I normally stick to words in 140 characters or less, but with a heavy heart, I must write this.
My first exposure to Apple products were back in grade school. In the computer lab, I used educational software on the Apple IIe and eventually the Mac. I loved using the mac so much, I convinced my family to purchase a Mac for use in the home. We got a Performa 550. Pretty clunky performance with a 33 MEGAHERTZ 68k processor and a VERY pokey 2400 baud modem. In modern standards, it wouldn’t even hold a candle to even the 1st gen iPhone, but it was a very influential product for me. This was the Mac that I used during the rise of the information age in the 1990’s. I learned to use Photoshop and learned HTML on the Mac as well.
The 1990’s were dark times for Apple and Mac fans. I was often ridiculed for using a Mac when my other peers in school were using PCs. “You’re using a dinosaur”, they said, “No one makes software for Macs”, they said. The price of Apple stock was less than two large pizzas back then. Sadly, demands of the world and my family forced me into the world of Windows. I became the other side of the “rest of us” for a few years. I won’t say it was THAT of a bad experience, but it involved a lot of Blue Screens of Death. I really learned the ins and outs of PCs, eventually learning to install Windows and eventually built my own computer in my college years.
During my darkest time when I had a life-threatening illness, the iPod that was given to me as a gift gave me songs that got me through the recovery. Eventually, I fully recovered and resumed my studies at school.
I started working at a computer store during the final years of college and was exposed to Mac OS X for the first time. Many of my co-workers were Mac users and gushed with glee over the experience. I was already an iPod fan, so going back to the Mac was a no-brainer. My first modern Mac and my first ever laptop was the first MacBook Pro in 2006. Damn, it was an incredible experience turning it on for the first time with the welcome video.
The iPhone release was one of the most memorable geeky moments of recent memory for me. I waited 12 hours on line with MacBookPro in hand of course to get mine, paying the $600 + tax for it. I still have the special bag they gave me somewhere stored. I would wait for it again in 2008, 2009 and 2010, even paying FULL PRICE for the iPhone 4 since shitty AT&T wouldn’t give me a discount. I would wait it for the iPad 1 as well, but I just got the iPad 2 recently months after it came out.
Today, every computer that I own is Mac. My iPad and me are one when I go out. My iPhone is my “3rd arm” or “2nd Brain”. My Apple TV entertains me. My MacBook Pro is the hub of mylife. My Mac Mini brings my artwork to life. I owe a lot of what I do in my life to Steve Jobs vision and his team. Could I do it with a Windows machine? Can I do it with an Android? Yeah. I can, but the user experience, integration, cohesiveness pales in comparison to Mac OS and iOS. You may not use or own a Mac or iPhone or iPad, but Steve Jobs pushed the envelope that others followed, progressing technology further. We would still be using IBM PS/2s RAZRs and Treos if it weren’t for Apple.
You may never see another person like Steve Jobs do so much to an industry in your life ever again. You may never see a person talked in the same vein as Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Walt Disney. You may never experience a person like Steve change the way we listen to music and watch TV, movies and games.
Remember that.
-Ronald Hennessy
This is what I waited for at 10am. While it’s not mind blowing, at least its one less thing to worry about in music. If it weren’t for EMI/Apple Corps meddling, we would be listening to these albums on iTunes a LOT more sooner.
