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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matteh99 - Saturday, January 29, 2005 - link
I was currious to see which was faster a Dell dimension 3000 or a mac mini. I ran a few tests I found the results interesting so i made a web page of them.www.macsupportpro.com/~eric
The results were kind of supprising the mac was faster than the PC in many area's. I am not saying that the mini is a great computer but it is comparable in price and performance to the Dell. Also it doesn't get viruses or spy ware. If I was buying a cheap computer I wouldn't get a Dell..
Eric
bob661 - Saturday, January 29, 2005 - link
#175Nothing is secure. People that believe this are idiots. I can make Windows stable, virus and spyware free with little effort. And you know what? I don't even have all my patches installed. And I really don't need to install them. My sis-in-law has continuous problems with her Windows machines. People at work have continuous problems with their Windows machines. Why is my box so stable and secure? I'm on the same internet. I use the same OS and software. Mac people always say how stable and secure OSX is and how Windows isn't. There are multiple vulnerabilities in OSX also. Since most Mac users don't have any utilities installed to monitor your boxes you wouldn't know if someone was backdooring your computers. I guess I'm getting tired of these arguments. Mac users buy your Macs and PC users buy your PC's and if anyone wants to try the other OS just f$%king go do it. Quit justifying it and just go do it.
hopejr - Saturday, January 29, 2005 - link
#147, You can say that Apple bombards people with ads in the US, but here in Australia, the only Apple add I've ever seen is an iPod ad, and that's on what, once a week, on only 1 of our 5 fta channels? I haven't even seen their ads in other countries I've been to (apart from in North America - but I haven't been to Europe, so I don't know about there).#149, I don't think the Mac Mini will blow the Shuttle out of the water, simply because of the type of people that by Shuttles. They're the type that want complete control over their hardware. I don't know any non-techy PC user that has a shuttle. If there are, it would because their techy relative or friend got it for them. That said, I would love to see any mac whip a PC in sales (not forgetting I'm an OEM myself, but I have gotten sick of Windows and can't be bothered wasting time configuring linux how I want it. Been down that road and hate it).
#157, OS X sits on top of Darwin which is OSS. The only part you pay for in OS X is the GUI, which makes OS X cheaper than Windows by far. And don't forget that most, if not all, of the OSS software for linux is easily ported to OS X (running in X11), and there is a huge OSS community on OS X AFAIK.
#174, I hate ppl like you. I have to put up with their crap all the time at Uni. "Linux is the best OS, it beats the others, etc,etc" Yes, Linux is a great OS, but it isn't intuitive like some others. I know the ins and outs of linux, because I use it a lot, but I don't like it as much as OS X or even Windows. It's a damn pain. Yes, it's much more configurable, you can add extra kernel modules to do a certain thing, etc, etc. But not every one gets horny over doing things like that. The average computer user just wants to use the computer. Unfortunately, that can even be hard with Windows, which many people spend about the same amount time trying to fix it as linux geeks spend configuring linux (making Linux more attractive, I rather configure than put up with virii and maintenance :P). On OS X, none of this is necessary (ok, Linux is extremely usable straight after an install, provided the driver modules are actually complete!). I think if you want power of *n?x and want to be able to use the computer, get a Mac. That's what I did.
On another note, a friend of mine had to reinstall XPSP2 three times last night, because as soon as he went on the net to download windows updates, spyware was loaded on his machine (I mean, we timed it, and it took 20 seconds before a popup would appear with a shortcut on his desktop to a porn site). He hadn't even started MSIE yet. Luckily I know how the new Windows firewall works, and turned off exceptions before he connected, which worked. I had to turn them on again after the updates were d/led, so his bro could use the internet and filesharing through the network they have (ICS on dial up too - yuck). By then the updates were blocking the spyware and so there was no more problems. Sad thing is, I recommended he install linux for his internet use, before we got the issue sorted out. This sort of thing shouldn't happen, especially with MS saying how secure SP2 is supposed to be. Crap if you ask me. I've never seen spyware load that fast onto a Windows box before. I think that because the source code of Linux and Darwin are open, it helps with vulnerabilities, because crackers know what they are and don't find it a challenge, but that's my opinion (now, where was I going with all this? - oh yeah, macs aren't crap).
linuxOwnzIfUrLeet - Saturday, January 29, 2005 - link
My 160 year old great great great great grandpa prefers a pc because he's in a wheel chair. Also,he figures he doesn't have much time left so he
needs a really fast system not some slow crap.
He's running 6800ultras in an sli rig.
He runs linux boot os cds and reboots every 1 hour so there's no way he can get /viruses/worms/etc unlike some pretty-looking-girly os.
He told me the story about how remembers when jobless aka "the grand leader of the cult" saw what xerox was doing with guis and decide he should steal the idea and pretend like he came up with it so the cult will believe they made something grand.
He also told me back in the days before lsd
people wanted cheap no-frills machines that had
the freedom to be upgradable.
My dog skip also prefers linux because when I told
him to the apple store he pissed on every computer
he got near.
You can lead a dog to crapple but you can't
make him piss.
free Martha Steward
mlittl3 - Saturday, January 29, 2005 - link
#168, Lol!Olafva - Saturday, January 29, 2005 - link
My 90-year-old father and his older brother adapted well to Macs I got them after becoming disgusted with several PCs. I'm comforted to know Dad will never have to worrry about getting viruses and worms.OSX is inuitive (it does what you expect), so there's really not much to learn - you can be productive all at once. The mystery of connecting external disks, printers, scanners, slots, drivers etc. is gone, as it should be.
Olafva - Saturday, January 29, 2005 - link
Not a Problem! Our Mac USB keyboard is ALSO a hub as it has two more USB ports, one I use for a mouse and the other for a USB memory stick or whatever. These 3 devices share one Mac Mini USB Port leaving yet another for whatever.Olafva - Saturday, January 29, 2005 - link
I have 2 Mac Minis (cost $469 each as Gov't employees and educators pay less). Unless I missed it, the review failed to mention in the price comparison that the Mac Mini comes with a FREE $100 Epson Color Printer (I got 2) or $100 off any Epson printer. That tilts the comparison $100 more in favor of Mac Minis. (The $70 to double memory to 512MB is well worth it).We got bluetooth on one which allows such things as controlling iTunes playlists remotely from cell phones (Sony Erikson 68is).
$19 DVI video adapter allows watching Norwegian or other TV programs on big screen TV. The Mac Mini is much more than a
computer 5% the size of other computers. OSX and Unix is worth the $469 itself. Think different.
Eug - Saturday, January 29, 2005 - link
Dammit. I knew I should have invested in AAPL back when it was at twenty-five bux. :(msva124 - Friday, January 28, 2005 - link
>4)Guilt - maybe I should have been nicer to Apple all along. I'm now out of the loop.I know, I am hitting myself on the head right now for this very reason. If I had only been nicer to them when they were down and out, before they became big, they might now bestow the same favor upon me that they do to their supporters. Who right now are all getting huge discounts on iPods and Mac Minis, the latest information on future products before anyone else knows it, and first priority to receive the coveted job of shift manager at their local Apple store.