I had an Apple laptop at the turn of the (21st) century, a cute blueberry clamshell iBook – I spent a lot of time on it corresponding with a Tuareg man, I was certain he was my destiny.
I also started my first blog (a weird word back then), and discovered an amazing community of diarists.
I loved that little iBook even when it got buggy and crashed sometimes, and my biggest frustrations were software incompatibility issues and browser/website glitches.
In time I got a Dell laptop and somehow, and I’m not sure exactly when this happened – I became an Apple Hater!

Yes, I was an Apple hater.
It wasn’t the deep seething hate that consumes you; this was mild contempt with a dash of general indifference.
Like most ‘haters’ I thought Apple products were overpriced hypes with closed architecture.
It may have begun with the launch of the iPod, and the mass fixation that followed; everyone wanted one and proclaimed it an innovation.
My iriver MP3 player had all the features of the iPod plus a built-in FM tuner, yet no one raved about it.
Then the iPhone happened… I’ve ranted about the iPhone before so I won’t get into that.
I got the HTC Prophet (Windows mobile 5.0) a year before the iPhone debuted.
I loved my prophet! Probably because of all the time I spent on it – I joined XDA Developers and tweaked the heck out of that phone; it was as if I’d built my perfect phone.
The iPhone did not tempt me, as far as I was concerned my phone was superior to the iPhone.

Over the next several years I felt smug for not falling for the Apple hype, my laptops were Windows, (there was the Linux running Eee PC I used briefly), and my phone and mp3 players weren’t Apple.
With two pivotal incidents last year, I went from Apple-hater to owning several Apple products.
The first, was the announcement of the iPad, it was the first of Apple product that I felt was worth a little hype (not a whole lot though!), then I took one look at it and I had to have it – I envisioned many scenarios where it’ll come in handy.

The second incident came from dissatisfaction with my phone; I got the Google G1 phone (HTC Dream) in the summer of 2009.
It was exciting, new OS, open-source and all.
My issue with that phone was that there were no updates available for my hardware beyond version 1.5 (Cupcake), which basically rendered my phone obsolete three months after I’d gotten it.
Of course, I could have found cooked ROM and customized the phone to my specifications, but that wasn’t why I got the phone; I wanted a phone that I’d loved as is.
It no longer makes sense to me to pay money for a phone and spend ridiculous amounts of time tinkering with it (doing potentially illegal stuff), I’m not a developer, I just want a phone that works.

I could no longer deny the appeal of the iPhone, maybe I’m just getting old but I liked that it’s easy to use and works relatively well.
So I got the iPhone 4 in May of last year.

This Christmas I got a new MacBook Air to replace my aging Windows laptop, it’s going to be my primary computer – and this officially makes me a Mac user, I’m no longer a PC (except for work).

In the end there wasn’t a long drawn out decision to switch, and so far I love the simplicity and ease of use of my MacBook Air.
Maybe we’re still in the honeymoon phase…
I still don’t like iTunes, and I miss Live Writer – I haven’t found a worthy Mac version yet.

So I’m not quite the MacHead, it took me a decade to come around and i’m quite enjoying this switch.

He knew he was going to get one even back when it was just a rumour, he was over the moon the day it was officially announced.

He didn’t mind that his current phone was just under a year old.

That’s the kind of fanboy he is – recently when I was excited about my new 50mm camera lens, he looked on with mild interest and said wryly “Yeah well, I guess I could be that excited too… if you slapped an Apple logo on it ”

He claims Apple changed his life, there’s a long story (I’ll spare you the details) about his final year in high school in a small farming town in northern California.

He ordered it the minute it became available.

The wait seemed the longest; he checked the mailbox daily, which soon became an obsession after a week.

He called several times, left notes for the mail man and generally sulked. It eventually arrived and we were all grateful.

It arrived unceremoniously one day, a small black box in a large brown one – carrying hopes of ease and efficiency.

He opened it,

It looked exactly the same as the one he had before,

but to him, this was so much more – this is going to make his life so much easier than the last one.

Makes and receives all right out of the box.

Paired it with his Bang & Olufsen EarSet 2

Then it was time to transfer all data from the old phone to the new shiny one.

Dude has over a million songs and apps so it took a while.

Good thing it has 32gb of space.

While waiting for the files to transfer, I deliberated slapping the logo (over the Rogers logo) on my phone – but decided I don’t hate the Rogers logo that much!

And this is his “I’m quite pleased with myself” pose.

All set up and ready to go! And that was the last we saw of him.

If you see him, he’s not hard to miss; he’s the guy with his face buried in his iphone – tell him his family said hello.

At 6:00PM local time today the iPhone debuts in stores stateside. Lucky Americans! There’s no official word as to when it’ll become available in Canada, although rumours are Rogers will have it just in time for Christmas I probably won’t be getting the iPhone but I’m all the same very excited about its release – so excited that I’m taking a trip down south this weekend just so I can touch it.

Paul lost his phone last Wednesday; he’d been using an HTC Prophet for a little over a year.

I guess we’re in the minority that loves Windows Mobile devices; I like my devices tweakable, and there’s a wealth of resource on changes, tweaks, ad-ons and modifications.

Paul decided he wanted another PC Phone (for “work purposes” he claimed), we called the other Paul and he suggested the HTC Touch; we ordered it and it came three days later.

I’m not a mean spirited or jealous person by nature but Paul’s new phone has me wishing he’d get abducted by aliens just so that I can inherit his phone.

Yes, the phone is that cool!

The Touch is by far the sleekest, cutest and smoothest Pocket PC device ever! And with its Touchflo interface you’d want to play with it forever. It makes my Prophet look like a contraption from the 19^th century.

So how does it rate performance wise?

Not bad. It has a larger screen flush mounted to the frame of the device; I believe a first for a WM device. The Touchflo response is pretty sharp, beyond that and it’s stylish looks, it’s just another pocket PC phone.

As a phone it’s easier to use than most of its sister devices.

It lacks 3G and runs on a 201MHz processor which makes it lag a little, applications are a little slow to respond. It takes just ok pictures with its 2 mega pixels camera, as long as it’s not taken in poor lighting conditions. The web browser again is like all other WM devices but you can always download Opera mini.

It shipped with a 1GB MicroSD card, it required minor surgery to get that and the SIM card into their slots.

But it’s incredibly gorgeous and soft to touch, easier to use (IMHO) and most importantly, you can pile on a ton of 3^rd party software for more functionality and productivity – if you’re into that kind of thing.

It’s not available in the US (or Canada for that matter), but it’s GSM and unlocked so you could always get one if you really wanted from sources like the other Paul.

Technorati Tags: iPhone, HTC Touch

¨ The Apple iPhone – While I’m in no hurry to get one (when it debuts in June), I’m equally excited! We’ve been waiting for this day for years! (Go read about Steve Job’s keynote at Engadget)

¨ Plus this is a good thing in the sense that it forces other smart phone manufacturers to up their game, the consumer wins and everyone’s happy.

¨ iRiver’s E-Book Reader - When it finally gets around to these parts!

Technorati tags: iPhone, Apple, iriver, e-book reader