It’s half an hour before Steve Jobs’ keynote on a brisk Monday morning in San Francisco. The line of people anxious to see the latest Apple products wraps around a city block, the excitement driven partly because these products now provide a lifeline and an income source to thousands of independent developers, and partly from a particularly potent brand of raw consumer lust which is seemingly unique to Apple’s brand and its products. The cult of mac is so strong that there is even an Apple-specific dating site which, despite a cheesy name and an ostensibly idiotic premise (Apple-love as a positive bias for mating-pool selection is about as effective for cutting groups of 20– and 30-somethings as finding people who like fun, or ice-cream [although finding people who dislike ice-cream might be useful for pairing vegans and the lactose-intolerant.]) seems poised to succeed at least in terms of community if not profit (the revenue-model is as yet unannounced).
I’m near the back of the line and, although I could cut, there’s a chance I’d still be stuck watching Jobs on a screen in the room designated for overflow and I decide that cutting would not be worth the karma hit. Protestors are standing out front contesting the working conditions in Apple’s factories in China. An unstylish man tries to push magazines on the people in line, asserting that “[we’re] last so we may as well get something for free, right?” I disagree with his premise that ‘something’ inherently has more value than ‘nothing’ and refuse the publication. Resulting from the ban on booth-babes (n. a typically scantily-clad sales-woman focusing more on good-looks than sales-technique or product-knowledge) were small groups of jacketed late-30s women handing out fliers for a free iPhone game. “Have you played our free game?” “You mean Face Fucker Four?” She walked to the next eligible target in line, a couple standing in front of us. She waved her partner to ambush them with a video camera. “What do you think of Face Fighter Gold?” “I don’t know, I haven’t played it, uh, it has a nice flier, I guess.” Locals ask what the line is for. A smartass wearing a good impression of a New York ad exec, Prada narrow half-rim glasses and expensive Neiman Marcus jeans cut for a man, styled for a teenager, rejoindered, “Starbucks. This is the line for Starbucks. We’re fuckin’ thirsty.” He makes small-talk with people around him in line before exerting much energy engaging a short, geeky fellow. The geek says he’s here as a GM contractor and it’s part of the job, feigning that he’s too cool to be here. “But I’ve got so many jobs I can’t even take them all, so I’m trying to find smart people. I give 99% to you, I keep 1%.” It’s obvious: this guy doesn’t code. As we wrap around the building and approach the entrance, I spot the camera lady shooting a video of a Face Fighter flier that had been stomped into the concrete.
I file into the back of the overflow room as Steve Jobs begins his keynote. I’m jaded. I’m here to learn how to make things, not to hear about things I can buy. Steve starts talking and I find myself immediately engaged. It’s because Steve cares. He has money. He has other projects. He could quit at any moment and retain his Silicon Valley badass status. Yet he stays. He cares. It shows. There are some bits of horseshit — a claim that the AppStore is the most vibrant application platform in the world, a claim that is true only with many qualifications — and a maudlin advertisement for FaceTime on the RetinaDisplay featuring a deaf pregnant soon-to-be mother signing to a soldier on deployment. Nevertheless I found myself stomping my feet in excitement and salivating for the next iteration of the iPhone, and it was largely due to the inclusion of a videocamera and on-phone video editing. I left the auditorium with a profound belief that this new product solved every communications and media problem that humanity could possibly face. Hell, with its glass case, when held to a window, it can even make rainbows.
Apple – Steve – sells a dream. Although Apple, yes, likes money, and will gladly make money on endless passive consumption, they never lost their vision of how computer can be used to aid creation and experssion and experience. Frustrations with linux, its community in particular, drove me ambivalently towards the Mac platform just because it worked, but I was sold on Apple in early 2008. It was an anniversary with a beloved (now ex-) girlfriend. We’d gone out in the morning for a walk around Boston, visited an aquarium, and shared a cappuccino before heading home. I remember only snippets of the day. When we got home, I plugged my camera into my computer and started uploading the photos from the day. Meanwhile the girlfriend and I made a playlist of our favorite music to listen to while we cooked dinner together. Then it hit me: with the photos in iLife and the playlist in iTunes, we could have a slideshow with music to recap our day. We started prepping our dinner. As we washed greens, cut carrots and onions, and made dressing for our salads, we stole glances at the Mac. By the time the salad was served we scrapped the rest of our dinner plans, shoved an organic vegetarian local-grown frozen pizza in the oven and cuddled on the couch.
And with the iPhone 4, I imagine myself having a day out with a friend making ad-hoc movies and editing them into something vaguely watchable, at least for us, on the train ride home.
This is narcissism, yes, but it’s valuable. This is how we remember our lives and our world.
Admittedly I have mixed feelings about the proliferation of consumer electronics but, assuming the spread is inevitable, I’d rather people carry electronic story-making devices with them instead of just, like, iPods.
andy
awesome, jonbon. fifteen years ago when we were kids what was the consumer product that people held onto and basically depended on like we do now with our computers and its peripherals? i don’t think there was a specific, singular thing. quite a change in humanity.
Alex
“By the time the salad was served we scrapped the rest of our dinner plans, shoved an organic vegetarian local-grown frozen pizza in the oven and cuddled on the couch.”
