Yeah, I bought one. No story for why, no long explanation about it. I bought it because I needed a new desktop and I don’t regret it. With the addition of this iMac I am 100% Mac now, my Macbook for portability, the Mac Pro for the recording studio and now the iMac for my general desktop use.
I will admit that adapting to using a Mac desktop has been somewhat rough. I learned to use the Macbook with no trouble at all. Using the laptop with the massive touch pad and it’s attached 13.3″ screen fit me like a glove. I like the way it works and looks. Everything in it’s place. iChat on the left, main window in the middle, then a single column of icons down the right. It’s clean and simple. Using Expose to manage the ‘main window’ section was extremely efficient for laptop use but this is not how I use my desktops.
When I’m using a desktop I’m not looking for how to best use the limited screen I have in front of me, I’m looking to logically fill two displays in such a way that everything that I need is in front of me at all times. Getting my apple desktops to do this has been a very different experience. In the studio it wasn’t a big deal, I have the Mac Pro hooked up to 2 20″ Acer wide screen LCDs, one gets the Protools edit window, and the other the mix window. Getting this setup was easier on the Mac then on the PC. Protools on the PC, like other apps, created a single window that contained all other windows. Forcing Windows to maximize a single window across two screens, and then it’s child windows to maximize each to a single screen always involved extra software. ATI or Nvidia bundled utilities to facilitate this, neither companies’ app worked well. Mac OS X does not create this parent windows to contain child windows, the OS is much more free form. Setting up my sessions to best use both screens on my Mac was trivial. The problem for me was setting up my general use desktop.
I put iChat on the far right of the right screen, and my IRC client just to the left of it. These two apps fill a standard square screen with no problem. I am currently using one of my existing 19″ CRT displays, hooked into the Mac using the optional Mini-DVI to VGA adapter. What I am then left with is a 16:10 aspect ratio wide screen display as my main monitor. What an enigma. What am I supposed to do with the massive space in front of me. So far for me, I leave some of it open! I of course keep the right side of the left screnn, the one built into the iMac, clear as it allows me to see my desktop icons. The left side, though it holds my auto-hiding Dock stays for the most part fallow. When I have a lot of windows open I will typically leave each one a little higher, or a little farther left as to create small edge that I can click to bring a window into focus. Works great when I’m researching online and connected to a few servers over SSH using the terminal app. When I’m doing normal things like email, web surfing or calender work I still minimize to the dock. I prefer to keep my desktop clean and tend to do one thing at a time. For these reasons I am really looking forward to Spaces in Apple’s upcoming version of OS X called Leopard.
With that bit of switcher-ness behind me, let talk about the device! The iMac is beautiful, I love the aluminum case. It’s much more subdued then the White that proceeded it. This color setup blends in better with my life and room much better then the stark bright white does. With the exception of when bright sunlight streaming through the windows, my white Macbook does not look at home, so to speak, on my desk. The clean black and silver colors of this machine look great in my room sitting atop my desk which to be honest is a custom made plywood and 2″x4″ affair.
The new keyboard I quite like as well. It’s very similar to the one built into my laptop. It has a very shallow action to the keys but it feel more solid then any other keyboard I have used since the glory days of the giant IBM keyboards. Those were keyboards. You could run those things over with a truck and they would look none the worse for wear. I don’t know that I’d try it with this keyboard but I bet it would hold up well enough. It’s very thin and the angle on the keys is quite shallow, much more so then you’re typical PC keyboard but no less comfortable. I was worried about that. The old apple keyboard had a much more steep angle then this one does but I don’t notice the difference. If anything this one seems more natural, is that possible? Watching my hands type I seem to be pulling my fingers back less then usual as I don’t have as much height to deal with. The keys not touching each other also works out to my benefit, there is no question if you are on the key or not. When I miss a key I know it, I don’t need to guess. Take this with a grain of salt though, I’ve been using this style keyboard for more then a year now so your experience may vary.
I don’t use the included mighty mouse, I find it annoying. I’m still using the mouse that I used with my PC. Much to my horror it’s a Microsoft Wheel Mouse. The Mighty Mouse does support right click but you can’t be touching the left side of the mouse when you do it. I do wish someone else would create a scroll wheel like the Mighty Mouse, scroll ball to be more exact. When you scroll with it, it’s like butter. Right, left, up, down, it’s all the same. Just roll the ball. Rumor is the ball doesn’t last that long… I wouldn’t know.
The glossy screen on the iMac is fine by me as well. I don’t understand why glossy is such a crisis to everyone. Has the whole world forgotten about 3 years ago when we all had flat CRT displays, with the glass face? I don’t recall much crying then. If anything, I remember the whole world rejoicing when the flat faced CRTs came out. The glare on the round faced ones were intolerable but flat! Flat was excellent! Now, flash forward to the present and we are faced with a choice: matte LCDs that leave you with a darker less vibrant view, or the glossy, glass faced LCD that offer the bright vibrant colors that make all my pictures and videos looks fantastic! Hell! This glass covered LCD looks miles better then my 19″ flat glass CRT sitting right beside it.
i am also quite pleased with the array of I/O on the device. When I read a few months back that the iMac supported a second display I was thrilled! I had no idea. That alone was enough to get me consider the purchase. Add in the gigabit, Wireless N, Bluetooth, USB 2.0, Firewire 400, Firewire 800 and I was blown away! Add that in on top of the great Intel innards, full size, 7200 RPM 320GB hard disk and up to 4GB of RAM and this thing is better then most tower desktops. Oh, also.. it’s silent. I used to hear the fans on my PC while I was trying to sleep.. now it’s my Tivo that I can hear. I thought at first the fans must be broken but with the help of smcFanControl I was able to crank up the fans to full tilt and hear then spinning away. The machine runs silently at ~43-49 degree’s Celsius even with the ambient temperature being 85 degree’s Fahrenheit, outside and in.
Overall I’m happy this machine (of course) and paired with OS X this thing is unstoppable. If you are considering it, buy it. You’ll love it. It takes up no space and in use, it stays out of your way. With the obvious inclusion of Front Row and it’s remote this computer is as much at home in the study or the living room. One should also consider this machine for business use and pro-level media use. It’s very powerful regardless of what software you have installed.
Topslakr