500.00, a-lot of money, but I don't regret it. I freely admit that I didn't do enough research, which is why I thought I should post it, so no one else makes a purchase without noting that. I ended up buying the add on components that I lacked and have used them nearly every day since.

One other thing I never mentioned was that the rMBP does not have any way to input sound via a standard 3.5mm jack. In the older MBP's you could configure the headphone jack to be input or output, no longer true with the rMBP. You can only use it as an output source. I believe that you should have both options. Though, if you are doing any serious sound work, you would never want to output via a 3.5MM jack anyway. It's still a very handy option for quickly inputing sound from another device. Most devices have the option of output via 3.5 MM. It would be nice to input that way.

I capture live sound over the air with a Roland recorder (music tracks) that I like to share with the musicians so they can get feedback (crowd noise, mix quality etc). It's not the same quality as you would get from a straight sound board recording (i.e. studio), so it's not like it has to be perfect for input. I can't connect the roland to my rMBP to play tracks straight from it. I have to copy the media off, import it then play it. Takes an extra 10 minutes or so. So, I can't provide immediate feedback to the musicians. Anyway, minor details, but still a lacking piece of hardware that makes no sense at all to me. Something to think about when you are buying a rMBP.

I also bought an older MBP (2012) which does have everything the newer one doesn't built in. So, now I have a single device if I don't feel like bringing everything separate with me. It's also a smaller screen (13), so that can be a factor in choosing which to bring. I gave that to my daughter to use since she has an older HP laptop that is starting to show it's age.

The main reason I took the plunge was because I do a lot of audio work on the side and I was having trouble syncing my Windows laptop with the Yamaha Digital soundboard that I use. I have a beautiful Linux laptop as well, but there is no driver and management software for that platform. Incidentally, the problem connecting to the sound board turned out to be the sound board, not my laptop. So, the rMBP didn't solve that problem.

I am normally very careful to note exactly what I am buying. In this case, I really only looked at the CPU, Memory and display. In my defense, I wouldn't have ever thought that at this time Apple would remove the devices I've complained about.

I've heard a few people say that Apple is once again leading the pack. Really? That's leading the pack like it would be if Chevrolet decided to remove the passenger seat in their cars to make the car lighter and easier on gas. You can still add it back if you want to buy one and bolt it onto the car.

I would be remiss to not mention that not including an optical is not a new idea. It was an option 10 years ago and since then I have purchased a few netbooks that don't have them. I can understand not including it in the Macbook Air, makes complete sense. But the rMBP is a workhorse, you really aren't likely to be buying this to just get on the internet and read emails. When I bought the add on components at the Apple store, the rep expressed his disgust that Apple no longer includes these. He even went so far as to suggest that I don't buy the add on equipment there. I bought it there anyway, figuring that if it didn't work, Apple couldn't blame the other hardware.

Another note, I am not sure who was first to have the optical drive without an ejecting tray, but the first I saw was in the 90's from Compaq (yeah, that was a long time ago). Not sure they were first to market with that concept though. We used to hate them (I work in IT) because we had to take the drive apart if a CD/ROM got stuck inside it. No easy way to eject it. They seem much less prone to that problem today.

Even though I am disappointed with what's not included, I would like to say that it is a magnificent piece of hardware. In my opinion, that is what makes a MAC a MAC. The decision to couple the hardware with the OS is both a great and a bad idea. From a quality perspective, I think it's a great idea because you are much more likely to have quality product that letting the market compete against itself and cut corners on quality. The downside is that you are of course driving the price up.

I am OK with paying for quality. The Linux laptop I bought form System 76 in September actually cost more than my rMBP. It is also a beautiful piece of equipment, I use it for virtual routing and training.

I believe in best of breed for specific purposes. I am open to using anything so long as it does the job and I am very open and honest about what works and what doesn't. I don't really think that there is a single 'best' OS/Hardware.It depends on what you want to do.

There are some advantages to sticking to a single vendor, namely seamless interoperation with all of their products. But at the same time, you are also losing functionality that other vendors may bring. It boils down to a personal choice which may involve costs.

I still think that it was a mistake to not include an optical drive, network interface and audio input jack. It's not revolutionary, just a way to cut cost and charge more for the add on products that used to be included. We still live in a time when those devices are still absolutely necessary for most individuals.

cwa107 · Apr 7, 2013

Thanks for your excellent and well-reasoned post - I agree completely.

As I've said before in other threads regarding the Retina MacBook Pro (15"), it should have been called the Retina MacBook Air. Using the "Pro" moniker has some implications that unfortunately don't match this machine's (poor) design.

