Actually, I am only going to talk about my iMac in this post, but I thought I'd leave it open for my MacBook or my wife's MiniMac, since I may have something to say about them later. Since switching to a Mac in 2008, I haven't looked back. Perhaps that's not quite true, because I have recently bought a cheap, but new, PC in order to run NetObjects Fusion, a WYSIWYG website creation tool that a few of my sites were built on many years ago, but the PC mostly sits upstairs feeling dejected and unloved. My first Mac was my 13" 2008 Macbook, which still works as well as it did when I first bought it. I often use that one when I'm traveling since it's a whole lot easier to carry than my 27" iMac. My iMac, first of all, has a large screen, but it also allows me to connect as many as three additional monitors to it. Since I don't have room around my desk for three additional monitors, I don't do that, but I do routinely use one additional monitor, and often two, but when I am using two the third monitor is usually being used to play a DVD while I'm working. My iMac came with 4 GB RAM. However, since the way that I work requires me to have a couple of browsers and a whole lot of tabs open at one time, that proved to be not enough so I upgraded it to 8 GB. That did just fine for a few years, up until the time that I upgraded the OS to Yosemite. For some reason, Yosemite seems to be using memory differently than previous versions of the OS. It seems to be allocating all of the available memory to whatever I have running, leaving nothing in reserve for things that I may want to add later. I kept running out of memory, and I wouldn't notice that until it got so low that the critical conditions flag was thrown out onto the field and, by then, it doesn't even have enough memory to boot the app that frees memory, and it would sometimes lock up for an hour or more. It wouldn't crash but I would have to wait for the memory to slowly clear, since there wouldn't be enough even for me to close anything down. When I did notice that the available memory was getting low, I might close Firefox. That would free up a couple of GB of RAM but, within a few minutes, Safari would use that and I'd be in the same position. I never had these problems with any previous versions of the OS. I just got back from the computer shop, where I had my RAM doubled again, this time to 16 GB. If it starts to eat that up, I'll have to see what Apple can do about it. The nearest Apple dealership is hundreds of miles away, however. Although I only had 8GB available until today, my computer is currently using 8.93 GB.
One thing I like about Apple phone support is that you have the option to have them call you back when they don't have a representative available. So I can go about my business and they call me back. I hate waiting on the line.
Apparently, the next line of MacBooks is going to be more like an iPad than like an iMac. Interestingly, the same article mentions that Apple's iPad sales have been flat, so I don't know why they would want to make their best-selling computer line more like something that isn't selling as well. In my opinion, this is not good at all. I have enjoyed my MacBook, which has all the power of the iMac that I also have, but in a portable form, and I don't think I'll be interested in using an overgrown telephone as a computer. I have been using Macs since 2008, but this might drive me away.
Since this thread hasn't been posted to in a few years, I'll update it. I currently have a MacBook Pro and a Mac Mini. In the past, I have had another MacBook (not a Pro) and an iMac. My wife has a Mac Mini and an iPad, but she just bought a Mac Air to replace the iPad because there were too many incompatibilities between the iOS of the iPad and the macOS of the Mac Mini. I've seen the Mac Airs in the store and, although I think they used to be something like Apple's version of the Chromebook, with little or no local storage, that's not the case anymore. The Mac Air is just a little less powerful than the MacBook. I'll how she likes it, as it just came today.
We have several Apple devices but only one computer; a Macbook that neither of us uses so it's "like new" but a few years old now. We use our iPads and phones all the time, though.
My daughter has several MacBooks and iPads, and she has them with as much storage as possible, and still filled up. One MacBook Pro has been having a problem with the hard drive, and after she and my son looked at it, they said what it is doing is moving stuff around , trying to find space for it, when part of the hard drive goes bad. (I have a minimal understanding of how all of this works, so you are getting an imprecise description of what is happening) They decided that since I do not use anywhere near the amount of storage space that Robin does, the laptop should work for me, because it would have lots of empty room to move information if part of the drive goes bad. So……..TA-DAH ……..I am going to get a nice little MacBook Pro ! They are going to erase Robin’s account and then set it up for me with my apple account, and probably bring it over for my learning tutorial tomorrow, since Robin is leaving in the wee hours of Saturday morning to go back home to the Netherlands. I downloaded the free Apple MacBook online manual, so I can read through that and be as ready as possible to use it once they bring it over. This should work better for me than using the Chromebook because the MacBook syncs seamlessly with my iPads and other Apple devices, and I am basically familiar with using Apple operating systems. I will probably still mostly be using my 13” ipad, just because it is SO easy to use, and I am familiar with using it; but when I need an actual computer for something, I can use the MacBook Pro.
