Which Apple MAc?
Posted by: Two-Sheds on 13 June 2004
I knwo there are some apple fans on these boards so I was hoping to get a bit of advice. I'm perfectly happy using pc's and windows, but my Mum's pc (which was a hand me down from me 6 years ago) has finally died so she's looking for a new one.
The problem is I'm now living in Toronto and she's back in UK. Even buying one from the big stores she may not find easy to set up, plus the people in there tend not to know anything. She mentioned she was thinking of a mac due to the reputation for ease of setup and use, but I've never used one myself so I don't know, so if you could help me out on a couple of points.
Are they really easy to use/setup for a beginner.
She'll be using it mainly for e-mail surfing (with modem not broadband) and graphics. She has a scanner (not sure what model) and she wants to get some software and be able to scan images and play with them. Any suggestion of any of the current macs for sale that might suit her and any software that she would use. I'm assuming something like photo-shop.
To narrow it down a bit I think price is going to be cheap (sub 1 grand) and for the graphics stuff she'll only be looking at 2-d so no fancy 3-d graphics capability needed. I don't think sound capability is too important either.
cheers
The problem is I'm now living in Toronto and she's back in UK. Even buying one from the big stores she may not find easy to set up, plus the people in there tend not to know anything. She mentioned she was thinking of a mac due to the reputation for ease of setup and use, but I've never used one myself so I don't know, so if you could help me out on a couple of points.
Are they really easy to use/setup for a beginner.
She'll be using it mainly for e-mail surfing (with modem not broadband) and graphics. She has a scanner (not sure what model) and she wants to get some software and be able to scan images and play with them. Any suggestion of any of the current macs for sale that might suit her and any software that she would use. I'm assuming something like photo-shop.
To narrow it down a bit I think price is going to be cheap (sub 1 grand) and for the graphics stuff she'll only be looking at 2-d so no fancy 3-d graphics capability needed. I don't think sound capability is too important either.
cheers
quote:
Originally posted by garyi:
Apples are very easy to use, sometimes they need a bit of TLC though like a PC, however you will never hear the words 'Bios' or 'Blue screen of death'
Always a bonus.
Yeah, macs are very user friendly...until they go wrong...the reason you never hear the words 'Bios' or 'Blue screen of death' is coz the underlying firmware is locked away so you can't ever see it and the Blue screen of death was replaced by a little picture of a bomb. Or the whole thing freezing up (or are they just so damn slow that's normal).
-- woody
A mate of mine spent a fortune on some sweet-looking thing (the one with the LCD monitor attached to the base bit by a hinged chrome bracket). It kept crashing all the time and then apple wanted to charge him to upgrade from 10.1 to 10.2 or something similar. Ridiculous - seems to be form over function to me, but what do I know (I bought an iriver not an ipod 
)
-- woody
)-- woody
It's mischeviousness 
But seriously, macs aren't for everyone and particularly in the UK (where PCs are so widespread) anyone you ask for help, if you're an inexperienced user, will probably know PCs and Windoze and may well not know macs/mac os.
Also, if you want to upgrade it will cost you more if you have to buy the bits from apple and not some third party/clone maker.
Still, ultimately it comes down to personal preference (as cars, hifi, etc).
-- woody
But seriously, macs aren't for everyone and particularly in the UK (where PCs are so widespread) anyone you ask for help, if you're an inexperienced user, will probably know PCs and Windoze and may well not know macs/mac os.
Also, if you want to upgrade it will cost you more if you have to buy the bits from apple and not some third party/clone maker.
Still, ultimately it comes down to personal preference (as cars, hifi, etc).
-- woody
Two-Sheds, if I may, I do suggest that you please just stop where you are for one moment and think this thing through one more time.
Let's get this straight. You live in Canada, and you are getting a computer for your Mum on a different continent with an operating system that neither of you has any experience of? Who will be her technical support? You. Do you have a working knowledge of OSX? No. Are you mad? Do you have a cheap & limitless Canada /UK phone deal? Would you rather be talking about something else in your transatlantic phone calls? You decide.