Yes, it's pretty, but the functionality deficits made as a compromise to the alter of "thinness" simply cripple what would otherwise be a versatile machine.

Yes, Apple has a long history of doing away with legacy drives and ports, I get it. But in this case, I believe that Apple intentionally designed themselves a compromised cash cow of a machine, knowing that the blind faithful would accept it as some kind of an advance in technology. This acceptance is short-sighted and will ultimately cost Apple the allegiance of many enthusiasts, myself included.

chas_m · Apr 7, 2013

mdurkin said:
One other thing I never mentioned was that the rMBP does not have any way to input sound via a standard 3.5mm jack. In the older MBP's you could configure the headphone jack to be input or output, no longer true with the rMBP.

This is not strictly accurate -- *some* models of MBPs used the 3.5 jack for both input and output, others had two jacks. MacBook Pro (15-inch Core 2 Duo): External ports and connectors

I can't speak for everyone, but a digital machine should use digital input -- thus, I switched to USB-based input ages ago, first with a Griffin iMic ($30 I think) and then later with direct USB mics and things like the Apogee Duet.

Having every possible option (like every still-in-use type of connector) for every type of external device would, indeed, make the MBP remarkably flexible -- but also bulky and expensive. Apple has choices to make every time they do any design, and they looked at how the vast majority of people use the machine when deciding the design. Evidently, not a lot of users have a need for analog in (just as most people rarely or never use the optical drive anymore, though it was very popular for a long time there ... and so were floppies ...).

But the rMBP is a workhorse, you really aren't likely to be buying this to just get on the internet and read emails.

Click to expand...

You're actually making the argument *against* including an optical drive in an MBP. You're right, people usually use the "pro" stuff to do profit-making things -- so they really can't afford to be without the machine for a week or more when the loaded-with-moving-parts, prone-to-failure optical drive breaks and the machine must be *torn down* to replace the drive. Apple was *very wise* to reduce the number of points of failure -- and as a former Apple tech, I can tell you that the optical drive was the NUMBER ONE most likely item on board to fail (or get a disc hopelessly stuck inside), and (at least in some previous designs) often the most difficult part to replace, since you had to tear the machine down to the frame to get it out.

We used to hate them (I work in IT) because we had to take the drive apart if a CD/ROM got stuck inside it. No easy way to eject it. They seem much less prone to that problem today.

Click to expand...

Case closed, I think. As for their reliability, they're not any better today than they were a few years ago, but the public are much better educated about not sticking odd-shaped or "business card" CDs, mini-discs, and other troublesome items in there, which cuts waaaay down on the issues. And of course, people are using them a LOT less than they used to, which also lowers the chance of issues. A light bulb never turned on never burns out, you might say.

The decision to couple the hardware with the OS is both a great and a bad idea. From a quality perspective, I think it's a great idea because you are much more likely to have quality product that letting the market compete against itself and cut corners on quality. The downside is that you are of course driving the price up.

Click to expand...

How do you figure that? If anything, the integration of the OS with hardware *lowers* the TCO, not raises it. The "higher" price Apple charges for its stuff isn't actually much higher -- it's just all up-front (the very real costs of MAKING that stuff work together beautifully, the better customer service, and yes the quality hardware and software). Every time I've seen a PC company put together a PC that approaches Apple's level of quality, guess what the price is -- yep, equal or higher.

I still think that it was a mistake to not include an optical drive, network interface and audio input jack.

Click to expand...

This is flatly incorrect on the claim of a lack of a network interface. Yes, you have to buy an inexpensive adapter, but clearly this puts the lie to the claim that there's no network interface: Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adaptor - Apple Store (U.S.)

Even better, when 10GB Ethernet becomes standard, guess what -- you won't need to buy a new machine to take advantage of that, just a new adapter!

As for cwa's opinion on the RMBP's, I'll simply say that I -- and Apple's sales figures -- disagree with his assessment.

asavvyman · Apr 7, 2013

mdurkin, yeah, I was referencing you, and commend you on your comprehensive comments. Yes, there are many things about the rMBP that I wonder about when Apple designed it, and not quite sure which customers they had in mind. I have a BTO MBP myself with all the things that you would probably value, and use a suite of software for audio, video, photo editing and web design. Since I have a BTO, I would research more than most customers before I purchase my next machine. I've only used two brands in my 30 years of PC use, Lenovo (IBM) and Apple, and while I have an interest in the industry as a whole, I don't pay specific attention to all brands. I would still contend that Apple has a well established history of leading the pack - albeit - in fits and starts, and often 'reads' consumer habits and designs their products looking forward. From time to time Steve Jobs got it wrong, but one might say the original Macintosh and it's OS, iPod, the iMac, iPhone, iPad have all been game changers.

mdurkin · Apr 8, 2013

chas_m said:
mdurkin said:

One other thing I never mentioned was that the rMBP does not have any way to input sound via a standard 3.5mm jack. In the older MBP's you could configure the headphone jack to be input or output, no longer true with the rMBP.

