Apple's Mac mini - Tempting PC Users Everywhere
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 25, 2005 7:39 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Despite the lack of a spreadsheet application, Pages does have rudimentary support for charts - including a small spreadsheet-like tool that lets you input data for your charts. The charts themselves look great and the default color schemes are worlds better than those produced in Excel, but if Apple expects iWork to succeed, they need a fully functional spreadsheet application out soon.
As you can expect, Pages has the ability to import Microsoft Word documents, and so far, it's actually done a pretty impressive job of importing Word documents without any issues. When I say that Pages supports importing of Microsoft Word documents, I mean just that. Even if you open a Word document with Pages, the application will simply import the document into a blank Pages document, instead of opening the Word document that you clicked on.
Much like Keynote, Pages can export to a variety of formats - PDF, Word Document, HTML, RTF and plain text. Pages relies heavily on CSS for its HTML output, but it would be nice for Apple to include a simplified HTML export for people like me who just need something to produce clean, simple code without any need to preserve font styles. To Apple's credit, Pages does an excellent job of making sure whatever it exports looks just like what you've typed in Pages.
As a Microsoft Word competitor, Pages is unfortunately lacking in a number of areas - not because Word does things better, but because Word still has a number of features that weren't implemented in Pages 1.0. There are no document tracking options in Pages to track changes by multiple authors to a document, there's no support for mail merge, no grammar check (which may be a blessing in disguise as I've personally never appreciated Word's grammar check), and as I mentioned before, no spreadsheet complement with which to interface.
The one thing that Pages does an extremely good job of is not thinking that it knows what you want to do. Pages will not look at something that you're typing and suggest a different or better way of doing it. Personally, that's one of the biggest issues that I've had with Word since it started gaining in "intelligence".
As a publishing application, Pages does make creating flashy documents extremely easy. Much like many of Apple's other applications, Pages accomplishes this simplicity by including a number of well designed templates that are quite modifiable.
An example of a Pages template
Using Microsoft Word templates is taboo, since pretty much everyone has Word and can spot a Word template from a mile away (e.g. the resume templates), but one of the benefits of Pages is the templates that are unique enough that you do avoid that embarrassing problem. Granted, if Pages catches on, the novelty and exclusivity will fade, but the one thing about Pages is that modifying, customizing and personalizing the templates is extremely easy. Much like OS X, everything in Pages templates is drag-able, but unlike other applications, you can pretty much drag or resize anything without screwing up the pagination of your document or the layout of the template.
Performance-wise, Pages does extremely well - it's just as fast and as snappy as you would expect an application to be. The one exception seems to be when manipulating images in templates. Even on a G5, things aren't as smooth as they should be. Hopefully, it's something that Apple will address in future updates to Pages.
Right now, Pages has a great deal of potential, but it's not there quite yet as the clear (preferred) alternative to other applications. Apple also seems to know this as they have built-in a comment submission system into Pages for suggestions and improvements directly to Apple.
For what it does, it does very well, but it is the missing features and supplementary applications that hurt Pages the most. It's an application to keep an eye on, but right now, Pages and the iWork suite just aren't at the same level of quality and superiority as the OS on which they run.
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Dennis Travis - Thursday, January 27, 2005 - link
#136, I have never figured it out either, but in some ways it reminds me of the AMD haters who bash any CPU that AMD comes out with and say that Intel is always more stable and runs more apps and on and on.I have never hated the Mac but simply at one time, and even now can not afford the top end Macs. I have used both platforms for years but always loved the way the Mac worked, but after 2k and XP came out, Apple really needed to come up with a new OS as OS8-9 just was not as good as Win 2k or XP with Shared Multitasking and memory. OSX came along and gave Apple just what they needed, A STABLE OS with Great Multitasking and Memory managment with a solid BSD Darwin core.
If Macs still were running OS9 I would not be as excited about a new Mac today.
hopejr - Thursday, January 27, 2005 - link
I don't understand why there is so much open opposition to apple. I used to be a mac hater, but I kept it to myself. Then I tried OS X 10.3, and now use it all the time. I rather it over anything else.To all those mac bashers: If apple hasn't done anything bad to you, why make so many bad comments about it?
