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I don't know if it's fair to say that this site would not exist without Apple and Steve Jobs. It certainly would have been different.

Love of technology started early. My first computer was a Commodore 64. From there, I stayed in the Commodore camp for a bit and bought the much maligned Amiga 500. After that, a Mac SE was my first Apple product. I was never very good at picking the popular machine of the day.

I stayed with Apple through the 90s - Performas, Quadras, LCs, noisy PowerBooks, etc... Not machines that are remembered as the highlights of the company's offerings. Still, I formed some sort of bond with the company - I was a teenager that wanted to be out of the mainstream and I guess I saw some of that in Apple.

I was easily swept up in the Apple rumors of the day - Copland, Gershwin, OS 8, and OS 9. Apple buys NeXT and Jobs returns. I bought at NeXTStation Color second-hand to see what it was all about. I scammed my way into the Apple-NeXT developer transition program which got me access to all of the Rhapsody betas, the product that would become MacOS X.

My wedding anniversary is October 23rd, a date I share with the introduction of the iPod (though not the same year). My Diamond Rio looked pretty damn crappy next to a device that we'd now look down on as bulky and unusable. Still, it spawned the modern Apple we now know.

In 2007 we got iPhone and then a year later, the ability to create apps. I knew immediately that it was my future and I haven't looked back. Since then, iPad, which will also undoubtedly be hugely impactful for the future of computing.

Apple has changed my life.

If I felt a little stab when I learned about Jobs' retiring in August, this time it was more like being hit by a truck. As much as I assumed this day would come, it was still a shock.

As most of my readers know, my father died three years ago, also from cancer. There was a point, about six months into his treatment that it didn't seem like anything was working. I remember Dad pulling me aside one evening and telling me that he'd decided he didn't want any more invasive treatment - he was ready to accept what was coming. It was a tough pill to swallow for me - I thought I wanted him to keep fighting but I think I just really wasn't ready to lose him. He had decided he'd rather spend his time with his family at home than in some hospital recovery room. It was the right choice. With Steve's resignation and today's events, I can't help but think he made the same decision, undoubtedly the right one. Spend time with the people you love. You never have enough time.

In some ways I feel silly for feeling so emotional about Jobs' passing, a person I've never met. His own family is starting the process that I went through that July. God bless them. I think some of this is latent sadness and regret about my own situation. Still, it's hitting me a lot harder than I expected and since this is my outlet, this is where I'm posting it.

Sorry, no comments. Not in the mood.

http://www.apple.com