12 May 2008
Weekend with the new baby
)Published on May 12th, 2008 @ 05:08:39 am, using 622 words, 17 views
It’s been such a beautiful weekend (now 10 days of straight lovely sun) that playing with the new iMac has been a mainly nocturnal affair.
So - some impressions after a weekend of transferring some old pics into Aperture, setting up mail, downloading a few apps (Skype, Google Earth, Shrook etc):
@ screen:
absolutely gorgeous. Not only is it beautigul and bright (had to turn it down) the colours and real estate are brilliant. Using Aperture in full screen mode makes usign PD CS 2 on a 17″ scren seem very antiquqted
@ speed:
not done any proper testing of speed in a benchmark sense, but seems incredibly zippy. Start times are very short, very little lag and rarely get a beachball.
@ iMovie and HD video:
again no heavy use yet. Took about real time to import some full HD footage into iMovie 08 (reducing down to slightly lower res). iMovie foudn the camera instantly and imported with no hitch whatsoever. Capable of playing back the HD clips with NO lags whatsoever, and no load times. Skimming works perfectly on the HD clips (this means moving the mouse over the clips shows the video playing at the speed you move the mouse - very useful for revieing and searching).
@ Aperture:
quite a steep learning curve but think I am going to love it. For years I have been using CS2 or Elements with a rather slow workflow. The main advantage is that without having to save anything, processing laods of files is very very fast. The interface is beautiful - if lsightly mystical for a newbie. The ability to view and edit full screen with HUDs is awesome. I’ve been pulling my old folder structure over almost intact - althought the key difference is that this was previously a Windows fodler structure, and is now a within-Aperture structure with Masters in the library. I have yet to develop my set of keywords as I want to get this right to avoid rework (with 30,000 images it will take time!)
@ OSX:
Yes - it is lovely. Fast, seemless integration of contacts. All my apps can see my Aperture library. Expose is brilliant, installing apps is simple and effective. Lovely - but again a bit mysterious for a switcher.
@ keyboard / mouse:
the keyboard is an absolute work of art and a joy to type on. I would have expected such a flat keyboard to be ergonomically inferior but not so - joyous. The mighty mouse has a bad rep but I’m actually enjoying it. Will use for a bit longer before deciding to plug in my old trusty logitech.
@ boot camp / xp:
installed my old OEM copy of XP (slip streamed with SP2) OK. Runs incredicly fast. Have Fear running at decent FPS (average about 80fps) with high details, no AA, at 1600 resolution. Hopefully won’t have to use it much - but it is there if needed (e.g. for my Phototrackr which still doesn’t work with OSX). I did have one problem, after installing XP the keyboard and mouse wouldn’t work - necessitating a hard reboot. I plugged in my old logitech mouse which seems to have got the whole thing going again. Now the iMac keyboard and mighty mouse work perfectly and no other problems.
@ yet to try:
not tried Time Machine or Aperture Vaults yet but need to soon!
@ summary:
awesome. If my impressions remain this high I will have been very happy to make the switch. OSX is as far as I can tell so far - much better designed than Windows (XP or Vista). It is a lot less “clunky", more instantly accessible and easier to get around. Integration is much better than I had experienced with Windows.
More to come after another week or so.
Permanent Link
. Got it delivered to work after calling Apple yesterday. A very friendly chap was able to switch from home delivery to work, and hey presto - here it is. 
. It really is amazing - by the time the thing gets here (ETA tomorrow by thw way) it will have visited more European destinations than a gap year inter-railer (well not quite, but you get the point):
this is not enroute between BARKING and where I live)
, occasionally frustrating 
, increasingly tedious 
years on Windows. I’ve been there from 3.1 to XP SP2. Indeed - the horror that is Vista hardly inspires one to stay faithfull to Redmond’s increasingly complex and flabby offering…and well…the old Mesh XP3200 needs to be retired. And let’s be honest. Those iMacs look so damn nice.