BUYER'S GUIDE
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To choose which Apple device(s) will serve you best, it helps to focus first on what you wish to do: view content in your office or home, travel to present that content on the road, type your own content, paint your own content, organize masses of content, drive interactive 3-D video on multiple large screens, and so forth.
Full Power Portability
The center of the Apple family is the MacBook Pro. It has more computing power than most desktops, yet its portability frees both business and home users to take the computer to wherever it is most useful. The MacBook Pro is the ideal platform for composing typed information such as reports and spreadsheets. It is perfect for first composing then presenting Keynote/Powerpoint presentations by plugging into overhead projectors, big-screen displays, etc. The MacBook Pro's internal hard disk and CD/DVD drives provide lots of room for local storage. There are several models within the MacBook Pro series, with screen size (and therefore body size and weight) being the major difference between them.
Streamlined For Travel
Barely two centimeters thick, the MacBook Air is to the MacBook Pro what a roadster is to an SUV. It takes portability to the next level, minimizing weight by stripping out everything not strictly necessary. How often do you access CDs or DVDs? If next to never, why have the weight and volume of an internal drive? If most of the data you use is on other equipment (file servers, the iCloud, a corporate network, a home network), how much local storage do you really need? The MacBook Air uses an internal flash drive rather than a bulky hard disk. Result? Much higher effective speed accessing programs and data. Anyone who travels frequently knows that every ounce is a burden. The MacBook Air is the ideal laptop for anyone constantly on the go.
Personal Access Display Device
How often do you need a keyboard? If most of what you do is view data which has been created elsewhere, and which is stored elsewhere, welcome to the iPad. This is not a Mac. The iPad is a tablet device which lets you browse the internet, establish video teleconferences, maintain email and calendar contact through a corporate VPN, telnet into rack mounted servers, and do thousands of other tasks which do not require large amounts of typing. While it is increasingly possible to use an iPad independently, it performs best when synced with a Mac (or PC) running iTunes.
Desktop All-in-One
There are still valid reasons to have a stationary computer, not least of which is large screen size. When portability is not important, but an uncluttered desktop is, the iMac will serve you well. Often mistaken for an external monitor, the iMac is a single chassis which contains every component except the keyboard and mouse. And with Bluetooth, both of those items can be attached wirelessly.
Desktop With Portability
When portability is important, you can still achieve large screen size at your desktop by buying an external monitor or HD TV and plugging a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air into it. This lets you work at full size while at your desk, yet take all of your computing power on the road whenever you wish.
Secure Workstation or File Server
Another configuration using an external monitor or HD TV involves the Mac mini. Especially in public locations, there is value in being able to lock the computer inside a cabinet under the counter, leaving only the monitor and keyboard and mouse exposed. This protects both against snatch & grab of the hard drive as well as data theft by way of USB flash drive. The Mac mini is ideal for such uses, as well as for unattended function as a file server. Rack mounting brackets are available.
Powerful Workstation or Industrial Strength Server
People coming to Apple from the Microsoft world frequently head first towards the Mac Pro because it looks reassuringly like a tower PC. It is the only machine in the Macintosh family which still supports expansion slots for daughterboards, and the only one with room inside the tower case for multiple drives. With the advent of Thunderbolt, however, processor bus speeds are accessible by external devices. Plus, wireless continual backup from a laptop or mini to a Time Capsule provides more reliability with less expense for the vast majority of users. In contrast, the Mac Pro is the machine you want if you need to run a graphic arts department, or produce professional-grade movies, or manage databases and accounting systems on mirrored/RAID hard drives, or drive all the audio and full-motion video elements of a concert hall. It's really good at tasks like those. But for ordinary business or home use, a Mac Pro is a bit like driving a Lamborghini in bumper-to-bumper traffic... it looks amazing, but its limits are never challenged.
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