The next release of iOS, the operating system for the iPod/iPad/iPhone devices, is heralded by Apple as ushering in the post-PC era. Nobody is really sure exactly what this means, but one key point (obviously) is the absence of a computer, using PC in the broadest sense. I have had occasion to sample this, having embarked on an experiment. Facing strong lobbying for a new computer from my son, and the observation from other quarters "that you shouldn't need a computer, you spend all your time on the iPad.", we decided to swap. I put my hard disk from my 2009 17" MacBook Pro into the aged late-2006 MacBook that Raphael had been using, and his disk into the MacBook Pro. Off we went into our respective corners to experiment with our "new" toys.
Unsurprisingly Raphael is pleased with the upgrade, after initially being a bit sniffy that it wasn't a brand new quad-core i7 turbo-nutter device. The big screen and extra CPU and RAM (8GB) over the older machine make a big difference, especially as he is actually writing software on it. But what of me. And why is this post-PC? After all I still have a PC, albeit a somewhat reduced one. Mostly the tasks that I have to use a PC for at the moment include media-management, I have 250+ GB of photos, movies, music, ebooks and audio-books, accumulated over the last 10 years. Even when iOS5 launches with iCloud and stuff, that isn't really going to help with that, and given the pitiful state of the BT Broadband connection to the house, attempting to manipulate that much data online would be a horrible thing to contemplate. None of the iPad solutions are any real help in managing large (27,000+) collections of photos either. Apart from media management, there are only some admin tasks, accounts and the odd letter, that I prefer to keep on the Mac. Still, not something that requires massive horsepower. So I thought I would give it a go.
For Mail, iTunes, Safari and eBook management the machine is fine, though a long way from snappy. It does work though, and was able to stream HD movie to Apple TV flawlessly (yes I know that is just shifting data, not decoding video, but it did manage it). I haven't tried ripping a DVD, and imagine that could make it struggle.badly. I know this because Aperture crucifies it. It takes minutes to load and has long periods of delay before it even manages to pop up a beach ball! I added 1GB of RAM at the weekend to take it to the maximum the machine can manage (3GB) and that improves things to the point that it now runs tolerably. As long as you are patient. But is isn't really a viable solution. Nor does iOS5/iCloud really make any dent in that particular problem for me. It could make things a lot worse if it decides to put every damn thing in the iCloud. That would be a real pain.
There is a bright spot though. Being a glutton for punishment I did install Lion 4 days into this experiment. Foolishly perhaps, since I can't really say if some of the poor performance is Lion-related, but it doesn't seem to impose a speed penalty. What it does offer on the small screen (remember I am downsizing from 1920*1200) is a very nice full-screen mode for Mail, Safari, and other applications that have been upgraded to support that. For Safari and Mail it works really, really well. The amount of screen space that it recovers is quite remarkable. For me this was worth the (very modest) price of admission. Lion has other improvements and changes, including a challenging new versionning mechanism for documents that attempts to do away with the "Save" option. Eek. A hard one to swallow for someone as wedded to the Save keyboard shortcut as me!
Well then, for anyone bored enough to read to the end, what is my conclusion? For anyone with a large collection of photos and/or music, iCloud isn't likely to be a panacea, or enable a truly PC-free existence. So, if you have to still use a PC, I think it needs to be a bit more grunty than a 5 year old MacBook, alas.
Time to build a hot PC gaming rig?
Posted by: iain.cheyne.net | August 01, 2011 at 09:17 PM
Err, not really. My days of tinkering with PCs are long past. I don't have the patience any more. Or the time TBH. Oddly enough my Dad is about to buy a turbo-nutter Alienware PC just so that the Logitech gaming keyboard he uses will work properly. He doesn't play games though!
Posted by: Christo | August 02, 2011 at 09:03 AM