ooooooo, unboxed the iMac last night. Very nice! Even the way Apple package stuff up reeks of quality. I'm not an Apple fanboy by a long shot but you cant deny when taking the thing out of the box it feel like a premium product.

I only set it up breifly as the desk hasnt come yet so nothing major to report. Just signed in, imported my mail and shut it down again.

Nicola had a few things to say. Mainly "why did you need £90 speakers, those ones built in sound fine?" and "I though it was white" before the expected "it's too big". Bear in mind only a few weeks ago she was looking at them in PC World with her own eyes!!! I suspect it was more down to her being in a general bad mood after a 12 hour shift. I told her, "you always moan everything is too big; the TV in the bedroom, the TV in the Lounge, my dick.... and you always get used to them".

It didnt help. I'm sure she'll come around soon.

Just waiting on the RAM (today) and desk (Thursday) and then I'll have a proper play.

I've started the thread so I can relay my impressions of the new iMac and more specifically owning a shiny Apple for the first time. It sounds stupid but after being a lifelong (Windows)PC user I'm a little apprehensive.

You forgot that special New Mac Smell™.

Just remember, don't try and do things the Windows way. If you get stuck, think how you would do something, then do it. Chances are someone at Apple designed it to work the way normal people work.

The thing that's probably initially going to feel majorly weird is the mouse. Assuming you have a magic mouse, the whole 'no second button or scroll wheel' kind of freaked me out for a while. But that's just motor memory and it'll pass.

Jon

For the few minutes it was on I was ok with the single click but min/max/close appears to be on the wrong side! I've gone from expert to complete noob in a single purchase

Well, minimise a window (to the Dock) by double-clicking the title bar area. You can also use the key combo Command-M. For extra yummy Macness, hold the Shift key while you do it...

Maximise doesn't work in reverse, perversely, but by clicking the minimised window in the Dock it will be restored.

Maximising doesn't work like Windows at all. Usually, when you click the Maximise button, a window will grow to comfortably fit all the content and no more. It won't fill the screen as Windows does. That is one of the things I truly dislike about Windows. I prefer to have my browser window so I can see stuff behind. When in full surfing mode, I have a Twitter client and email visible as well as my browser, and having to switch around between different windows annoys me.

Which brings me on to Command-Tab and Exposé. I'll let you discover those in your own good time.

Shall I expect a surprise when holding the shift key?

Command-Tab? Exposé?

Dear lord what have I done!

You have embarked on a journey of discovery. You will find out why Mac users prefer the Mac OS, but merely tolerate Windows.

Right click is available, just enable it in System Preferences > Mouse - it's called "Secondary click". There's some nice little demo movies if you hover over each action on the left side. Back and forward is a 2-fingered swipe from left or right across the surface of the mouse - works in web browsers and Finder windows, etc. Takes a bit of getting used to, the first few times you try it you'll probably find the mouse flying across the desk, the trick is to hold your thumb and little finger on the sides of the mouse while you swipe across with two fingers!


Ah, now that you will have to get used to, I'm afraid! But you will, it will become second nature after a while and you'll wonder what all the fuss was about. When I jump on a Windows PC at work, I automatically go to the top left for the window control buttons and have to slap myself.


Most stuff is very intuitive. As Heather says, as long as you don't try to make it behave like Windows and just go with the flow, then things will work out just fine. The mistake most switchers make is to make a Mac behave like Windows, and they're instantly disappointed.

Have you checked out these useful sections on Apple's site...

Mac101 - useful overview of the OS X basics and bundled apps.
and
Switch101 - useful for people coming from a Windows PC.

I didn't know about that one, but it only seems to work when double-clicking the top of a window, and not with Cmd+m.

FYI, Ubuntu looks sublime running on iMacs.

Cool!

Can you get it on the Mac AppStore

Yes! Outside of the app. store Ubuntu is completely free! However within the app. store because of the cut Apple take it's £5000.

LOL!

Veato, if you used keyboard shortcuts on Windows, you'll love OS X.

Command key is explained here, it generally takes place of the control key under Windows.
So we have cmd+c for copy, cmd+v for paste. Then slightly more logical things like cmd+q for quit current app, cmd+w for close active window, cmd+e for eject drive (OS X still gets funny about you yanking out USB sticks...)
Here's an official list from Apple: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343

Mouse wise, I still feel that OS X was designed to be single click. After using Windows for eight years I went over to the Mac and tried using a left/right click mouse and switched after a few days to just a left click mouse.
For all the right click things just hold down control and click. It sounds like more work to click, but your hand is generally naturally near control, and it allows you to click anywhere on your mouse to get a primary click, allowing you to adjust your grip for more comfort.

CDs/DVDs can be ejected in a number of ways:
Highlight the disk on the desktop and drag it to the Trash can, right click on the disk and go "eject", select the disk and choose "eject" from the File menu, select the disk and hit cmd+e.

Screenshots are saved straight to the Desktop in PNG format, cmd+shift+3 takes a picture of the whole screen. cmd+shift+4 turns the curser into a crosshair and you can select an area to screenshot, or cmd+shift+4 then space will allow you to take a screenshot of a window, and OS X will add a drop-shadow for you

Some if this info is top notch guys. Very much appreciated.

I'm sticking with single click too.

Desk will come tomorrow so I'll have her all setup properly.