How I Accidentally Became an Apple Fan

I tried to resist - honestly

Photo by Laurenz Heymann on Unsplash

I’m writing this post on my MacBook, will edit it on my iPad, and when I have sudden flashes of inspiration - like the other night - I’ll pick up my iPhone from the bedside table and make a few notes. But how did I get to this point? The me of five years ago would be shocked and a little disappointed at this change in technology habits. To be honest, I’m still a little conflicted, so I’m writing this post for a couple of reasons. First, as a bit of therapy and self-justification. Second, as an explanation to the people who give me a hard time about my apparent love of all things which come out of Cupertino. So if you are here for the second reason, read this first before you give me a hard time.

A quick note before you read on. As I went on a trip down memory lane this post ended up being way longer than I ever imagined it would be. I’ve cut it down as much as possible but I still wanted to make sure I gave the complete story.

How did I even get to this point when the first time I ever used an Apple computer was in my early twenties? Like many of my generation, my introduction to computers was the BBC Micro, which I used a few times at primary school. We had one or two computers which were on big wheeled desks and moved between the seven or eight classrooms in the school. Needless to say, each student got little chance to use them. Even then it was in pairs and we each took turns to type a letter of the command.

Again, like many of my generation the first computer I really got to know was the Amiga. My parents bought an Amiga 500 Plus as our first family computer for the Christmas of 1991. Later we got a PC and all I ever used at home or school was the standard Wintel ecosystem.

I was vaguely aware of Apple computers in my teens and remember seeing a few of the colourful iMac’s dotted around high school. But these were for doing arts and graphic type stuff, so I was told. The only reason you would use a Mac was if you were in publishing and I was a hard-nosed science type kid, so I never gave it another thought.

iMac G3, Photo by Rama, Wikimedia Commons, Cc-by-sa-2.0-fr

When I got to university, it was the same Windows-based ecosystem for everything. Until my final year. That is where I discovered not Mac but Linux. I just wish I could have been given a better introduction. At the time I was probably less aware of Linux than I was Mac. For my final year project I convinced the university to purchase a licence for NEWPAN, a piece of CFD (computational fluid dynamics) software, which I used to investigate variable geometry winglets. This software was Linux only, so they also got an old PC and gave it to the IT department to install Linux on. That really put them out of their comfort zone, I remember overhearing a conversation where one of the IT support techs said “we just put Red Hat on because that was the easiest to find some form of documentation for”.

When Flow Solutions (the company behind NEWPAN) came to demonstrate the software, one of their engineers had problems connecting his Linux laptop to the projector in the room. He opened a terminal and started typing commands. I thought he must have been some sort of super hacker. Knowing what I know now though he was probably just finding the driver he needed for that particular projector.

Anyway, this first encounter with Linux was a pain in the neck. Nobody really explained the philosophy or any basics of how to use it. Being under pressure to get my project done, I didn’t really have the time to try and learn it myself. The lecturer who was supervising my project scribbled a couple of commands down on a piece of paper. I remember thinking what a stupid operating system this was if I had to type “/mnt” each time I wanted to mount the USB thumb drive I was using to get my data off this computer and onto a Windows machine, where I could analyse it. This experience with Linux convinced me Windows was where it’s at, and I didn’t plan on touching another Linux machine after I completed my project.

Tux the official brand character of the Linux kernel

It was around this time I started using iTunes. With the development of the MP3, peer-to-peer music sharing had taken off in the mid to late 1990s. I remember people at school constantly being told off for using Napster in the computer lab.  I actually believed this was wrong and artists should be paid for their work, so never got into peer-to-peer sharing - my friends thought I was weird. I continued to buy CD’s but when away from home the limitations of this become obvious. So I looked at the legal ways I could buy music digitally and settled on iTunes for Windows - my friends thought I was weird. This became the first piece of Apple software I used and I actually thought it was pretty good - my friends thought I was weird.

After graduation I went back home, having a grand plan I would save up the money for flying training and go overseas and get a job flying in general aviation. I managed to achieve this, but that’s a topic for another post. First, I had to find a job to save up the money I needed. This was actually harder than I thought it would be. There was not really any jobs related to my degree (Aeronautical Engineering) near where we lived and the others I applied for couldn’t understand why I wanted the job.

To cut a long story short, in the end I got a job with a telephone technical support provider which had a contract with Apple. I didn’t work directly for Apple but was a contractor but as far as the customer was concerned it was essentially the same. You might think this is where the story ends. Gets a job with Apple, finds out their products are actually amazing, the end. Not quite.

I thought going into this; I know nothing about Apple but if anything is going to convert me, this would be it. We were each ‘given’ our own eMac, which would be our personal work station. These had been through several iterations of employees and were freshly wiped for this new intake. Although I thought the idea of an all-in-one was crazy as you couldn’t really swap out anything or upgrade it easily, the build quality impressed me. When I checked the specs compared to my PC at home, I was equally impressed. The performance on what was much less powerful hardware was pretty good. This, I would be told during my training, was because Apple built both the hardware and the software, so they were optimised to work together better than any other PC manufacturer could achieve.

The first month was spent in the classroom with an angry little man sporting a shaved head, a goatee and a bad case of BO. He had been to the mythical Cupertino and carried in him the fabled knowledge. We learned all things Apple. Starting with a little about the philosophy of the company, when you buy an Apple product how important the unboxing experience is, etc. Then Mac OS X, OS 9, Safari, iTunes, QuickTime and other Apple software, then onto the various hardware. The product lines were a lot simpler back then under Steve Jobs. Some of the devotees working there would keep mentioning this guy ‘Steve’. Who was Steve? It took a while before I learned who this was. I thought this was all rather sycophantic.

After this crash course, it was considered we knew enough to be let loose on the public and would become their first port of call when they needed help with their Apple products. And so for the next six months or so I helped people with all their Apple problems. When I was staring with Apple I had already spied a significantly more lucrative opportunity at a local accounting software provider but I needed to get some experience first. So that is where I headed after six months with Apple.

At the time I was glad to leave Apple but to be fair this was not because I disliked the products, it’s just this was a stepping stone for me in a bigger plan. I learned to appreciate Apple for what it was, but it wasn’t for me. I couldn’t play the games I normally would on the Mac, the mouse annoyingly only had one button and the minimise/maximise buttons were on the wrong side. Also, why did the motherboard have to be called the logic board? I was also slightly tainted by the fact I was constantly dealing with people’s problems. Some, possibly a significant majority were the customers own fault, but a number were Apple letting people down. The iPod Nano screen cracking saga for example. That was never a good start to a conversation, “I have an iPod Nano and the screen cracked, just like that”.

When I walked out of the office on my last day after my short stint at Apple I mentally put the experience in a box and thought I wouldn’t ever open it again. I had well and truly satisfied any curiosity I had about the Mac; I knew I would get an iPod, but that was likely the only Apple product I would ever own. More importantly, it had given me the experience I needed to move on to a better paid job where I could save up the money for flight training faster.

I did indeed buy that iPod and use it for many years. It was also what facilitated me getting into podcasts around 2006, before they were really a thing.

A few years later I’m in New Zealand working on my pilot’s licence and on my way to achieving my dream of becoming a commercial pilot. I was also very involved with the running of the aero club where I was doing my flying training. One of the other members at the time who had been a software developer re-equipped the club with a new front desk computer running Linux. I remember many a discussion with him about Linux and a wide range of other topics which I very much enjoyed. He often had a different way of looking at things which challenged the established viewpoint. This could cause some conflict at times but more often than not he was right. When certain issues come up I still often think what he would make of it, and mentally challenge myself with what I think that viewpoint would be. In essence I am doing that with this post, as I try to lay out the reasons why I ended up where I am with my technology choices.

Photo by Gabriel Heinzer on Unsplash

The Linux PC reignited a flame, and I started playing around with it. I figured Linux deserved a second chance. So I installed Ubuntu on an old laptop. I don’t remember which version it was but it would have been 8 or 9. It worked, but this was still an early version compared to where we are today so there were a few issues. I played with it a bit before putting it aside.

When I had been at Apple, there were whispers about a coming phone, but it was not until a year later the iPhone was released in what has to be one of the most iconic product launches ever. If you have not seen this product launch, it is worth a watch. It epitomises Steve Jobs and how to do a product launch. I did not see one in the flesh until almost a year after that. At that time, buying a smartphone was way down a priority list where you measured money not in dollars and cents but in flying hours, and how many more of those you needed to complete the various licences and ratings required to get a job.

