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I will spend this time commenting on the suite of applications shipped with my iMac. The wonderfully entertaining and often so true Apple vs. Windows commercials make much of the wondrous out of the box experience that supposedly awaits us as we become acquainted with the iLife suite.
What Apple fails to mention is that there will be no Word processor, spreadsheet or presentation software bundled your new lovely sleek Mac. I was advised by my Apple convert friends to purchase the Microsoft Office suite because it was still the best Word Processor and Spreadsheet for the Mac … as of today this has been their only concession to a Microsoft ascendancy.
As I speak these words I am looking at the recent announcement by Apple of the reintroduction of the iWork and updated iLife suites but it is unclear as to whether iWorks will be shipped with the new thinner iMacs (it does seems that Apple is in lock step with the modeling and movie industries preoccupation with thinness, perhaps this is a natural result of its close proximity to Hollywood). I suspect many of us that teethed on Microsoft DOS and Windows 3.0 are now built more like the recently introduced bulkier HP Touchsmart PC than the svelte new iMacs.)
First the many pluses of the iLife suite… the consistency in the look, feel and integration among iLife and other Apple applications is refreshing and does much to help a newbie quickly become at least moderately skilled in producing simple projects. The learning curve is made considerably less steep by the wonderful Apple on-line “how to” videos and forum feedback from more seasoned Mac users.
I am most familiar with GarageBand and iWeb and find the former an excellent tool for producing my podcasts while iWeb pared with a .Mac account is a simple and almost painless way to establish a minimal presence on the WEB. The tight integration intergraded between all iLife applications is a big plus in shifting an idea from the ether to the Internet. The down side to this interdependency is that simple functions such as saving your GarageBand projects as MP3’s or other common audio formats require you pass the project to iTunes where I learned a bit late in the game, if preferences are set correctly, you can finally end up with an MP3… the de-facto file standard of audio podcasts.
Given the dominance of Apple in promoting netcasting, I was surprised to find that I had to jump though these hoops to create my podcasts. I can see the efficiency in not duplicating features and the advantage of maintaining consistency with the Apple round robin concept in creating a finished project but would prefer each application be a bit more independent of the other. It would be particularly welcome if GarageBand projects could be directly saved as MP3s.
Halleluiah and dejà vu all over again, wouldn’t you know it, as I was writing this narrative I tried to log on to GarageBand and to my shock it reported the Midi drivers were not loaded and to please check with the with the manufacturer to correct the problem. Who might the culprit manufacturer be and how am I to look for help when the iMac is in a familiar Windows like gridlock not allowing me to do anything but repeatedly acknowledge I have seen the scary little warning.
I tried to shut down using the system menu and Apple keyboard version of the infamous Windows Ctrl, Alt Delete and all I got was a dark screen with the power light eerily dimming and reappearing very much reminiscent of Hal as it was being dismantled in 2001 The Space Odyssey. I half expected it to being singing Daisy and pleading with me “please stop Sam, I’ll be ok if only you give me some more time!”
Finally after holding the power button in long enough to do a true hard re-boot I was able to re-open GarageBand and load the file I wanted to play. Yes, Macintoshes do crash and with alarming frequency! These total system lockups are all the more alarming when running native Apple applications. I have grown accustomed to the now thankfully rarer crashes on my XP but when they do occur I can at least often hang the fault on one of the many 3rd party applications I have installed over the last two years. My iMac on the other hand is a relative virgin … only a few 3rd party applications installed.
I had planned to comment on the rather lame iPhoto application and the surprising lack of thumb nail photo previews as I look for pictures but I am too rattled by the latest crash to continue without being unduly harsh in my critique. I am always so disappointed when the Mac begins to feel like just another computer in a sexy enclosure rather than the promised nirvana of the Apple adverts and enthusiasts.
Anyway, I plan to purchase the iLife upgrade and hope it addresses some my concerns about the existing suite. I will cross my fingers that is does not follow the Windows legacy of breaking things already so painfully fixed and adding frustration with feature over load.
Until next time trust that change is forever with us and tomorrow is always a new adventure.
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