They’re almost exactly at the perfect intersection of simplicity and function for casual users compared to Word, Office, OpenOffice, MS Works, and other similar productivity apps. I was also quite charmed by the clear simplicity of the included free apps like Numbers and Pages. It was straightforward to add my accounts to it, and I really like it so far. The mail app included with OS X beats the pants off the Windows 8 email client. I got used to it pretty quickly, however. My initial impression was that after getting used to Windows 8 on my enormous Dell XPS 18 tablet and iOS 7 on my 5th-generation iPod, OS X looked and felt a little quaint and old-fashioned in comparison. Once OS X loaded, the first thing I did was update the software and start downloading OS X Mavericks. The first boot was uneventful, just a normal “set up your machine” sort of thing, which went swimmingly. I usually have to turn the display around to see where to plug stuff in, and that’s only mildly annoying at best.Īesthetically, I love the uncluttered simplicity of the iMac. You get 4 USB ports, 2 Thunderbolt ports, a smart card reader, a headphone jack, and an Ethernet port. They’re on the back of the display near the lower right corner. The external ports are the one slight annoyance I have. MagicPrefs allows you to tap in the middle to register a middle click, which comes in handy if you also install Windows. Swiping up/down the middle acts like a scroll wheel, swiping sideways moves between screens, and it’s just pretty cool. The touch sensitivity comes in the form of gesture recognition–you can tap, swipe, and click. It’s silver plastic accented with white and a light grey Apple logo. It’s a smooth, low-profile mouse with no visible buttons and a touch-sensitive shell. I added the third-party MagicPrefs pane to the mix to get a middle button back, and I actually kind of love it. I can see how it would be a “love it or hate it” sort of peripheral, and it took some getting used to. The Magic Mouse that came with it is interesting. I have slightly mixed feelings about this, but my opinion of the keyboard is generally positive. Unlike my Dell XPS 18’s wireless keyboard, the iMac keyboard doesn’t have a keypad. It feels nice–not as nice as the mechanical Razer Blackwidow Ultimate attached to my workstation, but nice nonetheless. It’s accented with white plastic and soft gray rubbery feet on the underside. The wireless keyboard is a thin aluminum slab with white plastic keys and gray lettering. The 27″ version of the iMac has a 2560×1440 Retina display, which probably looks even more stunning if the quality of the 21.5″ model’s display is anything to go by. The 1920×1080 display itself is nice, with excellent color and clarity. It has only one cord, a power cord that plugs into the wall or a power strip. The edge of the display is a few millimeters thick, and curves gradually towards a bulge in the rear middle. The iMac is a slick looking aluminum and glass construct, artfully designed to look extremely thin from certain angles. I felt a wave of smug and snooty superiority overcome me, which then came to an abrupt end as our semi-outside cat Mack walked up to the outer shipping box and decided to mark it as his property. I don’t know how to explain it other than the unboxing felt like a premium experience compared to other PCs that I’ve unpacked. While removing it from the packaging, I had this weird “Damn, I feel like a rich person” response. It came in a funny looking trapezoidal box. I got the 21.5″ late 2013 model with the Nvidia GTX750M GPU. After 9 years of being on the fence, I finally purchased a Mac to get my foot into the door of iOS and OS X development.
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