Dennis Travis - Thursday, January 27, 2005 - link
So 134, It BLOWS down McAfee eh? Check this. Check which found the most viri and what found the least.http://www.schadentech.com/Reviews/Antivirus/concl...
You might be suprised. Even AntiVir blows AVG out of the water and it's free also.
DigitalDivine - Thursday, January 27, 2005 - link
"#96 Just to make things clear:1.) AVG is just a piece of crap(I have my reasons)
2.) AVG is NOT free. It costs around $50 per 2 years"
why you think avg is crap is beyond me, it smokes the likes of norton and mcaffee in load times and such just as fast in searches. but hey, if you think it's crap, don't use it, because you know what... it's free!!!
http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/
and that is really all that you really need, a hard drive scanner, a real time scanner, and an e-mail scanner. and free updates... but hey, if you don't like that, o well...
win32asmguy - Thursday, January 27, 2005 - link
#132For apple its not good enough to just throw together a low cost machine -- it has to be stylish. Expandibility isn't that much of an issue for these machines. I have the 1.42ghz model and it runs OSX Panther fast with 512mb ram.
I had a Shuttle cube (SN45G) also and it wasn't designed nearly as well as the Mac mini. The internal power supply would raise the system temp as much as 10-15C, the fans were loud even while at idle speeds, and stability seemed to be compromised when running higher end components in the system (which I assume was because the 250W supply couldn't handle it) The Mac mini doesn't have any of these problems so far, and performance can only go up from this model in the future...
Concord - Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - link
OK. Now I realize what's wrong with it. It's size.Can anybody at least try to explain why it should be so small? Well PC desktops were big and people tried to find solution to that for example like barebones. They are small but at the same time they have enough space for many expantion. Actually in good barebone you have almost the same exppandability like in minitowers and some very pleasant extras. But this! I am wondering it is not notebook, you will not run with it and cut space to lose every posibility to change anything!
The same time this very small size makes no sense at all for home PC!
bob661 - Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - link
#130The hard drive would need to be a lot larger than 40GB for HTPC use. Movies take up a lot of space.
krazykat - Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - link
Thanks Concord!I think the mini will find a base with people who bought the first sub $500 machines and are now sick of Windows 98 and the hideous box it came in. I'll be curious to see if there's not a population of people who will simply hook it up to a TV (especially fancy Plasma/Flat Screen), like a WebTV that's got a real computer behind it. Just like with the first iMac, the second version of the mini will be better.
I wish the PC users above wouldn't stoop to abuse. Using a Mac is sipmly a different experience. Yeah, I drank the Cool-Aid, and it still hasn't killed me. I think I have enough experience to say I've tried it all, and Mac just suits me.
Concord - Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - link
#128Great post! I really appreciate your passion! keep it this way and Mac will survive and will not
disapear like many other great things. Anyway I think that something wrong with miniMac. But maybe
passion and devotion are enough? Or I am not right?
krazykat - Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - link
I am a former systems administrator and currently a first grade teacher. I have been a lifelong Mac Admirer, but couldn't afford them until more recently. I just spent the last two days reading all three of the Mac articles. Great work!Here's all the stuff I want to say:
Remote desktop works great from my 800MHz, 12" Powerbook. Crashes less than it did on my Win2K Dell at work.
I've used the whole Office suite for years and only switched over to Appleworks 6 because that's what they use at my new work and I actually really like it. Not perfect, but a lot less buggy and frustrating than Word in terms of pagination and formatting. It also has a built in Database program which Office lacks on the Mac side. (No Access.)
My wife hates computers and loves her Special Edition Clamshell. We bought it on eBay two years ago and had to pay nearly full price even though a totally re-vamped, faster iBook two generations newer was available. Worth every penny. My parents are still using their Rev. B iMac (in Bondi) and they have the ability to kill anything with a microchip.
The price point is something Mac users need to take more issue with. You will keep a Mac longer. Period. I've also built systems from scratch, but I love my Powerbook and would never dream of going back to a FrankenBox.
To use OSX is to love it. I've used Windows from 3.0, Mac from 7.6 and many flavors of Unix, and I just love OSX. The only word is elegant.
My 2 cents.