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...the new iLife and iWork packages Apple introduced yesterday.
iLife (for the non-Mac people out there) consists of iTunes (for playing music), Garageband (for making your own music), iPhoto (for digital still photography), iMovie (for digital video editing), iDVD (for creating DVDs of your photos and movies), and iWeb (a template-driven website generation program) -- the iLife suite comes free on all new Macs. I put together my web site with the previous version of iWeb -- mostly to see if it would work at all (and because I was tired of the old site, which had been done in Freeway Pro. Now, Freeway Pro is a fine program (and much more sophisticated than iWeb), and I may yet return to it. And the previous version of iWeb had a terrific deficiency -- there was no way to add HTML code to the site. That had to be cured by use of a third party 'fix' in the form of a shareware program called iWeb Enhancer, for which I gladly paid the shareware fee. My own hope for the new version of iWeb was that it could handle small bits of HTML coding, and it appears that they've put that into this version, along with a few other enhancements.
They've also enhanced iPhoto, which was already a fantastic organizational tool and a (very) basic editing tool for digital photos -- again, not anywhere close to a replacement for Photoshop Elements or Photoshop itself, but an excellent tool for those of us who don't make our livings dealing with photos. And they also put some lovely new features in Garageband, which is a very dangerous application for me as a musician, because I could easily lose days at a time playing with this...
Gotta upgrade!
And then there's iWork. In the past, iWork was two software programs: Pages (a beautifully simple page-layout program), and Keynote. Keynote is a presentation package that, frankly, blows Powerpoint entirely out of the water. (Speaking of which, yes, Keynote could open .ppt files, and could also export in that format, though you'd lose any of the transitions and effects (of which there are many) that Powerpoint simply isn't capable of producing). I use Keynote all the time in my writing classes, and it's frankly the best presentation software I've ever seen. There's a new Keynote... and it looks even better. Anyone using Powerpoint is using the second-best software available for the job. I'm already drooling for it...
Pages was already an excellent tool for creating newletters, flyers, etc., with professional results and a fantastically intuitive interface. It could also open .doc files, and also save in that format. But... it was merely an "OK" word processor, and bogged down when I tried to open novel-length manuscripts in it. My word processor of choice is NIsus Writer Pro -- a fantastic word processor all around, and one I highly recommend. However, Pages has been revamped, and supposedly boasts new word-processing capabilities along with enhancements to the page-layout stuff. I'll certainly give it another try as a word-processor. I have my doubts that it's going to knock Nisus Writer Pro from its current place atop the heap of word processing programs, but I'll give it a try.
If you've been paying attention, you'll have noted that iWork is a direct (and unsubtle) competitor to two of the three main components of Microsoft Office: Word and Powerpoint. You'll also have noted that there was no spreadsheet in the old version...
Now there is. In the new iWork package, there is a program called "Numbers" -- which is exactly what you think it is: Apple's version of Excel. Yes, it will read from and write to .xls format. Yes, it has the intuitive Apple interface -- if you know any of the Apple programs, you already know a lot about Numbers. And yes, it seems to do some things that Excel simply can't do. If I can import my current spreadsheets into Numbers and lose no functionality, well, I'm done with MS Office forever, as the only program I ever use anymore is Excel.
Definitely time to upgrade. And Apple prices very nicely, too: the iLife and iWork packages are $79 each. Compare the price of iWork to the price of MS Office...
And hey, those new iMacs look pretty nice too. Megen, who is working at the Apple Store up in Columbus, called us yesterday to say "I've never said this before about a computer, but the new iMac is sexy!" Unfortunately, finances preclude an upgrade there any time soon...
iLife (for the non-Mac people out there) consists of iTunes (for playing music), Garageband (for making your own music), iPhoto (for digital still photography), iMovie (for digital video editing), iDVD (for creating DVDs of your photos and movies), and iWeb (a template-driven website generation program) -- the iLife suite comes free on all new Macs. I put together my web site with the previous version of iWeb -- mostly to see if it would work at all (and because I was tired of the old site, which had been done in Freeway Pro. Now, Freeway Pro is a fine program (and much more sophisticated than iWeb), and I may yet return to it. And the previous version of iWeb had a terrific deficiency -- there was no way to add HTML code to the site. That had to be cured by use of a third party 'fix' in the form of a shareware program called iWeb Enhancer, for which I gladly paid the shareware fee. My own hope for the new version of iWeb was that it could handle small bits of HTML coding, and it appears that they've put that into this version, along with a few other enhancements.
