New to the iMac...pretty underwhelmed with it

Ahh, thanks for that, when I got this Mac it would only run under Rosetta for some reason - it must have required the update perhaps?

Anyway I unticked run under rosetta mode, so running under intel now, and will see how it goes.

For the very reasons listed above, I have just purchased a new Power Mac G5 - all of that rich Mac OS X goodness, but at lightning speed. The problem with the new Intel Macs is that the software won't have caught up with them for about a year. If you want to experience Mac OS X and all the available applications at the full tilt they are meant for, get a Power Mac G5 while they are still available (rumor has it that they are about to be replaced with Intel Core 2 Duo versions (Core 2 Duo is the marketing name for the new Intel Conroe dual core desktop processor). By the way, I am a "switcher" - this is my first Mac. So I did not go with a PowerPC (PPC) based Mac out of some misplaced Mac "religion", but rather out of reasoning through what I wanted from the machine.

You might pause about buying "dead ended hardware" but you shouldn't. Once you have bought ANY hardware it is effectively dead ended for you. In general, you can't upgrade it - you have to buy new hardware (i.e. a new Mac) to get anything newer or faster. Yes, you can add more RAM, or a bigger disk, but you can only go so far. The CPU defines the envelope, and it isn't upgradable. So, if the G5 meets your needs now, it is a good buy.

What makes buying a PPC based Mac at this point a whole lot smarter than it might seem at first blush though is that ALL of the software available in the current Mac universe runs on it at full speed. And you won't be left out of new software either. The rush now is to build Universal Binaries (UB) for all existing and new software. The UBs run on both the PowerPC chips and the Intel chips. So, for years and years to come, you will be able to get all the new software your heart desires for your Power Mac. EVENTUALLY, manufacturers will cease to release new PPC versions of their software, but that will be many years away, well beyond the intended lifetime of the average computer. I understand that it was 5-6 years after Apple switched from Motorola to PPC before Motorola apps generally ceased to be marketed.

My advice: if you want a Mac now, get a G5. If that doesn't work for you, I would recommend waiting about a year until such key applications as Microsoft Office and Photoshop come out as Universal Binaries. In the interim, as the above thread amply demonstrates, the PPC versions under Rosetta on a new Intel machine can be unusably slow.

mac57 said:

You might pause about buying "dead ended hardware" but you shouldn't. Once you have bought ANY hardware it is effectively dead ended for you. In general, you can't upgrade it - you have to buy new hardware (i.e. a new Mac) to get anything newer or faster. Yes, you can add more RAM, or a bigger disk, but you can only go so far. The CPU defines the envelope, and it isn't upgradable.

Click to expand...

Wait, who says it is not upgradable? There may be no upgrades available now, but that doesn't mean there won't be in the future. Some G5s may not be upgradable (the iMac for example) but most of the PowerMac G5's are in sockets that allow them to be removed. I upgraded the **** out of my G4 including the CPU and it lasted about 6 years.

Be careful when making claims that things are not upgradable because they very well may be and you just don't know it.

What you need, mr. gohlke, is a true mac WOW experience.

Basically, you've been thrown out there into a mac world without really knowing the benefits. The "hype" you talk about isn't really a hype, it's more of a simple truth.

The Intel iMacs have the fasest Intel Dual Core processors out there right now.
But Macs usually lag because of one other thing: RAM.
I have a G5 iMac and 512 RAM, and I can clearly make out that the processor is nice and fast (when encoding DVDs etc) but I don't have enough RAM yet because sometimes when I run large Apps like MS Office, Safari, iTunes, iPhoto and Logic at the same time, things go to a crawl.

You shpuld find out hwy you can value the mac Interface so much. For starters:

- The mac GUI doesn't maximize windows. It zooms them. You will find this awkward, but Macs just size the window so can get all the information you need, rather than blowing it up in your face. You then always have acces to the desktop, and to other windows beneath it. Once you get used to navigating this way, you'll find the windows (or gnome, or KDE) taskbar a pain in the a.

