Switching from a Mac/Desktop living room to a iPad living room..

[MisterBigMack]

Hi,

for a while now I've been thinking about selling my 2 year old iMac and gaining the room that I have in my living and getting an iPad...

Now i'm a massive fan of music and to be honest iTunes along with safari are the 2 most used applications that I have my iMac for, I have no home stereo system or anything in my living for my music I just use my iMac for that, so if I got rid of my iMac I wouldn't have any means of music in the living room.

Just posting this really for opinions and such, is there anything really to gain from keeping this or selling it and getting an iPad, which to be fair I love using one, not to sound "Steve Jobs-esc" but it does feel more personal, and I love browsing safari on it, and i think most of the apps on it ie iPhoto, iMovie are available on there aren't they?


Anyways, any opinions what I should do, is it worth an investment or will I just be better in keeping my Mac? apart from the price, why do people buy iPads and not buy a desktop computer?


cheers

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I'm sure it's possible to do everything with an iPad and no regular computer, but it wouldn't work for me. I have way too much content, plus I use Apple TVs which take advantage of the iTunes home sharing.

If you want to free up the physical space, you could go with a Macbook or a Mac Mini & a smaller screen (or even use your TV as the screen with the Mac Mini's HDMI output).

 

[Apple fanboy]

Hi,

for a while now I've been thinking about selling my 2 year old iMac and gaining the room that I have in my living and getting an iPad...

Now i'm a massive fan of music and to be honest iTunes along with safari are the 2 most used applications that I have my iMac for, I have no home stereo system or anything in my living for my music I just use my iMac for that, so if I got rid of my iMac I wouldn't have any means of music in the living room.

Just posting this really for opinions and such, is there anything really to gain from keeping this or selling it and getting an iPad, which to be fair I love using one, not to sound "Steve Jobs-esc" but it does feel more personal, and I love browsing safari on it, and i think most of the apps on it ie iPhoto, iMovie are available on there aren't they?


Anyways, any opinions what I should do, is it worth an investment or will I just be better in keeping my Mac? apart from the price, why do people buy iPads and not buy a desktop computer?


cheers

I have and need both. Write a list of everything you do on a Mac and then check you could do all of those tasks on an iPad. I use mine for gaming and surfing, but need a computer for back ups, photo editing and work stuff which is beyond what an iPad can offer me. Plus it's good to get away from the TV, go to the study and be creative.

 

[AppleNewton]

Do you have an HDTV in the living room?
I'd sell the iMac and invest in a home theater set-up.

Get a HDTV if you dont, a sound bar (simple, doesnt take up much space, clutterfree).
Invest in a Mac Mini for all your media and content if necessary.
BUt that also depends where do you get your music and media from?
Do you buy itunes albums or do you import your cds or get them from another source?
If its all iTunes based, you can scrape the Mac Mini investment and get an iPad and Apple TV and have your content from iTunes download or stream to your iPad and AppleTV.

Otherwise the Mini will host your content and your iPad can navigate between them.

 

[toddzrx]

Seems like what you're wanting to do is possible; you might look into getting some airplay speakers that you can stream music to from your iPad.

Your situation is the first I've heard though. Most everyone I've talked to or read about on these forums has a main computer with an iPad for doing the "light" stuff (surfing, email, etc.).

One concern is data backup: iCloud only gets you so far.

Even a used Mac mini might be worth looking into to augment your iPad.

 

[MisterBigMack]

Thanks for the replies so far,

Yeah I have an HDTV and a blu ray player and an Xbox 360, games and DVDs on the 360 and I frequently buy blu rays but have never bought a movie (couple tv shows) on iTunes
If I'm honest I probably buy 70% of my music on cd and 30% on iTunes, BUT when I buy the cd I just get it home, burn it onto iTunes and never touch the cd...and I know albums are a little bit cheaper on iTunes too........so it's this weird situation where If I never bought CDs again I would miss it even though I don't really look at them or anything once they are on my iMac

So I don't know really what I want to do!

Any more/other suggestions?

 

[AppleNewton]

honestly it seems you have your media set-up. I'd ditch the CDs and get them through iTunes frankly. That way theyre on all your apple devices and readily available. no importing or anything. thats definitely one step in the right direction.
Your video content and games seem to be handled well. I think you could break away from the iMac set-up then and invest in a 64GB iPad or 128GB iPad to store more of your content.

Now im not sure how often to encode videos through handbrake at all and want them on your iPad. thatd be the next obstacle.

 

[MisterBigMack]

honestly it seems you have your media set-up. I'd ditch the CDs and get them through iTunes frankly. That way theyre on all your apple devices and readily available. no importing or anything. thats definitely one step in the right direction.
Your video content and games seem to be handled well. I think you could break away from the iMac set-up then and invest in a 64GB iPad or 128GB iPad to store more of your content.

Now im not sure how often to encode videos through handbrake at all and want them on your iPad. thatd be the next obstacle.

I admit I do like going out and purchasing the cds or getting them through my door, but like I said after I burn them onto my mac they hardly ever get touched...

The size of the HDD on the iPad sounds like it could be a problem, 500gb is the HDD for my mac and I have mainly just video podcasts and music on it and that counts for just over half of the capacity so far

I am not really interested in the whole apple tv thing as much as i admire what it does and for people who arent intrested in physical media and space saving it really is great but I have no interest in stop buying DVDs and blu rays in the near future


As you can probably tell the only thing that is worrying me or concerning me if I got rid of my iMac I would lose the experience of having my whole music library in one place and a very convenient way of opening up my itunes and having it all there waiting for me, and in my music library and podcasts I have nearly 140gb (plenty of video podcasts on there) - with an iPad i would lose that experience of sat down, browsing the web on safari with all my music available to me due to lack of HDD size..

how can I overcome this or am I just putting myself in a corner here

cheers for the help so far everyone

 

[Nuke61]

As you can probably tell the only thing that is worrying me or concerning me if I got rid of my iMac I would lose the experience of having my whole music library in one place and a very convenient way of opening up my itunes and having it all there waiting for me, and in my music library and podcasts I have nearly 140gb (plenty of video podcasts on there) - with an iPad i would lose that experience of sat down, browsing the web on safari with all my music available to me due to lack of HDD size..

how can I overcome this or am I just putting myself in a corner here

cheers for the help so far everyone

It sounds like the physical space of the iMac is your issue with it. If that's the case, have you considered a Mac Mini? It can plug directly to your TV and be the music/movie/picture server for an iPad. Sell the iMac, and buy a Mini.