iOS user many years buying first iMac. Basic help please.

[Ggvfvgbffbf]

Ok, so about to purchase a refurbed cheap iMac 2010 i3 High Sierra. Never owned a Mac before -just my iPhone and iPad.

The iMac is just for basic use, home office work etc. Speed or modern frills not required.

Everything syncs seamlessly between my iPhone and iPad. Will this be the case with the iMac? Are all the same apps (notes/reminders/calendar) there on the desktop and will it all update across devices?

Also I use Pages and Numbers a lot on iOS. Are these standalone apps on Mac? Again will changes made on Mac sync to iOS and vice versa?

How do photos work? If I want permanent copies on my Mac do I connect up my iPhone via USB and pull them off there?

Basic questions but I really haven’t a clue.

Thanks.

 

[casperes1996]

Well assuming your iOS devices are on the latest update, they probably use the newer database setups for a lot of the apps, meaning that an OS as ”old” as High Sierra won’t sync everything; Reminders for instance has features in later database systems that won’t be sync able with High Sierra - There is a patcher to get unofficial Catalina support on older Macs but may be a bit slow.
Most things shouls sync fine though.

With High Sierra, again, I don’t think you can run the latest versions of the iWork apps, but I’m quite certain syncing will still work with the versions available for HS. And yes, all the iWork apps are standalone; Numbers, Keynote and Pages. - That is, it depends where you save the file. If you save it to iCloud, it will sync, but you can also just save it to the local computer only.
If iWork is not already installed on the Mac, you can get all the iWork apps from the App Store.

Photos will sync automatically if you have iCloud Photo Library enabled. Otherwise, yes, USB would work. You can also enable Photo Stream, which will mean all future pictures taken will have 14 days of auto syncing to any device turned on, connected to the internet with your Apple ID, without requiring iCloud storage space.

Hope that helped, and remember, a Mac isn’t an iOS device. A Mac is so much more.

 

[glenthompson]

I’m running 2011 Macs on High Sierra and they sync well with my iPad and iPhone. Issues with document compatibility between new iPad and old Mac in Numbers. I use MS Office mostly which works better. I have my desktop, documents, and photos stored in iCloud so they are easily accessible from iOS devices. Very smooth but make sure you have a good internet connection and data plan if you do a lot.

 

[Fishrrman]

"Basic questions but I really haven’t a clue."

OK, you asked, I'll answer:

2010 is TOO OLD.
I wouldn't get anything older than late 2012, which are the first iMacs to have USB3.

YOU WANT USB3 because if the iMac has a slow drive inside, you can buy an EXTERNAL USB3 SSD, and boot and run the iMac that way -- it will run much faster.

caperes makes a good point about software updates. If you iPad is relatively new, and if you keep it updated with more recent versions of the iOS, it may not be able to properly synch up with an old iMac.

Tell us... what's your budget?

 

[Ggvfvgbffbf]

Thanks for the replies. Basically my plan is to buy a cheap, refurbed iMac now and use it for 18m. Why? I can’t afford better. My finances have taken a major hit thanks to C19 and it will take at least that long for things to recover. At that point I’d look to buy new -especially if there’s a design refresh.

For now the lack of SSD, USB3 just isn’t a problem. I just want a useable Mac to learn the basics, but yeah, I’d like it to sync with my iOS devices as much as possible.

I read somewhere that as long as it has High Sierra installed then Pages, Numbers can be downloaded straight from the AppStore? If it’s anything lower than HS then it’s a problem right?

"Basic questions but I really haven’t a clue."

OK, you asked, I'll answer:

2010 is TOO OLD.
I wouldn't get anything older than late 2012, which are the first iMacs to have USB3.

it may not be able to properly synch up with an old iMac.