My New iMac
- January 30, 2006
- 8 comments
Well, after a delay of a couple days in Shanghai, the iMac finally shipped out going through Anchorage, Indianapolis, Memphis and Shreveport. Apple credited me the shipping cost since there was a delay. In fact, Apple has been quite helpful about it all. They called me three different times during the last several days to update me on what’s going on and ask if I had any questions or comments.
It arrived in a non-descript brown box. Like I predicted, and happens every time, I was like a kid in a candy store. The first thing you see when you open the box is the keyboard, mouse, Front Row remote and manuals. Lift that part up and you see the thin top side of the iMac. Once I had taken off the protective foam padding around the computer, the size of the screen is the first thing you notice. My old 17” iMac has a nice screen, but this is just beautiful. Bright, clean, clear colors. I’m not sure whether it qualifies for high-def, but when you’re sitting this close to it, it doesn’t matter.
The initial setup was the same as usual, but this time utilized the built-in camera in the iMac to take your user pic. Once I had everything set up, I copied over all my important files from the old computer and installed all the apps I need to work. I was a little apprehensive about running Photoshop through Rosetta, but it’s MUCH faster than my 800 MHz iMac. It better be! I bumped the RAM to 2GB and the graphics card to 256 MB!
The transition went almost perfectly except for two things. The first thing is the iMac won’t recognize my iSub subwoofer, which is lame because it really makes the sound pop. I did a search for a fix on the Internet and couldn’t find anything. If anyone else knows how to fix it, please let me know how. The second thing is the UNO theme unifier won’t work with all the apps. I’m not sure why not either. It works on some, but not all. Hopefully there will be a fix for that too.
I’m still trying to figure out whether I like the new Mighty Mouse that came with it. I really like the little scroll ball, but I’m not completely sold on the single button “two-button” mouse idea.
I really love the latest versions of the iLife apps. iPhoto especially has improved, incorporating some of the nice full-screen editing that Aperture is known for now. Garageband is still fun to play with and has better integration with the other iLife apps. Photo Booth is a fun diversion, but gets old after a few minutes.
One app that I’ve never heard of but is quite fun to play with is called Comic Life. It basically allows you to quickly make a comic book out of your various photos or drawings. You can easily change page layouts, add photos, speech bubbles, etc. It’s quite an interesting idea for an app.
I’m still checking out all the new bells and whistles, but it’s light years better than my old iMac. It will only get faster once all the apps I use have universal binaries too. Overall, I’m quite happy with my decision to buy one.
While I was unpacking the new iMac and moving around the old ones, I snapped a pic of the three generations of iMac we currently own. The old blue iMac will be going to my grandparents soon, and my old 17” will be going to my parents.
Now to figure out how to triple boot OS X, Windows and Linux…
Russ
February 1, 2006
Hey Chris,
Congrats on the new iMac. It sounds like another huge leap forward, compared to the older one.
I’m hearing a lot of good things about the Intel chips, and I am already looking towards the day when I will be replacing my 10 month old G5!
I had to bust out laughing when I saw you also has one of the original iMacs sitting around. Which version is it? I have one myself, that I bought back when they very first came out in 1998. That 233 MHz processor along with the massive 4 GB hard drive, was serious business back then. Oh yeah, let’s not forget the built in 56k modem… lol.
Peter Ripley
February 1, 2006
And I read somewhere yesterday that the processors are upgradable! Someone swapped in a similar but faster processor from a PC and it worked.
It’s especially nice to be able to upgrade a machine like this iMac because it will still be a nice display years from now when the stock processor will be a joke.
The blue iMac in the picture was the second iMac revision, if I remember right. Had the slot-loading drive and a whopping 400MHz G3 in it. I think it was a 400 MHz. Could be wrong. It’s still a decent little computer for school work and email. And is reasonably fast with the Internet too since it’s using DSL here.
I also read yesterday that the chip is upgradable. That is definitely a good thing. I bumped the RAM and graphics card on this iMac to help make it last longer. Now that the CPU can be swapped, that could add another year or two to its life.
Russ
February 1, 2006
Jay
February 6, 2006
K
February 24, 2007
Your site came up when I was
trying to search for ways to get my isub
working also.
Got a new 20” imac about 2 weeks ago and
my isub wont work either.
(traded in my old purple imac! God I loved that
little machine)
Have read that speakers that use usb port instead of headphone jack somehow trigger the imac to
see the isub. Haven’t tried it yet so can’t recommend it.
Jealous… must not be jealous… must be studious… save money.