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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Monday, January 30, 2006

iMac perfects the desktop

It's unclear to me how a guy who claims to have not used a desktop PC in "30 years" is qualified to judge a desktop PC, but that doesn't stop hyperbolic Tom Yager from trying:

iMac, a trim polycarbonate, cinema-aspect LCD panel concealing a dual-core Intel-based PC, is history’s first, and the present’s only perfect desktop. No, I have not parted with my lifelong disdain for either desktops or hyperbole. Apple simply delivered what I’ve held out for in a desktop. As it is, I have relieved my PowerBook G4 and my Power Mac G5 Quad from the desktop duty into which both were pressed, freeing them for the tasks for which each is best suited.

Front-line PC makers take their cues from analysts who look at buyers and decree that innovation and ingenuity are just wasted capital. These are the same shapers of opinion who showered Apple with huzzahs for its decision to jump into the commodity PC pit. Why make silk purses for a market shopping for sow’s ears?

iMac rates as the ideal desktop because you drop it on your desk, power it up, point it at your network, and you’re ready to do serious work. There’s no shopping for 802.11b/g wireless, Bluetooth, LCD panels, Web cams, speakers, infrared remotes, digital audio cards, an upscale mouse, and so on. iMac excels because Apple chose the components you would have selected if you had taken the time to build your own desktop from best-of-breed parts.

So, that's cute, and I do like my iMac. But seriously, combining the screen and the CPU brings with it some issues. Such as, what happens if either goes south? You lose the whole thing. On my PC, which is a "true" desktop computer, I can swap out monitors and other parts if they die. On the iMac, I lose the whole computer. Hopefully, it won't take Apple weeks to fix a simple problem. In the end, it's not surprising that a laptop guy like Yager loves the iMac, which is, after all, simply a laptop with a very big screen. It's a great computer. But like everything else in life, it's not perfect.

[ Posted at 3:13 PM | Permalink ]