Look how far you’ve come. People seem to forget your status as the underdog just a decade or two ago.
I remember.
I remember being reluctant to switch from the industry leader, to move from a PC to a (gasp!) Mac. The PC was king. IBM was a player — a blue chip/work-there-for-50-years-get-a-pension-and-a-gold-watch company. In fact, I remember having IBM as a client, touring a facility in Poughkeepsie, New York and marveling at the mainframes.
My guess? The vast majority of iPhone 4 owners (okay, well, at least my husband and I) believe the product is marvelous. Beautiful and efficient. Elegant and powerful.
Yet some critics delight in their schadenfreude over a pseudo furor that’s actually relatively insignificant.
Why?
It leads me to wonder (with some degree of sadness) why people like to knock other peoples’ success. Why they expect (demand?) perfection and then pounce (shine a spotlight on it?) when they discover the slightest flaw.
I believe in a principle of abundance, where people support one other and trumpet the greatest achievements of friends, family members and respected colleagues then support them and encourage them through hard times or whenever they stumble.
So I applaud you, Apple.
And you know what?
The iPhone has improved the quality of my life. I often forget that it’s a phone because that’s the least important part of the device. People who don’t use the iPhone don’t understand that fact. It’s not about the telephone. Even the word, telephone, is so…last millennium.
Now, it’s all about the apps…and the developers’ passions. Not to mention the passion of each and every iPhone owner. Each device is so customized, so specific to each user that it becomes special. Each owner makes it special, depending on his/her own interests, needs and passions.
It’s now. It’s tomorrow. It’s very Jetsons. And it works. Simply. It helped me endure some recent trips away from my family. Heck, it made them feel as if they were right there with me. It affected our quality of life. It brought us immeasurable joy.
So forget about those naysayers, haters and foes.
Congratulations on another extraordinary creation.
Do you find yourself longing for the good old days when privacy concerns never crossed your mind? When you felt confident that information about your family members was known only to people who were actually part of your real life? Well, consider this:
No, seriously though, what do you think about the burgeoning privacy issues? No big deal or the beginning of a world ruled by potentially corrupt mega-corps-as-big-brother(s)? Or something somewhere in between? Heh.
With Federer and Roddick out of the French Open, we found ourselves rooting for Nadal. He soundly defeated Soderling today (6-4, 6-2, 6-4) to win his fifth French Open title.
No matter what you may think about the iPad, the iPhone and all things Apple, it’s hard to resist giving credit to Steve Jobs for making that company what it is. He’s authentic and not afraid to say, “I don’t know.” I love that about him.
Check out some of his remarks at this year’s All Things Digital Conference:
This one (above) is on the iPhone and the iPad.
And how about that whole Gizmodo mess?
Finally, watch him when talks about Google (below) and at the end softly says, “Just because we’re competing with somebody doesn’t mean we have to be rude.”
Wonderful. Very nice.
For more videos (brief enough to view selectively) click here.
Today’s Mantra: Ignore the haters and don’t feed the trolls.
My kids and I made a video where I talked about how I would love to host a talk show on Oprah’s new network. It was fun – until I started getting comments from a woman who alleged that I trash working moms on this blog (and erroneously suggested that I’ve never been a working mom). Um, no. Not true. Read my blog. Search my blog. That’s not what it’s about. I have absolutely no desire to do such a thing. Perhaps you’re thinking of someone else. I left a response to that effect.
Then the commenter insisted and referred to remarks I made in a video* last year in which I had a specific beef with one person whom I believed had not sufficiently acknowledged the value of stay-at-home moms.
First of all, for those who don’t know, before these years staying home with my kids, I was a dedicated, passionate, working mom who loved her job and career. I felt I was really making a difference in the world and working on things that were important. When I (somewhat reluctantly) hopped off the career track, I garnered little or no respect for the position in which I found myself and cringed at the thought of the label that people disdainfully attached to it, as well as when I heard them say things like “oh, she’s just a stay-at-home mom.”
I was raised by a strong, self sufficient, feminist working mom (whom I adored and respected and to whom I was very close) who drilled into my sister’s and my heads things like, “never depend on a man,” and “always be sure that you can support yourself.” I worked my way through college and law school to ensure that I would always be a career woman determined to remain forever independent. I envisioned nothing else.
Have you heard that Oprah is searching for a new personality to host a talk show on her new network, OWN? Well, as soon as I heard about it, I thought it would be fun to put together an audition video. The guidelines were fairly expansive: be creative, smart, and passionate and tell us a little about your show.
My family and I got to work, shooting a week’s worth of video, full of different skits, shorts, and scenes. We had a blast. The vast majority of footage ended up on our cutting room floor. But I didn’t want it to completely go to waste. So I’m putting together bits and pieces of it, hoping you’ll find it entertaining.
Take, for example, something that started out to be an example of a technology segment but ended up sounding more like a commercial for an Apple product. So…yeah…we nixed it. Here it is:
And the title of the show? “Let’s Talk About It”? Turns out it’s nearly identical to Greg Grunberg’scharity effort he co-founded a while back, called Talk About It. So…even though, my daughter did a great job designing that logo, we all thought we should just stay away from it. Thanks anyway, sweetheart! You did a great job!!
Then there’s this one – where I just couldn’t keep a straight face when I tried to defend my qualifications to speak about parenting:
More to come (about the iPad as well as our cutting room floor clippings, some of which are quite amusing).
But for now, I’d appreciate your help over on my OWN show page. It would be a blast to host a talk show, but I still have a long way to go to get to the top.
Thanks!!
The site is “a ten minute, commercial-free daily news program” geared to middle and high-school students.
If you’ve been looking for ways to get your teens interested in the news, I recommend bookmarking the CNN Student News site and showing it to your kids. It’s geared to them, so it’s a bit more hip, clean and concise than the main CNN site.
Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.
I think that we can learn a great deal about collaboration and competition by watching this interview* (again?), especially now, in 2010. Let me know what you think.
Love it.
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It’s from 2007. Jobs and Steve Ballmer are expected to speak at this year’s D8, (the eighth annual All Things Digital Conference (June 1-3). For coverage click here.
