Setting Up My New iMac

My 2015 MacBook Air was on its last legs. The battery was shot and I was using it plugged in. I was afraid it would die any minute so decided to splurge on a new machine.

I could have gone for a new MacBook Air with an M1 chip but the Airs with M2 chips would be available in a month or two. But from what I read, there might not be any advantage in waiting when the M1 would be perfectly adequate for my use which included web browsing, e-mail, and creative writing. Overkill in fact.

But then I asked myself if I might not like a desktop instead and decided to go for a new iMac 24 which had the M1 chip, the bigger screen, and the wow factor so far as I was concerned.

So I went on Amazon and ordered the upgraded iMac with more ports, two fans and magic keyboard with Touch ID. Two days later, a large carton arrived and I dropped everything to set up my new machine.

I won’t bother talking about the unboxing — there are plenty of YouTube videos describing that process. Rather I want to talk about the decisions I made as to whether I should do a fresh install of my software or transfer everything from my old Mac.

My greatest concern was moving all of the license keys and passwords to my new machine. Searching the internet was confusing but I didn’t want to clutter the iMac with all of the detritus on my old machine after so many years of use with its frequent OS updates and upgrades.

I took a chance and decided to see if somehow I was able to get everything over without using migration assistant especially when it appeared I could do that any time after the initial setup.

I unboxed the machine and immediately realized something was wrong. The power block should have contained an ethernet port and this one did not. The magic keyboard should have contained Touch ID but this one did not. Finally I should have had four ports but mine only had two. So it was clear they had sent me the base level machine but charged me for the upgrade.

I called Amazon and the initial service rep suggested I return this one for a refund and order the upgraded one again but since the packaging looked identical, the same thing could have happened. I called Amazon again and this time got a service rep who offered to credit me with the $200 difference in price. Since I could always return the machine, I accepted his offer and went ahead and set up the new base level iMac and spoiler alert: I saved $200 because the base model appears to be doing everything I need a Mac to do.

So I ran the setup and connected to my WiFi. I skipped the migration manager and signed into iCloud and lo and behold, all of my passwords were right there.

I then downloaded Ulysses and it recognized my documents. But iA Writer was another matter. I downloaded it but it thought it was a new purchase. I contacted iA.net and they explained that if I went into the App Store and opened my account, it would list all of my purchased software. I did that and was able to download iA which recognized my ownership.

The only ones that weren’t listed in the purchased items were Scrivener and Scapple but thank goodness I had kept the license codes in my notes and was able to download and activate both apps.

So I was able to do a fresh install with little difficulty avoiding the time consuming (and possibly buggy) migration process. All of my worries and concerns were unwarranted and I am now a happy camper.

I have become a believer in the Nike process — Just Do It.