APPLE: THE FIRST 50 YEARS
A couple of weeks ago I preordered this book written by David Pogue on Kindle. It was released today and I have started reading it. It tells the story of how the Apple computer was originated and how the company grew to being one of the most successful businesses in the USA.
It is a book that covers technological discoveries and inventions that changed my life and mirror the changes caused by computers that are turning the world upside down. I have just started it and am fascinated, although I am sure that to almost anyone else this would be the last book that they would become obsessed by. But I am obsessed because the innovations introduced by Apple have stimulated and enlivened me for the past 25 years.
But the ironic thing is that while David Pogue leads me through innovation after innovation, all of which had dislocated and opened me up, I don’t understand any of the technological language that he uses and have no idea how any of these products have been developed or how they are built. All I know is what the finished product, what I can do with them. How they work is amazing inexplicable technology, how I can use them feels entirely intuitive, moving sliders, pushing buttons, playing with possibilities.
What I am getting a sense of is a hint of the tremendously complicated technology in each product and the enormous number of hours individuals and even groups of thousands of people have put into each innovation that succeeds and into the many innovations that don’t pan out and have to be abandoned. And through it all is the determination and demand for excellence and remarkable imagination of Steve Jobs. It is as much a story of human relations and individual vision as it is of technology.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 