Best for us Maccies! (MacFormat)

Member Name: bigbtommy

Product:	MacFormat
Date:	07/10/01 (33 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great mag

Disadvantages: None

MacFormat is currently one of my favourite reads. I am not a subscriber, yet. But it truly is a great mag. People often complain to me "What's a Mac magazine actually going to have in it?". They reckon that because there are only 4 different Macs, they can't really write a magazine about them. How about the printers? The scanners? The software? The new OS X? DV-cams? Digicams? Screens?

So, there is enough area to talk about. The main magazines talking about the Mac are IDG's MacWorld, Future's MacFormat and Dennis Publishings' MacUser (which incorporates Apple User, DTP, MacShopper and MacBuyer).

Currently the main focus is on the new OS, X (pronounced 'Ten'), with it's new release 10.1, and the serious lack of software for it. I bet when people ripped open this months copy of Macformat and saw that Illustrator 10 and InDesign 2 will be coming out of Adobe's OS X department, yet will still be 9.x compatible.

Also, the latest copy of Macformat had a rather interesting round up called 'Hot Stuff' which was a choice of the best Mac-related products over the past year.

The category of Best Mac went to the new iBook (when, oh when will I get mine?), as well as awards going out to Epson, Canon, Genicom, Lacie, Sony (twice), Apple (twice), Olympus, Adobe (twice), Macromedia, Microsoft (twice), Quark, Norton, Steinberg and Lightwave.

As well as this, it contained information about Maya for OS X, and it's use in the new Final Fantasy movie and The Grinch film. And a quite interesting article about British design.

It is an essential and very interesting read for Mac users, and a sneak peek in to the 'alternate' way of life for PC users out there. If it hadn't been for 2 or 3 Mac magazines, I'd still be fiddling around INSIDE my computer, rather than ON my computer.

Their 'Masterclass' section is also really useful, including lots of
clever stuff with OS X, Photoshop, video editing, Poser and a monthly Q&A section. On the CD, there is also a selection of free, demo, shareware and other software, as well as a PDF file containing readers advertisments (perfect to get cheap Macs and bits...).

This is an essential purchase for Mac users, and rather interesting for PC users. My Windows using mate said he found MacFormat (and other Mac mags) interesting reads, even though he will not be buying a Mac.

Thanks for all the reads, and you reading this will have benefitted my iBook fund a little bit! Cheers

Summary: