OT: iMac Matters aka Think Different

OT as in "Off-Topic". Fairly well-known acronym, but amid the ever-deafening Internet Cacophony, best to take no chances.

OT posts here will not be as common as PNotes. They will be relevant to music, but in a wider sense. So, with no further ado....

The Arpeggist got an iMac. Between that, teaching, and practicing there's been a time sink which has swallowed the blog. No more!

Let me explain. Wintel has been good to me. I would never knock it, or question anyone who preferred it. But I take the larger view, which comes from having started doing Fortran on mainframes in the 1970s. Yes, I've actually heard a harddrive crash; they were big in those days, and the sound of a platter crashing was deafening. But when you've knocked around the computing world this long, posted on Bitnet (that's pre-Internet) and used "fast" modems of 2400 bps, you start to get a sense of What Really Matters.

A few years agoI bought a PowerPC, a 7200. I loved it. What kept me on Wintel were programs I had to use in my profession, and which would never be ported to the Mac. Along came OSX with Boot Camp, and that changed everything. So here I am.

Apple isn't kidding. There's a whole different ethos using a Mac. For me, very much a right-brain matter. Visually appealing, intuitive. A universe where programs can, and often do, appeal to that side of the head. Word processing in progams that aren't all clones of Word, or viceversa. Organizing which frees you fom directory trees, drive partitioning, although if you want that, there's always the Unix command line in OSX,

You just feel good using a Mac . You don't waste time battling the software and hardware at every turn. You get more creative. Creative things you want to do are easy, and the whole ethos encourages your creativity. Programs run better; iTunes is a viable music managing system on the Mac. It was always a pain on Wintel.

What's not to like? There was a snake even in the Garden of Eden, so lest you think The Arpeggist has gone blind, a random list:

1. The keyboard. If you're used to the nice clicky feel of traditional IBM keyboards. You have a problem. Although you can get one of those to work on the Mac without too much trouble.

2. Many Mac users. Smug. They make it ideological, "you say you use Wintel? you must be a real Witless Troll." Wrong. They're the trolls. The smugness is even more annoying than... Jar Jar Binks.

3. Hiding things. If you really need to get into the infrastructure, it's command-line Unix. And Unix is the ultimate user-hostile operating system.

4. The Mindset of many Mac users. Passive. Something goes wrong, they just writhe and hope Big Daddy Apple will save them. I miss the Wintel can-do attitude.

But that's about it. If you're a music person, a creative person, a right-brain person then do yourself a big favor. Head to an Apple Store and kick the tires. They encourage you to do that. A lot. But if you want to purchase, and want modifications...you may want to purchase from elsewhere. Ask The Arpeggist for a consult when you get there. Notice I wrote "when" and not "if"