My love story with Apple

I believe all of us share a relationship with things as much as we do with people. I am sure all of you remember your first gadgets like say your first Gameboy, first cellphone, first computer and for us the Apple lovers our first Mac. In this post, I decided to take a look back at how I fell in love with this magnificent piece of engineering and the company behind it – for it we need to go back 10 years and surprisingly it was my desire to learn about how Bill Gates built Microsoft that led me to fall in love with Apple, intrigued? Read on.

The year was 1999, when I first heard about a movie called, “The Pirates of Silicon Valley” – my uncle who lived in the US had somehow managed to catch it on HBO and he told me about how Bill Gates had licensedDOS to IBM even before he owned it. I was intrigued, for a 15 year old kid in India, Bill Gates was right there at the top with God and Cricket. Trust me, I can still picture myself listening intently with wide eyes as my uncle narrated the story. I was awe struck, Bill Gates was a damn genius, he sold something he did not even own and that too to IBM of all the companies and went onto become the richest man in the world.

Then came a topic that was and still is a thorny issue between Apple and Microsoft – Microsoft stole the GUI concept from Apple. I was again awe struck, man this guy was damn good, he pulled off a huge thingy by selling to IBM and then stealing something and telling the world it was his.

Now, to give a perspective, the Indian news media rarely covered the IT sector, it was not until mid of 1999 when the dot com boom was nearing its peak that the Indian media started covering the IT sector, but it was always the Indian companies that were doing the donkey’s work. Then, came the anti trust proceedings against Microsoft which was then covered with interest. Apple was never and I repeat never covered in the India media until recently when seeing Steve Jobs in Indian newspapers is quite a common sight especially around Macworld, like the iPhone announcement and the MacBook Air announcement, even this year’s drab Macworld was covered.

Coming back, the IT boom in India had just began, the salaries in the IT industry were much higher than the entire country’s average and suddenly it became fashionable to become a ‘Computer Engineer’ – and as is the case with fashion, it quickly went out of style when the dot com boom bust. In 1999-2000, I wanted to be a Software Engineer and had no qualms in telling everyone so. So, everyone was stunned when I decided to major in Business instead of Science which led to the path of becoming a Software Engineer, what had changed me. Well, it was ‘Pirates of Silicon Valley’, ever since my uncle told me the story I was in awe, Bill wasn’t just a geek, he was a business minded geek. So, in short I was a big Bill Gates fan, until that fateful day when I saw an ad for the Apple iMac, these were the candy flavored ones and I really loved the Orange ones, they were my favorite. My dad said that Apple was for those who were interested in Graphics and it was very fast compared to the 486s in the market, if I remember correctly this was around the time when Pentium MMX/ Pentium II from Intel were released in the Indian market. Computers were downright expensive due to the insanely high custom and import duties that were levied on the computers, but it all changed on February 28, 2000 when the Indian Finance Minister introduced an IT package, whereby custom & import duties were abolished, suddenly computers became cheaper and the iMac came for around 80,000 Rupees before taxes. PCs were around 60,000 Rupees before taxes (today whereas the iMac’s first model is around 60,000 before taxes and PCs of comparable specs around 30,000 before taxes).

I loved the design, loved it that it came with a 64k internal modem for internet connection, in 1999, there was only one ISP and I was using an 32k external modem to connect to the internet and that I was using a telnet and not a PPP account, which allowed for use of browsers like Internet Explorer, this was because, I was on Windows 3.1 and my mouse and modem both used the same port and so I had to use MS DOS if I wanted the internet, trust me, I learned a lot, ran a BBS service, used IRC and I could see the potential and I wished that I could use a faster internet, always cursed that I was in a country which did not see the potential of the internet.

It was a dream machine, it was different. But, I did not know the story behind Apple. My dad said that he would not buy the Mac because it was incompatible, too much of a pain with the single click mouse, which I found out and that it did not serve much purpose unless I wanted to enter DTP publishing or the graphics arena. I knew my grades from drawing class were not an aberration, I sucked at drawing which was an important area of graphic designing and I decided that the mac wasn’t for me and the extra effort it took to run it was not worth it. But, I loved the machine, I still do. Given a choice I would take the candy iMacs over the current iMacs any day (of course with the current configuration).

I forgot all about it and the Mac as life interfered. It was the year 2004, when the first wave of LAN based ‘unlimited’ internet connections became available via the local cable operator. Now, these were pathetically slow connections, but for a guy accustomed to dial up it was paradise. As soon as I got the so called broadband unlimited connection I got introduced to Kazaa and one day I searched for Pirates of Silicon Valley and voila someone had shared it, the excitement that I felt that day is something I feel even today when I see it.

When I first saw the movie, I was floored, I was like wow, I watched awe struck and realized I had found a better role model than Bill Gates in the same industry – Steven Paul Jobs. The lines, “We are here to make a dent in the universe, else why even be here?” stuck a chord somewhere deep inside my heart. I then for the first time in my life, went to apple.com and for the first time saw Mac OS X 10.3, I think it was Jaguar, if I am not wrong. It was amazing, I was in love especially the 3D rotation while changing user accounts. I was like damn, this OS is much much sexier than Windows.

I wanted to use it, but was still not ready to make the switch due to it not being Intel, lack of compatibility (perceived on my part) and did not want to put down that much money on a product, I was not sure I could not justify. But, I wanted to use the OS, found out that it worked only on PPC processors and I cursed Apple for using it and wondered why. I came across a project called PearPC which was a PPC emulator and allowed someone to run Mac OS X on the PC.

Needless to say I downloaded and installed it, remember keeping my PC on continously for 4-5 weeks to allow it to download! Anyone who has used Windows will know that it was an amazing feat, but XP was and still is one of the most stable OS, Microsoft ever produced. Finally, it was the moment of truth and I was filled with joy and wonder as Mac OS X booted on my PC. But, it was too damn slow for me to do anything with it. I was disappointed, but I had bitten the Apple and like Adam I was hooked. I loved the dock, loved the transition effects, but it was irritatingly slow and slowed down the entire PC so had to uninstall and remove it.

From then on any book I found on Apple or Steve Jobs, be it John Sculley’s From Pepsi to Apple or Steve Jobs: iCon by Jeff Young, I have devoured it. In fact, iCon was my first purchase on Alibris.com an online bookstore and first online purchase for a book.

Still, I could not bring myself to switch. It was too much of a pain I tried to reason and I promised myself that if Apple made an Intel Mac I would buy it. God for once was smiling on me when I promised myself that. So, Apple finally made an Intel Mac. I was like WOW. Thank you Steve, Thank You very much.

So, last year I bought an iMac, an iPhone and an iPod Touch, I was never a big fan of the click wheel, always found it annoying, but multi touch was something else. I had to own it.

I continued with my love affair by becoming an evangelist for Apple, love their products, converted them to switchers, something I am very proud of is converting an organization to go all Mac. Beat that!

I mean its amazing how one movie, one guy, one change and I go from being a pseudo-Microsoftie to a complete Apple buff and I wanted to share this amazing story and transformation with you all.

My love story with Apple continues…..