RT

I worked for a company that made Apple/Mac-specific software for kids and a program that hooked the Mac up to a keyboard or guitar and scored the music you played. This was 1990. Being raised on a command line, the Mac was definitely like a toy. I now work in a data center which is Mac-free, and while I don't hate Apple products, they really don't fit into my life.

That being said, no one can deny Jobs' influence on the industry and the world, really. I saw an article on his passing that compared him with Ford and Rockefeller. That was a wild boast, but I could not disagree with it.

EDIT: LowCel, I have to sympathize with your story. Having been a subscriber at Verizon since 2003, I can attest to the fact that their customer service has gone down the toilet since about 2007. They used to be the shizz, not so much now. Coverage is awesome, and the agents are friendly, they are just not empowered to do much and their procedures are not at all consistent.

DropDeadFred

dang we don't have one where I live....

Velo Gator

Fify to make you feel old.

Soloist Assassin

That is dreadfully unfortunate. I eat there, nearly 7 times a week. As a matter of fact, they open at 11, and I am planning on grabbing some lunch there today. It is good stuff too. They go out of their way to get the freshest ingredients, and avoid factory farms, and what not.

patentcad

Fify.

I already feel old.

datlas 

You ARE old, but also quite immature.

Feel better now?

Quel

Man, now I'm craving some Chipotle.

patentcad

Oddly, yes.

DropDeadFred

ive eaten there before...a lot when I lived in Encino...being on the east coast in a small southern town has its drawbacks....as well as its benefits...the latter being fewer

rjones28 

I'm posting from an HP laptop, but Mrs. rjones28 is on a MacBook Pro and naturally there is an iPod floating around the house.

patentcad

iPods can freeze on a bicycle you know. I have experienced this.

BillyD

I've been an Apple/Mac fanatic since before Day 1. In 1983 I was a systems analyst and usability expert for a major corporation at the time when the predecessor to the Macintosh came out, a machine called Lisa (named after Steve's daughter). It was never commercially available to the general public, but my work group leased a machine for a few months to check it out and we all knew immediately that this was the future. The graphical user interface, mouse, dropdown menus and countless other elements improved ease of use and productivity so much that this was, to us, a no-brainer.

Little did we know what an uphill battle it would be for this "no-brainer" to become widly accepted. Essentially, not until the overwhelming success of the iPod did the Mac finaly get it's proper respect as people began to look deeper into other Apple products.

All that aside, make no mistake about it, Steve was a genius and an extraordinary visionary and he is clearly and solely responsible for Apple's status today. I can only pray that they have enough momentum to carry them forward for a good while. Steve Jobs will be missed.

DropDeadFred

+1

Soloist Assassin

I just ordered my burrito on my phone today, in Steve Jobs memory. I could of used my computer I am typing to you all on, but again it is a Dell.

patentcad

You are the first person I've met in ages who had exposure to Apple products earlier than I did in 1984.

DropDeadFred

im going to our equivalent of Chipotle...Moe's. Gift certificates aren't always bad

RT

Computer Science, high school, 1982, Apple IIe. It's not a Mac, but it WAS different than what we had been using prior. Of course my high school was within 45 minutes of Apple's campus. We programmed what at the time was a monumental achievement - Missile Command.

The last Mac I owned had a whopping 2 Mb of memory and a 105 Mb hard drive. That was an amazing amount of memory at the time, and 9.6 Kb modem was like driving the Space Shuttle.

BillyD

When that machine (Lisa) came out, we were as giddy as new parents. We were virtually fighting over it, so much so that we had to set up a schedule to use it. I even remember staying late after hours more than once to play with it.

We were so happy that finally somebody "got it". This was our mission and our goal in life, to make computer systems easy to use and more productive. The difference between that machine and a command-line PC was like night and day.

At that time we did a lot of technical writing too, user guides and stuff. The system we used allowed us to do some revolutionary things in terms of correcting mistakes and reformatting documents and such. It was a Xerox system, I forget the name of it now. Little did we know at the time that was the ideology that Apple bought from Xerox to seed development of the Mac OS. Xerox didn't know what to do with it, they sold it to Apple outright. Steve Jobs had the foresight and vision to realize this technology could revolutionize the world.

patentcad

Yeah well that Mac interface c.1984 was the biggest 'Duh' I've ever seen. And the tech heads didn't GET it. Why wouldn't people be able to remember a few text commands? they wondered. Amazing. I still see this mentality today daily after nearly 30 years. And I still can't quite fathom it.

Some hard core (not all) tech guys just don't understand how Jobs' thinking worked, but the rest of us connect with that instantly, and there are 100 of us for every 1 of them. Hence Apple's status as a $100 billion + company today.

Keep it simple stupid. Oddly, it often takes a genius to really make that happen. Go figure.

RT

IBM had already saturated the business world, and had so for some time. Apple's mantra of creating 'beautiful' technology is not what Wall Street cares about (unless you own Apple stock). That Microsoft horked Apple GUI was a coup, and helped further saturate the business world with PC's, relegating Apple to where it truly belongs: In graphic design, film, and art applications. Apple painted themselves into a corner with their paranoid protection of the O/S. That they didn't license it in the mid-80's merely prolonged the windfall they are now seeing. Nearly all of Apple's successes are outside of the workplace unless you live in Hollywood or on Skywalker Ranch, and to that I say 'Well done, Apple'.

patentcad

And they'll never get it. It's not about Wall Street. It's about Main Street. Happily Apple doesn't really need tech or IT guys any more. They went straight to the electorate. increasingly enterprise computer and IT choices will be dictated from the trenches up, not from the IT desk down. That's how it should be, and resistance is futile.

This whole 'Macs belong in graphics' notion belongs in the early 1990's, and it displays a stunning ignorance of modern computing trends. Apple will gain increasing traction in enterprise. It's already happening. They won't threaten Windows hegemony anytime soon, but could Apple command 20% of global computing market share within a decade, particularly with an increasing shift to tablet and mobile computing? Of course. Ask RIM about that. Before they go under I mean.

When it's all said and done, Apple is poised to be the largest tech company on the planet within a few years, larger than IBM, Cisco, HP, Microsoft, etc. etc. I can't see anything on the horizon that's going to stop them as things currently stand. But the tech space is the fastest shifting quicksand in business, and the valley floor is lined with the carcasses of companies that couldn't keep up with the changes. So stay tuned.

Soloist Assassin

1984 huh? It all makes sense now.... Contrary to what this commercial was suggesting.

BillyD

You're absolutely right. So many of them can't think outside the box they were trained in. I remember having a hostile relationship with more than one programmer, and my softball team used to kick their team's ass routinely.

Our Usability group had to constantly battle with upper management for our existence. So many of them couldn't see that our work saved money down the line in increased productivity. Duh, it's not rocket science! But mostly they just didn't care to see it . . . it's a big corporation and they're willing to waste money down the line in exchange for making themselves look good in the present. Typical corporate mentality.

Soloist Assassin

Heinrich FTW!

rjones28 

Me too, except it would have had to be 1980 or 1981 in my case. It was the teacher's personal machine. The school had two terminals for the kids to sign up for time on to do the assignments; like learning BASIC.