New iMac.. give me the WOW factor...??

[LagunaSol]

This post really makes me sad. What kind of awful consumer society are we living in that we expect that merely buying the most expensive thing available to us will bring us happiness. It doesn't work that way.

I think you're looking a little too deep at this...

P.S. my new iMac makes me happy.

 

[jmpage2]

This thread is a hit and run. The OP hasn't even showed up for a response to what is obviously buyer's remorse about buying a top spec Mac and then not knowing what to do with it.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

This thread is a hit and run. The OP hasn't even showed up for a response to what is obviously buyer's remorse about buying a top spec Mac and then not knowing what to do with it.

Actually I think its more likely that he was looking for congratulations on his new purchase but instead got treated by a fool on here by many and so has been put off visiting again.

 

[Insulin Junkie]

This post really makes me sad. What kind of awful consumer society are we living in that we expect that merely buying the most expensive thing available to us will bring us happiness. It doesn't work that way.

Don't know if that was on topic, but I'll sign that. I appreciate a nice machine, but to go so far as to call it happiness.. nah, not for me anyway.

@OP: When I lugged home our 24" iMac I sure got a lot of stares, one person even stopped to comment on what a nice computer I'd gotten, and asked how much I'd paid for it. When friends come by it's one of the first things they notice. Nevermind specs, the size of the screen does it for most people. I discovered that in many people's minds, the larger the desktop screen, the more likely it is that they'll wow over it, regardless of its specs (most people I know don't give a hoot about specs, because preciously few know how to properly interpret that kind of information)!

 

[Muff Bandit]

bioshock, unreal 3, world in conflict, mass effect, etc all theese games be maxed out fully, and simply look amazing.

 

[howardnow]

Don't forget iLife, etc.

Crazy posts for a simple question.
Yes there is a "wow factor" you can enjoy and show off to friends!
From time machine automatic back-up to cover flow to dashboard widgets. There is an amazing amount of efficient, cool and fun things to discover and utilize in the OS.
Then there's iLife! Great for photos, movie editing, making DVD menus and so much more (all great, easy to use programs).
Add an easy to use desktop. I have allot of media drives and enjoy seeing their icons on the desktop named the way I want to name them with easy access (rather then hunting for drive c, d, e, f like on a PC).
I have an old G4 tower and a new MacBook Pro. Never a virus, problem of any type or downtime. I do run the built-in disk utility about once every two months for about 30 seconds - I assume that helps.
You will enjoy your iMac more with each passing day!

 

[davemulheran]

Actually I think its more likely that he was looking for congratulations on his new purchase but instead got treated by a fool on here by many and so has been put off visiting again.

Not at all i'm afraid. I have been reading the replies.. Granted, mostly from ****s like yourself.

A few helpful replies though in the midst.

90% of the peple that have replied have missed my point completely.

I wanted reccomendations on things to run on it that would show off its 'value'

Is there a specific type of game / program internet link that I could buy or access that will show off the iMacs prowess?

But anywho.. I will only use it for the internet, itunes and the odd bit of DVD ripping. I guess it serves that purpose pretty well. Thanks to the people with serious responses (two directly above spring to mind)

 

[davemulheran]

@OP: When I lugged home our 24" iMac I sure got a lot of stares, one person even stopped to comment on what a nice computer I'd gotten, and asked how much I'd paid for it. When friends come by it's one of the first things they notice. Nevermind specs, the size of the screen does it for most people. I discovered that in many people's minds, the larger the desktop screen, the more likely it is that they'll wow over it, regardless of its specs (most people I know don't give a hoot about specs, because preciously few know how to properly interpret that kind of information)!

aha.. do you know what... When I lugged my iMac home from where I work in London.. I had about 4 guys comment "nice toy" whilst I was on the train. And the iMac was still in its brown outer box with only the top flaps open so I could carry via the handle.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

Not at all i'm afraid. I have been reading the replies.. Granted, mostly from ****s like yourself.

Whaa? I defended you! I feel betrayed!!

