Anniversary – MacRyu – The Worst Mac Blog in Singapore, and Some Say the World

Happy Birthday iPhone

July 7, 2017 by Ryu

The iPhone.

It was the one device which the world needed.

It was the one device that changed the world.

Everything we do in our daily lives today will not have been possible without the introduction of the iPhone in 2017;

Taking uber,

Running a business from the palm of your hands,

Full scale, WIDESPREAD, portable video conferencing on the scale of everyone,

Checking the time it will take for the next bus to arrive at the bus stop,

Complaining about the next Singapore train breakdown on all of social media,

and much, much, more.

Hell, REAL social media won’t have been possible without the iPhone.

Here’s to ten great years of the iPhone. And to the next hundred.

Happy 40th Anniversary, Apple!

April 3, 2016 by Ryu

Like others, I thought it will be fitting for me to recount some simple milestones in how I got started in Macs and Apple.

This is my very first Mac – the iBook G4 12-inch.

I could not remember exactly which generation it was, except for the fact that I took ownership of it in December 2004. It was the very last one made in Taiwan before the production was shifted to China.

It was the cheapest computer (even among the PCs!) at the time that my university offered, and I got one partly for that reason (also receiving the news around the same time that my cousin ordered the almost 4000 dollar 12-inch Powerbook).

I did not like Mac OS X at the start, and it took me a while before I grew to like it, and then love it. Mingling among other Apple users (there were very very few of them in school then) helped, and I eventually got involved in MacNUS.

This was me during one of the Matriculation Notebook Fairs held at the Yusof Ishak Hall, I was tending the Apple (Diversitec) booth of course. I spend most of my time drinking iced tea since there were not many customers on most days then.

Eventually this became my official room setup, after finding out the wonders of screen spanning on Mac OS X. I purchased a Apple Pro Keyboard (the white one) and paired it with probably the Razer Pro mouse for the setup.

Then my very first desktop Mac appeared in my life – the 2007 Aluminium iMac 24-inch. This was the very first of the aluminium iMacs that will span all the time until today.

The iBook got relegated to being the “side desk computer”. For the first time there was not a single Windows computer in my room.

By the way, in case you are wondering, all my Macs are still working fine today. The 2007 iMac is still in regular use on my desk, especially for podcast production, and my iBook is still running fine as well.

This eventually became the setup (before I started buying other newer Macs) involving my first Mac notebook and Mac desktop. Can you spot the iPods?

I also got to know some of my longest friends since getting involved with the local Mac User Group. The group is largely dead, but three of the friends I got to know then I still talk to on a very regular basis.

What is your Apple story?

Remembering Steve Jobs 2013

November 4, 2013October 6, 2013 by Ryu

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.