They've also enhanced iPhoto, which was already a fantastic organizational tool and a (very) basic editing tool for digital photos -- again, not anywhere close to a replacement for Photoshop Elements or Photoshop itself, but an excellent tool for those of us who don't make our livings dealing with photos. And they also put some lovely new features in Garageband, which is a very dangerous application for me as a musician, because I could easily lose days at a time playing with this...
Gotta upgrade!
And then there's iWork. In the past, iWork was two software programs: Pages (a beautifully simple page-layout program), and Keynote. Keynote is a presentation package that, frankly, blows Powerpoint entirely out of the water. (Speaking of which, yes, Keynote could open .ppt files, and could also export in that format, though you'd lose any of the transitions and effects (of which there are many) that Powerpoint simply isn't capable of producing). I use Keynote all the time in my writing classes, and it's frankly the best presentation software I've ever seen. There's a new Keynote... and it looks even better. Anyone using Powerpoint is using the second-best software available for the job. I'm already drooling for it...
Pages was already an excellent tool for creating newletters, flyers, etc., with professional results and a fantastically intuitive interface. It could also open .doc files, and also save in that format. But... it was merely an "OK" word processor, and bogged down when I tried to open novel-length manuscripts in it. My word processor of choice is NIsus Writer Pro -- a fantastic word processor all around, and one I highly recommend. However, Pages has been revamped, and supposedly boasts new word-processing capabilities along with enhancements to the page-layout stuff. I'll certainly give it another try as a word-processor. I have my doubts that it's going to knock Nisus Writer Pro from its current place atop the heap of word processing programs, but I'll give it a try.
If you've been paying attention, you'll have noted that iWork is a direct (and unsubtle) competitor to two of the three main components of Microsoft Office: Word and Powerpoint. You'll also have noted that there was no spreadsheet in the old version...
Now there is. In the new iWork package, there is a program called "Numbers" -- which is exactly what you think it is: Apple's version of Excel. Yes, it will read from and write to .xls format. Yes, it has the intuitive Apple interface -- if you know any of the Apple programs, you already know a lot about Numbers. And yes, it seems to do some things that Excel simply can't do. If I can import my current spreadsheets into Numbers and lose no functionality, well, I'm done with MS Office forever, as the only program I ever use anymore is Excel.
Definitely time to upgrade. And Apple prices very nicely, too: the iLife and iWork packages are $79 each. Compare the price of iWork to the price of MS Office...
And hey, those new iMacs look pretty nice too. Megen, who is working at the Apple Store up in Columbus, called us yesterday to say "I've never said this before about a computer, but the new iMac is sexy!" Unfortunately, finances preclude an upgrade there any time soon...
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Side note: What's your impression of iPhone?
From:
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Well, what's impressive about the iPhone isn't that it pushes the envelope of phone technology: it doesn't. Hey, it's not even a 3G phone (and that's probably a good decision, given the drain on battery life that 3G causes). What is impressive is the thought and care that went into the interface. Like most Apple products, the industrial design is gorgeous (though I wish they'd put a bit of rubber on the sides; the phone can be a bit slippery in the dry hands), and the interface... it's flat-out gorgeous and makes a hell of a lot of sense when you're using it. Having a full browser is nice, and Apple did a tremendous job making it work on the screen. Yeah, when you're on AT&T's EDGE network, it's decidedly slower than when on wifi, but for e-mail and Google Maps (sans the satellite view) EDGE is fine, as well as for non-graphic heavy sites. However, don't try YouTube with EDGE...
