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So long, Apple Computer…

January 9, 2007 at 5:52 pm · Filed under Design, Technology

512
It’s another gorgeous day in San Francisco, Macworld is in full swing, and Steve Jobs’ keynote address has sent fans everywhere raving. Both the iPhone and Apple TV, whose development has been rumored for months, were announced this morning.

I’m less moved by the prospect of my cell phone and iPod being combined than by the exciting potential of the iPhone’s multi-touch technology. I’m curious to see how Apple might implement this into future products, as it radically changes the way people interact with data, media and the web through breakthroughs in interface design and intuitive technology. It also reminds me of other recent advances, including Jeff Han’s presentation at TED.

These new directions signal Apple’s move away from the once defining “Computer” in its name — it’s now going for Apple, Incorporated — and its rapid conquest of the digital media market. Macworld always brings me back to my first introduction to computing, the 512K (”Fat Mac”, pictured above). Lightning fast at 128KB with a whopping 8MHz processor, it came with not one but *two* 400K floppy disk drives (the family splurged) and a black and white screen sporting 512 x 384 pixels for then-advanced graphics and gaming. All for $4000. Guess it’s never too late to start becoming nostalgic…

Geeti said,

January 11, 2007 @ 4:51 am

Why, just the other day I was reminiscing about the days of the cross-connection. Did you have those in the US? In India, before the economy opened up, when there was one government telephone service, making a phone call was always a bit of an adventure. You never knew if the line would be working, or dead, or working but somehow mixed up with someone else’s line, in which case you either worked out an arrangement that satisfied both parties, or argued ferociously, trusting that eventually the lines would be uncrossed again. The longest one I remember lasted about 4 days when I was at that age where you spend hours talking with classmates about who likes whom, and a really angry man kept yelling at us in Hindi to find a hotel. Why am I nostalgic for this? I suspect an early onset of senile dementia. Happy New Year, Lars!

Lars said,

January 12, 2007 @ 3:28 pm

Hee… let it be known that Geeti always have the best stories! Did you end up finding a hotel, perchance?? I don’t recall cross-connection days, though I did have a really crappy land line through which I could sometimes make out conversations of other network callers. Not sure how or why this occurred, but it did make for surreptitious fun :)

Rob said,

February 21, 2007 @ 6:02 pm

This little machine changed my life. I only paid $1140 for it though! And of course I still have it…though the current machine in use today is a GothBook.

It is going to be quite interesting seeing how Multi Touch invades our lives. Such a clever way to introduce it too. I am rather surprised that the tablet machines out there didn’t implement multi touch - although upon thinking about it the reasons become obvious.

Here is an unrelated though similar technology sure to delight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h-RhyopUmc&mode=related&search=

-Rob-

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