Goodness — is that Michael Pollan that I hear proselytizing from across the bay?
I mean, heaven knows I’m all for a) organic, locally-grown vegetarian foodstuffs, b) frozen pizza, and c) cuddling, but you, my good friend, are getting Awfully Affirmative about your hyperrealism.
Jonathan Beilin
Mostly I felt that adding that quantity of prefixes to a frozen pizza was funny. For the record it was probably Kashi brand.
Thoughts on Apple Post-WWDC 2010
It’s half an hour before Steve Jobs’ keynote on a brisk Monday morning in San Francisco. The line of people anxious to see the latest Apple products wraps around a city block, the excitement driven partly because these products now provide a lifeline and an income source to thousands of independent developers, and partly from a particularly potent brand of raw consumer lust which is seemingly unique to Apple’s brand and its products. The cult of mac is so strong that there is even an Apple-specific dating site which, despite a cheesy name and an ostensibly idiotic premise (Apple-love as a positive bias for mating-pool selection is about as effective for cutting groups of 20– and 30-somethings as finding people who like fun, or ice-cream [although finding people who dislike ice-cream might be useful for pairing vegans and the lactose-intolerant.]) seems poised to succeed at least in terms of community if not profit (the revenue-model is as yet unannounced).
I’m near the back of the line and, although I could cut, there’s a chance I’d still be stuck watching Jobs on a screen in the room designated for overflow and I decide that cutting would not be worth the karma hit. Protestors are standing out front contesting the working conditions in Apple’s factories in China. An unstylish man tries to push magazines on the people in line, asserting that “[we’re] last so we may as well get something for free, right?” I disagree with his premise that ‘something’ inherently has more value than ‘nothing’ and refuse the publication. Resulting from the ban on booth-babes (n. a typically scantily-clad sales-woman focusing more on good-looks than sales-technique or product-knowledge) were small groups of jacketed late-30s women handing out fliers for a free iPhone game. “Have you played our free game?” “You mean Face Fucker Four?” She walked to the next eligible target in line, a couple standing in front of us. She waved her partner to ambush them with a video camera. “What do you think of Face Fighter Gold?” “I don’t know, I haven’t played it, uh, it has a nice flier, I guess.” Locals ask what the line is for. A smartass wearing a good impression of a New York ad exec, Prada narrow half-rim glasses and expensive Neiman Marcus jeans cut for a man, styled for a teenager, rejoindered, “Starbucks. This is the line for Starbucks. We’re fuckin’ thirsty.” He makes small-talk with people around him in line before exerting much energy engaging a short, geeky fellow. The geek says he’s here as a GM contractor and it’s part of the job, feigning that he’s too cool to be here. “But I’ve got so many jobs I can’t even take them all, so I’m trying to find smart people. I give 99% to you, I keep 1%.” It’s obvious: this guy doesn’t code. As we wrap around the building and approach the entrance, I spot the camera lady shooting a video of a Face Fighter flier that had been stomped into the concrete.
I file into the back of the overflow room as Steve Jobs begins his keynote. I’m jaded. I’m here to learn how to make things, not to hear about things I can buy. Steve starts talking and I find myself immediately engaged. It’s because Steve cares. He has money. He has other projects. He could quit at any moment and retain his Silicon Valley badass status. Yet he stays. He cares. It shows. There are some bits of horseshit — a claim that the AppStore is the most vibrant application platform in the world, a claim that is true only with many qualifications — and a maudlin advertisement for FaceTime on the RetinaDisplay featuring a deaf pregnant soon-to-be mother signing to a soldier on deployment. Nevertheless I found myself stomping my feet in excitement and salivating for the next iteration of the iPhone, and it was largely due to the inclusion of a videocamera and on-phone video editing. I left the auditorium with a profound belief that this new product solved every communications and media problem that humanity could possibly face. Hell, with its glass case, when held to a window, it can even make rainbows.
Apple – Steve – sells a dream. Although Apple, yes, likes money, and will gladly make money on endless passive consumption, they never lost their vision of how computer can be used to aid creation and experssion and experience. Frustrations with linux, its community in particular, drove me ambivalently towards the Mac platform just because it worked, but I was sold on Apple in early 2008. It was an anniversary with a beloved (now ex-) girlfriend. We’d gone out in the morning for a walk around Boston, visited an aquarium, and shared a cappuccino before heading home. I remember only snippets of the day. When we got home, I plugged my camera into my computer and started uploading the photos from the day. Meanwhile the girlfriend and I made a playlist of our favorite music to listen to while we cooked dinner together. Then it hit me: with the photos in iLife and the playlist in iTunes, we could have a slideshow with music to recap our day. We started prepping our dinner. As we washed greens, cut carrots and onions, and made dressing for our salads, we stole glances at the Mac. By the time the salad was served we scrapped the rest of our dinner plans, shoved an organic vegetarian local-grown frozen pizza in the oven and cuddled on the couch.
And with the iPhone 4, I imagine myself having a day out with a friend making ad-hoc movies and editing them into something vaguely watchable, at least for us, on the train ride home.
This is narcissism, yes, but it’s valuable. This is how we remember our lives and our world.