Buying iMac or a MacBook

Wizardgold Mac OS news

The other day I was thinking that I would round up as much money as I possibly could and by myself a new iMac. Regards buying iMac, the one I have is mostly working pretty good and not giving me too much trouble. There were some weird happenings and in the end I managed to pin it down to a malfunctioning trackpad. I love using the trackpad much more than using a mouse. It hasn’t been much fun over the last few days having to use a mouse again. I have ordered the new trackpad and I would have liked to buy the new Magic trackpad 2, but I know it won’t work on this computer. This iMac doesn’t have the latest version of Bluetooth, so I had to make do with the older trackpad. I was looking at the Apple website to buy the trackpad and couldn’t do that, in the end I had to buy it from Amazon. Apple only sells the new version it seems. The main benefit to having a new iMac would be a slightly faster processor. I was thinking along the lines of spending the extra to have the i7 processor. It’s worth spending that extra bit of cash as the processor is something you can’t update later. Unless you buy a whole new computer that is! I did look at the prices of the refurbished models and there were some with a discount of around €300 or €400. The amount of the discount reduced slightly when you take into account having to add the new Magic trackpad 2 to the cost. It will also be nice to have the latest Apple Bluetooth keyboard to go with it too. As far as the hard disk is concerned I was looking at the 2 TB fusion drive although I do prefer to run my operating system from an SSD. I’d still be able to run from the SSD I have at the moment via Thunderbolt. So I decided to forget the refurbished Mac computers.

Buying the right Apple Mac – Buying iMac?

For most of the time I am just using the iMac for writing, using DragonDictate. I do one or two things using Affinity Photo or Affinity Designer. Now and then I’m using Final Cut Pro, although not as much as I have used it in previous years. So I kind of wondered if I really needed to go for the top-of-the-line iMac. Would I be able to get away with a cheaper Mac desktop computer. When I started pricing how it would work out for a Mac Mini I ended up upgrading the basic model to a price approaching the iMac price. It got close enough that I went back to the idea of getting an iMac rather than a Mac Mini.

The next thought I had was the possibility of getting the incredibly thin MacBook. If the processor was up to using DragonDictate I thought maybe it could be just the job as a personal computer for me. I’d leave the iMac I already have as my Mac for the more heavy duty computing. I could have it as a shared computer for my wife who is using Final Cut Pro more than I am these days. It’s a shame I can’t use my iPad Pro to do the Dragon dictation. The difference between Siri dictation and Dragon dictation is quite large and does mean a Mac is needed for me. I do use Siri dictation quite a lot and it works great when I have 4G connection through my iPhone. It doesn’t work so great when I’m using my slow Internet connection at home. There is the new Dragon Anywhere but it’s not available here in Spain. I did try to get it to work with a version I downloaded from the UK App Store. There’s a monthly payment to use the application. My not having a credit card registered in the UK with my UK Apple ID put a stop to that idea. I did have the notion I could go 99% for mobile computing. It worked very well for two weeks when my Mac was getting fixed. However, there are still one or two things for which I really do prefer having a large screen in front of me. In fact I prefer to have two large 27 inch monitors to view. So the MacBook I decided would be underpowered for my needs and that left me considering the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro.

In considering the notebook computers – the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro I still felt like it was encroaching on what I do with my iPad Pro. I consider my Apple computing to be a complete system. This is because I can open my iPhone, my iPad or my desktop computer and have access to whatever I want to work on. The only thing that changes is my personal situation in terms of location and availability to Apple device. When I’m at work I can add posts into my websites easily either from my iPhone or from the iPad. I can add entries into my Day One journal. It’s super quick and easy to add a couple of hundred words into a journal entry with Siri dictation. Okay, so it’s not quite as good as using Dragon dictation, but it’s good enough. It’s all going into the one big computing bucket into which I can dip into to do my computer stuff.

There are some iOS applications, better, easier and maybe even more powerful than macOS applications. Easier because you have the tactile computing of actually touching the screen and making things happen. Better and more powerful because often these applications have one job and they do that one job really well. It may be necessary to move from one application to another to complete a full task and once you get used to that way of working it is the best method. The way to look at it, is to see the iOS device as the tool and all the applications as just part of a complete system. For example, when working on an image it’s simple to send results from one application into another using the – Open In – command. All you have to do is to daisychain the process until you get to your finish point.

At the end of the thinking and wondering process, what next?

Maybe I wasted the three or four hours I spent researching Apple Mac computers and prices thinking about buying iMac. My iMac is still working great and just needs to have the trackpad replaced. Unless I spend quite a lot of money I’m not going to see a huge upgrade from what I have already. Despite this, there is the allure of a faster processor and the gorgeous retina screen on the newer iMac models. So I’m still tempted to sell one or two of my bitcoin, which have gone up in value considerably during the last month. This would give me the necessary funds to get me the iMac I want, rather than the Apple Mac computer I perhaps need. Some people like to spend their money on smoking and drinking and I don’t do either activities. Some people like to spend their money on fast cars and I’m quite happy with my Renault Clio even though it doesn’t have Apple Car Play. Mind you, that’s something else I was looking at, the replacement in car entertainment systems that have Apple Car Play. There’s not enough car manufacturers at the moment putting Car Play systems in as default as yet. My next car will have to have Apple Car Play and I also prefer it to be an electric car. I wonder if the Nissan Leaf will have Car Play? UPDATE – I have the Leaf and Car Play is GREAT!.

Then of course there is the iPhone 7 coming soon

In September or October they will see the latest iPhone hitting the stores. By then my iPhone will be two years old and it could be time to do the upgrade. Last year I bought my wife the iPhone 6S and she’s delighted with it. The larger version of the iPhone is quite tempting for me also. Perhaps the iPhone 7 is when I should be thinking about in terms of spending some money in the autumn of this year. I want to be able to afford the new iPhone as well as a new iMac. The line has to be drawn somewhere and maybe I will still be buying iMac instead of something else.