{"id":1737,"date":"2015-02-27T15:40:54","date_gmt":"2015-02-27T15:40:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1737"},"modified":"2015-02-27T15:40:54","modified_gmt":"2015-02-27T15:40:54","slug":"my-life-in-tech-or-the-unexpected-virtue-of-apple-ness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2015\/02\/27\/my-life-in-tech-or-the-unexpected-virtue-of-apple-ness\/","title":{"rendered":"My Life in Tech – or The Unexpected Virtue of Apple-ness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Are you thinking about the Apple Watch?<\/p>\n

Wait, let me start at the beginning.<\/p>\n

\"motorola_memphis_mr201\"1997 was a vastly different time. Yes,\u00a0email had been around for a while (I had my first email account at university in 1990) but the Internet wasn’t anything like the all-pervading force it is today. I accessed the Internet via a dial-up modem (which stopped other people in the house from using the telephone). I used it mainly to access bulletin boards like CiX, since the World Wide Web was in its infancy. I wouldn\u2019t make my first purchase on Amazon until October 1998. I wouldn\u2019t upload my first website until 1999. Paypal was a year away. YouTube was eight years away. Public access to Facebook was nine years away. Twitter was inconceivable. And my first mobile phone looked something like this.<\/p>\n

The battery life was pretty good, and it made phone calls and sent new things called SMSes or \u201ctext messages\u201d. Mobile phones had only recently stopped being the preserve of yuppies and had also recently stopped being the size (and weight) of housebricks. They were fairly expensive to own and to use, however, and so my wife and I ended up sharing this one. It wasn\u2019t until 2000 that I finally got my own, which by now looked something like this.<\/p>\n

\"nokia3310\"<\/a>It was also in 2000 that I bought a PDA (personal digital assistant) for the first time. I\u2019d been tempted by a Psion Organiser in the 1980s but I couldn\u2019t afford one that was actually any good. By now, Psion was in decline and Palm was the new market leader.<\/p>\n

Palm had introduced the original Palm Pilot in 1996. This digital calendar, phone book, eBook reader, notepad and calculator used a stylus to enter data via a simplified alphabet called Graffiti, but early models \u2013 although impressive for the time \u2013 were very expensive.<\/p>\n

\"m100_big\"When Palm released the Palm m100, I had to have it. It cost around a hundred quid, was powered by two AAA batteries and it had to be synced to a computer to get updated information on to it (a service called AvantGo synced and cached stripped-down web-pages for later reading on-the-go). It rapidly took over my life.<\/p>\n

\"tungsten\"Over time, I went through several generations of Palms, culminating in the Palm Tungsten TX which finally got rid of the dedicated Graffiti area (which accepted input from the stylus but which couldn\u2019t display anything), had a colour screen (320×480) and Wi-Fi \u2013 but still no cellular connectivity. I got mine around 2006 and its vibrant app development community meant there was precious little it couldn\u2019t do.<\/p>\n

\"Sony_Ericsson_K810i_frontI still had a mobile phone at this point which by now looked something like this.\u00a0For a while, I had an MP3 player as well but later Palms which accepted SD cards eventually took over this role.<\/p>\n

Why so many devices? Obviously, I knew that objects existed which combined the functions of phone and PDA into a single device, but Palm Treos and Compaq iPAQs seemed somehow\u00a0clunky to me, certainly physically if not in terms of software, and I\u2019d got really used to my Sony Ericsson and my Palm Tungsten and didn\u2019t really see a compelling reason to drop either.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d also stopped using Apple products since giving up being a graphic designer. At one point my desk at work had a Mac for Photoshop and QuarkXPress and a Windows PC for coding and I was running both of them off one giant monitor. Now, I was working from home and I\u2019d scaled my home computer down to a laptop and relegated my Windows PC to the role of media centre. I\u2019d played with iMacs and been impressed at how pretty they were, but Apple was a niche player as far as I could see, and I wasn’t in that niche.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth pausing just for a moment here to look at where Palm stood at this point. They were the market leaders in PDAs, largely because of the enormous variety of apps available. Even as far back as 2000, usability guru Jakob Neilsen had noted that what he called the \u201cdeck of cards form-factor\u201d was far superior to the \u201ccandy bar\u201d format<\/a> of most \u201cfeature phones\u201d. Palm was surely poised to dominate the fast-approaching smartphone revolution. Weren\u2019t they?<\/p>\n

Well, I might not have been using Apple products regularly, but I certainly sat up and took notice when Beaming Steve unveiled the original iPhone in June 2007. Clearly this was an amazing device, but as someone who\u2019d never even owned an iPod, I didn\u2019t have any brand loyalty to Apple and all I could see were the flaws. No 3G, which meant sluggish Internet, and you couldn\u2019t surf and talk at the same time. No apps, so you couldn\u2019t find nifty new software like I could on my Palm. No expandable storage. And \u2013 ouch \u2013 that price! When O2 announced it for sale to UK consumers in November, I just continued with my Wi-Fi Palm Tungsten and my T-Mobile Sony Ericsson candy bar phone.<\/p>\n