It sounds like you want more of a what-can-OSX-do kind of thing in which case iLife's definitely the first port of call. IPhoto's Faces and Places features, when set up, are pretty impressive. Showing someone how simple it is to create a simple web presence with iWeb and adding a MobileMe Web Gallery with your iPhoto pictures with just a few clicks is pretty impressive too. Get things like Expose set up pronto to screen shortcuts (I use top right for show desktop, bottom right for show all windows and bottom left for dashboard), people love the look of that and are often impressed with the Dashboard. After a while the dashboard quickly loses its novelty but it becomes a great tool for quick access to a calculator, dictionary, thesaurus, translator, currency or anything else converter etc.
Another great program which I find impresses people is Delicious Library. So easy to use and the barcode scanner thing is very impressive. You'll spend an afternoon scanning all your books, dvds, games, cds etc in but once you're set up you've got an instant access for everything. Great for keeping track of what films you've lent to who and also as a general backup of all you own. So if you keep that one database file backed up somewhere then if you get burgled you'll have a list of everything for the insurance company.
VMWare Fusion or Parallels is another good tool for convincing people that they could live with OS X instead of Windows so that might be worth a look into. Its pretty cool when you use their Unity type interfaces, in Fusion at least.
Other than that, make sure you have your bases covered on compatability type things. So download the Perian codec pack, Flip4Mac and VLC. Growl's a very useful plugin used by loads of things. I know codecs might seem a little boring but it can easily kill the WOW factor when you try to open up a simple video file that would have played fine on Windows only for it to fail.

To be honest, as others have said, the biggest WOW factor will come from the look of it. People are amazed at the size of Apple's displays. You'll quickly get used to it but visitors won't. A friend dropped round at mine a few days ago with another guy because he didn't own a printer and had to print something as a matter of urgency. The guy was speechless when he saw my 30" screen. I bought this screen nearly three years ago! The same goes for 24" screens, most people from the PC world are used to 20" or smaller.

 

[davemulheran]

Whaa? I defended you! I feel betrayed!!

It sounds like you want more of a what-can-OSX-do kind of thing in which case iLife's definitely the first port of call. IPhoto's Faces and Places features, when set up, are pretty impressive. Showing someone how simple it is to create a simple web presence with iWeb and adding a MobileMe Web Gallery with your iPhoto pictures with just a few clicks is pretty impressive too. Get things like Expose set up pronto to screen shortcuts (I use top right for show desktop, bottom right for show all windows and bottom left for dashboard), people love the look of that and are often impressed with the Dashboard. After a while the dashboard quickly loses its novelty but it becomes a great tool for quick access to a calculator, dictionary, thesaurus, translator, currency or anything else converter etc.
Another great program which I find impresses people is Delicious Library. So easy to use and the barcode scanner thing is very impressive. You'll spend an afternoon scanning all your books, dvds, games, cds etc in but once you're set up you've got an instant access for everything. Great for keeping track of what films you've lent to who and also as a general backup of all you own. So if you keep that one database file backed up somewhere then if you get burgled you'll have a list of everything for the insurance company.
VMWare Fusion or Parallels is another good tool for convincing people that they could live with OS X instead of Windows so that might be worth a look into. Its pretty cool when you use their Unity type interfaces, in Fusion at least.
Other than that, make sure you have your bases covered on compatability type things. So download the Perian codec pack, Flip4Mac and VLC. Growl's a very useful plugin used by loads of things. I know codecs might seem a little boring but it can easily kill the WOW factor when you try to open up a simple video file that would have played fine on Windows only for it to fail.

To be honest, as others have said, the biggest WOW factor will come from the look of it. People are amazed at the size of Apple's displays. You'll quickly get used to it but visitors won't. A friend dropped round at mine a few days ago with another guy because he didn't own a printer and had to print something as a matter of urgency. The guy was speechless when he saw my 30" screen. I bought this screen nearly three years ago! The same goes for 24" screens, most people from the PC world are used to 20" or smaller.

Some good info there... thanks mate. Sorry I appeared to jump the gun with the **** remark. But there are deffo a few mongs posting on here previous to yours. Will Deffo check out that delicious library! sounds great!

And the iMac deffo gets people talking. Especially as I still have my 'faulty' imac and replacement iMac together , side by side!

 

[DarkRyan323i]

The "Wow" factor for me is how many applications I can have running without noticing any lag whatsoever! At all times I have Safari, iChat, iTunes, Mail, iCal, Time Machine backups, and Address book running and then whatever I'm working with at the time...iMovie, Pages, Handbrake, whatever. And to add to that I love how quiet the iMac is all the time!

 

[Consultant]

Wow, there are no viruses on OSX so you won't have a computer that is unresponsive computer while anti-virus is scanning. =)

You can open 100 large JPEGs are once, multi task between 30,000 emails (no need to "auto-archive" emails, dozen web browsers open, and say, WOW, it doesn't exhibit the windows slowness.

The "Wow" factor for me is how many applications I can have running without noticing any lag whatsoever! At all times I have Safari, iChat, iTunes, Mail, iCal, Time Machine backups, and Address book running and then whatever I'm working with at the time...iMovie, Pages, Handbrake, whatever. And to add to that I love how quiet the iMac is all the time!

Exactly. Having multiple apps open and ability to switch between the apps without pauses or slow downs is really great.

Having a quiet computer is great isn't it?

 

[trip1ex]

Play Crysis. That will show the difference between it and a 24" imac that's over $1000 cheaper.