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Your first Apple, or how it all began...
This week, while a good part of the TUAW team is at Macworld, it's worth considering for a moment how we all came to start using Apple products. The "Switcher" campaign morphed into the "I'm a Mac" campaign, but really the idea is the same: rarely do you see people switching *back* to Windows after using a Mac. Then there's the halo effect from the iPod/iTunes ecosystem, the iPhone, and before all of that there was Apple's dominance in the educational markets and later in the design, publishing and other creative fields. But we all came to Apple in a different way. On the following pages we've published some stories from our Seed contributors on how they came to start using Apple products. For me it began in the late 70's when my dad bought an Apple II in a bike store. There were no computer stores at the time, so this bike shop had a computer hobbyist corner, complete with Altairs and other blinking-light computer systems. He was intrigued by the keyboard, the cassette system and the color TV output. I wrote a review of the Apple II "red" manual last year. In fact, I still have that Apple in my office, complete with paddles, tape deck and a bunch of cassettes. One gem: AppleSoft BASIC by a little company called Microsoft! What's amazing is that the thing still boots up, although I had to dig up an ancient analog TV to hook up to the thing. Now I'm hoping the Disk II drive will still read my copy of In Search of the Most Amazing Thing. We'd love to hear your first Apple story, so leave it in the comments. Over the next few weeks we'll also bring you the stories of TUAW bloggers and how they began as lifelong Apple customers. My First Apple, and Why It Rocks The story of a happy Apple Macintosh convert My First Apple Computer: The Start of A Love Affair
