Geek love: new iPhone!
My passion for multifunction tools goes way back
The latest version of what I believe is the most amazing multifunction tool of all time— the GOAT multifunction tool, if you will—is upon us. The iPhone. I just ordered a 16 Pro, and am I excited!
My gadget passion goes way back to when I was 8, when I fell hard for the Sky King Magni-Glow Ring, as advertised in the crime-stopping-cowboy radio program, Sky King. (Except Schuyler King’s “horse” was a small plane.) The ring cost 15 cents, plus the inner seal from a jar of Peter Pan Peanut Butter. “Allow up to six weeks for delivery,” they said. Every day I checked the mailbox—it was the longest six weeks of my young life. It would be my first piece of “jewelry,” and much more useful than diamonds. It glowed in the dark, and featured a magnifier as well as a secret compartment (!!!) in which you could hide coded messages or poison pills. Oh yeah, and the pointy tip sort of wrote.
Other favorite multifunction tools over the years:
A watch that not only told time, it also showed the date, and could be used as a stopwatch. (Time was so simple back then.)
A Swiss Army knife. It’s still so good that we call any useful multifunction gadget “the Swiss Army knife of __toaster ovens,” etc__. Except I lose the tweezers and toothpick within a few months.
LEGO. I know, it’s not a tool, but damn! those little bricks can be assembled into almost anything.
The personal computer! OMG, it changed my life. Really.
In 1980 I was a wannabe writer who wrote truly shitty first drafts (still do), but was such a bad typist that I never had the patience to type and retype and retype the edits necessary to produce something worth reading. (How the hell did Charles Dickens bang out such brilliant books on the first go-round?) Also, I was heading for graduate school and knew my last-minute typed & Whited-Outed papers wouldn’t cut it.
I bought myself a Vector Graphic 3, with two 48k floppy drives. Talk about tight code: it used 48 kilobytes (yes, KILOBYTES!) to run the CP/M operating system, and 48k more for Magic Wand, a robust word processor. The manual for the computer came in a large 3-ring binder, with words I did not understand and a lot of diagrams of electronic connections—so don’t you whine to me about inscrutable user manuals.
The Vector and Magic Wand made me a writer, I kid you not. I loved that machine, and held onto it even after IBM-PCs and Apples came roaring onto the scene. My husband and I both wrote our grad school papers on it, complete with footnotes. And I sold articles and essays to major national magazines, thanks to that workhorse.
I won’t bore you with all the computers I have owned and loved since 1980—could be as many as 20. I became so intrigued with the machines that were helping me write, that I dropped the free-lance writing in 1987, and for the next five years worked for two engineering nerds about half my age who had started a thriving company building custom computers—many for university researchers, law offices). We bought parts—the cases, circuit boards, RAM chips etc and assembled our own brand of what were known as “IBM clones” because they weren’t the real IBM-PC. I helped our clients spec out what they needed, and our techs built them (and showed me how to make my own, which I did for years. Trust me, it’s not nearly as difficult as it might sound). Back then many people still had not used a personal computer, so I also trained new users and wrote the kind of user manuals I’d missed with the Vector.
We moved to the Portland area in 1992, thus ending that computer-intensive phase, although I still built and/or upgraded my own machines until 2009, when I had a conversion experience. An Apple conversion…
Love at first bite was my first iPhone, the 3Gs. Talk about a multifunction tool! Phone, camera, email, messaging, music, weather, calendar, voice memos, notepad… And all so elegant. Eat your heart out, Sky King!
All those years, I had looked down my nose at my wussy friends who used Macs. When I was your age, kids, I walked ten miles to school barefoot in the snow, pushing my Vector and its monster user manual and 48k floppy drives in a wheelbarrow in front of me. Overnight I became an Apple addict and bought my first Mac. Even though there is no such thing as building your own Mac from parts, I’ve not looked back. I even cried when Steve Jobs died.
It’s been only fifteen years since my conversion, but it feels like forever. Every two years I get a new iPhone, mainly because of the camera, which I use several times every single day and has been my ONLY camera for several years now. This may explain how come I have tens of thousands of photos on my computer. Not all are works of art (ha! hardly), but none are blurry or badly exposed.
My new iPhone arrives Friday, and I’ll let you know how it goes.
Am I the only multifunction tool addict around here? What do YOU have a thing for?
This week I taught an online class about color analysis to Seamwork, a global group of folks who love to sew. In a couple of weeks I’m giving a different talk at the annual gathering of color professionals in SF. Am I prepared? Do I have a plan? Well, as the former president said, “I have concepts of a plan.”
DAVIS: You still do not have a health care plan?
TRUMP: I have concepts of a plan
Note: He’s had 9 years of talking about a healthcare plan that’s better than Obamacare and he’s still gotten no further than “concepts of a plan?”
PUT YOURSELF IN THE WAY OF BEAUTY
Wowzer! sunset over the West Hills of Portland from my window this evening.
I'm kind of retarded with Apple stuff. I have a local folder on my NAS with all my music. Just play it from there by dragging the link to my iTunes folder. Sometimes I use another media player like VLC media player. It's not so much about having it on my phone when I'm out -- just listening around the house. I connect the phone by Bluetooth to my stereo and listen with the big speakers. So Much better.
Brings back memories. I always knew there was something I liked about you. Now I know you're a fellow geek!! Tech is what keeps me young -- always learning new things!!