Those who fail to learn from history must be doomed to make Apple’s “Think Different” ads. The award-winning commercials imply that the likes of Jackie Robinson and Albert Einstein would have been card-carrying Mac users — a neat trick, since most of the folks in the company’s ads had shuffled off this mortal coil by the time the Mac debuted. But what if a rip in the time-space continuum allowed us to hand out new iBooks to Mohandas Gandhi and Miles Davis? Some interesting tech-support calls, to say the least.
DIED: 1931, 53 years before introduction of the Mac. FAVORITE HARDWARE: Power Mac 7300 with a 400MHz G4 upgrade card. FAVORITE APPLICATION: SoundJam MP, turned up really loud. MOST LIKELY TO: Crack open the computer and replace the ROM with a new model made from a wax cylinder. WHAT HE SAYS: “Invention is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” –Sounds like a man who tried using Word 6.
DIED: 1937, 39 years before the founding of Apple. FAVORITE HARDWARE: Tangerine 64MB iBook, for its rugged case and portability on those long transatlantic flights. FAVORITE APPLICATION: X-Plane. MOST LIKELY TO: Install DeLorme Earthmate GPS Receiver and Street Atlas 6.0 bundle before ill-fated flight around the world. WHAT SHE SAYS: “Courage is the price that life extracts for granting peace with yourself.” — And $179.95 is the price of that Earthmate and Street Atlas bundle.
DIED: 1973, 11 years before installation of MacPaint on the Mac. FAVORITE HARDWARE: Blueberry iMac DV during Blue Period. Strawberry iMac during Rose Period. FAVORITE APPLICATION: Carrara 1.0, not–as you might suspect–Painter. MOST LIKELY TO: Custom-design his own iCards using scenes from Guernica. WHAT HE SAYS: “Painting is stronger than me; it makes me do what it wants.” –Nowadays they say the same thing about Microsoft