I remember! At the beginning, when there was just these cool little green screen color computers from a fringe company, named Apple. In fact, they were called Apple IIs. Then came the introduction of the Macintosh, and it was world-shaking.
There had never been any device like it: Indulgent, permissive, liberating and forgiving.
People could intuitively see that there was nothing they could not do with this machine. And so they did so – at least the ones who were unafraid to try.
Others, sensing something vastly different, held back, and even retreated into their command line havens, fearfully cursing this new incomprehensible thing.
But the ones of us who took to the Mac found it much more than even we thought it to be. (And all this was with the primitive 512K Mac, sans hard drive. You put in floppy disks, which held your application and room for any files you created – all running on a non-multitasking operating system at 8MHz!)
And the Mac grew. There came the Mac 512k, the Mac II, the Mac FX, the Performas, – well you know the history of the Mac. The OS grew with it, along with new Applications.
What we have today, however, is not just incremental improvements in power, speed and capacity. We possess on our desks and in our laps, machines that have become true world makers and world benders.
What is lacking is our ability to utilize such vast computing power.
Witness the iPhone and iPod Touch, which, although very anemic compared to the Macs, have thousands of applets, which continue to both delight and confound us with their myriad abilities. “There’s and App for that!”
These little Apple devices are just like the first Macs, with their hundreds of floppy disks, full of so many application wonders. How we used to horde and trade those floppies, gathering to ourselves riches in computing power. Don’t we do the same today, with all the apps from the App Store, for our iPhones and Touches?
But on the Macs, we have true riches of applications, all of which are free and come with every Macintosh (if only on a rather mundane level): GarageBand, iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, iTunes, Quicktime – the list grows every few months. And who can keep up with it? Or who can truly master even one of these (pedestrian) Applications in all their potential and power? I am not even mentioning here all the other Applications that are available or for sale for the Mac, because there are thousands of them.
In my time, I was a virtuoso on the Mac, with PageMaker, Freehand, and later Lightwave, and Photoshop. I made my living with these, and a good living, where I worked at what I loved to do every day. I have good memories and few regrets from all of that.
But the nearly unlimited power and sophistication of these latest offerings from Apple do not yet seem to have software that is the equal of their potential.
We must be content to wait for someone to develop them. Applications that can change the climate, feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and fix the economy. Applications that can run our house more greenly. Applications that can change and improve how we think, and how we understand and approach the realities around us.
Even such a simple Application that could translate speech to text on the fly, or translate it from one spoken language to another. If we had such a thing, it would change our world, would it not? Where is it? We have the computers to run such an application effortlessly. Where is that Application that can speak to us?
Where is the Application that can tell us where to successfully look for employment? Or for a home that is safe, secure and budget-worthy for our family? Or which can tell us how to feed and give drinking water to a whole region of people? Such software would surely need to be nascent in intuition, full of AI, and be able to instantly draw on all the facts, resources and knowledge that is available, to give us our answers.
Certainly we have the Internet, and that by itself is a great resource for almost any question. But the Internet is no I Ching, is it?
Where is the I Ching for the Mac? The Application that can tell me what it is I need to know and why I need to know it, to correctly handle any present situation in my life?
These new Macs have all the potential to be the true world changers and world benders of our age. We have never had this kind of power before. But what we still lack is the software and applications that can utilize that power in a productive and useful way. I mean, I could potentially run the whole country from my Mac, but I would be content just to better manage my own life and house with it. I have the feeling that my Mac sould be running 24/7. At it is, I can barely use it more than a few hours a week. My iPhone gets all the usage of my time. What does that say about me?
As it is, with this awesome device sitting on my desk; it is like owning the most powerful Maserati ever built, but never being able to drive it anywhere but in town, where the speed limit is never more than 25 MPH.
You developers, you Apple developers – you gave us all the amazing and awesome toys, bells and whistles at the App Store, for our great little hand held devices. Now give us the tools we need that can let us open up all the amazing and awesome potential of these new Macs we own. Applications that can change and bend our world.
Regards,
Roger Born
“Never squat with your spurs on.”
“Sorry. No Refunds.”
“Void where prohibited.”
“Your mileage may vary.”
Film at 11.
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