Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Apple Whore

It has taken thirty five years for me to evolve from the chrysalis of MSDOS into a fully formed Apple whore. No, that isn't strictly true, since I won an Apple computer for the school years ago and loved it. Get a Mac, don't look back. In the day, yeah, I have to shamefacedly admit to being if not a geek, at least a languid anorak, casually tapping shortcut keys which looked almost alchemical at the time and driving friends insane... "how did you DO THAT?"
Ten or so years ago, a mobile phone was an almost essential, but I would not have suffered permanent paralysis without one. Last week, I bought an iPhone, the Vuitton of communication devices. I can subside into a self-contained virtual reality with this thing - reading Heart of Darkness as well as sending banal little notes to people via a chic little message interface - while jolly little gnomes trot glibly across the bottom of my screen. There are thousands of apps to play with - a melancholic's paradise. I now have one more thing to worry about - the cost of the bereavement counselling I shall assuredly need if I leave it on the train.
Apple's first computer arrived when I was twenty-four years old - half a lifetime away for both them and me. It had a massive 4 k bytes of RAM with an ' 8 k byte capacity ON BOARD' . Wow. This, together with a cassette interface, made it a world beater. They have come quite a long way from Steve Jobs' slightly greasy chalk pinstripe Madison Avenue look - nice parting, Steve. The image is from the first edition of MacWorld, 'dealer enquiries invited', and a quite awful first logo of Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree. The original machine was priced at - wait for it - $666.66. Say no more.

4 comments:

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  2. Did you get the battery charged and the contacts transferred on your 'Vuitton' of phones? Now I have HandyMan checking out the deals trying to convince me (with Women's Math no less) that we NEED an iPhone to go to Canada.

    Thanks.

    (Sorry for the repeat. Removed typos)

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  3. Of course HM needs an Iphone!!! :

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXcar6CbWS0&feature=related

    Plane trips are sooooo long

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  4. It's so reassuring to discover that one can have some small influence over one's friends...If HM does get one he should be reminded to deactivate the 3G since it will think it's on holiday and, all by itself, find available networks and run up vast bills if used outside of its home country. Just a thought.

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