Why I Like Apple

People think I am just an Apple fanboy, which I am, but it is because of people like Joni Ive. TUAW recently wrote this:

In a May 2012 interview with the Telegraph, Ive said, “We’re keenly aware that when we develop and make something and bring it to market that it really does speak to a set of values. And what preoccupies us is that sense of care, and what our products will not speak to is a schedule, what our products will not speak to is trying to respond to some corporate or competitive agenda. We’re very genuinely designing the best products that we can for people.”

Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO

I am sure this is not news to most now. I am not trying to break news. As an Apple fanboy, should I be worried? Maybe, maybe not. Here is a paragraph from John Gruber’s (of Daring Fireball) analysis:

Apple’s products are replete with Apple-like features and details, embedded in Apple-like apps, running on Apple-like devices, which come packaged in Apple-like boxes, are promoted in Apple-like ads, and sold in Apple-like stores. The company is a fractal design. Simplicity, elegance, beauty, cleverness, humility. Directness. Truth. Zoom out enough and you can see that the same things that define Apple’s products apply to Apple as a whole. The company itself is Apple-like. The same thought, care, and painstaking attention to detail that Steve Jobs brought to questions like “How should a computer work?”, “How should a phone work?”, “How should we buy music and apps in the digital age?” he also brought to the most important question: “How should a company that creates such things function?” 

Jobs’s greatest creation isn’t any Apple product. It is Apple itself.

Read the whole thing.

Pulchritude

“A paradoxical noun because it means beauty but is itself one of the ugliest words in the language. Same goes for the adjectival form pulchritudinous. They’re part of a tiny elite cadre of words that possess the very opposite of the qualities they denote. Diminutive, big, foreign, fancy (adjective), colloquialism, and monosyllabic are some others; there are at least a dozen more. Inviting your school-age kids to list as many paradoxical words as they can is a neat way to deepen their relationship to English and help them see that words are both symbols for things and very real things themselves.”

I found this brief, interesting paragraph in the Mac OS X Dictionary program when I looked up “Beauty” in the Thesaurus. It was cool enough to post. I love the thought that words are “both symbols for things and very real things themselves.”

Like, Two Months Ago

Snarky JackFM radio spot overheard while driving to a meeting today...

“You can now download the Radio.com app for your Android phone. Wow. Because you could download the Radio.com app on an iPhone or iPad, like, two months ago.”

Yes.

Happy About This

From Daring Fireball:

Ars Technica reports:

Apple’s own Phil Schiller assured the press that Verizon would not be loading up the device with crapware, too. “We want the experience to be the same for every iPhone user. So there are no special Verizon Apps preinstalled,” Schiller told Ars. “AT&T offers customers some apps via the App Store. I’ll let Verizon comment if they are working on anything for that.”

I.e., the Verizon iPhone is just another iPhone 4. No logos on the hardware. No preloaded apps from the carrier.

How Many Verizon iPhones Will Apple Sell Next Year?

John Gruber, in response to Philip Elmer-DeWitt’s analysis:

“That’s crazy. If Verizon gets the iPhone next year, they’ll sell a million on the first day.”

Read Daring Fireball.

Two More Ways Apple Earns My Loyalty

Way to Earn Loyalty #1:

I took my iPod Touch in to the Apple store this morning because somehow dust had gotten behind the screen and was visible whether the iPod was on or off. Being behind the glass, so to speak, the dust could not be cleaned away. The Genius Bar technician looked at it for about 20 seconds, checked my warranty, which fortunately had 43 days left, and switched me out with a new iPod Touch. Yes, the new iPod matched my previous model exactly (2gen, 16GB), but they extended my warranty to a full 90 days. They didn’t have to, nor did they have to give me a new one.

