The apple of My i

Japanese ad for iMac, 1998

iMac in 5 colors 1999

My obsession with Apple began in 1999 when I bought my first i-Mac. I don't mind admitting that the main reason I bought it was because of the way it looked.The ergonomic shape was both futuristic yet comforting and who could resist those fresh and juicy colors? Mine was blueberry but you could also have strawberry, lime, tangerine and grape. It was a eureka moment for me, that first realization that computers and electronics don't have to be beige and boring or worse still frightening and hard to use. It's quaint to think about it now but my hesitation about buying it was based on the fact that it was a hard drive and monitor "all-in-one". Based on the comments of the few computer buffs I knew back then, this could prove to be a problem later on if the hard drive broke down but the monitor was still good or vice versa. Well form won out over possible malfunction, I bought my first Apple product and I have never looked back. Luckily for us all Steve Jobs and Macintosh had anticipated a shift in the market which called for a streamlining of our personal electronic equipment.

On January 27 2010 Steve Jobs introduced the i-Pad which launches on April 3rd. In the same address he offered up some impressive statistics.

• There are now 284 Apple retail stores, including a 4th store just opened in New York.
  
• In the last quarter, the stores welcomed 50 million visitors worldwide.
• 250 million ipods have now been sold.
• There are 140,000 applications in the apps store.
• In the 18 months since its inception 3 billion apps have been downloaded.
  

Steve Jobs pointed out that with the three best sellers for the company being the iphone, ipod and the ibook laptop it means that "Apple is a mobile devices company." and its the largest in the world, bigger than Sony, Samsung and Nokia.

I can't wait for the day that everything in my Apple loving home is in-synch in one friendly device that does everything from open the front door to allow me to flick through my favorite magazines. I can see that the ipad is a great step in that direction and despite the usual naysayers predicting doom and gloom I can't wait to give this new product a test run.