This is not strictly accurate -- *some* models of MBPs used the 3.5 jack for both input and output, others had two jacks. MacBook Pro (15-inch Core 2 Duo): External ports and connectors

I can't speak for everyone, but a digital machine should use digital input -- thus, I switched to USB-based input ages ago, first with a Griffin iMic ($30 I think) and then later with direct USB mics and things like the Apogee Duet.

Having every possible option (like every still-in-use type of connector) for every type of external device would, indeed, make the MBP remarkably flexible -- but also bulky and expensive. Apple has choices to make every time they do any design, and they looked at how the vast majority of people use the machine when deciding the design. Evidently, not a lot of users have a need for analog in (just as most people rarely or never use the optical drive anymore, though it was very popular for a long time there ... and so were floppies ...).

You're actually making the argument *against* including an optical drive in an MBP. You're right, people usually use the "pro" stuff to do profit-making things -- so they really can't afford to be without the machine for a week or more when the loaded-with-moving-parts, prone-to-failure optical drive breaks and the machine must be *torn down* to replace the drive. Apple was *very wise* to reduce the number of points of failure -- and as a former Apple tech, I can tell you that the optical drive was the NUMBER ONE most likely item on board to fail (or get a disc hopelessly stuck inside), and (at least in some previous designs) often the most difficult part to replace, since you had to tear the machine down to the frame to get it out.

Case closed, I think. As for their reliability, they're not any better today than they were a few years ago, but the public are much better educated about not sticking odd-shaped or "business card" CDs, mini-discs, and other troublesome items in there, which cuts waaaay down on the issues. And of course, people are using them a LOT less than they used to, which also lowers the chance of issues. A light bulb never turned on never burns out, you might say.

How do you figure that? If anything, the integration of the OS with hardware *lowers* the TCO, not raises it. The "higher" price Apple charges for its stuff isn't actually much higher -- it's just all up-front (the very real costs of MAKING that stuff work together beautifully, the better customer service, and yes the quality hardware and software). Every time I've seen a PC company put together a PC that approaches Apple's level of quality, guess what the price is -- yep, equal or higher.

This is flatly incorrect on the claim of a lack of a network interface. Yes, you have to buy an inexpensive adapter, but clearly this puts the lie to the claim that there's no network interface: Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adaptor - Apple Store (U.S.)

Even better, when 10GB Ethernet becomes standard, guess what -- you won't need to buy a new machine to take advantage of that, just a new adapter!

As for cwa's opinion on the RMBP's, I'll simply say that I -- and Apple's sales figures -- disagree with his assessment.

Click to expand...

Chas,

I am not familiar with the TCO study you reference, I will see if I can find that study.

I have lots of thoughts about the comments you made, but really don't want to respond to every one. Most of the comments are not facts, rather your opinion.

I don't share your opinion but recognize that we are each entitled to our own. In the end, I am thankful for varying opinions, it helps me to grow and enables more product choices.

The one point that is true is that there was a MBP that had both an input and a output sound jack. I wasn't trying to recall the entire life history of the MBP, just the last few years. I would prefer that option still existed.

I will be looking for the TCO study you referenced.

cwa107 · Apr 8, 2013

chas_m said:
As for cwa's opinion on the RMBP's, I'll simply say that I -- and Apple's sales figures -- disagree with his assessment.

You and I both know that Apple could put a bow tie on a turd and sell a million of them.

I'd be interested to see what Apple's YOY growth in notebooks is like once the initial excitement of a new model settles down and then compare it to - say - when a major refresh of the previous generation machine came out.

Not that sales numbers and popularity make the machine any more functional for enthusiasts and professionals.

Going to give Apple a try. What to buy?

Penetrex

Just Waltzing

Penetrex

Demapples

Demapples

mdurkin

mdurkin

MacInWin

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Just Waltzing

chas_m

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MacInWin

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burnedfaceless

MacJuen

asavvyman

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cwa107

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