In retrospect, the subdued event seems likely to have been influenced by the knowledge Tim Cook and other Apple senior executives had to have had; that Steve Jobs was hours from death. Yesterday evening, in a moment, it was no longer the underachieving iPhone4S but the tribute iPhone4Steve.
Like many Apple fanboys (our household has 3 iPods, 2 iPhones, 2 MacBooks, 1 iPad and pretty much all the software Apple offers for OS-X), I was a long hold-out, content with my Windows OS machines, and skeptical about the cost and functionality trade-offs of Apple computers. But the marketing was a siren and iTunes was enticing and I tried the least expensive iPod. Soon I was following developments of new MacBooks and iMacs. It became apparent that the all-in price of MacBooks was approaching that of its competitors and I was smitten with the matte-black finish. With my husband away away on a 2-week vacation with his family and looking to treat myself, I visited the newly opened Apple Store in Yorkdale. The friendly clerk who approached me observed I was wearing a York University alumni polo-shirt and offered me the educational discount. That simple offer, which cost Apple about $150 if I recall correctly, clinched the sale that day and sealed a ongoing commitment to the company's products and services.
Since Steve Jobs returned to manage Apple in 1996, Apple has been much more than its technology. It has been its renowned service and its unmatched understanding of how people interact with and use their machines.. While engineers and technogeeks love their Macs as much as anyone, it was the creatives who adopted the Apple system and mindset first and influenced the rest of us artsies to take the plunge.
Steve Jobs described Apple as the intersection of technology and the liberal arts. Count me among the liberal arts graduates with a geek side. Touch-tone telephones intrigued me when they arrived but I was seduced by the Contempra phone when it was introduced in 1968. I'm pretty sure, if Jobs had ever seen a Contempra phone with in-handset touch-tone calling, he would have been impressed with its attention to design detail and functionality aimed at making something as simple as placing a telephone call a joyful experience.
When personal computers began to appear in the early 1980s, I was the first among my friends to own one; I was communicating via dial-up bulletin-boards before the Internet was released from its academic and military origins. I wanted these things because they helped me write and communicate and never was there a more effective social network than those dial-up bulletin boards: soc.motss and can.motts. I was communicating on an international scale with people I could never hope to meet face to face while Mark Zuckerberg's diapers were still very wet. Technology was empowering imaginations and building networks and we were doing what no one would have though possible years, even months, before.
Steve Jobs understood that it's not always about having the latest and most powerful and empowering technology, nor is it about having the ultimate design; he knew how and where to find the balance. There were those who wondered why Apple did not offer an LTE phone on Tuesday without understanding that, while such a device would offer faster data transmission, the batteries currently available to operate it are just too bulky to fit in something we'd want to carry in our pockets all day. So in the same way the first iPod looks a bit clumsy and large when compared to today's Nano, we will need to wait a bit. A large part of Job's brilliance was in knowing when the possible technology was at the intersection with consumers' imaginations and giving us the ultimate experience.
Next week, I will convert my MobileMe service to iCloud, I will upgrade my iPhone to iOS5 and I will celebrate Steve Jobs for insisting on getting it right. And I will be a shameless fanboy.
