I took a bite of the apple

The day I took a bite of the apple.

I had seen her around. I had heard of her. I had never held her in my hands. I am talking about the Apple Macbook. The Barista in Barton Center (MG road, Bangalore., India) is where I got to lay my hands on a Macbook. My friend Padmaja had got one courtesy her new employer (the only thing I envied about her new job at that point of time).

Steve Jobs and Apple were nothing new to me in terms of name and reputation, but then when it came to a phone I have been a Nokia loyalist, when it came to a MP3 player I had my awesomely large Creative Zen Vision M, when it came to a desktop I had my faithful HP Pavilion, laptop I had my office provided Dell and an Acer netbook too.

Somehow when I held that Macbook in my hand, it was like love at first sight and I desperately wanted one. I became obsessed with getting one. I spoke of getting one and heard all comments from – it’s difficult to use to it’s expensive to –why do you need it?

But then, Apple has always made products you don’t really need but you end up wanting J (In the end they do make the world a better place when it comes to technology). In the midst of all this, the Macbook Pros went out of stock in Bangalore. Doing the rounds of the various Apple resellers and calling up every contact I could, I finally got my beloved Macbook Pro. Within a couple of days I had gotten familiar with it.

The best part was – it all came together, it was easy to setup. It was intelligent enough to figure out what I need and connect without hassle. The wide touchpad (which doubles as a mouse) with its great touch sensitive controls made life so easy. It was fast, it had great screen resolution, easy to use and best of all it did look good.  With this experience has begun my experience of all things Apple. My first bite had left me very satisfied. I hope the taste will continue. Yes, I will have to get that Apple Care Protection Plan to ensure my meager income is not dried up with repairs.

Then I commenced (like I usually do with anything I get passionate about) a study of Apple and invariably Steve Jobs. If Apple took over the world in terms of computing then everybody would have great gadgets but would have paid up a lot for it. Isn’t that better than having paid lesser and then having to spend more upgrading every few months? The magic of Apple seems to stem from its very enigmatic chief- Steve Jobs. Every keynote address of his is like a cultural ritual of the company.  Exciting, planned, dramatic, entertaining and if I were to add-perfect. Just like the products they make. Even though the iPhone 4 leak took some fizz out of their launch during the WWDC  (Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference) I eagerly await its launch in India. Yes, I did manage to use an iPad, thanks to my friend Mukki (of peppersquare ) and was bowled over by its touch interface. When it comes to functionality though, the iPhone is more a priority than an iPad right now. The iPad is a luxury for the couch-ridden.

Apple and Steve Jobs are also lessons in Marketing (another are of interest for me). Be it the keynote address or the carefully crafter marketing, advertising and communication that follows the product launch or the keynote address it is all a lesson in what to do and how to do it. The one-liners that become the product descriptions (I have referred to it in my post – What’s your line?), the products themselves, which are designed to fit in and work with your own biophysical qualities, are all what make legends. I wonder how a large a team of User experience experts, neuro-physicians and other assorted people who have nothing to do with engineering, coding or technology are a part of the product development.

An email the Steve Jobs responds to becomes the talk of the blogosphere. There are blogs whose content is solely dependent on Apple, its products, news and rumors.  Everything about it in some complex way coming together and building a cult.

Finally, what is it about Apple that makes them stand out as the most impressive technology company in history? They make products better.

You can be sure I will have more to say on Apple and its products in times to come. Incidentally, the Apple logo has a bite taken out of it. Is that representative of all us fans who have a taken a bite of the Apple ?