What's the glaringly obvious thing to be installed on new Mac?

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MorrisTheCat

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#116205 21-Apr-2013 23:30

15" retina display, i7', 16GB RAM, SSD, alloy case model. This was a $4k purchase and the lucky owner (yes I am envious) asked me and to be honest I couldn't answer, even though i own, iPhone4, iPad3, a couple of Win7 PCs and an early Macbook all doing something at home (electronics repairs and HAM radio) which means I am across both Windows and Mac environments.

Of course obviously the OS has been loaded but what is that latest nifty Apple App, utility or major program every Mac Owner 'should' have on their machine other than Bootcamping a version of Win7. The reason I am asking here too is so I may receive a New Zealand point of view. TIA

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#803379 21-Apr-2013 23:32

Microsoft Office, Skype

Do whatever you want to do man.

insane

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#803380 21-Apr-2013 23:32

Time machine / Crashplan?

/sorry non Mac user speaking here but backups sound important :)

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#803381 21-Apr-2013 23:32

windows 7?

NonprayingMantis

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#803384 21-Apr-2013 23:35

Steam!

tdgeek

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#803387 21-Apr-2013 23:36

I am looking at that purchase too. Sorry to be off topic, but what do you think of the retina screen. I was about to walk in and grab one a few months back, no stock so I didn't, but that night I read some reviews and saw there can be lag issues (I assume due to the demand of higher pixels), and screen retention issues on switch to/from dark or light screens. And poor text quality on some no retina software such as Office. I saw one recently and side by side I can see a retina difference but quite minor.

Tks and sorry for the OT

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#803389 21-Apr-2013 23:38

tdgeek: I am looking at that purchase too. Sorry to be off topic, but what do you think of the retina screen. I was about to walk in and grab one a few months back, no stock so I didn't, but that night I read some reviews and saw there can be lag issues (I assume due to the demand of higher pixels), and screen retention issues on switch to/from dark or light screens. And poor text quality on some no retina software such as Office. I saw one recently and side by side I can see a retina difference but quite minor.

Tks and sorry for the OT

Few guys at work have retina Mac's, some the 13" and others the 1st gen 15" (with the overheating problems)

They do look rather stunning and I didn't see any poor quality text, was all super sharp.

oh, F1 in 20 minutes :)

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#803392 21-Apr-2013 23:48

insane:

oh, F1 in 20 minutes :)

Tks for that re retina and F1! I want to watch it, I get up at 5-30 so I shouldn't. Maybe I will watch a wee bit!

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#803393 21-Apr-2013 23:52

Microsoft Office Mac. Parallels with Windows 7 (Then use Unity mode, run windows apps as if they were installed in OSX natively.) Spotify and TeamViewer. These apps I use daily and I know they have the windows version. But if you use parallels you can have the best of both world with prettier hardware :P.

Also, RAM Optimiser is amazing. Install from App Store I believe? Frees up ram via a couple of clicks from the Finder bar (bar on the top of the screen, I never know what the damn thing is called). It improves performance heaps on my MacBook.

networkn

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#803399 22-Apr-2013 00:35

MorrisTheCat: 15" retina display, i7', 16GB RAM, SSD, alloy case model. This was a $4k purchase and the lucky owner (yes I am envious) asked me and to be honest I couldn't answer, even though i own, iPhone4, iPad3, a couple of Win7 PCs and an early Macbook all doing something at home (electronics repairs and HAM radio) which means I am across both Windows and Mac environments.

Of course obviously the OS has been loaded but what is that latest nifty Apple App, utility or major program every Mac Owner 'should' have on their machine other than Bootcamping a version of Win7. The reason I am asking here too is so I may receive a New Zealand point of view. TIA

Of course this user spent 4K on a Mac and they don't know what to install on it! Sounds like the typical Apple customer to me!

tdgeek

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#803402 22-Apr-2013 01:10

networkn:

Of course this user spent 4K on a Mac and they don't know what to install on it! Sounds like the typical Apple customer to me!

ok, ok :-) Maybe its a new Mac user, or maybe just a non IT literate computer user

MorrisTheCat

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#803407 22-Apr-2013 05:40

To tdgeek. Yes, we are talking a youngish lady (gotta be careful here incase she ever reads this) who does not want to be "bothered with all that messing around I always had with my old laptop that had Windows". I always told her it wasn't the machine just that it really would benefit from a rebuild/fresh install and it'd behave completely differently but she was always too busy... I must admit the retina on the Mac is fantastic to my ageing eyes. I will tell her to go buy Office for Mac, (the full monty) newest version and watch her reaction when I point out she doesn't have a DVD drive on her new machine and loan her my USB one....

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#803412 22-Apr-2013 07:03

vlc/mplayerx
iWork

are the first two items I installed - the rest really depends on the user. Mac boots up like the day I got it. Unlike windows, I do not find slowdowns with use.

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#803429 22-Apr-2013 07:43

MorrisTheCat: I will tell her to go buy Office for Mac, (the full monty) newest version and watch her reaction when I point out she doesn't have a DVD drive on her new machine and loan her my USB one....

http://www.officeformac.com/download

tdgeek

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#803438 22-Apr-2013 08:10

MorrisTheCat: To tdgeek. Yes, we are talking a youngish lady (gotta be careful here incase she ever reads this) who does not want to be "bothered with all that messing around I always had with my old laptop that had Windows". I always told her it wasn't the machine just that it really would benefit from a rebuild/fresh install and it'd behave completely differently but she was always too busy... I must admit the retina on the Mac is fantastic to my ageing eyes. I will tell her to go buy Office for Mac, (the full monty) newest version and watch her reaction when I point out she doesn't have a DVD drive on her new machine and loan her my USB one....

Ah, fair enough. "I don't wanna know, it's not my thing, just fix it!"

All this talk of MBP is making me want one again. Someone mentioned "the one with overheating issues" implying its been updated, so I might revisit this. At $4k its actually ok value for the specs (I checked a similar specced Alienware a while back) but all I want is a coffee table laptop!

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#803447 22-Apr-2013 08:30

All this talk of MBP is making me want one again. Someone mentioned "the one with overheating issues" implying its been updated, so I might revisit this.

That has been fixed since and only applies to the MacBook Air

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