When it comes to Apple, I've never been one of "those guys". You know those guys, the hard-core Apple guys that defend everything Apple does. They wait outside the Apple store when the new iPhone comes out and they tell you everything wrong with Microsoft. Everyone knows one or more of these guys but they were a select few--developers, security guys, and the geeks among geeks. I'm pretty geeky but I avoided Apple stuff for a long time because I didn't want to be one of "those guys".
Truth be told, I was one of "those guys" way back in the day. In high school, I learned how to program on an Apple II+ and it made me believe that if you had two floppy drives and 64K of memory there was no problem you couldn't solve. Later on in college I did most of my machine language programming on one of the original Macs. But then, I joined Corporate America, became a Windows guy and never looked back and I started avoiding Apple products because of "those guys".
However, times have changed and Apple has changed my life and almost everyone that I know. I've gone from being a Blackberry/Windows guy to being someone that has an iPad, MacBook Air and iPhone. My 10 year old has an iPhone, my wife has an iPhone and all six of our kids have iTouches. My local school system has mandated that all kindergartners have iPads--not tablets, but the iPad.
So how did this happen? Why do we care so much about Apple today? I believe it's because Jobs understood the value of the integrated experience. Consumers pay a huge premium for Apple stuff because it’s easy to use. Is the iPod really any better an MP3 player than a Zune? I don’t think so but the process of getting music, syncing it with the iPod, creating playlists, etc is so much easier than the Zune or any other MP3 player, and that can be said for almost all Apple products.
This actually was Apple's differentiator all the way back to the original Macintosh days. The Apple Writer printer connected to the Macintosh over an AppleTalk LAN. But Apple never made it big in the mid 80s; they floundered as that geek company. So why today and not then? I think back in the early Mac days society really wasn't ready for home computers. We had computers at work and we used them for work things but no on really needed to do computer stuff at home. If you had Internet access you were limited to things like Elm for mail, newsgroups instead of the Web and Unix chat instead of Instant Messenger (am I showing my age or what?). Unless you were a graphic artist or someone that did a lot of word processing, you really didn’t need a computer, certainly not a premium-price one with expensive peripherals no matter how great the experience.
Jobs' second tenure at Apple was timed perfectly with the birth of the digital age, where the integrated experience matters. Take the iPod for example. Its strength is how simple it is to find a song, download it and then have it synced to the music player. Sure there are other, cheaper MP3 players but the amount of work it takes to go download the song using some third party app and then use something like Windows Media player to sync it is too complicated for most people. That philosophy was driven through all of Apple's products and the thing that kicked off Apple being the company we know today.
However, that was just the start. The biggest impact Apple had in my life and in most people's was that the iPhone kicked off mobile computing. I used to be a big Blackberry supporter but that really wasn't a mobile computing device. It was and still is the best mobile email device but the world has quickly moved past mobile email being the primary reason we carry a smartphone.
The iPhone was when developers started thinking differently about mobile computing. Instead of making an application that was designed for a PC and trying to make it smaller, what else could be built? Smart phones have so many things PCs don’t have. They have cameras, location info, GPS info, accelerometers and a touch interface. All of a sudden applications started becoming smarter, cheaper and helped consumers find things faster than on a PC. Looking for a Starbucks? Just go to google.com on your iPhone, turn on location capabilities, type Starbucks and you'll get a map showing you where the closest one is. Touch it again and you'll get walking, bus or driving directions. As my kids say--easy, peasy, lemon squeezy.
Now I truly do have an application for everything. I can find he closest Bank of America ATM so I can take out cash since I don't want to pay the ridiculous $5 per month charge for making debit card purchases. I have an app where I can map out my next wine tasting day in Napa with my lovely wife. And of course, I have mobile Facebook so I can upload pictures instantly, comment on things and check out what my community is doing.
Now of course, much of this is now available on Blackberrys and Android phones but Apple was the one that kicked it off and made it a reality. Mobile computing post-iPhone is significantly different than before it because Apple created a platform for millions of developers to think: "what’s possible", develop the application and distribute it to millions of consumers.
So despite my initial hesitation of being labeled one of "those guys", I, like millions of other people, live their lives differently because of Apple, and Steve Jobs was the man with the vision that enabled it, and for that I say a most sincere "Thank You" and hope the legacy he created at Apple stays in place.
On a related note, Eric asked in his write up, if there was someone else that could have the impact that Jobs did on our lives and I believe Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook have the potential. People spend hours a day on Facebook communicating with others, posting pictures, etc and it has rapidly become the portal to life. People used to wake up in the morning and check their email. Now people wake up and check Facebook. People used to send each other actual photos--now pictures get posted on Facebook and others can go look at them at their own leisure. Facebook certainly has the subscriber base and the attention of the masses and has the potential to have the same impact. The opportunity is there but the bar has been set awfully high.
