every smith
  • MS: Max Smith's blog
  • History to the Defeated
  • every smith: independent creative consultants
  • Words: Max - a brief bio
  • Sites to see

Leamington Letters #37: Think different

8/1/2013

10 Comments

 
Picture
My first blog of the new year, and typed on a different keyboard from each of the previous posts.

It’s true. I have, after all these years, migrated to a Mac.

Sure, I already have an iPhone, an iPod and an iPad. But the huge leap (of faith?) was to put aside the last of a succession of Sony Vaio laptops and embrace this Macbook Pro. My decision has met with a couple of different responses.

Some have expressed amazement that I was not a Mac person all along. After all, I have worked in the ‘creative’ industries since … well, since before computers. And it was us advertising people who first embraced the Mac.

Others have expressed amazement that I have made the change at this stage of my life. They know me well. They know that I was one of the original QDOS (quick and dirty operating system) people.  People like me worked with word processing programs called Lexicom and WordPerfect. We used Control + keystrokes rather than the mouse. We despised the so-called intuitive commands of Windows 95 and the patronizing graphics of the Apple.

And what was all that stuff about style and design? Wasn’t the Sony Vaio equally gorgeous, equally classy, equally functional? Of course it was. And is.

But, as I have discovered over the last few days, there is something unusually satisfying about working on a Mac. It’s not solely the keyboard, which is the best I have ever encountered. And it is not the proprietary software – I am actually using Microsoft Office for Mac. But there is something about this beautiful aluminium (aluminum) machine which makes work a pleasure.

It is a cultural thing, I suspect.

I remember the move from Blackberry to iPhone. It was a recognition that, at my age, I could afford to be less formal, less business-like, less professional. I could justify using a phone which allowed me a little fun, some enjoyment, even (especially?) if it was at the expense of a nano-second’s delay in sending and receiving e-mails.

There is this slightly hippy-ish feel to the Mac, which is opposed to the Big Blue, IBM, business-like Microsoft.

Steve Jobs, famously, was a collector of Dylan bootlegs and something of a Deadhead, walking on stage to announce the iPad to the sound of the Dead’s Friend of the Devil. He was no Jerry, being too authoritarian and dictatorial, but he was perhaps a Captain Beefheart. An anarchist and a control freak.

There have been some books published over the last 12 years that draw these parallels, as well as some weird conclusions.

It would not have been possible to foresee back in the late ‘60s, or in 1972 when I first saw the Dead in the UK, that there would be, now, a book entitled Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead by a couple of guys from Harvard; or that some professor at the School of Business and Entrepreneurship in Florida would have coined the term dynamic synchronicity to describe what the Dead did and what Apple do.

It’s a horrible phrase. I prefer what Jerry said, that “it is not enough to be the best at what one does; one has to be the only one who does it.”

And I think I prefer Apple’s line, Think different.

Of course, I would prefer the adverb. But I’ll settle for it.

And, grammatically incorrect as it is, this exhortation, this instruction, to think different, is my new year resolution. One of them, anyway.

Belated best wishes for 2013 to all my readers.

Today's listening: Janis, from February 1969. One of the first shows without Big Brother and the Holding Company, and it shows. But there's no denying her wondrous voice and charisma.

10 Comments
Sean
9/1/2013 04:35:28

Jobs also loved LSD. That must have helped him 'think different'.
I use a PC at home and a mac at work. You're right, the macbook pro is a thing of beauty. And a thing of beauty is a joy forever, (or until it is superceded by a newer version). Take a look at what passed for cutting edge design in Apple computers years past. They look ridiculous.
I look forward to more mac-based missives.
And a very happy new year to you too.

Reply
Max
12/1/2013 04:32:50

This Mac/Google etc stuff being based on a Dead business model is actually quite interesting. This business about being the only one who does what you do. It's the justification for proprietary software. But it kinda works. X
PS. What's going on with Napoli?

Reply
Jimbo link
9/1/2013 09:04:55

Actually the Vaio was style before substance, over priced under serviceable and made out of house.. a natural progression? : )

Reply
Max
12/1/2013 04:34:28

Thanks Jimbo. I think one of the reasons I have delayed moving to Mac was the fear of your total (as opposed to the Vaio partial) disdain.

Reply
CJ
10/1/2013 01:44:27

Love the gratuitous inclusion of Blues for Allah. Whatever you may be thinking differently, delighted to see that your listening remains stuck four decades ago! I guess this is the current Wolfgang freebie show?

Reply
Max
12/1/2013 04:36:06

Hey, I did buy Tempest this century!

Reply
Rick
10/1/2013 01:54:58

Another great read. (Jobs as Van Vliet, ho! ho!) Happy New Year to you and yours, sir!

Reply
Max
12/1/2013 04:39:58

Thanks Rick. Reported this here to give me an opportunity personally to wish you a very prosperous new year. Daughter Cassidy thinks that her wedding this year takes financial priority over the Sox and the Bostonian, so may not see you this year either. All the best.

Reply
Parn123 link
10/1/2013 09:26:34

Happy New Year to you and Jill! Hoping to see you soon.
About Apple - coincidentally I ordered a Mac Mini for Xmas, but it didn't arrive till New Year's eve. Having unpacked it from the brown shipping cardboard, we now had 3 white Apple boxes sitting on the table. Things of beauty in themselves, which I left untouched, to be admired for a day, before unpacking the gear in the New Year.
Don't know about you, but after starting to use OSX it felt like getting to know a new girlfriend. So much sexier than even Windows 8. As the keyboard doesn't have a Delete key, I think we are going to look forward to a long relationship.

Reply
Max
12/1/2013 04:42:24

It's been many years since I got to know a new girlfriend, and so I can't comment on this analogy. But I look forward to a long relationship with this Mac. Love to you and Diane. We'll get there soon I hope.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

     Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father. and grandfather. Resident in Warwick, England.

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Baseball
    Books
    Film
    Food + Drink
    French Letters
    Leamington Letters
    Media
    Music
    People
    Personal
    Politics
    Sport