- Open some windows. Press F10. Then press F11. You now know how to move windows away to access the desktop - and you know how to explode your windows to see which one you want right now. Works with the Apple Mighty Mouse Ball too.

- Mouse: You don't like the mighty mouse - well many people don't, but you do know this is a two-button mouse? Infact a 4-button mouse. Try the ball, try it sideways.

- Take that little remote and press the menu button. Now see that. Sit with your family and watch a slideshow you prepared in iphoto using frontrow. Or watch a DVD. or check the latest movie trailers. Don't have any music on you computer? Just use your son's Laptop iTunes library, it'll connect automatically with your iMac, and is available in font row.

- As for Quicken: It is a market leader in this software, and takes getting used to. Money is great software, But Quicken is more flexible, and more professional - I concur that money has a more family household cash type of approach, but Quicken will give you mroe hard data and more advanced features you might need someday. If you want something even simpler than that there are lot of programs out there, like Moneybox or Moneydance, but Quicken is best for U.S. citizens.

You see, basically I feel you are the functionality type. I don't know if you noticed, but the Mac definitely looks better and more inviting than your PC. That's one bying reason for a lot of mac users. A big one.
Use it with your iPod. Try making something with iLife. You'll see, a mac is better at being productive creatively.

Somehow you seem to be saying that a mac is not capable of the things a pc can do.
You have used only Quicken and Office. Try Pages instead of Word if you want to publish a document. It simplifies Word a lot and has incredibly stylish templates. It's great if you don't want to format thing to the milimeter by yourself.

Oh, did you press F12 yet?

Finally, some truth in the Rosetta emulation issue that is not being spieled by a salesman

I have never found MS Office slow on both my Macs, specs in my sig. I use Word and Excel all the time at home and at work and find them absolutely fine. That said, for years I was using Word 5 as Word 6 and 98 were just like running a Windows application... (Kinda because that was exactly what was happening under the hood...)

I have used a few Intel based Macs now and for native Intel applications it works very nicely and they seem good, fast, robust machines. The downside was emulated apps, reminded me of what my Power Mac G4 was like before I upgraded it when it was still a 256MB 466MHz relic :flower: The point of the matter has always been that Apple's Rosetta technology was never going to be faster than the other JIT PPC recompilers on the market, and that sadly is not particularly fast.

For this reason, I would not be surpised if Apple keeps the Power Mac line running until Adobe CS3 is released, though still release the new Intel "Mac Pro's" this Autumn but have at least one or two model PowerMac G5s to tide those who need speed in major apps.

Either way—RAM. The more RAM your iMac has to emulate PPC code via Rosetta, the better. 1GB should be your minimum. Anything less and you will start to choke the poor thing.

And as for the Windows and Mac OS X learning curve, yes I can quite see why. It's different isn't it? And here's a secret—I struggled at first. However, the key thing to have in your mind is that Mac OS X is not Windows, nor Linux and vice versa. Stupid statement of the year that may well be, but it must be remembered that Apple is not in the business of making a version of Windows that runs on Macs but with a different UI.

Mac OS X is about a different way of working, a different paradigm of thought. You can see this in how the thing functions. It has a set of robust graphical file management tools in the Finder, a Macintosh strength since day 1. A lot of menu items are also recalled by their shortcut such as Cmd (Apple) + Shift + A = open the applications folder, Command + K = Connect to Server etc.

A lot of this shortcut business stems from the people who use Macs who like shortcut keys, desktop publishers especially.

In the end I warmed to Mac OS X, and I mean really warmed to it. I came from Mac OS 9 and for a little while I had a Dell notebook with Windows XP and it was definitely a step up when I realised that I am not spending time waiting for virus and spyware scans, nor does the computer do this strange freeze for long moments with no explanation thing, networking seems to just work (although networking with Windows can be trying at first).

