The War Is Over...

...at least as far as I am concerned.

And the winner is:



APPLE! 

No doubt.  Winner!   Clear and simple.   It is the best.  Game over!

I grew up with the development of computers...at least personal computers. 

When I started college, oh those so many years ago, we used slide rules to do calculations.  I still have my Post bamboo slide rule.  It got me through my undergraduate studies.  We did not have access to the mainframe computer and personal computers were not invented yet.  Hell, we did not even have calculators.  My calculator was the slide rule and a piece of paper.

In graduate school we had access to a main frame.  We programmed in FORTRAN and used punch cards to enter the program.  Most of you out there probably don't even know what punch cards are, let alone have had the fun of punching your own cards and verifying them on the card punch machine.

When I started working in industry, the computing was still done primarily on the mainframe.  At least now, we had someone else to do the card punching.  We were lucky to get one computer run completed per day.  Usually, you submitted a run during the day, and got the results the next day.  We also had access to a timeshare terminal with a paper punch tape for entering and storing computer programs.  However, it was expensive to use, required you to do your own programming, and was only used when very specialized  programs were needed.

Handheld calculators started to come into being during my transition from college to industry.  They were very expensive and could not do much more than add, divide, subtract and multiply.  Actually, they could do logs and exponents also which was a great advantage at the time.  The company bought you a calculator.  You were not expected to buy it for your self.  They were too expensive.  (Now I suspect the company would say you have to buy it.  It is too expensive for the company to buy.  How times have changed!)

There was a long, slow transition from mainframe computing to desktop computing.  First you had mainframe terminals, usually at a central location that you went to, rather than having it on your desk.  The computer department fought tooth and nail to prevent giving up control of the computing services.  I  had a personal computer on my desk at home before I had one on my desk at work.

Eventually, though, we all had one on our desk.  By the time I quit working "for the man", and started working for myself, the mainframe was dead, and all computing was being done at the desktop.  Fifteen years prior, the company I worked for build an entire three story building to house a mainframe computer that had less computing power than what I have on my desk.

Through all of this, I was a Windows man.  It was what we used at work.  It was what I used at home.  It was what I used in my business.  Two of my sons, however, are in the entertainment business.  They use Macs.  And they always touted how great Macs are.  Finally, about a year ago, they convinced Mrs. Critter to buy Apple.  We bought a iMac and an iPad.  I've had a year to compare them.

I have three Windows computers in my office, one desktop and two laptops.  Where do I spend my time?  On the iMac and the iPad.  No doubt about it.  They both are much easier and more intuitive to use than my Windows machines.  Right now, while I am writing this (on the iMac), I am listening to music being streamed from the iMac to the sound system on my TV through AppleTV.  Was it hard to set up?  No.  I had a couple of thousand tunes on an external hard disk on one of the Windows computers.  I brought the disk to over to the iMac, plugged it in, open iTunes, and with one or two clicks loaded them all into the iMac.  I went to the TV, open AppleTV, clicked on Music, clicked on play, and bingo, the house is filled with music.  I can do the same thing with video and movies. 

Sorry Bill.  I admire your philanthropic work but Steve has beat your butt when it comes to computers and integrating the things we like to do with them. And I haven't even mentions the applications that come with it, like iMovies, iDVD, GarageBand, iTuneU.  Hell, they even have a free app to develop books with video and audio components.

I tell you.  These computers are amazing.  Congratulations Steve Jobs.  You may have been a son of bitch to work for, but you developed one hell of group of products. 

A job well done, Jobs.  The world will miss you.