However, when the far cheaper iPod Touch was announced in 2007, I was suddenly convinced, and got Deborah to buy me one in the States where she was visiting friends and send\u00a0it home to me. I abandoned my Palm, downloaded iTunes and bought a bunch of CDs to rip in order to use it to its fullest. Suddenly my crummy Tungsten with its fiddly stylus seemed like Stone Age technology. But worse was to come for Palm.<\/p>\n

\"foleo\"Also, in 2007, Palm announced what amounted to a new category of devices \u2013 the Palm Foleo. This amazingly small and light personal computer had a full-sized keyboard and a 10 inch screen. Today we’d say it looks a little like a netbook and a little like a Microsoft Surface. What it didn\u2019t have was 3G connectivity, but you could pair it with your Treo and download email on the go.<\/p>\n

Apple should have been worried. Blackberry \u2013 who owned corporate-email-on-the-go at this point \u2013 should have been worried. But if you\u2019re wondering why you never saw any of these Foleos in the wild, it\u2019s because three months after announcing it \u2013 and before it had shipped a single unit \u2013 Palm cancelled the project altogether. From there, Palm spiralled into take-overs, functional divisions and ultimately irrelevancy as Apple seized the initiative.<\/p>\n

When the refreshingly affordable iPhone 3G was announced in 2008, I needed no more persuading. My iPod Touch had become invaluable. I had \u201cjailbroken\u201d it so I could install apps, I was subscribing to a bunch of podcasts and listening to audio books, and I was sick of having to try and find Wi-Fi hotspots before I could check my email or browse the web. I paid off T-Mobile, abandoned my Sony Ericsson candybar phone and I was all-in with Apple.<\/p>\n

The rest is pretty much as you might expect. I have bought every model of iPhone since \u2013 Apple products keep their value surprisingly well, so I can often very nearly subsidise the entire cost of the upgrade by selling the old model on eBay. I bought the original iPad, then fell in love with the smart cover on the iPad 2, then felt I needed the retina display on the iPad 3 and then finally wanted to get an iPad with a lightning connector, so I got the iPad Air. I didn\u2019t get the iPad Air 2, as the only reason to upgrade that I could see was Touch ID, which is nice and all, but I\u2019m saving up for\u2026<\/p>\n

The Apple Watch.<\/p>\n

Okay, so \u2013 to be clear \u2013 this is almost certainly a bad idea. The first generation Apple Watch, like the 2G iPhone and the inch-thick 2010 iPad is likely to be a lavishly-priced prototype rather than the real deal. The inevitable Apple Watch 2 is no doubt going to be half the thickness, have twice the battery life and provide intimate massages on demand but \u2013 I can\u2019t wait. I want to test this thing out, and I\u2019m getting itchy. We\u2019re told that it will be out in \u201cearly 2015\u201d which has now been clarified to \u201cApril\u201d (which I guess is early 2015, but it\u2019s certainly late early 2015). If it goes on-sale Friday 24 April, say, that means we can expect an event of some kind week beginning 6 April 2015, so we should be hearing something around the end of March.\u00a0(Updated to note – we learned yesterday, 26 February, that the event will be held on 9 March, which suggests a slightly earlier ship date.)<\/em><\/p>\n

At the moment we don\u2019t really know what kind of money we\u2019re going to have to plunk down. Apple has said prices will start at\u00a0$349 which probably works out as something between \u00a3279 and \u00a3319 when you factor in VAT. But is that for the watch, and then your choice of strap is extra? Or do all the combos on the Apple website represent different SKUs? And if they do, will you be able to also buy extra straps? What does $349 get you? The stainless steel model or only\u00a0something in\u00a0the aluminium “Sport” range? Just the luminous plastic strap, or something fancier like the Link Bracelet or the Milanese Loop? Will it be out in the UK in April, or do we have to wait? (Ominously, the US Apple web site says \u201cComing early 2015\u201d but the UK Apple web site says \u201cAvailable in 2015\u201d.)<\/p>\n

And when it is finally available, what do I want? Previously, it was an easy choice (\u201cthe black one with the most storage, please,\u201d) but this is a fashion accessory and Apple has provided a bewildering array of possible options. My skinny wrist probably means the 38mm model is the one to go for (even though that means fewer pixels, not just a physically smaller screen). I would ideally like the Black Stainless Steel model with the Link Bracelet, but I\u2019m not paying \u00a3700 for the privilege. If the Watch Sport range is the only one which is remotely affordable, then I guess it will have to be the Space Grey Aluminium with Black Fluroelastomer band. The 18 carat gold models are clearly meant only for demented millionaires, in which category I do not alas qualify \u2013 some estimates put the price as high as $20,000!<\/p>\n

And if it is US only, I may be looking into one of those services which provides you with a US postal address and then ships the goods on to you. I\u2019ll let you know how I get on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are you thinking about the Apple Watch? Wait, let me start at the beginning. 1997 was a vastly different time. Yes,\u00a0email had been around for a while (I had my first email account at university in 1990) but the Internet wasn’t anything like the all-pervading force it is today. I accessed the Internet via a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[111],"tags":[143,460,456,146,458,457,459],"class_list":["post-1737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-apple","tag-apple-watch","tag-gadgets","tag-iphone","tag-mobile-phone","tag-palm","tag-watch"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-s1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1737"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1759,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1737\/revisions\/1759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}