My name is Marcus Chance, and I’m an Apple Addict. The seeds were planted in the ‘80s, when my parents came home with an Apple IIe; the kind with a monitor that showed green text on a black screen. I wrote programs in Apple Basic to help me study Spanish vocabulary.
I strayed when I got to college. My parents sent me off with a PC running MS DOS. It was convenient to have in my dorm room for late night work on my Pascal assignments. But when I dropped my plans to major Computer Science, the Macs in the computer labs did just fine. The environment was more social, and even the Macs seemed friendly.
In the Peace Corps, I didn’t have a computer at my post at all. I did lesson plans by hand, graded tests by hand, and read books and magazines. Sometimes I counted ceiling tiles. On weekends I would use the Macs in the lab at the Peace Corps office in the capital, but the real attraction was the air conditioning in the lab. I tried bringing a Mac Powerbook to Africa for my 3rd year, but either the humidity or the power grid was too hard on it. Then another volunteer showed up with a Toshiba PC and the game “Civilization”. Computer games nearly squashed my interest in Apple forever. At grad school I used student loan money to buy a Gateway Pentium PC with Windows ’98 (’98!). Then I bought Civilization II and sometimes spent the whole weekend playing it from start to finish. The Boston Acoustics speakers were a nice touch.
When I joined the corporate world, I truly entered the land of the PC. We just lived with the fact that they would crash all the time and occasionally get completely taken over by some random virus. Still, they were half the price of the candy-colored iMac, and even cheaper with my Dell discount. I replaced my Windows 98 machine with an XP box with more storage than I knew what to do with and a flat panel monitor for good measure. Now we could rent DVDs and basically have a home entertainment system.
 |
| iPhone 4 - Courtesy of Apple |
But then Steve Jobs came back. And he brought the iPod Touch. And the iPhone 4. And the iPad. Who needs to check email on your PC when you can check it on the iPod? Who needs to play 72 hour Civilization games, when you can finish a game in 2 hours on the gorgeous Retina screen of the iPhone 4? Who needs to stream Netflix on your flat panel, when you can watch the movies from anywhere on your iPad? (Well, I need to, because I don’t have an iPad. Yet.)
 |
| iPad 2 - Courtesy of Apple |
Now I’m in so deep I’m even watching the iOS release conferences. I’m reading the “live” blogging. I eagerly wait for the release date so I can…not buy anything. Because that would be really impulsive. Do I really need another device? How will my iPod touch feel if I abandon it for the iPad? I want to be an early adopter, but I don’t want to spend the money. Or deal with the stuff. But I’m still eying that iPad.
What technology are you addicted to?
Some rights reserved
Some rights reserved
I think you missed the boat on early adoption now that iPad2 is out, Bro.
ReplyDeleteBut een a hard-core anti-aPple koolade guy like me has to admit that the iPads are a nice piece of kit, even at aPple prices. :-)
As for my own tech addictions, I'm getting pretty hooked on this Android phone, I almost don't regret leaving Palm. Almost.
Maybe you'll want to check out the HP tablets with the Palm OS that are coming out soon.
ReplyDeleteI'm tempted, but now that I'm on the Android path, I kinda feel like that ship has sailed. (shrug)
ReplyDeleteI mean, sure, I'll look at them, but I doubt I'll buy one.
The kind that cooks food. :-)
ReplyDeleteNice to know there are other Apple fanatics out there. I have an apple IIe, IIc, Mac Plus, and MAC SE/30, all in operating condition. In fact, my grandchildren enjoy using the Apple IIe to run the Oregon Trail and a few other fun games in 5 1/4 inch format.
ReplyDelete