A few years later I was however in the market for a smartphone. I looked at the Android phones available and the iPhone. Android was significantly cheaper, and it was an open ecosystem which appealed to me. It was also a lot less polished than the iOS experience, but I figured that would improve in time. There was one other thing, the leading EFB (electronic flight bag) providers were all developing their software for iOS only and there was very little in the Android space. I was torn, but eventually went down the Android path. I instantly began silently deriding iPhone users because they were sucked into Apple’s ecosystem, and they couldn’t even change the battery on their device. All the while being slightly jealous of how slick their devises looked.

On October 5^th 2011 Steve Jobs died at the age of fifty-six, nineteen days later Walter Isaacson published his authorised biography of Jobs. I remember Jobs’ passing and the associated coverage in the media but didn’t pay it particular attention. When the book came out, I thought it would be interesting to read at some point. It wasn’t until July 2014 when I was making a regular two and a half hour drive I started churning through audio books at a fast pace. It came up on a list of suggestions, along with a book about Bill Gates. I almost got the book on Gates but what attracted me to the Walter Isaacson book was it was an authorised biography which Jobs asked for no control over (other than the cover photo), he encouraged the people interviewed to speak honestly and waived the write to read the book before it was published.

Whether you have ever used an Apple product or not, if you have the slightest interest in technology this book is worth a read. During the early part of the book I found myself having a lot of sympathy for the viewpoint of Steve Wozniak, that the Apple II should have the option for the owner to add extra boards and customise the machine as they wished. My tendency was to agree with his point of view that things should be open.

I also wanted to like technology figures like Gates more than Jobs. After all, he was trying to do a lot of good in the world and seemed to be a nice guy, whereas Jobs seemed like he was well, an arsehole. As I got further in however, I couldn’t help but admire Jobs’ vision and propensity for getting things done.

Multiple times he was written off and/or mocked by Gates only to pull off something which Gates (and others) thought was silly or impossible. Such as offering the iMac in multiple colours or moving the Mac from PowerPC to Intel processors.

Jobs was a perfectionist. When his father was making a cabinet, he explained to Steve it was just as important to select a good piece of wood for the back as for the front. Even though nobody would see it, he would know it was there. Jobs took this to levels which drove his engineers crazy, obsessing over how the circuit boards inside a Mac would look, even though nobody would see them. His opinions were famously binary. Something was terrible and the worst thing he had seen until with a few minor tweaks it was then amazing and he loved it.

When creating the first Mac in the early 1980s he drove his team crazy with his last-minute changes and constant striving for perfection. An interesting comparison is Max Faget, designer of the Mercury space capsule. He later became Director of Engineering at the then NASA Manned Spacecraft Centre (now Johnson Space Centre) and lived by the maxim “better is the enemy of good”. He used this to push his engineers to achieve President Kennedy’s goal of a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. If ever there was an antithesis to this philosophy, then it was Jobs’ approach to design.

Jobs was famous for his “reality distortion field”, a term first used in the early 1980s to describe how he used his charisma to convince himself (and those around him) that something was indeed possible. A famous example being when he asked an engineer to reduce the boot time of the Mac by ten seconds. He was told this was not possible but Jobs responded: “If it would save a person's life, could you find a way to shave ten seconds off the boot time?” To which he was told they could. In the end twenty eight seconds were cut from the Mac’s boot time.

The more I learned the more I realised I never wanted to work for someone like Jobs. But what I came to appreciate was undeniable, although it could be brutal Jobs’ management style produced great products. Perhaps I was being sucked into a reality distortion field but I could not help but be entranced by what he achieved.

Towards the end of his life when he was gravely ill with cancer Jobs was visited by Gates and they talked about some of their differences. Jobs wanted to keep everything tightly integrated with Apple retaining control over everything from hardware to software, even down to the stores where people bought their products. Gates and Microsoft however allowed their products to be licensed by other companies. This allowed Microsoft to dominate the PC market, but arguably did not produce the “great” products that Apple did. In the end Gates and Jobs agreed they had both been right in their own way.

