Buying a Mac

[mosc]

I'm convinced a Mac would be a valuable addition to my studio. I want to run those sequencers that Electro80 has showed us in the forums, and I want to try out MAX/MSP.

I know virtually nothing about Macs. I do know Unix, so OSX is the only possibility for me. What's the best way to learn about Macs so I would be capable of making an informed buying decision?

[elektro80]

I will try to answer this.. but I might use several posts for this.. I often come up with yet another piece of info 15 minutes after the first post.

The mac is .. as a platform really several different things.

1. An decent and mature UNIX
2. An apple flavoured core of very useful features wrapped around the unix core.. or actually inside it...
3. A smart GUI which resembles the old Apple GUI, but with new features and a certain flavour of Next/NextStep. The GUI and the commandline should make both ordinary novice users and die-hard geeks feel at home. It is not quite like Win2K Pro and XP. The use of wizards is a lot less intrusive than what you see in Xp and you have usually a very short way from the " I wanna do this rigt now" until you have done the task. Networking is extensive yet simple. A part of the philosphy is that users need to know what they are doing... and instead of wrapping it in in a haze of vague and cosy terms some of the XP wizards do.. using Mac OS X you will not feel stupid even if you are what people usually call an expert.
4. Some of the features are slighly mad.. as the idea to have a postscript/PDF grpahics interface with extensive with nice animations and translucency. The graphics engine is called Quartz and the GUI is rendered in Quartz. Apple has of course done the best thing.. and after the Quartz engine and the API was ready.. been dumping the Qurtz engine into the graphics card. This means that Quartz can be further optimized than it is now.
5. Nonstandard ( whatever that is ) hardware. Which is a bad thing.. and a very good thing. You can not upgrade a mac the same way as a PC. You are stuck with the motherboard and the CPU.. but not quite.. there are third party options there. The good thing is that you rarely experience hardware hell.
You can usually expect USB/Firewire interfaces to behave the way they are supposed to. The hardware is pretty well documented. On any computer you will always have issues that involves both hardware and software. In this context the intergration of Apple hardware and Apple software is a very good thing.

At the moment Apple is stuck with Motorola G4 CPUs which are OK.. but not as badass as the G5 we have been waiting for the last two years. This is really a Motorola issue and not an Apple issue. Apple is now going for IBM versions of the PowerPC design and the new Power 5 series is very promising. We are expecting Apple to announce a roadmap on June 23rd. The next breed of OS X will be 64 bit clean and will be ready to rock using IBM CPUs.

There are some sligt differences in the current breed of CPUs.. so you might experience that a G4 processor at 1GHz feels more like a P4 at twice the speed. But the current motherboards have some bottlenecks so things could be better. Disks are ATA these days and you will of course think you have gotten next year´s model if you throw those out and goes high end SCSI instead. So.. performance can be tweaked if you have the money. This is of course a fact with PCs too. My experience with PCs these days is that they rarely can perform at max rev anyway.

You get what you pay for.. but you pay for a lot more with a mac than for a PC. The things you pay for are usually things you would like anyway.. like hardware software integration and good build quality etc etc.

You might want a tower model.. and a dual CPU is now no longer an option. Compared to upmarket PC portables you do get a lot of bang for the buck from all their G4 titanium models. The current 15" LCD portable of the Titanium breed did get a price reduction just right now and new models are soon expected. Apple usually empties the inventory just when a new model will be announced and you will rarely see HUGE discounts ever. They manage to build just what they sell and this means that you must be prepared for the next big thing 6 months after your purchase.. and .. if you are unlucky.. the day after.

The iMac LCD models are OK.. but not that expandable. You buy a decent computer with good looks.. all the Mac features and a formfactro which is nice and impressive. You can use those for music but at a certain point they are cumbersome when you use them for pro stuff. And with cumbersome I mean.. no more room for more disks internally etc etc. Not a big issue for many users.. but a huge issue for guys like me.

There are some nice websites out there with a lot of info.. and I will try to find some intelligent links for you.

There are some things we know..
new macs will use better CPUs and motherboards. The IBM Power 5 series promises very VERy good specs. Quartz rendering will continue to move on into the graphics card and the graphics cards are getting better. Dumping the GUI rendering into the graphics card is very smart and I expect this will lead to new card designs. Games used to be what this technology was a bout, but I guess Microsoft will follow soon. Better disk interfaces will surely come.
If you want to libve with what you get right know.. you will want a tower model. But.. a laptop is fine too.. you will pay for the fact that it is a laptop anyway.. and you might as well spend those money for something Apple than Dell. But.. I do recommend that you wait until after June 23rd. There WILL be changes.. and you might as well get the best info before you decide.

Hmm.. hang on... this is a link..
http://www.macosrumors.com


and this one..
http://arstechnica.com/cpu/03q1/ppc970/ppc970-0.html

And.. Mac and all things OS X Audio at http://www.osxaudio.com


hmm.. more later

[seraph]

well..... I can not compete with Elektro80 on selling a Mac but being a Mac user myself I can simply say that you do not need to know anything about Unix to use proficently a Mac running OSX. Actually I miss OS9 because some of my dearest applications have not been ported to OSX, namely Propelleheads Recycle and Emagic SoundDiver.
I still have a dual processor 500MHz that can boot up from OS9. Newest machines can only boot up from OSX but I think I will have to upgrade if I want to continue to use virtual synths

[elektro80]

Great to see you around Carlo!

You seen the latest rumours for tomorrow? I guess the live video stream tomorrow will tell us a lot.