Anniversary

Happy 50th Birthday Apple!

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When I got my first Mac, I have never thought I will become a Mac person, having used Windows my whole life up till entering NUS. The iBook G4 happened to be the cheapest computer available for freshies, so I bought it. That white, overly heavy, yet fun and fresh laptop still remains one of my favorite Macs up till this day, even as it sits in a drawer untouched for years. I hope the LCD still works (LCD displays have a tendency to explode by themselves if you leave them in the Singapore living room weather, this happened to my 2007 MacBook).Then I joined the Mac User Group in NUS, firstly as the VP, and then as the representative and the rest is history.

I never managed to have enough money then to own more than one PowerPC Mac, which is a pity. I always wanted to own a G4 Cube.

Then of course the iPhone came out and suddenly Apple became the company everyone wants to buy their consumer devices from.

Many years of buying Apple devices and keeping up on Apple news eventually resulted in a career shift during COVID-19 where I began working for Apple. Once you start working for the company you admired for a long time often the fantasy ends. Which was not exactly the case for me, I do see more negative aspects of the company and its ways, and while I do not follow Apple news daily any more (more like weekly now), I still remain a strong Apple fanboy. It is almost always better to be Apple’s customer than to be Apple’s employee.

Speaking of which, Tim Cook’s “I promise you celebrations” really meant celebrations for the executive teams and some influencers, as they spent hoards of cash inviting artistes to perform in Apple Stores around the civilized world, but only invite themselves and local influencers. Their worldwide employees? A poster, T-shirt, pin, or what we term as swag, were given to each employee. And Apple often gives out swag, so these are nothing out of the ordinary. For locations with campuses, employees were allowed to join in uneventful beer bashes (small scale rather than big), which is just a bit of free beer and lousy finger food. I guess only Apple employees in Apple Park are actual employees worthy of celebration (Sir Paul). And that is what is negative about an Apple employee, more often than not you are under appreciated and wonder why you toil for the company.

I am no longer an employee, so i hope to continue enjoying their products for the next fifty years at least. Now John Ternus will you please make me my 12 inch MacBook replacement already.

Happy 10th Birthday, iPhone

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iPhone Original

I still remember the day I was sitting in my room, at my desk, watching the keynote and calculating how long would I have to save in order to afford the phone should it come to Singapore eventually (roughly 7 months, I was a student then).

Many months later when it seemed like the iPhone will not be coming to Singapore anytime soon I started exploring the possibilities of buying an iPod Touch instead, for it was running “iPhone OS” albeit with several restrictions like the inability to edit calendars on the iPod (they reversed that stupid decision very soon after the iPod keynote).

Then I finally saw it in person.

My friend Roger, had one and I remembered meeting him just to have a look at the phone. There I was, sitting outside McDonald’s at Bugis Junction, looking at this unbelievable device – supposingly a phone, but unlike any phone I knew then. It has such a bright display that it looked out of this world, for until then there was no such display in the world. The reaction to touch was instantaneous, and NOTHING with a touchscreen up till that point was as responsive as the iPhone’s display was.

It was, to put it simply, MAGIC.

I would eventually come upon a chance several months later to own one of the original US sets, thanks to a friend’s aunt who worked in an airline and flew to the US often back then.

Even though it now has a dent at one of its corner, and iOS 3.1.3 is as slow as hell on its hardware, it still sits proudly on my shelf in its dock(that came in the box!).

The original iPhone, is still my favorite iPhone.

Thank you Steve, and thank you Apple, for this wonderful gift to the world.

Sent from my iPhone

Remembering Steve Jobs 2013

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It has been two years since Steve passed away from cancer. His sudden departure to every single one of us devoted fans was just devastating, the news breaking the day after a lacklustre iPhone 4S Apple event. I could still remember the events of that day two years ago and how it affected me for the remainder of that year. Even today, I could not bring myself to read the badly written Steve Jobs biography.

Two years down, what has changed?

Analysts are still looking for excuses to pull down Apple in order to manipulate its stock price. Their recent excuse was “Apple is doomed without Steve Jobs!”. Three or more years ago, their excuse was “Apple is doomed BECAUSE OF Steve Jobs!”. No creativity there, it seems. Well business analysts (and generally business people) are idiots anyway, so it’s not hard to figure that out.

Jony Ive has used his influence to force out yet another thorn in his eye, this time round Scott Forstall, who is probably the last guy in Apple who will stand up to him. Ive totally has Tim wrapped around his finger, but it’s a situation that is mutually beneficial. He still goes about his whole English gentlemen speaking softly routine in PR videos thing.

Hair Force One Craig Federighi is now the third most important person in Apple. It’s cool, I like him and his ideas for OS X.

Tim? Tim is still running all the operations work at Apple, just like when Steve was still around. His job scope never changed in the last decade, despite what some silly analyst-people say.

So what is missing from Apple? Innovation?

Don’t be silly.

Apple has created way more interesting products in the last few years than say, from 2001-2006.

What is missing is simply, Steve’s presence.

The energy behind his presentations at Apple events/Macworlds, the fuck-you attitude he gives to anything he disapproves of, the whole “he sounds like an arsehole but millions look up to him” thing.

That “Steve” thing.

It is never coming back.