Apple iMac Blue Dalmatian 15 in. (M8347LL/A) Mac Desktop

I hope this "computer for the rest of us" is not the one that drives what?s left of us into the PC camp. I bought an iMac DV Special Edition, perhaps with too-high expectations that it would be the leap forward in technology and ease of use that its trend setting design suggests. I was ill prepared for the frustration to come.

Reviewer Background:
I bought my first Mac, a color Macintosh II, in 1987. After seeing the graphics and point and click operating system, I just couldn?t stomach the thought of going back to a standard, command line oriented computer system. Since then I?ve regularly upgraded, to a Performa 6115 CD, a Power Macintosh G3 and finally the iMac. I do have one PC, a Toshiba 430 CDT laptop running Windows 95. I should also tell you that I?m an electronics engineer by training, with experience on VAX, Sun UNIX workstations, and networked PCs running Windows NT?so I?ve got plenty of machines to compare.

Why I Picked an iMac
My wife, Barbara, who started using the Macs when I did, shared the G3 for building web pages and browsing. There were times we both wanted to be on a machine. The Performa, however, was running out of hard disk and RAM, and was very slow on the Internet. Looking around for a replacement, we thought the special introductory price of just under $1,500 for the iMac DV Special Edition looked excellent. For that price you get a 400 MHz processor, 13 GB of disk, 128MB of RAM, a DVD CD-ROM and no need to buy a monitor nor a 56K modem. They?re built-in. I also liked the idea of having a one-piece computer that I could pick up and move out on the patio in nice weather. We tried demo units at two stores and were sold.

The Trouble Begins When You Log In
Demo units in stores can run very, very fast. They are networked to a high speed Internet line. At home, I entered the parameters for our ISP into the Mac?s Apple Remote Access and dialed-up. The usual beeping, squawking and hissing were audible as the modems did their handshake. Then, dead quiet. Nothing. No connection. After some hair pulling and checking everything over, I tried the alternative Apple iMac internal modem script labeled V.34 only. Now everything connected beautifully?.at 26,000 bps.

I?ve spent a lot of time at Apple?s site and Macintosh user support sites around the web. I?m convinced now that I don?t have a defective modem chip. What I have is a V.90 modem based on a K-flex chip set that is trying to communicate with V.90 modems based on USR x2. It just doesn?t work. If you force the modem to run at 33.3K or less by using the V.34 script, you can reliably communicate. Even so, the connection drops more frequently than with the USR Sportster x2 modems I?m using on the Beige G3 and the Toshiba laptop. A memo from Steve Jobs of Apple is allegedly quoted on some of the sites as saying "just switch to Earthlink and you won?t have a problem." I might have to try that, but it is discouraging to get such limited modem speed on the three ISPs (my paid service at Voyager.net plus Freei.net and the free service from Alta Vista) that I?ve been using with such success until now.

By the way, don?t fall for that baloney about blaming your phone line for low modem speed. Unless your kitchen phone has a crank on the side, you should be able to get reliable connections in the 40 to 50K range. I?m sitting here now on the G3 running at 49,333 bps using the same line on which the iMac struggles to get over 26,000 bps.

New: I?ve now added an external 3Com U.S. Robotics Modem, like the one that works so well on my G3. Read my complete review, including how to hook it up to the USB ports, at: http://johnshepler.epinions.com/cmd-review-69DD-320172E0-3A592D99-prod2

Hard Times
I love the Times font. It is my choice for word processing and the default on my web site, and was the default on my web browser. I say was, because the font that was so beautiful for over a decade is horribly degraded in OS9. OS 9 is the operating system that came with the iMac. At first, I thought that the washing out of the characters, especially the numeral 2, was due to a defective or poorly designed monitor. Wrong. Now that I?ve upgraded to OS 9.04 on the Beige G3, my 17-inch Optiquest monitor shows the same problem. If you are upgrading from an older machine with a pre-OS 9 operating system, you may be shocked at the visible change to some of your fonts. This is not specifically an iMac problem, but is an eye strain issue on that machine. You can improve the situation by switching to Georgia and Monaco fonts, but that?s really a work-around to a problem that didn?t use to exist.

Honey, Who Shrunk the Keyboard?
Clearly, I?ve been spoiled rotten. I sprang for the extended keyboard in 1987 and have stuck with it since. The new iMac keyboard is much smaller, more like the standard size keyboard that came with the original all-in-one Macintosh. I?m used to it now, but sure miss my big keys for my big fingers when I?m on the iMac. I may have to start looking at after-market extended keyboards.

