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Where would we be without Apple?

george-brooks

george-brooks

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 31, 2011
732
16
Brooklyn, NY
Seriously, let's just take a minute to think about all of the incredible things in our lives that are the result, direct or indirect, of this incredible company that we all love so much.

For me, had Apple never gotten off the ground, I probably would not love discovering new obscure music as much as I do, and I certainly wouldn't be as interested in film or photography, which I am currently studying in college.

Obviously all of us here love Apple, lets really really think about where we would be without them!!

I'm sorry if this is a topic that is overdone on this board, I'm just really in an Apple loving mood right now and am curious about the impact that Apple has had on others!
 
Hm, I guess I would be sitting in the same place I am now?

I find it hard to really place "success" on Apple for anything in my life, I guess. I'm mainly happy to see them innovate and allow there to be competition for their technology (specifically phones/ipads) even if the competition fails, it's nice to know there *might* be a competitor - this drives them to innovate more :)
 
Couldn't we say though, despite the buzz words that Apple likes to use, that they have really "revolutionized" the industry? Without the iPod and iPhone would we really have the smartphone and mp3 player as we know them today?
 
george-brooks said:
Couldn't we say though, despite the buzz words that Apple likes to use, that they have really "revolutionized" the industry? Without the iPod and iPhone would we really have the smartphone and mp3 player as we know them today?
Click to expand...

Honestly, while I love my Apple products, my life wouldn't be much different if any

I don't own an iPod
I could do without my iPhone/iPad easily enough
And I use a Windows computer at work, although I prefer my MBA

If we all used Blackberries we wouldn't know any different anyway

I love my gadgets
But they don't define me or my life
 
george-brooks said:
I think they certainly do. Apple or not. We don't live in the stone age, our devices allow us to go through life faster and more easily.
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Yes, they are tools we use
But they don't define me or my life

I read books before the iPad
I listened to the radio before the iPod
I used a Blackberry before my iPhone
I used a PC before a Mac

Technology isn't Apple specific
And while Apple makes great products and sets the tone for many things, life wouldn't be that different without the Mac, iPhone, or iPad

There are alternatives, good ones and sometimes even better ones, than Apple products

Again, I prefer Apple products
I have an iPad
I have an iPhone 4s
I have a MBA
I have Thunderbolt Display
I have a MBP
I have an Apple Cinema Display

And I would rather not do without them
But I could easily use other products
Or go back to reading books, listening to CDs, talking on a phone

They don't define me or my life
 
My life would be the same, except I would have spent a little less.

I would have built another PC edit station instead of this Mac Pro, and would have spent a lot less.
I would not have been coerced by an ex into buying matching iPhones and their data plans.

Apple makes tools and toys, but so far they have not changed my life from how it would be if they had gone out of business or never existed, because everything I own made by Apple is easily replaced by other manufacturers.

I had a Creative Labs Zen prior to an iPod.
I had phones with the internet prior to an iPhone, and I actually like my android better right now.
I had PCs that edit video just like Macs do, but you have more options that cost less when you build a PC. Also, Windows versions of Adobe software have features that are missing from Mac versions. That's actually one way my life is worse for using a Mac, come to think of it.
 
I'd rather think of what our current tech would be like without them... Kinda a lot more interesting.
 
MacDawg said:
life wouldn't be that different without the Mac, iPhone, or iPad
Click to expand...

Going to have to disagree very much with you here. Life would be the same as in you'd continue breathing without Apple products, but to say your life would be the same using all the other alternatives out there is a bold, bold statement. You're forgetting that a lot of the things that the competing products take for granted didn't just come from thin air. Touch screens? Be thankful you're not still scrolling with a ball and tapping on a keyboard.
 
Without Apple we would not have the modern configuration of laptops; We would not have widespread adoption of touch screen devices (or smartphones at all, beyond ones with a million little buttons); we would not have the handheld tablet market; we would likely be many, many years behind in desktop publishing and computer typography...

Apple has pushed, and has been been for a long time, the things we take for granted now.
 
