Passing

Back in 1988, I started my freshman year at university. I knew what I wanted to do: graphic design. I’d looked at how people were doing it and I was fascinated with how computers were really starting to take off as a design tool. All the glossy, highly expensive design magazines were showing pictures of studios with people surrounding their brand new Macintosh computers and raving about how wonderful they were. I’d played around with PCs and the differences between those and this Mac thing were night and day to me. Then I saw my first Mac on campus and promptly fell in love.

A few years later, I was graduating from the art college I’d moved on to, and my graduation present ended up being my very own Mac: a brand-new, just released PowerMac 7100/66, with a color monitor. I added a modem and hooked into the beginnings of popular online use. (I had a 5 letter AOL name. It was an actual name, no numbers. How’s that for early adoption?) Most of my fellow students were insanely jealous, and while yes, I worked on grad school homework, I also met friends from around the country, played endless hours of Prince of Persia and Myst, and lost my heart to a program called Photoshop.

That computer got me through my first job, freelance work, and quite a few more games (including something called Warcraft) before I decided it needed to be retired from hard use. Right about then, my mom was deciding that she needed to look at getting one for herself for light use and trying this email thing out, so I bought one of the second generation iMacs, Indigo in color. She got my old PowerMac and modem, and I got blown away at how much I could do with this new machine.

A few years later and I was working at an advertising company and getting very nice tax refunds every year. I decided the Indigo iMac needed to be updated, and hey, our company had a discount with Apple as an employee perk. Soon, a “sunflower” iMac, one with the monitor on an adjustable arm, was sitting on my desk, and I’d installed my old Indigo iMac at my mom’s. The old PowerMac came back home with me and went into storage under a bed.

A couple of years later, the “sunflower” iMac was living at my mom’s, while I was playing World of Warcraft on an iBook G4 – my first laptop. Another couple of years, and a new desktop iMac, the first line of Intel-based iMacs, was sitting on my desk, with the laptop next to it, usually open to strat guilds, guild websites, or running Vent while I was in raid. That iMac got me through a long-distance relationship, freelance work, and random fun and silliness with people I’m friends with and still have yet to meet face to face. Oh and lots of games. That iMac helped me propose to my husband, plan a wedding, and was at the wedding playing all the music for the ceremony and afterwards. I have pictures going back to 2002 on it, including some of the last pictures of my cat that I lost to old age in 2006, that still make me tear up from missing her. I have an iPhone that I’m looking at replacing as soon as we can afford it (and the 4GS is released), and I lust after the iPad in probably an entirely unreasonable fashion. (“Dear Santa, I swear that I’ve tried to be very, very good. Please give me one iPad for Christmas. That is all. Kthx. (Oh and make Lucas release the original trilogy WITHOUT ALL THE BLASTED CHANGES AND EDITS onto BluRay. Love ya.)”) I have a white Apple sticker on the bumper of my car, right next to my “Geek” sticker. Yes, they’re there together on purpose.

And recently, it’s become more and more apparent that my aging iMac needs to be retired, once again to Mom, who will use it to play a few solitaire games, read and write email, and surf the web. Two weeks ago, a very large box showed up at my mom’s store. I was sick at home, and probably shouldn’t have left the house to go get it, but I did. By the time she got home, the brand new iMac was set up and sitting next to the old one, having my old data copied over to it. I was staring at the shiny screen, still stunned at the size of the monitor, and muttering that the old iMac’s screen looked blurry compared to the new one. Add in Lion on top of everything, and my brain was blown yet again. The old one will soon be formatted and have her info transferred to it. The “sunflower” iMac will be formatted and retired to sit next to the others.

Yesterday, when I got home from working at another store an hour away, it took a while, but then I started seeing the news filter in. A friend texted me on the iPhone first. Then I started looking at everything online. “Steve Jobs passes at age 56.” I’d figured it was coming after the announcement of his resignation in August, but it still hurt. As other people said, you may not have liked him or Apple, but he did change the way we see technology. It’s not this mysterious arcane thing that only people with multiple degrees use in controlled environments, which was the popular perception for a long time when I was growing up. He gave them personality. He gave them beauty in form and function. He gave us things that we crave without knowing why, and once we get them in our hands, we start to wonder why no one thought of this before, because it just made sense.

Apple has been a part of most of my life now. It will most likely continue to be a part of my life. I can’t wait to see what happens down the road with it, and hope that the company continues to surprise and amaze as it did under Steve.

Oh, and just one more thing…