2/28/2009 - Steve Jobs demos Apple Macintosh, 1984

It's really too bad that Steve Jobs has had to take leave from running Apple day-to-day because of his mysterious illness. Everybody hopes he'll make his scheduled comeback this summer (maybe except Steve Ballmer). The innovation of the original Macintosh cannot be understated. The computer you're reading this blog on is not much different in terms of the GUI from the 1984 Mac. It's hard to imagine what kind of a seismic wave was produced when the Mac was introduced, but it was probably quite substantial. What everybody was working on before were computers with ugly screens and text-based input. Remember how big the hype was when the iPhone was introduced? I would argue that the iPhone wasn't as much of a revolutionary product than the Mac was. After all, there were smartphones with GUIs prior to the iPhone. The Mac was really something different. You may have to be over 40 to appreciate this video introduction of the Mac, or you may just have to be a computer enthusiast:

2/7/2008 - Apple Music Event 2001

It's hard to believe, but it's been almost seven years since Apple first introduced the iPod. Looking at this introduction video now, it was so hard to imagine back then that this little device that plays music would be the one thing that brought Apple back into the mainstream of consumer electronics. After all, it only worked on Apple machines which at the time had very little market share. Also, it was very expensive compared to MP3 CD-players that could play about 100 songs per CD. I don't even know if Steve Jobs himself knew what a phenomenon the iPod would be, even though in this video he touts all the features that did make it a smash: its ultra-portability (even though it looks so bulky now), its ability to store your entire music library (even though the current Nano holds the same amount at less than half the price), its ease of management (one could argue that iTunes has gotten bloated now), and its cool sytle (again, the current Nano trumps the original in every respect).



Of course, at the time, no one knew what was really up the sleeves of Steve Jobs: the iTunes online music store and the availability of iTunes for Windows. The first came at a very opportune time when the RIAA started to seriously crack down on Napster downloaders, forcing the file-sharing program to cease operation. Who knew that so many people would happily switch to paying for their music? And everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY was shocked when iTunes came to Windows. Even Jobs said that "hell has frozen over" when it happened. But looking at it all now, it all made sense. Only true geniuses like Steve Jobs would have known it years ago.

10/21/2007 - all about Steve - Boom!

I have never seen a more persuasive presenter/showman than Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, Inc. If you've ever seen one of his keynotes, you know what I mean. Don't get me wrong... Apple products are great and practically sell themselves. But if anybody can make a PowerPoint... er, Keynote presentation exciting, it's Steve. People even say he has this "reality distortion field" that makes you believe whatever he is saying, and outside of his keynotes, you can begin to see the some of the seams of the products he touted. For example, I was convinced by Steve that the Apple PowerMac Cube was going to be a cool computer, but it turned out to be a flop. Also, I half-believed that the web-app solution for the iPhone/iPod Touch's third-party support would be viable. Boy, was I wrong!

Anyway, one of Steve's favorite things to do during his presentations (or specifically, while demoing a product during his presentation) is to say "Boom" after showing something cool. It's so succinct, that it really does represent the simplicity and gee-whiz factor of Apple products. Here is a montage of a lot of the "booms" that Steve has let out (ok, that didn't sound right):