[2437] Thanks Steve

I am not an Apple fanboy. I was anti-Apple even.

I remember the first Apple computer I used long ago. Wikipedia tells me that it was Macintosh Classic. Its screen had only two colors: green and black. I was happy of playing Karate-Ka on it, and other games that for the life of me, I cannot remember. It was my first vivid recollection of a computer. This was the time when large diskettes were used, not a flash drive, not even a CD.

My next encounter with Apple would come 8 or 9 years later when the University of Michigan had iMacs littering its computer labs. I spotted the largest collection of iMacs in Angell Hall’s Fishbowl. I had thought Apple was dead, but no. I was wrong.

These Macs were not these modern days slick-looking Macs. It was an odd one piece machine with the CPU and the monitor wedded together. The G3, Wikipedia says. The weirdest of all was the one-button mouse. Who would use that?

I was decidedly anti-Apple then.

But Apple progressed tremendously after the odd-looking bright-colored Macs. Its notebooks were becoming extremely slick and I remember spotting a 23” Powerbook, probably the first of its kind, in an Apple Store in Novi, Michigan, somewhere outside of Ann Arbor. Despite being impressed, I remember blogging my somewhat negative sentiment against Apple.

From there on, it was all up for Apple.

First, it was the iPod.

I had always wanted an mp3 player as an undergraduate but I decided against buying an iPod back in 2004. I bought a Creative Zen instead, all because I believed the iPod was overpriced, and all hype. Five years later, I am the owner of a fifth-generation iPod Nano. I did not buy it. I got it as a gift.

And I love it.

I remember bragging about having a Nano to my ex-girlfriend through Skype. She was unimpressed, showing to me that she had a Nano too. Purple. Mine was blue. There she was, a cute French girl smiling with her purple iPod.

There are of course the revolutionary iPhone and the even more revolutionary iPad. To say these gadgets were revolutionary on its own rights is an understatement. Apple not only revolutionized consumer goods. It revolutionized the global culture.

That was because of one human legend, Steve Jobs. At least, as far as I am concerned.

So, when he died today, the world has just lost one of its biggest culture icons. We are living in an exciting time, partly thanks to Steve Jobs. I do not think anybody can deny that.

You do not have to be a tech-writer to know that. You do not have to be part of the tech or creative industry to know that. You just need to live to know that.

Apple wrote on its website, it “has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being.” Aye to that.

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By Hafiz Noor Shams

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