“Perhaps the ultimate computer for the home office is Apple’s latest iMac, the G5. The company has acquired a reputation for clever designs with its iMac line, and the latest model is no exception. Hardly bigger than a flat-panel display, the machine manages to pack in wireless networking, a fast processor, a DVD writer and up to 160GB of hard disk space,” Stephen Pritchard writes for The Independent. “The machine comes in two models, 17 and 20 inches. At £1,349 including VAT, the 20-inch version is particularly good value, as LCD screens that size do not come cheap even without a computer built in.”
“Apple also offers probably the best suite of home media applications on the market, and these, along with AppleWorks office software, are included free. The iLife bundle — DVD editing, video editing, photo managing and editing, music making and Apple’s iTunes jukebox – comes with the iMac. And there is even an optical digital output to connect to a home cinema amplifier, so the machine should earn its keep after office hours too,” Pritchard writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Know a Windows user teetering on the edge? Send them the link to this MacDailyNews article so they can read this and the related articles below. No personal computer on the market today, or perhaps ever, has received reviews like Apple’s iMac G5.
[UPDATE: Removed Euro and replaced with Pound sterling – 6:15pm ET]
Related MacDailyNews articles:
The Age: ‘Apple’s Mac OS X at least a generation ahead of Windows XP, iMac G5 clearly the best’ – December 15, 2004
Fortune names Apple iMac G5 ‘favorite new tech product of the year’ – December 14, 2004
Wendland: Your next PC should be Apple’s iMac G5 – ‘the finest personal computer I’ve ever used’ – December 11, 2004
Fortune: Apple’s iMac G5 ‘Best Product of the Year: Electronics – an engineering marvel’ – December 10, 2004
Washington Times: Apple iMac G5 ‘Computer of the Year’ – November 30, 2004
USA Today’s Baig’s Best: Apple’s ‘exquisite’ iMac G5 and ‘best-of-breed’ iPod photo make the list – November 22, 2004
A Windows PC user switches to Apple’s iMac G5 with Mac OS X – November 10, 2004
Apple iMac G5: beautiful, quiet, innovative – ‘they’ve really outdone themselves this time’ – November 08, 2004
Boston Globe: Apple’s iMac G5 includes ‘the kind of thoughtfulness sadly absent in much of the PC world – November 08, 2004
Fortune: New Apple iMac G5 a ‘triumph in both technology and design’ – October 07, 2004
ComputerWorld: Apple iMac G5 combines ease-of-use, power and elegance – this machine rocks – October 05, 2004
Apple Computer’s iMac G5 ‘stylish-looking yet powerful machine’ that works ‘efficiently and well’ – October 03, 2004
Mossberg: Apple iMac G5 ‘powerful, affordable, virus-free with better, more modern OS than Windows XP – September 23, 2004
PC Magazine reviews Apple iMac G5: ‘5 out of 5 stars, unparalleled execution should attract would-be PC buyers – September 21, 2004
The Age: Apple iMac G5 ‘a masterpiece, a triumph, sleek, elegant and very much 21st century’ – September 08, 2004
Time: Apple’s new iMac G5 ‘quite possibly the coolest personal computer yet created’ – September 07, 2004
Apple’s new ‘Chiclet’ iMac G5 a design triumph meant to tempt Windows iPod users – August 31, 2004
Apple unveils new iMac G5, the world’s thinnest desktop computer – August 31, 2004
Comeon- It takes fewer clicks on average to do things on a Mac. That means simpler and easier to use and better for non-techinical/non-power users (but good for technical/power users too).
I can sympathize with trying to get even basic concepts across to older users though. My 78 year old Mom is on an eMac and it is a struggle at times. I shudder to think of trying to get her up to speed on a PC, not to mention the fact that since we live far apart I wouldn’t be able to help her much if she got infected by malware.
My little sister probably could figure out how to do things on a PC but it would take longer, not be as intuitive, and the first time she got malwared it would probably turn her off on the whole thing. She is much better off on a Mac.
Macs are just simpler, easier to use, and have fewer problems.
Qman: “There are still millions of PC users who don’t know there are alternatives.”
And most have no choice in it – these decisions are made way above their pay grade. So it does not matter what the “peons” want.
————
Jack A: ” It takes fewer clicks on average to do things on a Mac.”
Such as????
philly …
“Jack A: ” It takes fewer clicks on average to do things on a Mac.”
Such as????”
One thing off the top of my head I can think of…. is when you pop in an external firewire / usb device to a PeeCee….. how many clicks doe it take you to access it ??
On a Mac… the icon appears on the desktop….. two clicks…and its open…
Does the device icon appear on the desktop on PeeCees ??
Phreezin – Here are a few examples. Some are a bit dated but a lot are dot on even today. And I am sure that if you wanted to take the time you could find a lot more.
http://corourke.customer.netspace.net.au/Mac/ease_examples.html
I’d like to point out to MDN that Britain do not use the � (Euro), but in fact use � (sterling). The article from The Independent, a British newspaper, noted this.
This is quite a copy and paste error�
Tilted Sideways: “Photoshop was available for the Mac long before any Windows version was available.”
The point the person was trying to make (although wrong) was that Adobe copied it from Apple:
Ed: “I wonder where Adobe got the idea for Photoshop Album.”
mac dood: “One thing off the top of my head I can think of…. is when you pop in an external firewire / usb device to a PeeCee….. how many clicks doe it take you to access it ??
On a Mac… the icon appears on the desktop….. two clicks…and its open…”
On a PC (mine run Windows XP).
