My very first Apple was a IIc; from what I recall it was pretty cutting edge to have a computer in your home. The only thing I remember using the computer for was writing some really basic code and playing Lemonade Stand. I'm pretty sure the computer would boot up from a 5¼ disk and I don't remember having a hard drive.
The next Apple was a Macintosh SE; at this point computers were getting a little more visible for consumers but they were still a ways away from reaching critical mass. I remember the awesomeness of this computer, it had the tiny 9” screen but the resolution and the GUI were the envy of the neighborhood geeks. I used this computer for writing papers using Mircosoft Word. I thought Microsoft and Apple was a match made in heaven, little did I know that software developers would face a continuous uphill battle of development time and expense for having to support OS on Apple and DOS/Windows.
At this time I had a long period of not having an Apple product however my first job in publishing was in technical support. I was hired at the time when the company was moving away from manual publishing to electronic publishing. We had this huge project to rollout PowerMac’s to all graphic designers and production editors. It was an amazing rollout; the old school graphic designers had the biggest learning curve because they were so use to taking pencil to paper and having to use tools like Freehand and Illustrator were a bit of a shock to the system. On the support side; the biggest challenges always seemed to be software related when moving content from PC’s to Apples. Things never flowed identically, but it was still an incredible experience for my first professional job.
I few years later I was going back for my MBA and it was time to buy a notebook. The deals were pretty good in education for both PC and Apple products; I was on the fence about getting a Powerbook because I had not had an Apple in years. At the end of the day I got swept up in the beauty of the Powerbook and made the purchase. It was a great computer and got me through my MBA successfully. After about 4yrs of having the computer the screen hinges came loose and the screen fried. I still have the computer in a box in storage.
At this point in my Apple cycle I had another break until the iPods; while I have stories about each of these devices I will spare you the details and just provide you the list:
2nd Gen iPod
5th Gen iPod
3rd Gen iPod Shuffle
1st Gen iPod Nano
2nd Gen iPod Touch
2nd Gen iPad
Looking at all of the devices that I have owned; Apple had this amazing knack for getting easy-to-use technology into the hands of consumers without burdening us with the inner workings of the product. Apple plays in a field where it does a lot of thinking for consumers; which has its drawbacks but Apple has honed this technique to perfection.
Thank you Steve Jobs for the wonderful experiences!
