By Austin Yarger
It was only this summer that I was first introduced into Apple's "mac family" as one cheerful Apple store representative put it. I have since had nearly a month with the big white machine, and have both positive and negative opinions to put forth. Has Mr. Jobs sold me on his magic white box?
First of all, it took but a single trip to the OSX base screen to realize that the iMac is all about user friendliness. With a big, magnifiable dock holding all of one's programs, a huge clear display, and a very friendly user settings and finder program, a monkey could use this thing-- a huge positive in my opinion. Whether or not this impedes a developer's use of Mac OSX is something I do fear however, but things overall look quite good, and clear, on the iMac's user-end.
iMac's definitely a looker with it's gorgeous wide-screen display, white aesthetic, and handsome software to match, but what can it do? Well, for starters, it can type this. It can make Power points and music. It can backup your files and provide a wireless network (via Time Capsule, which is brilliant by the way). It can develop Apps for the world's most popular devices. And all this is provided by Apple, which is, perhaps surprisingly, a problem. You see, Macs are generally higher-end systems, which means fewer people own them. This means that there are less consumers on the Mac platform for third-party companies to fish for, which means that they rarely, if ever bother to make Mac versions of their products. Many computer video games (which I have a particular interest in) are not available for the Mac. Emulation for Mac is a very scarce field as well, and Even products such as gimp that do have Mac versions are under-supported or buggy. Thankfully, Adobe and now Valve Software almost fully support the Mac platform, but there is still a ways to go before Mac consumers can enjoy the plethora of software options that Windows consumers have enjoyed for countless years--A big negative for the Mac platform.
Fortunately, there is a way around these deficiencies, since Mac can actually run Microsoft Windows quite well. Once running Windows, the previously unavailable third-party software options become available as if you were running a genuine PC. Of course, you must pay for another copy of a Microsoft operating system, and a little extra if you want to be able to run both Mac OSX and Windows at the same time, but it is undoubtedly worth it.
So is the Mac the machine of your dreams? If you can afford it, then yes. It has the power and abilities of both the beautiful Mac OSX, and the functional, deep Windows OS. So far the machine has been reliable, and I have read that the Mac OSX side of the computer is essentially virus-immune, though that remains to be tested. If you have a desire for elegance and user-friendliness, and you have a good Job, go ahead and buy into Steve Job's White Stallion box, and take a bite of the fresh new Apple generation.
Austin Yarger
http://www.webstarts.com/pentertainment
Austin is a Senior attending Clarkston High School located within Michigan's Oakland county.
He currently focuses on Computer Sciences and the Literary Arts.
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