I?m in luck, Apple rethought the mini-keyboard and now offers the extended size I?ve grown to love. Barbara likes the smaller one that is more her size.

Which Side of this Mouse is Up?
The new mouse is round. It also has a rather stiff USB wire in place of a thin little tail. As such, it is very easy for the mouse to rotate itself 20 or 30 degrees while you are not looking. You won?t feel it when you grab the mouse because it is round, but as you move the mouse you?ll notice your cursor is headed in a direction you didn?t expect. My wife has asked me to get her a "real" mouse as a gift.

Note: since this was written, Apple has rethought the circular mouse and now offers a more conventional shape with a wire that is less stiff.

How Do I Load This Floppy?
One of the design compromises that keeps the cost of the iMac low is elimination of the floppy disk drive. The rationalization is that we don?t need them any more, since most software comes on CD-ROM, graphics files are too big to fit on a single floppy disk, and we can all back up to virtual disk drives on the Internet. Yeah, at 26K. That should take all night, at least.

I knew this going in, and expected to buy an external floppy. Why? Some of the software that has been with me for years came on floppy. Since I mostly write and build pages for the Internet, files fit just fine on a floppy and give me the peace of mind of having a backup. Even if the hard disk never crashes (knock on translucent plastic), I sometimes mess up a file and am saved by a backup copy. The Internet has its advantages for file sharing and backup, but I don?t want my personal financial information on anybody?s web site?.not even mine.

I need my floppy security blanket and have since added an Imation USB Floppy Drive

Not ANY Port in a Storm
The iMac comes with USB and Firewire ports. My G3, a couple of years old, has ADB, Serial, and SCSI ports. Uh-oh. Can?t try my USR modem on the iMac. Can?t reuse my external Apple hard disk drive or joystick. There?s no hope at all for the LaserWriter IINT printer. Clearly, technology must advance. But while it is doing so, wouldn?t it be prudent to have a transition phase where, say, the iMac had ADB, Serial, SCSI, USB and Firewire? Once again, we?re saving money but at a price.

Frankenstein?s Monster
Every problem I?ve talked about has a fix. You can buy converters to make USB work with Serial, SCSI, and ADB buses. You can get an external floppy drive. You can get an external modem. If you want a USB floppy and a printer, you need to add an expansion hub because the keyboard takes one of the two USB ports. Oh, my. If I want to haul that collection out onto the patio, it?s almost as bad as tearing down and setting up a model railroad.

Why Would You Want an iMac?
I think I?m disappointed only because I expected to be wowed by Apple with another Steve Jobs miracle. In fact, the iMac is a neat little machine. It?s fast on processing, has as much hard disk space as most of us will use and enough RAM for at least a couple of years. The stereo sound is superb. I?ve not heard audio so realistic on any other computer. You can add a subwoofer for expanded bass, and it should be the match for your home stereo. It comes with Firewire ports that connect directly to many video cameras and software do your own video editing. You also get Quicken software to do your finances, Adobe Pagemill, which is a great program for building web pages, and AppleWorks, which gives you a spreadsheet, database and word processor. I?ve only added Microsoft Word because I?ve become addicted to it over the last 13 years.

It?s small, too. One reason we liked the iMac over the G4, other than a $1,000 price difference, is that you can tuck it into a corner on a tabletop and not have any big tower boxes to find a home for. It will fit neatly on a set of shelves or your dorm desk. Besides, it?s cool looking. The DV Special Edition comes in an understated graphite case, but you can get iMacs in any bright color you like. Trendy? You bet. Look at what they use as an example of a home computer on TV, in magazines or even the comic pages. The iMac, with its "Jetson?s" swept-back styling really is the hip machine to have.

I?m only sorry that Apple has not tried just a little bit harder to really make this another classic machine right out of the box. They need to acknowledge the modem problem and fix it internally. They need to reconsider the current need for floppy discs and add a drive. They need to add port compatibility with earlier Macintosh peripherals. They need a longer USB wire on a larger keyboard and a mouse that feels like a mouse. They also need to find out what the heck went wrong with the Times font and restore its quality. Perhaps upcoming design iterations of the iMac will see some of these improvements incorporated, and the iMac will once again prove that Apple really is way ahead of "the rest of them."