I may be doing your sainted mother a grave disservice. She may subscribe to Popbitch, have a vast MP3 collection and twirl an ADSL splitter round her finger in an alluring manner at coffee mornings to increase the headcount on her IM contact list. If so, then she is well up for whtever system you recomend. If not, well.......
Computers are computers. They're awkward and complicated buggers that don't quite subscribe to the domestic appliance model that their manufacturers would have you believe. OSX, XP - they're both about as friendly [or unfriendly] as each other. And as stable too. [The Mac/PC playground mentality isn't very helpful - both systems have their strengths and weaknesses, but the battle lines that are usually drawn seem to have their roots in a distant age which isn't applicable now - think Northern Ireland, really - it's just as daft and incomprehensible, and about people being hysterically loyal to one multi-billion dollar American company over another - why should we care, really??].
As 'The One Who Knows bout Computers', I hand-held the purchase and setup of a Mac system for some friends last weekend. Be aware that when you buy your Mac, the first thing you have to do is to install the OS and iLife after you open the box. Nothing in the [gorgeous] packaging warns you about this [it tells you how to lift the computer out of the box, has a glossy booklet, 'Welcome to Panther' that tells you about all sorts of delights that are available to you if you have a subscription to mac.com [while neglecting to mention the fact that you should have purchasesd the .mac add-on before leaving the store] and then after installation asks you a series of questions of the 'sister-in law's first pet's name' variety which a] enable you to register the computer with Apple [which you can't, because you haven't yet set up your internet connection] and b] attempt to set up your .mac account [which again, you can't, because you haven't set up your internet account yet, [and also you can't get that .mac account because you haven't bought the box you should have done because they haven't told you to do so]. Not that intuitive really, unless you've played the game before.
Having the latest OS version & accompanying software on DVD is a perfectly sensible and praiseworthy idea, but given the fact that most people would expect this to be pre-installed, a little card or something letting you know what was coming up wouldn't go amiss if you want to cement your reputation as user friendly.
My advice is to go with what both you and your mother have some vague idea about, unless you want your transatlantic phone calls to be very very dull with no room to do that mother/son thing that we should love and engage with before we can't do it any more. Disentangling computer problems is pretty low grade stuff in the cosmic scheme of things.
Mind you, my weekend experience was the first real chance to get a proper good fiddle with OSX. Pretty impresive on the whole. All the dreary old Mac irritations are there [more info on request], but much more beautifully presented [!] - and being able to buy MS Office for Mac for £110 [student/teacher edition] must count as a supreme bargain, and worth buying a Mac for alone as an email/WP machine. As it happens, my pals are bona fide college lecturers, but... no proof reqired - it just installs & gives you three serial numbers to boot - a level of trust I would never have thought Microsoft capable of.
When it comes to the actual physical value of the machines, then I would say that the 15" iMac is pretty poor. Any outlet [PC World etc] can give you a much faster DVD rom burning jobbie for less. The eMac seems comparatively good value technically, but it looks so clunky [a 17" screen in that bloated case doesn't quite do it the way that the old iMacs used to, and design is, I think, one of the big reasons why you buy Apple].
Unusually, the more you pay, the better value you get. I think the very least you should go for is the 17" widescreen, and actually, the high end models are really seriously good and can truly compete on their own terms rather than just as a sad Apple fetish buy. For a while, iMacs were good value, while the desktop towers looks underpowered. Now the situation is reversed, and at the high end you get something that is not only powerful, but beautifully designed.
That's how I feel about Apple stuff, really - it's gorgeous, innovative and worth supporting - the B&O of computing [how offensive is that?
]. Not for me, but I'm so glad it exists. When they get it right, they really really get it right. iTunes & the iPod are peerless. This is the business model that has the only chance of succeeding in a MS DRM world, and eventually everybody else will have to bow to the Jobs vision , even if they're to thick to realise it yet.
Meanwhile, Two-sheds, buy an Apple for your mother at your own risk.
throb
Let's get this straight. You live in Canada, and you are getting a computer for your Mum on a different continent with an operating system that neither of you has any experience of? Who will be her technical support? You. Do you have a working knowledge of OSX? No. Are you mad? Do you have a cheap & limitless Canada /UK phone deal? Would you rather be talking about something else in your transatlantic phone calls? You decide.
