In 1984, my parents were in an electronics store looking to buy me an electronic typewriter for Christmas when I was in the fourth grade. They picked the typewriter out, it had simple word processing. While waiting in line, my mother, a technical writer, went to look at a brand new Mac 128k. She came back to my father and said, “Put the typewriter down. We’re getting this.” And thus began my love affair with Apple.
I stayed with Macs until 1996, when I finally traded in my (overclocked) Mac LC III for a Dell setup. I wanted to be able to play more games, and the games all seemed to be out for Microsoft systems. I never felt fully comfortable using a PC. I’m using one right now, and I still don’t feel comfortable with it. But I know the setup better than I know a Mac setup now, and the parts are cheaper. But I recently bought a MacBook Pro, and immediately fell back in love with Macs. I use it all the time now. And the gaming field has been a leveled a bit; more games are available for Macs now. I used it every morning to surf the web — until I gave in and bought an iPad 2. For the longest time, I thought, you know, I have no use for an iPad. I have the MacBook; that’s plenty. I have an iPhone (I bought the first iPhone when it was released, and have bought every once since then, and if God is willing and AT&T waives the $250 “premium” fee, I will be ordering one on Friday — if they don’t, I’ll be ordering one on November 19th — an iPhone 4S, that is…I specifically wanted this one because I thought it might be the last iDevice Jobs had direct input into…). But then the iPad came, I opened up the box, fiddled with it for 5 minutes, and instantly fell in love. Now I use my iPad for virtually everything, although I do write on the MacBook, and my PC is still my main computer for gaming, or for work (especially HTML or graphic design work). If I could afford one, though, I’d buy a top-line Mac desktop without blinking.
My only regret is that Jobs didn’t enter the gaming field and release something to kick the Xbox 360’s sorry ass. I have a PS3 and love it, but imagine what Jobs would have created. What’s that? You can’t imagine what he would have created? That’s the point! He would have released something so funky, so out there, so…Jobs…that it would have changed the entire console gaming industry forever.
So there’s the story of how Steve Jobs changed my life. Thank you, Steve, thank you. And when you get up to Heaven, I have a feeling God is going to want an iPad.
Godspeed, Steve Jobs, Godspeed. You were taken too soon. You were the Thomas Edison of our time. I am honored to have lived in the era that saw your greatness realized.
