There is no better desktop experience than being able to use an iMac. This is 2026, and I’m not joking. If you’re buying a new computer and can afford the steep price, then yes, you should go ahead and simply purchase an iMac. It will do you good, and it will continue to do you a lot of good into the future.
As for everyone else, especially people who use a laptop, well, I’m exceedingly of the view that using a laptop is a clumsy option. While it’s portable and all, the real deal isn’t the portability or the comfort of being able to move it from one place to another, or to travel with it. No, the real deal is how uncomfortable it is to use one.
I work for excessively long sessions when I compute, so the continuous looking down at it, or adjusting its screen to match the right tilt, or moving it a nudge to the right or left to get the perfect angle, are all nuisances that an iMac takes away. With an iMac, your screen is fixed in one position. You simply sit, or stand, in front of it, and well, there you go. There are no adjustments to make, no negotiation right before you begin, and nothing to bug you enough to stop you from getting to what you were doing. The iMac stays where you leave it and waits for you to return.
I simply love this setup. It’s how computers used to be. We all had desks that were actually called computer desks or tables and, well, we used to go, sit down, take a cup of tea with us, and enjoy working or gaming for as long as we pleased. Yes, they were stuck in one corner of the room, but then, that was our corner in our room. When you were at your computer, you were in your own world. The only, and at times much more troubling, thing was my dad’s voice, calling out, “Don’t become a slave to this machine,” in his measured and loving tone. Having heard that, then, I used to be happy—good advice, but a relief. He hadn’t asked me to leave my desk.
Now, why this sudden realization? And thoughts about iMacs in 2026? Isn’t the iMac the least loved product at Apple today, or one that suffers from color overkill? Oh, if you haven’t noticed, you can buy one in about any colour you can think of. Almost. Still, I recall entering a computer store and glancing at the iMac, rolling our eyes at its price and wanting this beast so bad. That was the thing we used to love back in the day. And back in the day is maybe a decade ago? Possibly. Yet, that feeling was so fulfilling. The iMac was Apple’s greatest design feat. It always has been, since Steve brought it back, and until when he probably left it. Thereabouts, then, things changed, and I really don’t want to bore everyone, and myself with its history.
My issue is this. I need a place to write. A computer for writing, and one that’s just for that. To research ideas, to learn new stuff, and to then write in peace. And when I do, I don’t want to worry about anything else that’s going around my work, so my phone is on the side, upside down, and I’m yards away from my laptop that I use for work. So it’s something only a writer knows and feels. You can’t, and I must repeat, can never, write on a work machine. Unless you’re writing about the work you do. Which almost makes sense.
When I blog about Spiderz, I do it on my work machine. It’s easier to remember context, and since most of my work assets are on that machine, I don’t have to go around looking for them elsewhere. Now, when I write about stuff that’s not work, like life or a dozen or so other projects that I undertake, I simply can’t use my work machine for all this. It’s just not possible. I mean, realistically. At the moment, I have the maximum number of Spaces open on my work machine, and each Space has its own apps, pages, and whatnot. A Space on macOS is like a desktop. You can have 16, and you can swipe between them. So if I’m working on a client project, I keep all the apps related to it in a single Space. Once I’m done, I close them, and the cycle continues. If I were to imagine opening up my writing app and related pages in between one of these workspaces, there are a few things that can go wrong. At times, I’ve seen myself get distracted and pick up the hobby over work. And at other times, I simply don’t want to see them. I work at a quick pace and swipe between Spaces, browser tabs, and all around my desktop only to get stuff done. So that’s what the left brain prefers and does. Not the cozy, right-brained thinking, imagining, and at times, crying. Okay, that’s a bit of a stretch!
Get the picture? You need a different machine. Or even more. It depends on what’s being done, how it’s being done, and why it’s being done. My work machine wants me to, well, keep doing what I do all the time. Not take any breaks, not blink for a moment, and given the power that it yields over me, I do just that, and no more. It’s where all the stuff that needs to get done and shipped happens. Things like writing code, designing websites, and composing letters (okay, emails!), to my clients. This isn’t where my mind thinks about how beautiful the weather has been in the UAE for the past few weeks, or about that ‘Alif Noon’ play that I’m writing now and haven’t been able to write for the past six years. Yeah, this isn’t happening. Not on my work machine.
My work machine is a laptop. It’s almost always docked to my monitor, which is on a permanently fixed standing desk that I’ve concocted by placing an IKEA Lack table on top of an IKEA Bjursta extendable table, so that when I work, I don’t wreck what’s left of my back. Then there are a couple of things attached to my laptop: the monitor that also charges it, and a USB-C dock that connects my backup drives. So, two cables that, when I want, I can detach and make a move. Pretty perfect and much needed, because all Ramadan I’ve been lazing on our couch and spending hours working while lying on it, at times not moving a limb. Those fingers, yes, but no limbs.
Now, for years and years I’ve been wanting to find the best machine to write on, and like you’d think, it could be another laptop. Easily, that’s the solution. But for me, well, another laptop? It’s kind of boring, and it also brings with it all those things that I don’t want to bother about. Battery, putting it here or there, adjusting the screen tilt or brightness, then wrecking my neck by looking down at it while I go about typing and all. No, a laptop isn’t the right machine for writing. Unless it’s docked, connected to a beautiful screen, a keyboard, and a mouse. And I mean to say, beautiful, all three.
Meet the iMac. It’s all that. It’s docked in one spot, somewhere in your room. Mine is right where my wife has said it must be moved away from, the dining table in the living room. Don’t ask me how or why it’s here, that’s a very long story, but it is, and it’s in a wonderful place. Docked, always powered on, tilt right where I want it, height a bit lower than eye level — that I’ll fix by placing a few of those books I bought from a trip to Karachi and haven’t read yet, ouch, under it — and a writing experience that’s out of this world. The Magic Keyboard, rightly so, is okay, pretty good. And the mouse too, fantastic.
Ah, here’s the thing, it ain’t a new iMac, and this isn’t the first one we’ve used at home, it’s the third. So this post is not fuelled by all the awesomeness one feels when buying and unwrapping an Apple product, oh no, my dear, that’s not what this is. It’s a man finding love in the middle of nowhere, and simply letting everyone know.
To write, and to write well, you need its own place. If you can find one, make one, or simply put it together using an iMac you’ve had lying around the house, well then absolutely, go ahead and do it. It doesn’t need to be fancy. Just a space that you’ll find, when those lines of prose or poetry, must I say, come tumbling down, thy mind’s alley, making thee want them put, whereto they belong, between pen and paper, written down, for time to see, what you and I, had lived and seen, this day, this time.
Get an iMac, even in 2026. And hope Apple don’t kill it.