I may be doing your sainted mother a grave disservice. She may subscribe to Popbitch, have a vast MP3 collection and twirl an ADSL splitter round her finger in an alluring manner at coffee mornings to increase the headcount on her IM contact list. If so, then she is well up for whtever system you recomend. If not, well.......
Computers are computers. They're awkward and complicated buggers that don't quite subscribe to the domestic appliance model that their manufacturers would have you believe. OSX, XP - they're both about as friendly [or unfriendly] as each other. And as stable too. [The Mac/PC playground mentality isn't very helpful - both systems have their strengths and weaknesses, but the battle lines that are usually drawn seem to have their roots in a distant age which isn't applicable now - think Northern Ireland, really - it's just as daft and incomprehensible, and about people being hysterically loyal to one multi-billion dollar American company over another - why should we care, really??].
As 'The One Who Knows bout Computers', I hand-held the purchase and setup of a Mac system for some friends last weekend. Be aware that when you buy your Mac, the first thing you have to do is to install the OS and iLife after you open the box. Nothing in the [gorgeous] packaging warns you about this [it tells you how to lift the computer out of the box, has a glossy booklet, 'Welcome to Panther' that tells you about all sorts of delights that are available to you if you have a subscription to mac.com [while neglecting to mention the fact that you should have purchasesd the .mac add-on before leaving the store] and then after installation asks you a series of questions of the 'sister-in law's first pet's name' variety which a] enable you to register the computer with Apple [which you can't, because you haven't yet set up your internet connection] and b] attempt to set up your .mac account [which again, you can't, because you haven't set up your internet account yet, [and also you can't get that .mac account because you haven't bought the box you should have done because they haven't told you to do so]. Not that intuitive really, unless you've played the game before.
Having the latest OS version & accompanying software on DVD is a perfectly sensible and praiseworthy idea, but given the fact that most people would expect this to be pre-installed, a little card or something letting you know what was coming up wouldn't go amiss if you want to cement your reputation as user friendly.
My advice is to go with what both you and your mother have some vague idea about, unless you want your transatlantic phone calls to be very very dull with no room to do that mother/son thing that we should love and engage with before we can't do it any more. Disentangling computer problems is pretty low grade stuff in the cosmic scheme of things.
Mind you, my weekend experience was the first real chance to get a proper good fiddle with OSX. Pretty impresive on the whole. All the dreary old Mac irritations are there [more info on request], but much more beautifully presented [!] - and being able to buy MS Office for Mac for £110 [student/teacher edition] must count as a supreme bargain, and worth buying a Mac for alone as an email/WP machine. As it happens, my pals are bona fide college lecturers, but... no proof reqired - it just installs & gives you three serial numbers to boot - a level of trust I would never have thought Microsoft capable of.
When it comes to the actual physical value of the machines, then I would say that the 15" iMac is pretty poor. Any outlet [PC World etc] can give you a much faster DVD rom burning jobbie for less. The eMac seems comparatively good value technically, but it looks so clunky [a 17" screen in that bloated case doesn't quite do it the way that the old iMacs used to, and design is, I think, one of the big reasons why you buy Apple].
Unusually, the more you pay, the better value you get. I think the very least you should go for is the 17" widescreen, and actually, the high end models are really seriously good and can truly compete on their own terms rather than just as a sad Apple fetish buy. For a while, iMacs were good value, while the desktop towers looks underpowered. Now the situation is reversed, and at the high end you get something that is not only powerful, but beautifully designed.
That's how I feel about Apple stuff, really - it's gorgeous, innovative and worth supporting - the B&O of computing [how offensive is that?
]. Not for me, but I'm so glad it exists. When they get it right, they really really get it right. iTunes & the iPod are peerless. This is the business model that has the only chance of succeeding in a MS DRM world, and eventually everybody else will have to bow to the Jobs vision , even if they're to thick to realise it yet. Meanwhile, Two-sheds, buy an Apple for your mother at your own risk.
throb