There are so many things that Mac OS X does excel at, and likewise some things that Windows excels at. I found the warming period to be much more gradual and gentle. After a couple of months, sitting in front of a Windows machine tries my patience as simple tasks like browsing network shares seems to lock just about any PC I use at work for a few minutes a piece, or plentiful non responding applications, the Internet connection somehow loosing itself etMay you will come around to it too, but the key is not to think too much of "Now I do it like this in Windows so in Mac OS X I do it like..."—start afresh.

Oh and as for the supplied mouse, I expect that would be the 'Mighty Mouse'—for the record, I hate that thing too! I stick to a two button corded MS mouse for my notebook and an old Apple Optical pro mouse (the black one) which is solid and has a nice adjustable click stiffness. They keyboard however I admit—I love it. A very tactile feedback when I am working in InDesign.

Good luck with it all, stick with it and see how things go! :flower:

Vicky

Very well put Vicky.

Great advice here

I really appreciate everyone's time and thoughtful answers. Very happy to see the high quality of responses and not one flame or threadjack.

I've pressed F12...A couple of times. I agree that the interface for the UI is very cool. We were impressed by the UI for MS Word as well. We all think the Mac does a better job of creating and presenting the computer-to-human interface. We expected some learning curve.

I just looked for and found (all by myself) the system display where I confirmed that our iMac has 512MB of memory. We had thought about upgrading but weren't sure if it would help our problem. For sure, we'll be adding some memory. Thanks for the confirmation.

I got a chuckle out of the "mr gohlke" line...(I am 47, does it show?).

To be fair to the iMac, we don't own an iPod, haven't moved our digital camera off the PC and aren't really using it in a way where it could shine. My wife does use iTunes and I did buy her speakers (Logitech Z4). They sound pretty good and their look goes with the iMac. We are phasing ourselves to the mac.

My wife is thinking she wants an iPod, we'll probably move the camera over to the iMac....I think over time, we'll make it our family computer. Rather than have that big wow moment, it will be a gradual thing. That's ok.

I really just wanted confirmation that it wasn't us. We bought it from CompUSA and the salesman was all about the performance and how great it was (never mentioned "emulation")...a customer even stopped by and said they he had switched to a Mac about a year ago and he loved it, he'd never go back etc....my son loved his, factor in the price...well, you get the picture. It was a lot to live up to, we had many expectations (some of them probably unrealistic).

I guess we ended up being "early adopters" without realizing it. It's hard to realize that on the backend and not feel a little cheated. We've been early adopters before, but we always knew about it going in...it was our choice.

Like with many things YMMV..in this case, we didn't fall in the love with the Mac right away. We wondered why...Was it us? I've learned that it was us a little bit, but I think mostly it's the Intel iMac and I have hopes that as we get more used to it, the iMac will also become more mature with programs developed for its specific hardware. I guess we'll grow together.

Thanks to all,
Joe

Well, first off..i think buying it at compUSa kinda sucks. Buying straight from apple you'll get straight up answers. Atleast i have, or if you go with someone that knows just a bit, they wont BS you around.

Ram id say is your problem. I bought the dual 1.8ghz, and it came with a lousy 256MB ram. I couldnt run ANYTHING. Id get iChat and office open, thats it. Threw a gig on top of that, **** i have it render/encode several things at once while chatting/listening to iTunes. Honestly that first couple weeks my machine was so...lame.

Since your a UNIX guy, you might want to look into FINK. It allows you to compile linux apps on OSX. i have an older G3, and word is just to much for it. I used Open office on it awhile, but that was sluggish, so i just compiled it and it ran very smoothly.

I think you will grow to like it. My whole family is windows users, but theyre seeing after 1 year of running my mac 24/7 ive had no problems (minus 1 kernel panic) VS their windows boxes, mac was the nicer, less stressful way to go. Besides, when youve got a huge homework project due in a day, and you boot up your pc to find HEY your video card doesnt want to work anymore..or maybe windows is gonna not load ...you cant help but notice the shinny box that simply doesnt do that

I think the most important thing to take out of this discussion is this:

Do not try to learn how to transition from your Windows PC to your Mac, but instead try to open yourself up and learn a new operating system. Leave behind your old habits and just poke around. Try something new. Instead of using the mouse, look up the keyboard shortcut for that task. Do you have anything repetitive you have to do? Make an automator workflow. Your Mac isn't a PC. A PC isn't a Mac. You just have to learn -- and open yourself up to things that are different

Edit: typo

Accidental hit reply instead of 'edit' for my typo. My bad.

