In 2011, it’s hard sometimes to remember there was life before Facebook or iPhones. It’s hard to remember that one had to sit down at a computer and log into an email account rather than having the messages delivered to a smartphone in a pocket. It’s hard to remember the once-coveted music compact discs and their portable players, and it’s nearly impossible to remember music was once played by a moving stylus on a plastic disk with grooves. And although new names make headlines every day, a look at the past decade’s nearly frenzied embrace of technology shows the influence, the reach of Steve Jobs.
Although I had used Apples and Macs at school and work for years, Apple gave me my first real taste of truly personal tech in 2001. Shortly after 9/11, the news service where I worked received two supercool-looking gadgets from Apple they wanted us to test drive and write about. It was called an iPod, and its 5GB hard drive held “1,000 songs in your pocket.” (A 1,000 songs?!! Really?!!) I got to take one home and play with it — and I played with it for hours, which turned into days. After my test drive, I was able to pre-order one. I was one of the first people in America to own an iPod. It’s probably my greatest achievement. Read more…
Apple products have been my life, all my life; purchased or used over 60 major Apple products over the years. #iSad— Jeff Richardson (@IamJeffRich) October 06, 2011
"We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will." #iSad#RIPSteveJobs— Jennifer Smuckler (@jsmuck) October 06, 2011
Early Friday, I wrapped up an ecommerce class, tried to forget about work and boarded a train for a much-overdue trip to New York City. This meant I had three hours to kill with no WiFi and zero desire to read the book I had brought along. I was, however, armed with my iPhone, so I snapped graffiti as I saw it along the train tracks. (I was on a speeding train, so some photos were better than others.)
As we walked 13 miles around the city on Saturday, I continued to snap away. I took more than 300 photos over two days; in the interest of my readers’ time, I have heavily edited my collection.
The Walls Street Journalreports Amazon customers who bought Lady Gaga’s Born This Way for 99 cents were met with serious delays. A company spokesman told the WSJ that customers who ordered Born This Way on Monday would get the full album for the promotional price.
Good for them. Had these consumers been as stubborn stupid as I was, they could have wasted three and a half hours of their lives restarting the download.
Attention Little Monsters: For one day only eCommerce giant Amazon is offering Lady Gaga’s new album Born this Way for 99 cents. The wheels of Web 2.0 were in full force for this promotion: I heard about it first on my iPhone, and then on Facebook and finally, Tumblr.
Why write about the Motorola Xoom and iPhone 5 rumors when you can revisit the days of “transportable phones” and “cell-u-lar phones”?
Mashable has a roundup of 10 vintage commercials for mobile phones that’s a terrific time-waster, er, research. I found this one for Radio Shack’s “affordable, portable cell-u-lar phone” particularly nostalgic. (“Cellular service available in most major cities.”) And check out the sexy transporting case!
@MichelleCMariea Twasn't my 1st time hit. :-D I should know better by now. Guess my spring training isn't going as well as she'd like.~14 hours ago
Unexpected inspiration for runners: the thunderstorm that moves in when you're 2 miles from home -- without a phone. #speedtrainingfordummy~15 hours ago
@mpob Thanks for coming out last night! Forgot to tell you: My purse crisis wouldn't be if I hadn't let the iPad dictate size for 2 years!~22 hours ago
