My Tech Life. 1973ish to maybe 2011ish

[vision63]

Pardon my rambling.

From the first time I saw the Pong game in the bowling alley near our house in L.A. to that Mac Mini I bought in 2011. From that moment forward, I no longer find joy in the acquisition of electronic gadgetry.

My first inkling was when I didn't buy an iPad when they first came out. The herd strength had me wanting one, but I couldn't think of what I could do with it that I couldn't do with my MacBook Pro. You know, now that I think about it, the first inklings of internal dissent probably started when they changed the name of the PowerBook to the mundane sounding MacBook, which still sounds weird. Why would I not want something called a "Power" Book? Also, though I love the iMacs, when I replaced my tower with a flat white one, a small piece of my soul perished. But the iMac was so cool and responsive, I didn't think too much about it. Until I wanted a relatively inexpensive tower again.

Now I'm plugging away on my 2011 MacBook Pro and not buying a new one despite needing more Umph (not to mention the want a king's ransom for something I can't touch the screen of and tabletize).

I think the Number One reason my technology urges have been blunted has been the massive difficulty of trying to manage my music and movies on my Macs. I think iTunes; it's lack of alternatives and it's stupefying plummeting into hell is the primary frustration that strips the fun out of my Macs. And that started with the removal of Cover Flow. A simple thing that I loved.

Now I'm forced to hike, bike, play old-guy basketball and old-guy run.

[testcase]

If I remember correctly, the first iPad came out in 2010. I too skipped it, also thinking that, between my 17" MBP and iPhone, I could do anything and everything that an iPad could do. in 2014, I saw an iPad Mini, 64GB (the maximum available for that model) that also had cellular capability all for $400 (the MSRP was $160 more). I pulled the trigger and, was very pleasantly surprised at how much I liked the iPad Mini. I have to agree that iTunes leaves a LOT to be desired. Contacts, Calendar and Notes also lag WAAAAAY behind what I had well over a decade ago with Palm OS. The simplicity & elegance of "it just works" hasn't applied to Apple for quiet some time now.

[Numo]

In my younger days, it was a joy to play around with software and discover all the neat things I could do with it. Now I just want it to work: simple and intuitive. Sadly, it seems to me that Apple software has become more complicated and less intuitive over the years.

In the last week or so, I've spent 3-4 hours just trying to turn Keychain off! I suspect that there is some unholy alliance between iCloud, Safari and Keychain that conspires to keep me from doing that. Keychain itself has a very unpolished interface that looks like a beta release. What are they NOT thinking?

[N-OS X-tasy!]

vision63 wrote:
I think the Number One reason my technology urges have been blunted has been the massive difficulty of trying to manage my music and movies on my Macs.

I am in the same position, but I have a different theory as to why I no longer swoon over the latest and greatest:

Simply put, I want my technology to just work.

When I was younger, I was much more willing to deal with the bleeding that sometimes comes with being on the cutting edge. That is no longer the case. Now I value time more than anything else; once I have a solution that is proven to work, I am very reluctant to move away from it. This, combined with the decline in Apple's IJWQ (It Just Works Quotient) in recent years, leaves me extremely reluctant to upgrade unless I absolutely need to.

EDIT: In other words, what Ammo said.

[vision63]

N-OS X-tasy! wrote:
[quote=vision63]
I think the Number One reason my technology urges have been blunted has been the massive difficulty of trying to manage my music and movies on my Macs.

I am in the same position, but I have a different theory as to why I no longer swoon over the latest and greatest:

Simply put, I want my technology to just work.

When I was younger, I was much more willing to deal with the bleeding that sometimes comes with being on the cutting edge. That is no longer the case. Now I value time more than anything else; once I have a solution that is proven to work, I am very reluctant to move away from it. This, combined with the decline in Apple's IJWQ (It Just Works Quotient) in recent years, leaves me extremely reluctant to upgrade unless I absolutely need to.

EDIT: In other words, what Ammo said.
That's really interesting. I think over time we're expected to deliver a lot more output than we used to. There used to be a buffer. I remember when everyone started faxing and correcting errors and making changes instantly instead of using couriers, which gave you a break.

[hal]

Part of this angst is that tech is maturing. It used to be that every new release meant new frontiers, new astounding speed etc. Now new tech is only slightly better than what preceded it and even that is up for debate.

Plus we're all a lot more tech savvy than way back when - we know what we need and know what we don't need - that wasn't so obvious in 1998. Experimentation was part of moving forward - not really true any more. Now experimentation = danger and most of us just don't need that.

[ka jowct]

I still enjoy new gizmos, but no longer eagerly anticipate new Macs as I once did. Oh, how I wanted a Quadra back in the day: a 650 at least, or even a 700, but my real lust was for the 840AV. I got none of those. Next I lusted after the PowerMac 7100. At work, I finally upgraded from a IIci with 12 MB of RAM to a PowerMac 7500 with 48 MB of RAM, which also included a jump from a 13" RBG monitor to a 20" MultipleScan Display. That was truly a great leap forward. Made a similar jump at home, replacing my IIci with 13" monitor with a 7600 and the 20" Apple monitor.

I also felt a lot of love for my third bought-new Mac, an MDD 867, and the memory-management of OS X.

My streak of loving Mac hardware seems to have ground to a screeching halt with the 2012 models. Nothing newer than that in the household, and thing will have to change dramatically before I shell out for a new computer, laptop or desktop, from Apple.

I love my 2010 Mac Pro (refurb bought in 2012) and will keep it going as long as I possibly can. If it dies, I will get another one, perhaps in a more powerful configuration. Of all the Macs I've used and owned, I like this design the best. I would be very, very excited to see Apple get back to something that powerful and elegant and user-friendly.

[freeradical]

A lot, if not most new tech, simply seems like solutions searching for problems to me.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

freeradical wrote:
A lot, if not most new tech, simply seems like solutions searching for problems to me.

I agree.

[decay]

iTunes has transformed from a personal music management and playback program into a delivery system for purchased content from Apple. They don't really want you adding your own media. There's no CD drives in Macs any more, notice that? Also no DVD players.

iTunes and iPhone are now about add-on purchases. So is the macOS, with the App Store. Apple even removed Software Update to make you use the App Store.

Apple really cares about Apple's bottom line, not user enjoyment - unless that enjoyment involves spending MORE money at Apple.