Steve Jobs Isn't Around to Screw Things Up Any More

I've ended my boycott of Apple Computer.

I purchased my first PC about 30 years ago.  It was an Apple II+.  I coded my first programs on it.  It was a hands on PC- you could open the top and add and remove cards at will.  My first add-on was a 16K card that brought my internal RAM up to a whopping 64K!

I was so happy with my Apple that I upgraded to the Apple IIe and then to the Apple IIGS.  My Apple IIGS was personally signed by Woz himself.  I was one of Apple's most loyal customers.

Apple was not content with success.  They introduced the Macintosh and did away with the cards.  You were expected to buy a PC that you couldn't upgrade.  The straw that broke the camel's back for me was a 10 megabyte hard drive call the Apple Sider.  While it was an unbelievable amount of storage, it had a steep price tag - $695.  For the same amount of money, I could buy a 40 megabyte hard drive that would work in an IBM PC.   The PC had horrible graphics compared to the Apple IIGS or the Macintosh.  At about this time, a guy at Apple named Steve Jobs decided to sacrifice the Apple II line to save the struggling Macintosh.  Enough was enough and I moved to a PC with 2 forty megabyte hard drives. 

I made the correct decision.  PCs improved faster than the Apple and soon the majority of software on the shelves was for the PC.  It was easy to boycott Apple because the most creative developers wrote software for the PC.  If the Apple users were lucky, the software was released later in an Apple version.

Fast forward to 2011.  I'm in a little Italian village and something about me caused a lady to realize that I'm an American.  I try to blend in, but it's difficult when you carry 30 pounds of camera gear and cannot speak a word of Italian.  The lady came over and said, "They just announced that Steve Jobs is dead."

It's 2012 and a revitalized Apple announces the iPad3.  It retains some of the worst Apple features, no user replaceable anything and you can't even plug it into a hard drive.   It reminds me of my Apple II+ which didn't have a hard drive either.  It's moved up a few letters - 64K has been replaced by 64G.  The programs for it are small and often as useless as some of the original Apple software.  It has excellent color Graphics and sound like the Apple IIGS - but better.   You can add and remove apps instead of adding a removing cards.  It's compact to continue the tradition of the Apple IIc.

I purchased the Apple iPad3 last week.  It's a born again Apple II.  It's taken over 20 years for Apple to upgrade the Apple II line.  This is a definite improvement and this time Steve Jobs isn't around to screw things up.  I wonder if I can convince Woz to sign it.