PC or Mac (or iPad or Android, or…)?

OK, who stood in line recently to buy a new iPad?  Have you been in an argument about the advantages vs. disadvantages between owning the iPhone 11 now vs. waiting for the iPhone 12 with 5G to be perfected?  I’m not much of a gadget guy, unlike my wife, who is a total gadget girl. Referencing the advertising campaign – I’m a PC; she’s a Mac.  And don’t get me started with my 10 year old grandson! 

Isn’t it funny how we associate ourselves with the technology of the day? Reminds me of the story by Dan Danborn: 

I am a dot-com person, but my friend Steve, who works for a public television station, is a dot-org person.  He believes dot-org persons are more noble than dot-com persons because dot-com persons are in businesses where they try to make money, while his dot-org public television station has a more lofty goal than making money:  they would rather beg and whine for it.                   

Passionate about their technology, yes?  

And which of your gadgets are you passionate about?  Is it passion; or addiction???  Did anyone read the article a few years ago labeled “Crackberry”?  This included testimonials from businesspeople who literally lost sleep in order to respond to emails in the middle of the night.  Sound familiar anyone?  OK, I’ll raise my hand here too – not because I wake up at 4 a.m. to check emails, but I do admit that I carry my mobile devices with me everywhere.  You? 

So far we’ve just been touching on gadgets.  Add in applications and streaming?  Forget about it! 

“IOT” and the Internet; how did it come about that technology took over our lives?  Here’s one theory from Rick Levine: 

And along comes the Internet.  It was as if we'd ordered it from Arizona: “Hello, US Federal Government?  Yes, we'd like one totally open, high-speed, data backbone. Uh-huh, and charge that to the Department of Defense, why don’t you?  What's that?  What do we want if for?  Oh, just chatting about stuff.  You know, this and that."            

So as I add it up, in the past forty years I have moved from mainframe/character-based/green-bar-paper; through mini-computer/GUI/dot-matrix-printing; past Win-Tel/Internet-based/color-laser-printing; into mobile/social/video/paperless/Cloud computing.  I used to be able to leave my work at the office when I went home.  Now, I am one with my office (and may The Force be with you, too!).

It makes me wonder if the titans of the technology industry think about what they have created.  I wonder what gadgets they personally use (and how many they carry).  Do they have an army of administrative assistants to support their daily routine?  And if they do, isn’t that a manual approach to the modern world?  Would they chuckle about that?  

The gadgets they invented have us tripping over ourselves to acquire the latest and greatest upgrades; consuming untold numbers of hours using these devices; working harder and harder just to keep up; while they kick back in a private jet, on their way to meetings scheduled for them by executive assistants, with notes and follow-ups handled by a herd of staffers.  Does that still count as “high-tech”? 

All in the name of smaller-faster-mobile-social-ubiquitous-technology.  Here’s one philosophy from Steve Wozniak, Apple Co-Founder, and one of the titans who impacted our lives: 

            Never trust a computer you can’t throw out a window.

And that’s why I take out the insurance coverage on my smart phone. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.