5 posts tagged “apple”
Of course like every other blogger in the world, I am also reporting that Apple did have it's annual Stevenote which left all of us shaking in our knees, mine included.
I could very easily tell you about all the cool things they released today, but if you were a Mac Fanboy/girl you would already know what was released. So I'm going to talk about something different. Namely how Apple is not about invention as far as evolution.
Sure they have introduced some major products into the world that literally changed the way we use technology. We have the Macintosh in 84, the iPod in 2001, the iMac, the iPhone, etc. But you have to admit there is no real invention to those products. He didn't create the devices those things were originally. Don't get me wrong, I freakin' love Apple. I am as big a fan boy as it comes. If I wasn't a struggling college student I would buy everything Apple has to offer. But what I am saying is what is great about Apple is they get the consumer.
Steve Jobs is very much like us. He loves technology, he loves something that is simple, easy to use, good looking and did I mention simple? The only difference between Apple's Steve and Vox's Steve is that he has billions of dollars to spend on more black turtle necks and jeans than I do.
Why?
Because he is more closer to the consumer than any other CEO in the history of the world, and he is a revolutionary
Which brings me back to my original point. Why Apple doesn't invent. Face it the products he changed the world with they were never invented by Apple. I'm sorry kiddies but the almighty Steve didn't invent anything other than the small things he added to the existing Apple products to make them better. When you break it down what he did was revolutionize already made products into products the regular consumer can enjoy and want.
The Macintosh proceeded after the computer
The iPod proceeded after the MP3 player
The iMac proceeded the more personal computer.
And, the iPhone proceeded the Smart Phones.
What he did with each of those products is simple, which is why I love this quote from Time Magazine about the iPhone. Lev Grossman wrote,
"Jobs likes things that are broken. It means he can make something that isn't and sell it to you for a premium price."
That's it plain and simple. Steve took items that were already created that supposedly made life easier, only to find that they were broken and Steve noticed that and instead of letting other people try to make it better, he fixed it.
So if you got anything out of today, just remember this is what Apple is good at, not invention, but revolution. They changed a technology's DNA and gave it Super Powers.
Hey I like that. Apple gives Super Powers to Gadgets.
Now if only I had Super Powers. Give Apple time, they'll think of something.
Until next time, Mac ON!
Steve "Mac Fanboy" "Snowball" Saylor
Well, it's officially been more than a week since Christmas, and silly me I didn't even tell anyone about it on Vox. Man, I'm not living up to the Voxionary name this week. But granted it was the holidays, so I do have a bit of a good excuse right?
Well at any rate, the Snowball Family Christmas went off with a bang. It started with my birthday obviously and it didn't even stop. The biggest enjoyment I had was being able to spend Christmas Eve with my close friends and family. Our family had a "Christmas Eve Open House" Where we invited people over and they can come and go as they please. Normally our family tradition was to have Christmas Eve dinner, which always consisted of Meatball Subs. Trust me you have never really had a Christmas dinner without gorging yourself on Meatball Subs. We only really eat them one time as a family throughout the year and it is usually Christmas Eve. I don't know why that is, but trust me they are good, and great on the wallet too. We also usually after dinner would grab a whole bunch of snacks such as Chips, Cheese, Cabassa, Candy Cane Ice Cream, etc, and we would watch either "It's a Wonderfull Life" or "A Christmas Story(which happens to be my favorite Christmas movie, because I seriously look and feel like I'm Ralphie Parker)"
Now that is normally our family tradition, but for the past two years the Open House replaced that.
Which brings up a good story. Last year when we first tried this Open House concept, I had my friend Matt over and he really wanted to play Halo on my XBox in my room. Well for those of you who haven't been to my house, I literally live in the basement of the house. I have a Rec-Room(which is where the big Home Entertainment system is hehe) and I have a bathroom, and a laundry room. So I basically have a basement apartment except no kitchen, and no shower in the bathroom.
