HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
Jan. 15, 2005 Apple Computer users this week cheered Steve Jobs’ latest offering in tech product design and engineering, the mini Mac, perhaps his most ambitious foray into capturing a healthy bite of the digitally enhanced futuristic home. As I write, over 30,000 attendees are expected to throng this year’s four-day Macworld Expo at San Francisco’s Moscone Centre to check out the brave new world ushered in by Steve Jobs, the tech world’s leading Impresario of Cool Design, its Wizard of Functionality, its Rock-Star of Pitching New Tech Products. Apple Computer users are known to be a die- hard lot. No company could have more loyal customers. And they cross several generational divides. Also, they appear to be a very happy lot, especially when bathed in bright light and cheery pastel colors. It is as if cool design is the ultimate stimulant for happiness juices. Why not? my friend, Jim, may well ask. Or add: How long can anyone maintain a happy thought or emotion surrounded with industrial gray towers on the work desk? Can you? Jim, my tower is gray and grayish-white. But before you peg me a philistine in this city-by- the-bay, which at times seems to have been taken over by various institutes of art, I do believe cool designs can be great persuaders. Jim suggests one should check out the local Apple Store, if any doubts persist about the power of cool design. I decide to do just that. I make a beeline for Stockton and Ellis in San Francisco’s Union Square area, a compulsive shopper’s paradise in the most beautiful city in the world. Luminous. Arrays of computers. A feast for sight, touch, sound. Multi-sensory stimulation. All the devices set-up to be tried out by anyone who walks in, no questions asked. Kids of all ages make it a beehive of activity. No hungry salespersons push to make a buy. Take your time. It’s cool. Classes every hour. Education is the strategy here. You get your fill of real content, between the bookends—the merchandizer’s inevitable product hype . A fully informed mind, and a fully titillated one to boot, is a slave for life. I choose a “Switching to Mac” class. The knowledgeable, articulate young man making the demonstration of the computer’s revolutionary majestic powers asks us what type of systems we have. “Windows 98,” I say, sheepishly, after the rest of the audience mention their more advanced systems. He looks down at me, disdain battling with pity for a millisecond, before he practically tells me, and the whole group, that I had what amounted to a dinosaur, or something to that effect. There is a group nod in total agreement. Dinosaur? Well, my friend Jim thinks that kind of describes a lot about me, too. If my faithful dinosaur, which I have had for almost five years, hadn’t started freezing up on me lately, I would have held off wandering into this cathedral to 21st Century consumerism. After all, why would I want to hit the planet with one more piece of 20th Century detritus with the camouflage title of “Windows 98” so that in a couple of years I can do the same with something called iMacG5? And, you know what, if my almost five-year- old dinosaur hadn’t frozen up on me five times in the morning, I would have taken umbrage over the periodic remarks Steve Jobs' demo-man aimed in my direction. Under his barrage of pitying words and glances, I took solace in the knowledge that what unites Mac users—besides the unique form and functionality of the Apple line of products—is the total pity, if not contempt, they have for PC users. Jim, I still don’t know whether a dinosaur like me is ready for a Mac. Perhaps, I should replay that Pied Piper of Magical Tech Dreams, the Impresario of Cool Design, the Harbinger of the Next Evolution of the American Home—Steve Jobs, to set my happy juices flowing again until I forget what a dinosaur I am. Get the pastel colors ready. ------------ About the author: Michael Chacko Daniels, a Californian, grew up in India. He is a writer, editor, community worker, and former clown. Visit him and his works at: http://IndiaWritingStation.squarespace.com Email: mchackod@pacbell.net Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
