Apple product... and more.

I am dedicating this article to my iBook, who has just celebrated his first "birthday" on 2 June. Buddy, I know it is kind of late ;)

Power book 1400cs, iBook Dual-USB 2001, iPod, PowerMac Quicksilver.

I own all of them and has been using it happily in this five years. They are elegant, charming and bring my joy by using it. From the hardware design - they have eye catching appearance and rock solid performance, to the software platform - OS X is the best OS I have ever used, the interface has a touch of human thought and providing what we need in archiving our day-to-day usage without sacrifiing a bit of stability. I have whole confident in seeing it to grow to an even better operation system in the coming years.

The digital hub's line of product is so simple to use but yet powerful enough for the general public to DO what they want - sharing photos, making their own video or music collection, without the need of a rocket science degree.

Handspring, is (or .. err.. was) the company I have put my heart into it. Springboard module, is a brilliant design, you get a plain vanilla pda but with the option to extend to anything else you desire by plugging in the module. So, I don't need to pay hefty amount of money for whatever features I might not need but consider "useful" for Joe the user. The sad thing is, it is consider dated and is dumped by the company. Yet, in the previous year or two, I can enjoy taking picture at unbelivable moment, such as the morning after slaving through the whole night.

Both company shares a similar role in the market - they are NOT the major player. This is really strange.. considering the usefullness of the product itself versus the acceptance from the general public. Seems that people are more aware of the branding, trend of the norm and consider less about the quality of the product. People would always want to float on the top of the product trend -- using the "fastest" machine (well, in terms of numbers but not performance) or the latest machine with the longest list of features (while 80% are not being used).

It is sort of alone among my friends, in being a user of Apple and Handspring's product, since friends around are all using something else, but I am a proud and happy user indeed. And yet, I am aware that I am not the only one who believe in their thoughts and I can find strong coherence among users who are using these products.