So anyway, the night wears on, and it starts to get late. The majority of the guests have left except for my brother's girlfriend and Matt. I go upstairs to the Living Room while Matt is still playing Halo. I'm sitting upstairs talking to my family for nor more than half an hour and all of a sudden the conversation stops for a second, and all you hear coming from the downstairs is this loud, "YESS!" My Dad then asks who that was, and I said it was Matt. My family laughed so hard because they forgot that Matt was still down there and didn't even realize it!!!
If that doesn't tickle your funny bone, well I guess you had to be there. It was funny okay!
Anyway, moving on with my Christmas recap....
So after everyone had gone, and all the guests were accounted for and left. We all went to bed and woke up around 9:30ish on Christmas morning. It was really weird for our family to be up at that time because we are up so early Christmas morning that it is usually still dark outside. This time, bright and sunny. "Wow, so that's what the sun is like in the morning," I thought.
So, after all the crinkling of wrapping paper and the obligatory, "How did you know's," "I love it's," and "You got what I wanted's," was said and done, Christmas was done. But now with the added bonus items we can now store in our rooms and play with for a long time.
My main gifts this year was:
- 30 GB Black Video iPod - Yes I finally replaced my now dead 3G iPod. Boo freakin ya! However, I can still use my old iPod as a 10GB Hard Drive. That is totally worth it.
-
Battlestar Galactica Season 2.0 (Upset that it is only half the season, but hey that's the Distributor's fault not my parents)
- A 12" Walking Robosapien
- A Superman Calender
- A Superman remote control Monster Truck
- Plus many more small little things that are too many to mention.
On a side note though, the gifts that my friends got me I definitely cannot go without mentioning.
- From Brian =
Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut - This has to be my now all time favourite movie. Plus one of the best gifts I have received this year
- From Shane -
Lewis Black's book called Nothing Sacred, and a book on how to be a Superhero(Which both Brian and I got because we are huge Superhero fans)
So all in all Christmas and a fun New Years Eve with my friends really put a good ending period to a great year. I will never forget 2006. That will be the year I will look back on and after telling my Life Story, I can conclude by saying "...and that's when it all started." I love those kinds of years.
Well, I hope you all had a good Christmas and a great New Years, and now let's move forward into 2007.
Toodles!
Steve Saylor "Snowball"
"in 2001 the first iPod hit the scene, and I wanted one...badly."
The date was March of 2003. I have been iPod-less for 2 years, and the addiction was beginning to be noticeable. Drool would begin to formulate at the corner of my mouth every time I would see an ad, or a news article, or even a glimpse of an iPod. I couldn't stop talking about it. Couldn't stop thinking about it. I would recommend it to friends to get one, even though I had never even touched it. All this was before the iPod became as popular as it is now.
The addiction was getting worse. the only thing holding me back was the money. I had money previously saved up before to get the iPod. And I have come close to getting one on many an occasion. But there was always something that would prevent me from getting any closer to it.
Finally, the time came. March 2003. I had the money. I had gone to the Apple retailer a few days before, ordered the 3rd Generation iPod, and finally they called to say the iPod was in. I was so excited, I immediately got ready for work early, and took a bus downtown to the Apple retailer and picked up the iPod.
I remember walking in the rain with the black and white cube box the iPod was in and protecting it making sure it did not get one drop of rain on the box. I had walked to work with it, ready to just tear the box apart, carefully though, so as not to scratch my new Musical device. As the final wrapping revealed the White and Silver gadget, I couldn't help but smile when I saw the little sticker on the screen saying, "Please do not steal music." I carefully peeled it off and holding the iPod in my hands, I was amazed at how light and small it felt in my hands. This tiny device was able to hold over 10,000 songs, and it was this small!
Suffice it to say, obviously I love it. I have had the iPod for over 3 years now, and it still works as the same day as I got it. Sure it has a few scratches here and there, and the battery is starting to wear down, but I love my iPod.
Literaly, I can't go anywhere without it. I have become so accustomed to listening to it on the bus, in the car, in my house, walking, working, cleaning, literaly almost anytime anywhere I am listening to my iPod. It's amazing how with a small little device, you can become so addicted to music that when you don't have music with you, you feel almost naked in a way. You feel like a part of you is missing.
