Ever since I got an Apple IIe in the mid-1980’s I’ve been, other than a brief one year excursion to "the darkside", a loyal Apple user. It’s an odd thing, being a mac user.
Last week I had a conversation with my work colleague, Halvdan, about all the different Apple computers we’ve each had over the years. Here’s the results:
Robin: Apple IIe, Lisa [on loan from mom’s office], IIgs [spent a lot of time on at friend’s], Mac Classic, Powerbook 520c, Mac 6400 Creative Edition, Powerbook 3G (sold to a clown in Germany on ebay last year), Powerbook G4
Halvdan: Apple 128k, Apple +, Powerbook 140, 2 x Powerbook 180, Powermac 4400, Powerbook G3 250mhz, eMac, iMac G5
That’s almost an orchard of Apples…
The strange thing is, whilst you might expect geeks and gadget freaks to enthuse about their computers, just about anyone who has a Mac occassionally finds themselves having conversations about which Macs they’ve had. Regardless of their level of geekdom, Mac users have a deep affection for their computers which is something that our Windows user friends simply can’t relate to or understand.
I happen to work down the street from the Apple Store in London’s Regent Street and it just so happens that tonight is the launch of Tiger the "much anticipated" (according to the press at least) OS 10.4.
I don’t have to pass the Apple Store on my way home but I’m planning to stop by to see if there are any freebie’s on offer at the 6pm launch party. I’ll probably also connect to the wireless network, take a few snaps with my mobile and put them on flickr (like others already have – 2, 3, 4, 5), and maybe even post a few here.
I know it’s wierd. I know non-mac users don’t understand it. Hell, I’m not even sure I understand why us Mac users get so excited about a little machine but we do and we can’t seem to help ourselves.
I’m off to the Tiger launch…
The photos I took at the OSX launch are now in my photo album – look left and scroll down until you find it. I took about 20 shots using a Nokia 6630 then bluetoothed them to my Powerbook. I used the Powerbook to connect to the Wi-Fi network that leaks out the front of the Apple Store and updated both this blog and my flickr account. Rather geeky but also an interesting exercise. What if I’d been on site during a political protest or some sort of incident? I, or a journalist, could have told the World what was happening withing minutes.
The cult of Mac – a strange thing indeed. I grew up on Apple’s, tried the occasional banana but always went back in the end.
My mum worked for Apple until I was about 14 so from about the age of 5 I was working on one form of Apple computer or another.
Unfortunatly when I first moved out and got married my computer budget wouldn’t stretch as far as a Mac so entered the Computer Wilderness occupied by self build IBM clones with an Intel chip and (shudders) Windows.
Five years later I’m still using a Windows machine – basically because last time we brough a computer my wife wouldn’t let me go Mac – she liked Windows!!!
Problem solved for the next update (later this year) I got her a laptop for her Birthday, set up a wireless broadband network which leaves the path clear for me to return to the fold later this year.