I want to get my first Mac, and am looking at the Mac Mini for size and cost. What I want to know is if it's OS has Mac App Store and ability to have iBooks Author. And does it include Garage Band, iMove and the photo software as well?
Not sure what you mean by the first question, but I got an iMac (not entirely sure if it is installed with the same apps though). It came with GarageBand, iMovie, and the photo software + all the other random stuff.
Sorry, what I mean was the operating system. I read that Mac App Store is not compatible with older OS. Is Mac Minis OS new enough to run it?
Yeah I have a mac mini 2011 model OSX Lion and the app store runs fine. iBooks author is downloadable too and yes it comes with garageband and all that funky stuff. Once you go mac you never go back.
just got my first macbook pro a week or two ago..still in love with it..i wasn't sure if i was going to use it much but i absolutely do, and love it way better then stupid windows..i love the gestures on the touchpad..swiping with two fingers scrolls, or spreading two fingers zooms..everything is just so elfin convenient..at first i was like is it really worth spending almost 3k on..but after using it a week the answer is yes GOD YES! has made my life a lot easier already..though i still don't know how to fluently use it 100 percent..some thngs still stump me occasionally but all in all it was worth it..you only live once so i say spend that money! ask for a good deal though! ask them to throw in a 100$ iTunes card or something..i got a free bundle with mine after threatening to go to a different store..
It has all that (more information here). Its OS is OS X Lion, which is the latest and included in any Mac.
The mini may be the lowest end Mac but it contains everything the other models have in terms of software including OS X Lion and iLife. The only downside of the mini is that you need to provide your own keyboard, mouse and optical disc drive. I've been using the same iMac for five years now without a problem and I plan to get another three or four years of use out if it before replacing it with a Mac Mini. Based on my experiences with Macs over the past decade that future-mini will probably last well into the 2020's.
If you buy the newest Mac Mini, then it will have Lion which is the current OS. All the new Macs will come with Lion. MAS will be preinstalled as well as iLife(which includes Garageband, iMovie, iPhoto). The only thing that it will not have is iWork. You will have to buy that separately or Microsoft's Office for Mac if you plan to use Word/Powerpoint/Excel.
when I first got my iMac it was a bit alien to me (PC user for nearly 15 years at that point) now 5 years later I can't stand working on PCs. It is great for creativity and pretty much everything else I do - it is even slowly catching up on gaming.
No, please don't put Microsoft office on your mac ... try OpenOffice ... does everything microsoft office does, but better and FREE ...
Good thing about buying iWork is you can purchase used discs for way cheaper than retail since there isn't an activation code. Check craigslist or ebay. I love everything about Pages, and will never go back to using MSWord.
If you are only getting it for gaming, I would recommend looking at an Alienware laptop or the Dell XPS. If you are looking at it for every day use, then a Mac is what you need. I prefer laptops as I have had a Mac Mini and a Mac Book Air.
I disagree: Microsoft office, whilst dodgy on mac is perfectly adequate, and if you are transferring your document between windows and mac systems regularly (for instance as a university student working on both your own and the campus's computers), you will appreciate the compatibility. OpenOffice etc. are of course largely compatible with Microsoft office, but in my experience; such compatibility cannot always be relied upon, with sometimes pictures and other formatting not transferring correctly between the programs.
On the other hand, you might not need iWork at all. Buying Pages on it's own could be an option, and a nice, fast download through the Mac App Store. That's all I have and it's all I need.
Pages is way better than Word, IMHO, except when a place insists on receiving documents in Word format. While it can export as Word, it often will have issues and if you don't have a copy of Word, there's really no reliable way that I've found to see what the problems with the translation are. You basically can not trust the formatting you end up with. In a better world everybody would have Macs and use Pages, but that isn't the case, sadly.