Well anyway, that is my story. Isn't a great, and amazing story, but it's mine. Hope you liked it. All i have to say at this point is:
My name is Steve, and I'm an iPodaholic.
Later!
Steve Saylor "Snowball"
I want you to try to do something for me. I want you to close your eyes, and imagine. Imagine a time before the iPod was created. MP3 players were still in it's infant stages, the iTunes Music Store had yet to be created, and Apple Computers were only known for the funky coloured iMacs, that just looked like a CRT monitor. If anyone thought Apple would change the music industry as we know it today would've been classified as a nut.
Apple? Yeah right.
Well all that changed in 2001 when the first iPod hit the scene, and I wanted one...badly.
At the time I looking for something to replace my CD player, because I was tired of carting around a bunch of CD's with me. I looked at other mp3 players on the market, and I didn't like them. They were either too small, or didn't have enough hard drive space to fill onn CD's worth of music. Or they were really big and bulky, and too expensive. Then the iPod came out with it's sleek white and silver finish. The Hard Drive space was huge (for the time), and yes it was a bit expensive, but it had everything I needed and more.
Now working full time after graduating High School, I was determined to save up enough money to get this wonderful white little device.
Little did I know that it would take me 2 years to get it.
Tune in tomorrow for the second part of the story.
Ta-Ta!
Steve Saylor "Snowball"
Ok, so I know this entry is a little bit late today, however it had to be done. I am typing this entry into a newly re-formated Apple iBook G4. I wish it was the new shiny black MacBooks, but hey it's Apple, and Apple makes cool products.
I had to reformat recently just because of the all the crap that I had on here that was slowing down my machine. Of course I could've just deleted the stuff I didn't want, but I didn't have a lot of documents to back up, so I decided why not do a spring...sorry, summer cleaning.
The reformat actually was probably the most painless reformat I have ever had on any computer. To explain why it was so painless, I did it in Starbucks of all freakin' places, and only on battery! It took only a half an hour to reformat, reinstall OS X, and I was done.
Comparing that to the recent reformat I did on my PC, man, I wish it was at least painless. For one, my computer was a custom built computer from Best Buy, not the greatest ideas I've had, but I had the extra warranty. I didn't want anything to happen to my machine. The only problem with it was that no recovery CD, or even a Windows install disc. Nothing. So you know what I had to do? I had to grab the recovery CD from my Dad's PC and install that. But let me tell you it was brutal and slow. For one, I have to give it to emachines (my Dad's PC) they did make the recovery pretty easy to go through, but it took a long time to do so, and because it was a recovery CD for another computer that wasn't mine, it didn't have the hardware drivers for my machine. So I had to surf the web, collecting all the drivers I needed, install them, then went through the security patches, etc, etc, etc.
Microsoft needs to wake up. They need to wake up that regular PC users, can't take this. They don't have the patience. My Dad for example, has me to do all the reinstalls and reformats, because he has no patience to do it. He has the knowledge to, but he just doesn't want to go through the hassle. And I wouldn't blame him. Windows is a dying system. Yes, they have business, and corporations in the palm of their hand, but while they were touting that they were making PC's for regular people, they forgot one little thing along the way, the regular people.
Apple on the other hand is starting to get it right. Sure, there are it's problems, what computer company doesn't. But they understand that it's not about whether or not that a person has a computer, it's about how they use it.
Now of course Window's isn't terrible. Windows XP has to be the most easy to use, and less problematic than any Windows system. Granted security is an issue, but think about it, it's been going for almost seven years since an update. And it still is holding up. That's the same as saying if Windows 95 was in the same place, it would still be strong in 2002.
I don't know. Windows vs. Mac, Jobs vs. Gates. It's a battle, I can't even predict anymore what's going to win overall.
But, all I know is that my iBook has a shiny white casing, and that's good enough for me.
It's perdy.
Toodles
Steve Saylor "Snowball"
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