One thing is for sure Jobs was a visionary. His philosophy for running Apple was to build great products, not to make money. Making money allowed you to make great products, but it was not the primary motivation. He believed his and Apple’s job was to figure out what products people wanted before they knew it themselves. People don’t know what they want until you show it to them. Quoting Henry Ford “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.”

Back to my technology journey. For a while I had wanted to build an ADS-B¹ receiver, so I started learning about software defined radio (SDR)². Ultimately, I bought a Raspberry Pi and built a receiver. With this again rekindling my interest in Linux I installed Lubuntu on an old laptop. In the end I eventually partitioned the drive on my main PC so I could boot into either Linux or Windows. I got to where Linux almost became my daily driver. While I was trying to get over the initial steep Linux learning curve, I discovered several Linux podcasts, which I still listen to. Things stayed this way for a while.

Then the M1 happened. Around this time it was mentioned in passing on some of the Linux podcasts that Apple was now producing its own ARM based chips. Interesting I thought, makes sense from a point of view of integrating everything (one of Steve Jobs core beliefs about technology products) but I didn’t really pay it anymore attention. Then there were a few discussions about how great the battery life was. Again, makes sense I thought, they are using ARM based chips which are significantly more power efficient than the x86 architecture.

Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash

People then really began raving about the performance and power efficiency. People who were die hard open source evangelists couldn’t help but praise what Apple had done. That was when I decided to take a good look at these new M1 based MacBooks. I had thought of getting a laptop for a while, but after having a look at these I decided I definitely needed to get one. The logical side of my brain made me create a list and note down all the software I regularly (and less regularly) ran, seeing which would run on Mac and which would not. After excluding gaming I realised there was not a lot which would not run on Mac and I could always run a virtual machine. I also checked how exactly I would do this to make sure I had all my bases covered - although to this day I haven’t had to run one. Then I took the plunge.

Since then I haven’t looked back. I ended up replacing my Android phone with an iPhone. One of the things I have always hated about Android was how short the timeframe of support was. The phones I had would also become laggy and annoying to use after two or three years. Whereas I knew iPhone users who had had their phones for five years and they still seemed lightning fast. You might pay more but if you keep the device for longer, it works out about the same. I think this holds true for a lot of Apple products.

I even ended up buying an iPad, which I actually use more than I thought I would. The way everything works seamlessly together in one unified experience is arguably better than any other ecosystem out there. I used to have an arrogant and elitist opinion that technology should be hard to use. You had to put the hard yards into learning it and earn yourself the right to use it. Using Linux made you seem to normals like some elite super hacker. I now see the errors of this point of view and the alternative for those who want it. As Steve Jobs would have said, technology should also be beautiful and intuitive to use. Sometimes this can mean taking away a little choice from the user but when life is busy that’s not necessarily a bad thing; to have good design choices made for you. For the average person the use of technology is not a means to an end. The technology should get out of the way and let them achieve the task they are trying to do. This, I think, is where Apple excels above all others in the field.

Now before you all start heckling, I am well aware I’m living in a walled garden. But I like it in here, it’s a nice place to live, I like the amenities, and the gardener keeps things nice and tidy. I am also aware I am privileged to be able to afford to live behind the walls. Most importantly though, I am well aware of what lies beyond. I take time to walk outside the walls. I still have a Windows PC and I still tinker with Linux from time to time. I do my best to use software which is cross-platform. These are my getaway plans for if and when I ever have to leave the garden. I keep a close eye on the way the garden is run and I don’t always agree with the way things are done. But you are allowed to be nuanced in this world, not everything has to become a polarised love-hate opinion. I can enjoy using the Apple products I have, without necessarily agreeing with the entirety of their creators business practices.

For now, I’m happy inside the garden using the technology where I know nothing was left on the table when it came to its design. But I also have my grab bag and a place to go if I feel life behind the wall becoming too authoritarian.

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1. Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS-B) is a surveillance technology used by aircraft and other airborne vehicles. Their position is determined using satellite navigation and then transmitted once per second. The transmission is not encrypted so can be received by anyone with the correct equipment.

2. Software-defined radio (SDR) is where software is used to take the place of components such as amplifiers, modulators/demodulators etc which would have traditionally been done with specific pieces of analogue hardware.