Day 12 – Working with a full Apple system

I’ve got the iMac Back

I did take a trip to Barcelona in the afternoon yesterday to go and collect the iMac from the Apple Store and I’m back to a full Apple system. This morning I have to admit that it is nice to have two large 27 inch screens in front of me on my desk in my office. There’s just something about having it all large and spread out in front of me that I quite like. I’m loving being able to get back into using DragonDictate for my writing. I did some Siri dictations this morning and it was pretty terrible. It just kind of goes like that sometimes. During the past 11 days I have written an awful lot and used Siri dictation extensively. Many times while using Siri dictation it has been almost as accurate as using DragonDictate. The other thing with DragonDictate apart from the accuracies is the fact I can go back to make changes with text using my voice. It’s just not possible to do that with Siri dictation.

When I got back home from Barcelona I didn’t immediately set up the iMac. I sat on the sofa and I got out the iPad Pro to do the publishing part of an article I wrote earlier during the day on the iPhone and iPad. I still enjoy working with my iOS devices. This morning I’ve set up the iMac and apart from a couple of minor problems it all went well. This was because I had the operating system on an SSD connected to the computer via Thunderbolt. If I’d been able to put an SSD into the iMac itself then perhaps I would have done a complete reinstall of El Capitan including a fresh install of the applications. There’s nothing quite like having a clean and fresh machine! So it’s been great to work with a full Apple system which includes Mac OS X as well as using iOS. I love the way it all hangs together with iCloud. It doesn’t really matter which part of the full Apple system I’m using, on account of it all being perfectly integrated. It’s just one big spreadout computer as far as I’m concerned.

What comes next?

I’ve been an iOS warrior and an iOS champion and I’ve enjoyed the more personal computing experience you get using the tablet as a primary device. There is the tactile advantage you have from being able to touch your computing. Often times selecting and manipulating things on screen is much easier using your fingers. There is a certain amount of irony in that sentence considering I’m dictating using DragonDictate into Ulysses on my Mac, leaning back in my chair and my hands behind my head. That’s just the way I roll.

This morning I shot some video using the iPhone with the Camera Plus application. I’m going to deal with that in iMovie on the iPad Pro because I still want to make a comparison with the video editing I did using Pinnacle. I still have a pile of apps on the iPad and the iPhone to try out and see what I can do with them. So I can say there will be a lot more posts appearing here on Good and Geeky.

The way we think about computing

During the period of uncertainty with the iMac I was considering the possibility of upgrading to a later model. The one I’m using now is nearly 5 years old, but it’s still an excellent machine. It would be nice to have the later model with the absolutely gorgeous and impressive screen resolution. The later model also has a newer version of Bluetooth so I’d be able to use the latest Magic trackpad which is larger than the one I have. I particularly like having a trackpad rather than a mouse to the point where it actually feels quite weird using a mouse now. I have been thinking about what I do with my computer and what I need. It’s very easy for me to think I should just have the fastest and most amazing computer available. If price wasn’t an option then I would just go for the latest 27 inch iMac and load it up with the fastest processor along with the largest SSD drive I could put into it. I also have 32 GB of memory even though the 16 GB I’m working with now is pretty good. On the other hand, after seeing what I can do using iOS with my iPad and my iPhone I think I’m going to hold back. I’m going to start putting some money aside for a new computer device. I’m going to think about it more long-term and expect this iMac to keep on working for another two years. I’ll have a fund waiting for me to make a decision about what to get next. They could be something new around the corner even better for me to use. Perhaps even a Mac Mini connected to one of those larger extrawide computer screens. Another possibility is that they could be changes when iOS 10 comes out, making the platform even more compelling to use.

Full Apple System

Most of what been doing while not having a full Apple system, using just iOS was about using the iPad as much as possible. I have also bumped up the amount of computing done using the iPhone. Some of the posts during the last week were completed iPhone only. More of the work done has been a combination of both the iPhone and the iPad Pro. I can say without any fear of contradiction it has been an excellent learning experience. It has changed the way I’ll be working with my digital media content creation across the full Apple system and platform.

Would you go iOS only?

Have you had a similar experience with using iOS? Would you be tempted to never buy another laptop or desktop computer again and only work with tablets and phones? Is there anything you’d like to ask regards being an iOS warrior? Leave something in the comments or send me an email, I’d love to hear what you have to say about it.