For a "wow" moment, download Quartz Desktop, a small little application that enables you to view quartz compositions on your desktop....

Then take any quartz composition (the RSS screensaver? Bluelines, my personal favourite) and watch as your desktop background comes to life...

(did I not explain it well? I think so)

Ok, that's pretty cool....

The first time I used Mac OS X was January last year. Prior to that I had only used a Macintosh Classic back in the early 90's. Other than that, I had only ever used Windows.

When I first used OS X, I thought it was the most difficult OS to use and I couldn't make sense of anything. Once I spent some time discovering all the different parts of the system and the extra smart features that are included. I now find OS X (especially tiger) to be far superior, easier and much better looking. Most tasks I do on a daily bases I can do twice as fast as I would on windows. You just have to get used to it.

I think the simplicity of the system would more suit absolute beginners rather than switchers from windows because of the habits you have from using windows. It took me a while to automatically move the mouse to the left rather than the right to close a window or to relise that apps dont actually quit when you close the window of it.

We'll have to try the Quartz Desktop...

Funny about the "closing the window doesn't stop the app" thing...I laughed when I read it. We do that all the time. That was initially part of our problem...all the apps were still running and our 512MB machine was dog slow....My son show me how to really stop them. For the first week I was just leaving them all on...we let the iMac put itself to sleep instead of turning it off..after a couple of days, all the apps were "running"...

Also, the menu bar always staying at the top the screen and not being on the window of the application (where it belongs! ha, ha, ha) you are currently using is hard to get used to...The Mac is more subtle about which application is actually "current".

christm said:

i...return it

Click to expand...

I'm actually seriously considering upgrading mine. I'm a 'switcher' and have had my Mini for about 4 days now. After the iPhoto library sucked in 16GB's worth of pictures, and 13GB from one DV tape, I have a whopping 10GB left on my little 60GB hard drive.

I've got a whole rant about this library thing, but I'd pay for the upgrade. I bought through the Apple store. Would they consider letting me upgrade? Or do they really charge the 10% restocking fee?

It depends on how long you've had your Mini.

Looks like there are three options:
1) Wait for Universal Binaries for your favorite programs
2) Buy more RAM
3) Pay the 10% restocking fee and upgrade the box.

jgohlke, what are you inclined to do?

for the MS office gripes, i just use pages and keynote. they are a big improvement of MS word, excel and powerpoint. Like a lot of people described, it took about 2 weeks of using pages in frustration before i realized "hey, it does that too. and that. and that. and it's so simple. cool!"

ShillAT said:

for the MS office gripes, i just use pages and keynote. they are a big improvement of MS word, excel and powerpoint. Like a lot of people described, it took about 2 weeks of using pages in frustration before i realized "hey, it does that too. and that. and that. and it's so simple. cool!"

Click to expand...

So keynote, and pages come with iWork right. so they are easy to use like word, excel, and powerpoint and the rest of the office applications.

Ferdball said:

I'm actually seriously considering upgrading mine. I'm a 'switcher' and have had my Mini for about 4 days now. After the iPhoto library sucked in 16GB's worth of pictures, and 13GB from one DV tape, I have a whopping 10GB left on my little 60GB hard drive.

I've got a whole rant about this library thing, but I'd pay for the upgrade. I bought through the Apple store. Would they consider letting me upgrade? Or do they really charge the 10% restocking fee?

Click to expand...

Why not just buy a firewire/USB external drive much cheaper than have apple put a new drive in, then you have the flexibility of transporting it between machines if you want.

If you want the neatness of an external drive to go with your mini, you could get something like the following which fits under your Mini and has the added advantage of extra ports too:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ministack/

Lacie also do a similar one.

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10727