Markus

Thought I'd just pop up a quick report on the new iMac.

Finally got hold of it last night (dev team were working with it to rebuild various bits of code). Packaging is the usual exquisite delight that you expect from Apple.

Setup is a doddle, though copying over my home folder didn't work, but that's because of the way my G4 was setup and not the fault of the migration assitant.

Upgrading RAM is very simple. I popped a 1GB chip in there, so she's up to 1.5GB RAM and I think she likes it.

Compared to the G4 Tower I was working on, this machine is blisteringly quick. Click on Safari and it's launched, no waiting around. Same for most applications, though word takes a while, but that's probably due to it not being Universal and thus using Rosetta.

Google Earth is seriously quick, rather impressed with it

Front Row is interesting, but seeing as the machine is in the office and not the front room, it's a bit useless for me.

The machine is very quiet, unlike the towers, so that means I shall keep it on all the time, which in turn means the iPaq and Salling Clicker will get some proper use as a remote interface for iTunes (I have an airport express hooked up to my A/V Amp, so can use it as a remote speaker setup)

There isn't much I don't like, so far, about the machine.

Overall I am very impressed. Am very keen to see what the Pro Desktop machines will be like.

** edited to change G5 Tower to G4 Tower **

JackClark

Still chuffed with mine, even if the OS is a bit quirky and lacking some basics.

I might even go the whole hog and put the Apple sticker on my car!!

AllanB

Think you'll have to wait a while for PowerMac as Adobe won't support the universal apps unitl 2007 !!!

The intel thing isa killing hardware business at the moment as people are understandably a bit unsure which way to go.

We've done some speed tests, just basic stuff and general observations and one of our tech guys found the Intel machines slower in quite a few apps.

I've just bought a G4 Ibook rather than wait for the Intel one in April as I use maily InDesign and can't wait for a year for the universal apps and suffer a year of reduced performance


AllanB

ScoobyDoo555

I'm doing the pretty much the same thing - holding onto my G5 until it all gets sorted. With HD audio, processing is pretty much essential (like most other applications! )

Looks interesting, but too much development to address before I change over

Dan

Markus

Maybe Apple will hold the Pro desktops back until Adobe pulls it's finger out, but I'm not so sure. It's possible the specs will mean that perfomance of the PPC version of the software under rosetta is equiv to a G5, which would be just about ok for Pro users. Then, when Adobe releases the Uni builds, we'll see the improved performance.

I'm curious as to why Adobe does not have Uni builds of it's software. It's not as though they would not have had access DTK machines. OK, so they DTK's are different from the Core Duo's, but our software works very very closely with the OS itself, so we faced some serious recoding when the move was announced, and we've been working on it since we got the DTK. I can't see why Adode has not done this.

Maybe I'm over simplyfying what their software does in regards to processor dependance, and that it wasn't worth them porting anything to the DTK as they'd have to totally recode for Core Duo, however, if that was the case, I'd have thought we would have needed to do the same. Certainly we had to tweak a few things for the Core Duo's but it took about a week.

I am going to run up InDesign later today, as it's what I use for our documentation, and I'm curious to see how quick/slow it actually is.

mattbeef

some feedback on that would be nice as we could do with installing CS2 on our machine at work that has a graphics tablet attached to it

Markus

I've only currently got CS1 and not CS2. I've had a very quick play with CS1 under Rosetta, and it's quicker than my G4 was running it nativley, but that's hardly surprising, so I can't give that good of a comparison.

corradoboy

It's not only worth waiting for the Intel optimised software, but also the better Intel chips. The current Intel iMac and MacBook Pro's are using the Yonah chip, which will be superceded by the faster Merom chip as soon as summer this year. I suspect they are holding back the more serious hardware until these chips are fully ready, but they are rumored to be going into all macs from PB's through iMacs to towers in differing configurations from single to Quad core. there are also 2-3 other new Intel chips in development for implementation over the next couple of years which will see Yonah phased out, Merom becoming the base spec and high-end machines getting the faster new chips with multiple cores. I was about to jump in and get a 20" iMac, but after finding out about the raft of changes due in quick succession decided to wait until at least summer to assess what is actually coming to market long term.

JackClark

Oh no, Malware, new Chips, is the Mac the new IBM PC? They'll announce a mouse with muliple buttons next

corradoboy

Nothing so crude on a Mac CLICKY

messiah

lol - although I think Jack was taking the Michael...

About to jump ship to Mac also, have seriously considered the new iMac after a good fiddle with one in the Trafford Centre Apple Store but seeing as I'm on a laptop now, an iMac would give me the same upgrading headaches so think I'll be holding off for a tower.

On a side Issue I was thinking about getting the monitor for it soon - does the apple monitor have both DVI & VGA inputs? (sorry for not checking on sites site before asking) I know there are cheaper alternatives available, but I quite fancied the whole Kit & Kaboodle, but was also wondering if there's a redesign on the way for the screens & towers?

corradoboy

http://www.apple.com/displays/

mattbeef

the new imac can take an apple display as it has a mini DVI connector like the 12" powerbook

as for the trafford centre..pah come to a real store at meadowhall and see me

messiah

Where's Meadowhall?

When its finally time to give my credit card a good bashing I was planning on going to a store rather than wait for one to be delivered...

Markus

Just trying the current (unstable) build of Q (OS X port of QEMU) for Intel. Having a few issues getting it to boot anything. It'll install most of Win98 and then stall. Works fine on PPC though.

mattbeef

http://www.apple.com/uk/retail/meadowhall/map/ for directions

so far only herd good things about Q as well might try it just for the sake of it and i even own a real copy of windows xp pro!