I open the my hard drive icon on my desktop and the external firewire/usb device is listed as one of the devices along with the hard drives.
I can either double click or One right button click on the icon and there the device is listed.
Again, either double click or One right button click on the device and it is open.
Simple.
Sometimes my desktop on my Mac is so cluttered I have to spend more time with the Mac trying to find the new icon. (One never has that “where�s the new icon problem with the PC – it is always tucked away in my “workplace” icon.)
I�ve got Macs and PeeCees – I don�t see a real big difference between the two. But then I don�t spend much time dorking around with the system interface, I am usually working in a program.
Jack A: “Here are a few examples. Some are a bit dated but a lot are dot on even today.”
I checked that link out you suggested.
Those things listed are so arcane or out of date.
I could not find one that I have ever wanted to do.
And why would anyone want to take the time to find out more?
My Mac and PC computers are set up and I rarely go back and change things in the system.
Once working in a program the programs work the same in either windows or mac. I primarily use Photoshop, Illustrator, GoLive, Dreamweaver and Flash. Have Maya running only on PC. All are networked and hooked to the internet via DSL.
The real computer work I am interested in is with the programs, not the platforms.
Kind of like a gas or electric stove. Both are different, both have plus and minuses; however, I can cook bacon and eggs or fry a steak really good on either stove.
The stove can be either gas or electric, what really counts is the pan, the ingredients, the recipe, the cooking utensils, spices and most of all, the cook.
As an owner and user of both Macs and PCs, I look at the computer the same way.
The one thing that I do like in the PC over the Mac system is the right-click mouse button on the two-button mouse (yes, I know one can buy a multiple-button for a Mac and I have those).
Anywhere, anytime just right-click and the little window pops open to perform lots of one-handed functions.
It is much more efficient than the one-button mouse.
And then click on the scroll wheel of the mouse mouse and it starts up the “super scroll function” of just moving the mouse forward and backward to get the page to scroll up or down really, really fast… nice.
You sound like a major power user Own-Mac-and-PC. My little sister isn’t. What may seem obvious to you will definitely not seem so obvious to a newbie or low tech user. Case in point your example of opening a firewire drive on XP – simple if you know where to look, not so simple perhaps if you do not. With the Mac it is guaranteed to be put right in front of the user in the most obvious place – the desktop. Yes it would take only a small amount of learning to overcome this, but those “small amounts of learning” can add up to big frustrations for a non-power user. The mac is just more intuitive and intuitive is good.
Windoze has continued to become more “Mac-like” but they are still not there and in the meantime it’s swiss cheese security has opened a whole ‘nother can of worms. And please do not explain to me how “easy” it is to maintain security on windows. Please list the steps needed (every week?) to maintain security on windoze. For the Mac right now it is pretty much zero since there is no active malware out there for the Mac. So even if a new Mac user does nothing at all for security or makes a mistake like clicking on an unknown attachment to an email nothing bad happens, but we all know what would happen to the same low power user on windows.
I have had to use windoze before for work and time and again I have found myself knowing how to solve problems for my windoze user colleagues because of my experience on the Mac. Generally the same features are available. But whereas on the Mac it was obvious enough that I learned how to do it without having to crack a book, the solution is often buried and obscure on windows. So to solve the problem for my windozer friends I just take the solution I know is possible on the Mac, figure it is somewhere available on windoze, and dig around until I find the “hard way” of doing the same thing that was easy on the Mac.
The only “pain-in-the-butt” security we do for the PeeCees is have to click the Ad-Aware button on the desktop for it to scan the computer for spyware crap that came through the internet. It takes maybe a minute to scan the computer. Plus we have Norton Anti-Virus software that does its think automatically.
But since switching to Firefox and Thunderbird from Microsoft products we have noticed that spyware stuff does not come into the computer anymore. (Internet Explorer definitely sucks.)
We have really not had any problems with spyware or malware type things on our PeeCees.
If one thinks about it Windows XP can be a bit more flexible than Mac in ways. For example, it was noted that the icon for a new device always shows up on the desktop. But you can�t get rid of it unless you put it in the garbage – disconnect it.
In Windows one can make a shortcut icon for the connected device and place it on the desktop so that it is similar to the Mac way of showing a connected device. Then one can remove this icon from the desktop at anytime without having to disconnect the device.
Most computer problems or situations are caused by ignorance of not knowing there are other ways of doing things. Heck, I can�t get my father to figure out how to copy and paste something or find a file in his computer. He keeps thinking it is “voodoo computer magic”.
“If one thinks about it Windows XP can be a bit more flexible than Mac in ways. For example, it was noted that the icon for a new device always shows up on the desktop. But you can�t get rid of it unless you put it in the garbage – disconnect it.
In Windows one can make a shortcut icon for the connected device and place it on the desktop so that it is similar to the Mac way of showing a connected device. Then one can remove this icon from the desktop at anytime without having to disconnect the device.”
Not any more flexible. It’s a Finder preference whether hard disk icons show up on the desktop, with the initial default the one most suitable for new users. If I (for whatever reason) don’t want the icon on the desktop, I can prefer it away. Moreover, you don’t have to put the icon in the trash to unmount the drive. You can eject it in at least four different ways I can think of, none of which involve the trash.
Indeed, given the BSD Unix underpinnings to the Mac and the full access to same through the Terminal application, Mac OS X is FAR MORE FLEXIBLE than XP. And that’s the beauty of a Mac OS. Simple for a new user. As complex as one would want for the expert.