I am from Cupertino in California, the home of Apple Computers and its late CEO, Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs grew up in this very town and started off his company in his garage with Steve Wozniak. Wozniak was the engineering end while Jobs was its dynamic creative packaging end. From there grew the company that revolutionized computers in many ways and more so the area of hand held devices.
I got my first iMac at age 6. It was a transparent box with a single power outlet, a keyboard and mouse - very futuristic looking and clutter free. I spent endless hours on it going though digitized versions of my favorite books - Dr Suess and Aesop Fables. The message that the slow and steady Tortoise could win over the fast Hare sunk into my mind with surety (from the digitized Aesop Fable, "The Tortoise and the Hare"). The Apple computer took a background for a few years till the advent of the iPod. Suddenly I had hours of music in my pocket, a relaxant and my companion on long plane journeys. The noise of my surroundings could be drowned out by a device that was but a few square inches. The iTouch was the next, it was exciting as I could now play games and it even had a small keyboard that I could type on. And I still had access to all my music. Along came the iPhone, and with it the power of reaching out and talking to others.
The finale was the iPad - a computer you held in your hands - an electronic tablet. It didn't require a lot of booting time, and it was simple to use. You could do most things on it that you could do on a regular computer. A touch screen meant that you did not need a mouse or a keyboard. You could type documents and browse the internet. There was an app for everything. Games were the first and they took on new level with touch-screen technology. Best of all it opened up a world for communication for those who desperately needed an avenue. There were text-to-speech apps, which gave the voiceless a voice. There were sentence and icon apps which helped bridge communication for those who lacked it. The world was potentially at our very fingertips. We could learn anything - there were no limits to educational and other possibilities. What a great equalizer for the world that is usually divided by access and abilities.
In the end, the camera and other fancy add-ones that a gadget provides are secondary. The fact that it starts to make a difference in the lives of many, and gives them new direction and hope, is what makes it remarkable.
Steve Jobs recently died of Pancreatic Cancer. We will miss you, Steve Jobs, Cupertino's own son. You put this little city, which was once just orchards, on the world wide map. Most of all, your products truly made a difference in the lives of many including me.
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