Markus

We're looking at Q as we want to get the last of our staff from PC's onto Macs, but they need to use Accounting and Database software that are PC only, and we need some time to recode the database side of things, so Emulation is going to be the way to do it. If the Intel Macs didn't have EFI and had BIOS we'd have just dual booted the little darlings, alas it's not to be.

mattbeef

give it time, linux gentoo has just made it onto an intel mac so im pretty sure that windows isnt too far behind it there are a lot of clever people out there

Markus

Well, I've got the latest unstable build of Q to actually boot into Win98SE. It's fairly quick, certainly a bit quicker thant VPC. I have got networking somewhat addressed, so I think it might be passable for what it's needed to be used for (running an Access Database and Accounts software and accessing archived email).

As for the machine itself, well it's behaving well (* touches wood *) and is very quiet, so I've been able to leave it turned on all the time, something I wasn't able to do with the G4. This is a godsend as it means I can leave it performing tasks overnight, also helps the UK chaps as they can upload things to me when I'm not here, plus I'll be able to access it when I'm not in the office.

Father Jack Hackett

Now that the Intel Macs are out, are we likely to see price reductions on the Power PC Macs? I'm lusting after a dual G5 for music production (running Ableton Live 5 and Reason 3.0) but they're still a bit pricey for me.

Cheers,

Jack

Markus

Jack,
AllanB is probably best qualified to answer that, but from what I've seen, yes, there will be discounts on the PPC units as Apple EOL's them. The G5 iMac saw a couple of hundred bucks fall from the price when the Intel versions were released. I'd expect the same to be true when the Pro Desktops are announced.

There may be some good deals on ebay as well, so might be worth checking out.

AllanB

I very much doubt there will be any price reductions. As per my other post in the other Mac releated thread I honestly think there will be a vast amount of panic buying.

I'm working on one deal for 450 units right now and another wll known newspaper just but 700 G5s. Why ? They don't want a massive perfomance decrease and bespoke systems that won't run properly.

If you do want a good deal I feel you should do it now. Once stocks run low I canot se resellers selling these machines for nothing. Its like the situation we have with OS 10.3 machiens where we had customers frantically paying to buy these and also the machines that could boot into OS9 !



AllanB

Markus

Allan,
Ah, now you raise an interesting point there, about machines that cannot boot into OS9 or run Classic. Do you have a fair number of people who are purchasing the G5's as the Intel's won't run classic and they need to run something in Classic?

Maybe I'm mean, but I have a bit of a problem with people harping on about not being able to find an equivelent package for OS X, and that they must have OS 9 / Classic, and they're going to stomp their feet and scream until Apple reinstates Classic on the new machine, which I don't think is going to happen.

OS 9 was killed a few years ago, good! Classic is now dead as well, even better! Apple has, I think stopped support for OS 9, and support for classic will probably end when the whole range of machines is transitioned and no Apple stock of PPC machines remain.

There's a few reasons people won't change, money and time. They can't/won't pay to purchase an updated OS X version of the software, either because they don't like the new feature set, or the way it works. To me that argument is pathetic, relearn the software, I've had to do it (Pagemaker to QuarkXPRESS to InDesign) and you pick up a lot of little tricks on the way.
If you cannot find an OS X version of an application you are using, you either need to convert over to a similar app, eg; Pagemaker to Quark, or if you cannot find anything that matches what you have, then pay a programmer to write you an OS X version of the software. Again, money plays a role here.

Time is the other factor, converting hundreds or thousdands of files from one format to another, probably different format, is time consuming, but it's possible, again, the PM to QX example, it took me some time to convert things, as I do not trust conversion applications, and I needed a perfect copy, so I manually converted things over. Now, some apps might have a conversion utiliy, which will make it easier.

Sorry for the rant.

AllanB

Its more people are mega concerned about core applications running at less than half speed on an Intel machine as per the test data now circulating from places such as MacWorld. Newspapers and publishing accounts and indeed anyone upgrading to increase productivity and therefore profits cannot afford to go backwards for ther best part of a year hwist they wait for the main player, Adobe to write Universal apps which they won't do until 2007.

Just had another newspaper after around 60 machines today.

The intel stuff doesn't affect people using the basic built in apps but the non Universal apps appear to have major perfomance issues especiallly at the high end and even Apple have breifed some of our people not to sell anything other than G5s to power users.


Once we have the Universal apps it will be full steam ahead BUT many compnaies run bespoke sytems based on the likes of Miles 33, DTI etc for newspaper production and the costs invovled on getting this rewritten far outweigh the investment on ensuring sapre G5s are available. The newspaper looking for 60 mahcines today would have to spend over 300K to get thier software rewritten and then it would need to be destruction tested for a long time before it could be used.

RichB

Marcus - What model of G5 are you comparing it to?
I have a DP2.5 and wondering how much difference i'll see.
Using DW, PHS, Occassional WebObjects Dev, php and mysql serving...
Nothing too heavy duty....

Markus

Rich,
Ah, ok, I said G5 tower, I meant to say G4 tower. So it's a bit of a misnomer as anything will be quicker than that! However, the dev team use DualCore G5's and they've said that the Intel iMacs are about the same speed, if a tiny bit slower, but then they expect that, as the iMac is a consumer and not a pro machine.

Key thing to bear in mind is wether the apps you're going to use are Universal/Intel only. If they are not, then they, might, run in Rosetta, so they will be slower than they should. Steve's demo of PS running on an iMac showed it was ok, but not something the Pro user would want to do.

have a sniff around the ArsTechnica site and see what they have up there, am pretty sure they have tested the latest G5 towers and iMacs against the Intel based machines.

Would be nice if Apple did a "try before you buy" deal, as you could nab one, give it a fly and see what you think.

AllanB

We may do a seminar on this in the near future.



AllanB