However, the iMac market certainly encouraged Roland, Midiman and others to bring these devices to a useable state, and as the iMac developed, it gained larger hard drives, CD-RW drives, faster processors and FireWire ports: iMac DV machines are still very useable for music applications with the addition of the relevant interface and external drive. With no CD-R and only USB connectivity, at a time when working USB audio interfaces were an exception, it was severely challenged for MIDI and especially audio recording. Initially it was not a good choice of machine for music.
#Review of mono for mac computers mac os#
Its lack of connectivity meant there were few hardware conflicts(!), while the then-new Mac OS 8.1 supported G3 processors, as well as IDE hard drives that were far better value than SCSI in terms of performance per pound. The fact that it also happened to work quite well is often overlooked. At least in design terms, it was a revolutionary machine that found its way into many environments where, previously, the collection of odd dull boxes and tangled cables that normally make up a computer had been unacceptable.
The original iMac is widely held to be the product that saved Apple's financial bacon back in 1998 when all around (including Apple's best desktop machines) were beige. Apple's new iMac is as radical in appearance as its predecessor - but how well does it fit into the recording studio?