Getting the best experience OSX and a Mac

Enjoying the iMac Desktop Computer

It was a great opportunity to have the Post PC Experience and to be an iOS Warrior for 13 days. I did all my computing on the iPad and iPhone, but now I am back with a full Apple system. I am left wondering what is the best experience OSX and Mac for me? My data is accessible across all of my devices through iCloud and other cloud services to my iMac, the iPad Pro and the iPhone. I can put in and take out data no matter what I’m doing. The best thing for me now is that I’m again using DragonDictate for most of my writing. Late at night I do have to go back to the manual typing on a keyboad, so I don’t wake up the wife with my chatting to the computer. I have thought about having a MacBook I could use upstairs out of earshot. It could be rather handy to have a MacBook again; I gave the previous Macbook to my son. I will have to check to see if the processor in the new super slim Macbooks is sufficient for the job of dictating. Maybe I would be better off with a Mac Book Air instead. What would be lovely, would be Dragon Dictate on the iPad. Nuance now have Dragon Anywhere but it is not yet available here in Spain. Also, it’s too expensive at $15 per month. There should certainly be a discount to users of the Dragon for Mac considering how much We’ve already spent on that software.

Could do most of what I wanted on the iPad and iPhone

iOS multitasking is certainly possible on the iPad. I was feeling a little hemmed in a couple of times with the screens on the smaller devices. Not surprising considering I spread my stuff out across two 27in screens normally. I wanted to get into the WordPress installation on the iPhone, but I couldn’t do it. Maybe I will try again and put the url in the top of the screen direct to the log in page. That might just work, where trying to get to the log in menu on the mobile version of my web sites didn’t work. It’s surprising sometimes how well Siri dictation works. I have written articles of 800 – 1000 words quickly and easily with Siri. I found it works much better when I have a fast 4G connection on the phone. I also use the Personal Hotspot to connect the ipad to the internet through the phone. Having a SIM card in the iPad would be better but it does mean paying out extra bills monthly for the data.

The newest, fastest, latest and greatest best experience OSX

One of the things I’d like to have a new Mac for, is the new Bluetooth in the latest Macs. With this you can have the latest Magic Keyboard and Magic trackpad. The keyboard isn’t much different from the Bluetooth keyboard I’m using at present, but the Magic Trackpad is larger. It’s been nearly 5 years now I’ve been using the trackpad full-time and I couldn’t imagine going back to using a mouse. It would have to be a good thing to have a slightly larger trackpad available to use. Even so, this by itself is not enough for me to want to upgrade the computer I have. What would be more interesting would be having a much faster processor. When or if I do get a new iMac I will pay out the extra to get the faster processor available go for the i7 instead of the i5. The other thing I want is a larger SSD inside the computer. With the repair I just had done to my iMac, I had to have an exact replacement of the hard drive. This means inside the computer I’m still stuck with a 1 TB spinning drive. I did ask Apple Store Barcelona if they would put in the SSD I am booting from through Thunderbolt, but they just wouldn’t do it. The only possibility was to go through a third-party repairer or do it myself. I have taken an iMac apart before, just didn’t fancy doing it this time.

The new retina screens on the iMac are absolutely amazing for the best experience OSX. When using this computer I don’t really notice any lack of quality. When you go to the store and see the computers side-by-side, some with retina and some without, you really can see the difference. On the subject of screens, at the moment I have a 27 inch extra monitor which works at a low resolution to the iMac itself. If I had a newer retina screened iMac I would certainly notice the big difference between the two screen resolutions. It can be handy to have the second screen with a lower resolution. When I just want to see the same thing but bigger I can move it to the second screen. I have seen it’s now possible to get the ultrawide screen and is possible to get them around about 32 inches in size. Some of them are even curved, although not as much as they wrap around you. I wonder how it would be to have one of those screens connected to a Mac Mini. The idea of buying a Mac Pro is a complete nonstarter. They haven’t been upgraded since they were introduced and I don’t think I would get the benefits of such a computer.

Twist or stick for best experience OSX

Considering the post PC experiment with the iOS devices went so well, I’m thinking I will stick with this iMac for at least two more years. That is unless Apple come out with something completely amazing before then to improve the best experience OSX. I’m not sure that’s very likely seeing as they are more interested in the mobile computer market at the moment. Who knows, they might also be getting distracted by the rumoured Apple Car. So I plan to tuck away some cash month by month to have a fund for getting the next computer. It might be a MacBook Air or even a MacBook which is good for the writing end of things. It’s just as likely that I could twist again for a new iMac. There is a good chance this autumn there will be new iMacs available. How about a finger print reader on new Macs – Good for security! Let’s just have a think about what might be coming and try to be patient. In any case, it is true to say that after being an iOS only person for two weeks my views regarding my OSX computer needs have changed.