I found that battery life is best if you leave wifi off unless you're actively using an internet connection. If I want to use Safari, etc., I'll turn wifi on and see if there's an open network around; if not, I'll turn it back off and use EDGE. Leaving wifi off as a default gives me 2 - 3 days of usage before I need to re-charge the phone; it's 1 - 2 days with it on because the phone is giving power to the wifi chip to continually look around for wireless networks. And Bluetooth (it should go without saying) should also always be off unless you're actively using it -- leaving Bluetooth on eternally will really pull the charge from the battery, since it's always trying to connect with another Bluetooth device.
Can't speak for the Windoze folks, but with a Mac, the synchronization with Mail, Address Book, iCal, iTune, and iPhoto is simple and automatic. iPhoto treats the iPhone like it's a digital camera, automatically opening up and offering to import any pictures you've taken with the built-in camera. In the meantime, iTunes is synching up everything. So far, that's been utterly flawless.
The screen seems extremely durable; I've yet to put anything over it. I do keep the phone in a case -- I'm using an Incase Leather Folio and like it quite a lot.
A few years back, I dropped my Palm Pilot and broke the screen. I never replaced it. Now the iPhone is reminding me why I liked having a Palm with me -- and it nicely takes the place of carrying around a cell phone, Palm (or some other personal organizer), and even a laptop from the standpoint of checking e-mail or bopping onto the internet to look up something or get directions (though not for actually doing some work on the latest story or novel). It can even function as a last-resort camera, though a two-megapixel camera isn't going to make anyone want to give up their seven-megapixel Canon.
All in all, I love it.
From:
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i've always been torn in the great PC vs. Mac debate. And this is why:
PC, specifically the Microsoft OS, has a bad rep. Microsoft is portrayed as the height of corporate greed and inefficiency--their software is plagued with substandard work and programming and people who like Microsoft or buy Microsoft products probably shop at wal-mart (that other diabolical mega-conglomeration) and hurt puppies and starve children in Africa and vote straight-ticket republican.
But Mac's rep is equally bad, albeit in the other direction. Mac has this ultra-trendy reputation. Mac users are tragically hip upper middle class indie kids who've never worked an hours hard work in their lives or former hippies and/or upper-middle class liberals in general. People who probably thought that Ralph Nader had a few good ideas.
In the end, I just want a computer. I don't want my purchase of said computer/OS to makes some sort of ideological statement about me. I just want it to work. correctly. and while i know that if that's what i want then Mac is obviously the better choice, but I don't want to be mistaken for a painfully cool but socially misunderstood slacker-who-wants-to-make-a-difference who would die if anyone knew he occasionally shopped at walmart instead of trader joe's.
do you know what I mean? I'm afraid i'm not being very clear today. It's past lunchtime and i'm out of coffee!
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(which I do, on both counts)
From:
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I use Macintosh because (in my opinion) it's the best platform for my needs. I bought my first Mac (way back when dinosaurs ruled the earth) because it was the only personal computer that would let me do something other than text. I could draw with a Mac. I could bring in (bit-mapped) graphics. I could scale text; I could use different fonts (and see them). I could look at my word processing document as black text on a white sheet -- like it was on paper. It was WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get, for those too young for that particular acronym...). None, none of the other computers around at the time could do that.
I still feel that the Mac platform is head-and-shoulders above the Windows crowd: in stability, in ease of use, in integration between programs, in interface design, in industrial design, in general 'friendliness,' in (frankly) the literal 'eye-candy' of the system (hey, 'looking good' means something when you're working with it all the time). Working for twelve years or so in an all-WIndows corporate environment (where daily crashes were the rule, not the exception, and where every task seemed to require three extra steps) while working with Macs at home cemented that opinion for me.
I don't care what someone else thinks of my choice of computer (and believe me, there were times during the Dark Days of mid-90's when it was difficult to stay with the Mac platform when everyone else I knew was using a Windows machine) as long as it's the right fit for me.
So, yeah, I think I know what you mean. But that just may be my own lack of coffee! :-)