A Tryst With Apple

THE FIRST TIME I owned an Apple device for personal use was in September 2004, just a few weeks into my masters program in New York. I was new to the US and trying to find my ground. In the midst of acquainting myself with new people and the new academic environment, I was also trying to make an important decision: which laptop would I purchase? 

Naturally, I sought the advice of my new friends—both housemates and classmates. But the choices were varied and the number of parameters to bear in mind was confounding for a techno-laggard like me. From different screen sizes, weights, brands, processer speeds and what not, I received as many different perspectives as the number of people I spoke to. Interestingly, however, all suggestions that came my way pertained to choices between different brands and configurations of Personal Computers (PCs), as opposed to a Mac. Yes, it was still a time when I was unable to imagine that a Macintosh could possibly be used as a personal computer.

Not that I had anything against Apple computers. With their vibrant colours and iconoclastic shapes, I had always admired them. I had my first tryst with Macintosh computers fairly early on, in mid-1990s, when I was still in my teens. My family has always been in publishing and so I had the privilege of watching magazine designers as they worked out layouts and graphics on their beautiful looking Macs. I had even read a bit about Steve Jobs in former Apple CEO John Sculley’s autobiography, Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple, and was therefore already in awe of Jobs and his machines.

But my early impression was that Macs were used for cutting-edge graphic design, magazine layouts, animation and all kinds of creative work, and were therefore only meant for highly trained designers and professionals. A Macintosh, with its ostensibly complex Operating System (as opposed to what seemed a far simpler Windows system at that time), held little sway for a lay user like me.

And so such an impression remained deeply ingrained through the years. That is, up until that fateful day in the fall of 2004 when I visited a high school friend from New Delhi who was pursuing his doctorate in information technology in New Jersey. In one corner of his room lay an unopened box enclosing a PowerBook G4, the latest offering from Apple, donning the stylish new aluminum casing. Empathising with the dilemma I was facing and realising that I desperately needed a laptop, my friend generously offered me his PowerBook for a few weeks. He was still using his old laptop, so I would have time to figure out my own decision, and possibly even explore the option of purchasing a Mac for myself.

Hold on there. A Macintosh for me? How on earth would it be any good to me? Why would I bother acquainting myself with a rather unfamiliar Operating System? And why would I, in my right mind, buy an expensive Mac for mundane tasks like e-mail, net surfing and assignments for writing classes? Unmoved by my instantaneous, almost reflexive rejection of the idea, my friend nonetheless convinced me to keep it and try his PowerBook out for a few days before arriving at a conclusion.

Boy, was I in for a surprise. A week was all it took to fall in love. I know it wasn’t only because of its sleek design. Or its swanky graphics, the way windows on the screen swooped open, or the way icons on the sidebar menu swelled up when the cursor ran over them. It wasn’t only because the keyboard had the most well laid-out design, or because the keys made those perfectly soft ‘click’ sounds when tapped upon.

It was much more than that. I had seen Macs from afar for more than a decade but this was the first time I was experiencing one. It was liberating. It was edgy. Apple was about pushing the boundaries of experiencing personal computing to a new, heightened level.

Apple devices never came with a user manual and so one was perennially discovering the quirkiest of hidden features. Every now and then, you felt that the Mac was revealing yet another fascinating secret. It talked to you, took you through a journey. Perhaps that is the reason that, contrary to my expectations, a Mac felt more personal and intimate than any other technology device I had owned.

Over the weeks and months, the PowerBook became something I increasingly identified myself with. Carrying it in my backpack, in that still unfamiliar environment, lent a sense of comfort to my world. Whenever alone, I could pull it out, latch on to the university’s Wi-Fi and spend hours in its company, browsing the net, writing mails and catching up on my research.

Since Apple computers were not yet widely used by students, there was something cliquish about Mac users. In libraries and reading rooms, unfamiliar faces would exchange a silent acknowledgement, as if to say, ‘Yes, I know how cool it is to use a Mac.’ A community, a cult, a group of enlightened users, bound by their belief in the superiority of their tech toys.

I used that very PowerBook, which I was supposed to return to my friend in a week’s time, for more than four years. My friend never called me up to check on when he could have it back. I couldn’t get myself to accept the idea of returning that particular notebook, with which I had forged such a close bond in so short a time. So before he got a chance to call, a new PowerBook arrived at his door, the same model that he had lent me and which I had ordered in his name before the week was over.

Anant Nath