Way to Earn Loyalty #2:

We have a 17" iMac, purchased in January 2006, that the kids use. It is over 4-years old and way out of warranty. A month or so ago a vertical blue line showed up about three inches from the left side of the screen. I decided to bring the iMac with me to the Apple store to get a diagnosis, figuring that I would then buy the replacement part and fix it myself. The diagnosis was as expected, the LCD screen was faulty. “However,” said the Genius Bar technician, “our engineers want to understand this problem, so we will replace your screen at no cost to you so that we can have the faulty part. If you leave it with us we will replace your screen and you should have your computer back either tomorrow or Monday. Will that work for you?” As they say in Minnesota, “You betcha.”

Granted, I was already a fanboy, but with this kind of service who wouldn't be?

imap Fun!

Doh!

The Lie

Way back in the day when I was in a small church youth group, the youth pastor repeatedly taught on what he called "The Lie." He would quote Romans 1:24-25, "Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen." He was a wise man. I remember very little about high school youth group except for this: The Lie is that something or someone other than God can satisfy.

In America, or at least in the world I live in, everything screams at me to find satisfaction in something other than God. I am a huge Apple fan, and to some extent have bought the line that I will be happy if I have the latest iPhone or MacBook Pro. But what about magazine covers, billboards, movie trailers, TV commercials? Do they not all scream the Lie? If you look like me you will be happy. If you own me you will be happy. If you eat here you will be happy. If you watch me you will be happy. If you read me you will be happy.

Now, I know that dressing, eating, watching, and reading are not sins in themselves. The Lie comes in when we believe that dressing, eating, watching, and reading will satisfy more than God does. That is the Lie, that something or someone other than God will satsify. As soon as we believe it, we have exchanged the truth about God for the Lie.

My current pastor has a favorite phrase which teaches a similar truth, in fact it might simply be the flipside of the same coin: God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in him. In other words, when we worship God as the most glorious of all beings, then he also shows himself to be the most satisfying. Glorifying God and delighting in God are one thing.

The reality which is opposed to the Lie is that God alone can satisfy. The Psalmist, in Ps 81:11-16, said something very similar to Paul:

11 “But my people did not listen to my voice;
Israel would not submit to me.
12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts,
to follow their own counsels.
13 Oh, that my people would listen to me,
that Israel would walk in my ways!
14 I would soon subdue their enemies
and turn my hand against their foes.
15 Those who hate the LORD would cringe toward him,
and their fate would last forever.
16 But he would feed you with the finest of the wheat,
and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”

As wonderful as iPhones and MackBook Pros are, as fun as it is to sip a latte on the porch at Starbucks, as exciting as losing yourself in the latest movie, as classy as wearing the latest fashion may be, they will turn sour and false if we think satifsaction lies in them. We must look beyond them to the one true satisfaction, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as revealed in Jesus Christ.

BibleWorks

Since I began formal theological studies in 2004, I have been using BibleWorks as my preferred Bible software. I have often argued for this software over Accordance and Logos. My main arguments are that BibleWorks is faster and cheaper and provides more bang for the buck than either of the other two contenders. The only downside is that BibleWorks does not run natively on a Mac; instead, one has to use Parallels or VMWare Fusion.

Justin Taylor linked to two reviews by Keith Mathison, one on BibleWorks and one on Accordance. It seems that Keith and I have the same understanding about these software bundles.

Backhanded Apple Marketing

Windows Secrets, a popular online newsletter for Windows users, had the following lead-in to their top story, written by Woody Leonhard:

If you've ever wondered why it's so difficult to manage and share files in Windows, you'll be delighted with two significant new features in Windows 7.

These new capabilities, called Libraries and Homegroups, make finding files and connecting with resources on other PCs so easy you'll think you're using a Mac!

Hah! Why not just use a Mac and avoid all the MS hassle?

iLaugh Out Loud

A slight modification from a recent post on TUAW:

Windows Vista

If you play the Windows Vista CD-ROM backwards, you'll hear a satanic message. That's frightening. Even more frightening is that if you play it forward, it installs Windows Vista.