I used to deal with imaging computers early on. I had a demonstration of a system planned and when the folks showed up, I kept getting errors in trying to launch the program. I couldn’t figure it out and the manufacturer was one time zone away so I, and my frustrated attendees, sat around for over an hour before I could call them. I sat back down with phone support and it turned out that in one of the command line sequences I was typing I was switching a forward slash and back slash. I just flashed with anger when I realized the mistake and thought what a STUPID way to do things. When Macs came out and got powerful enough to offer imaging software from different manufacturers, I immediately switched and never ran across another problem I couldn’t resolve myself. We’ve been a Mac household for years also.
I should probably mention that, probably due to complaints about the idea, Apple has not done this to their OS, although I wouldn't rule it out at some point in the future when no one is paying attention. Although I have a couple of Windows machines now that I use once in a while, but rarely, I still primarily use my Mac Mini, although my MacBook Pro gets plenty of use as well because I use it when I'm away from home, and, when I do that, I generally finish up whatever I was working on in the MacBook because I have never managed to set my Macs up so that I can truly access my stuff from either computer and, even the most important stuff, such as saved passwords, do not sync. That's not a big deal, but it means that there are some things that I can only access from one computer, usually because I used one of those long-ass passwords that I can't even type out accurately.
Maybe the part that they have changed to be more like the iPad is adding the Touch ID , as well as the Touch Bar at the top. Even though the screen is not a touch screen, the Touch Bar does control some things by touch. The Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse also work with the MacBook, and Robin has ordered those for me, but I have been working on getting used to the trackpad and getting everything set up easier for me to read today. My son put an admin account on the MacBook, so if for some reason I have problems that he can’t just tell me how to fix, then he can use his MacBook and sign into the manager account for my MacBook and work on whatever is wrong. The MacBook syncs perfectly with my other devices and can even work with my Apple Watch if I wanted to do that. I am using my photos as the screensaver, and got that set up this morning, too. I think that I am really going to like this MacBook, and will probably sell the chromebook, since I won’t be using it for anything now. PS, I named my MacBook “Mom’s Mac-Aroni”.
I have used Macs almost exclusively since 2008 and the thing I liked most about them is that they were easy. Updates were no problem, and installing and uninstalling programs was easy. I have never gained what I'd think would be the greatest convenience of synchronizing my devices, since I have a Mac mini, a MacBook Pro, and an iPhone because that never worked right for me. Messages and contacts set up in my Messages area on my MacBook are not the same as those in the Mac mini, and only one of them talks to my iPhone. However, passwords synchronize from one machine to another, but not with the iPhone. The last time I tried to get that all to happen, I ended up with every photo I've taken since 2008 on all three of my devices, which is not what I want. I had to spend about a week painstakingly deleting photos. But even that, I could live with. Lately, however, Apple is making it nearly impossible to use my Macs or iPhone. When I received an updated card from PayPal, Mac refuses to accept it as valid, although it's valid everywhere else. Now, probably because I tried to get it to do the right thing multiple times, it's not accepting my Apple ID, and I know what will happen because I've been through that before. When I change my Apple ID, the change won't carry over to my other devices, and when I try to change it on my Mac mini, it will say that it's incorrect, and eventually force me to change my password again, and again for my MacBook. Then, I'll have to go back to my iPhone. It's a loop that eventually ends but only after countless hours of frustration. At the moment, I HATE MACS!
I have very limited exposure to Apple products, and the experience has been bad, so I don't plan to go any further with them. During my working life, we purchased a medical instrument that had a Mac attached to it as an interface with the machine. The staff, including me, absolutely HATED using the Mac, so we returned the instrument at the end of the trial simply due to the Mac. The instrument worked fine, but nobody wanted to use it because of the computer attached. The graphics were great, but otherwise it sucked! I was also given an iPhone a couple years ago, but it never worked right. I guess it was due to the security on it, but even the guy who gave it to me couldn't get past the security, so that turned me off too. I gave it back to him. I suspect he tossed it or perhaps traded it for something. Apple said to take it to a Genius place, but we couldn't locate one within 100 miles, so that didn't work either.