Not sure how different my life would be without apple, but it would surely be different. My interest in technology and computers came about when I got my first mac, and is something that I know I will have the rest of my life. Not sure how that interest will play out down the road but I know that owning apple products has made me the tech geek that I am today.. :rolleyes:

Also, I probably wouldn't have a touchscreen phone with internet access, which would change the way I go about my day in a pretty big way. I would have probably found some alternative, but it wouldn't have been as polished as an iPhone or iOS.
 
vincenz said:
Going to have to disagree very much with you here. Life would be the same as in you'd continue breathing without Apple products, but to say your life would be the same using all the other alternatives out there is a bold, bold statement. You're forgetting that a lot of the things that the competing products take for granted didn't just come from thin air. Touch screens? Be thankful you're not still scrolling with a ball and tapping on a keyboard.
Click to expand...

Melrose said:
Without Apple we would not have the modern configuration of laptops; We would not have widespread adoption of touch screen devices (or smartphones at all, beyond ones with a million little buttons); we would not have the handheld tablet market; we would likely be many, many years behind in desktop publishing and computer typography...

Apple has pushed, and has been been for a long time, the thing we take for granted now.
Click to expand...

I don't deny they made great innovations and designs
But whose to say others wouldn't have *eventually* developed similar or better things?

And even if not... my life doesn't change drastically without a touch screen
I did fine before they came along

Sure, they make life "better", but if you took my gadgets from me today, my life wouldn't come to a screeching halt
 
Computers wouldn't be nearly as advanced if it wasn't for Apple and their deal with Xerox (and getting to look at Xerox's GUI). Apple brought it to the main stream which also helped bring computers to the main stream.
 
Seriously? I Googled life without Åpple and found these images.

asdlabs-zombie-road-sign.jpg


34399_490617619288_595254288_6710842_504967_n.jpg
 
I guess Apple has had a more substantial impact on me because I have chosen to pursue an artistic career. The reason I switched to ac in the first place was so that I could have garage band, which got me interested in creating music which defined a substantial period of my life. And Apple's photography tools helped me with my photography pursuits, and life would be much harder on a PC for me.
 
george-brooks said:
I guess Apple has had a more substantial impact on me because I have chosen to pursue an artistic career. The reason I switched to ac in the first place was so that I could have garage band, which got me interested in creating music which defined a substantial period of my life. And Apple's photography tools helped me with my photography pursuits, and life would be much harder on a PC for me.
Click to expand...
You say that, and it's valid to believe or know that it would have been more difficult on a PC, but I've found PCs to be very easy. Part of that is because I've been using them since the third grade. I was that kid that was building a graphic map of my neighborhood on an Atari 400 in BASIC when *nobody* I knew at the time had any idea how to do so. Adobe's Photoshop was always the most amazing photography software I've ever known, and I first really got into that in 1995 when it was Photoshop 3.0 on Windows.

Music... Well, my high school friends and I used a PC and a couple Roland keyboards hooked together via MIDI and recorded sessions that way. We then laid it all to tape eventually with a very primitive workflow that sounded pretty awful, but that had a lot to do with my lousy singing, haha! I thought it was pretty neat at the time.

Thing is, there were no Macs used for any of this. My mother had an Apple IIc if I recall correctly, and I thought it was weird. My first Apple was a 9600/300 PowerPC, and I was annoyed at how almost nothing would go from PC to Mac and vice versa. The only thing that would (in my world) was Photoshop files, and that was a great thing, since my subsequent PC build was much faster than that Mac was, and I needed to work on files I had made earlier. Good thing there was Adobe there to bridge the gap!
 
george-brooks said:
I guess Apple has had a more substantial impact on me because I have chosen to pursue an artistic career. The reason I switched to ac in the first place was so that I could have garage band, which got me interested in creating music which defined a substantial period of my life. And Apple's photography tools helped me with my photography pursuits, and life would be much harder on a PC for me.
Click to expand...

Not to be a pessimist, but even then your life wouldn't be that much different.

In 2002 Apple aquired Emagic. One of the first things Apple did was discontinue Emagic's Windows offerings. It was people from Emagic who developed Garageband.

Logic would dictate that Emagic, if left to their own devices, would very likely have come up with Garageband or something similar on their own. If there was no Apple you would just be using the same software on a PC.

I use Lightroom personally, and it is every bit as awesome as Aperture.

I love my Apple products, don't get me wrong, but if we envision a timeline without Apple we would still have music and photographic software on the PC.
 
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