Apple applications and thingies?

[disneymom]

ok I'm sold I want an apple

What are the best things to get for it once I've got one?

[Tink]

OOOOOH! SUCH a sensible decision.

Well, what to get? Ummmm... will depend mostly, I should think on what you want to most do with the machine?

[catrancher]

What are the best things to get for it once I've got one?

I assume you mean applications?

If that's so then, like Tink said, it depends on what you want to do with the machine.

New Macs come with the iLife suite of programs already installed. What's iLife you say? Lemme see, I posted that once before.

Where'd I put it?

Ahhh... here it is:

• iPhoto - catalogs and organizes all your digital pictures. Provides some editing capabilities (color correction, crop, straighten, etc.). Non-destructive editing. If you change a picture and don't like it, you can revert back to the original. Lets you order prints, books, cards or publish your pictures to the web.
• iMovie - create movies of your videos, iPhoto pictures, almost anything. Add special effects. Add a music sound track from your iTunes library. Prepare them for sharing on the web or create a DVD for playback on your DVD player/tv.
• iDVD - take your iMovie projects and add chapters and special navigation effects to them. Burn them to DVD for later playback. I use iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD on all my vacation pictures. You won't believe what you can do!
• iWeb - create your own website or sites. If you have a .Mac (now it's .me) account, you can publish to your web site with one click of the button. Create photo sites, blogs, travel logs to share with friends, family and the world.
• GarageBand - if you're a musician, would like to be, or if you just like music, GarageBand is the tool for you. Record your guitar or your keyboard or your voice, add accompaniment, fine tune it to your hearts content and then publish it. Or burn it to a CD. Don't know how to play a guitar or a keyboard? Use GarageBand to take some lessons! Use it to create a podcast.

If you want to do any more serious photograph manipulation that what's provided by iPhoto, then you'd probably want something like Adobe Photoshop. I use Photoshop Elements and find it quite adequate for my needs.

If you're going to be doing business documents (letters, spreadsheets, presentations) you've got basically two choices:

• Microsoft Office - useful if you're primarily exchanging Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations with Windows users.
• Apple's iWork suite - Apple's version of Microsoft Office. Word processing, spreadsheets, presentations. Absolutely brilliant software. This is what Microsoft Office should have been before MS injected so much bloat. Has the ability to exchange documents with Office although sometimes the transfer leaves a little bit to be desired. If you only need to "occasionally" exchange documents with Office users, this is the way to go. Loads less expensive also.

So, I think that about covers it. If you can be more specific on the kinds of things you want to be doing, maybe we can narrow down the options some more for you. But, for the most part, this list should cover just about everything an average user would need or want.

Tom (... evangelizing again!)

[Mari]

personally I love iphoto and the fact that its almost imposible for a mac to crash.... unlike your regular pc

[foreverducky]

I would love to get a mac. Maybe once school is all over.

[josh.p.]

Do you mean an iPhone or an apple mac computer? Eithervway you'll LOVE it!

I would love to get a mac. Maybe once school is all over.

what a great incentive that will be! I promised myself Id get an iPhone once I'd past my driving test but I couldn't wait and decided to sell my junk on fleabay instead (well... That and I got an offer I couldn't refuse!)

[foreverducky]

Sometimes we just can't wait. I totally understand. Yes it will be a great incentive. Just a few more years to go. Maybe I'll get one when I go off to internship, see then I wont have to wait as long.

[josh.p.]

Do it then! Snow leopard will be out then, too!!

[foreverducky]

snow leopard...is this mac talk that I don't know about?

[josh.p.]

snow leopard is the next update coming to the OSX operating system... the current one is Leopard!