An Apple a Day

I was sitting in Starbucks working on a blog post when I realized I looked like the poster child for Apple. After ordering my drink and paying for it using the app on my iPhone, I had pulled out my MacBook to work on my Tech Talk blog. Since I was originally sitting under a speaker, I opted to put in my ear buds and listen to music of my own choosing -- on my iPod, of course.

When a table became available, I snapped it up and a few minutes later, pulled out my iPad so I could access the app I was reviewing. Propping it up on a stand on the chair beside me, I went back and forth between the iPad screen and the laptop screen, researching on one so I could craft words that would show up on the other.

It's really funny, actually, that I find myself in this position. I don't think of myself as a particularly tech-savvy person. My husband was the first person in our house to jump on the Apple cart, and I was slow to follow. The iPad, a Christmas present, was my gateway drug. The iPod was purchased only after my MP3 player died, taking all my music with it. The MacBook replaced a dying desktop and the iPhone entered the picture only because it was a free upgrade. My current iPhone -- which I now can't imagine doing without -- marked the first time I ever paid for a phone upgrade, and that was only after finding the cheapest way possible to make it happen.

The beauty of these particular Apples lies in their simplicity. I can just open them up and get started, learning as I go. Our first computer was a Mac, but we went more than two decades before buying another one. Though we desired the product, we were intimidated by the price tag.

Typically a bargain shopper, I sometimes find it hard to justify this embarrassment of riches, but if frequency of usage is any indication of the value of a product, then no justification is necessary. The iPod sometimes gathers dust, but I use the other three products on a daily basis for both business and pleasure. The "air" quality of my MacBook enables me to take it with me with little difficulty, whether I'm moving from one room in my house to another or from my home office to my "satellite office" at Starbucks and the interface among the products makes it unlikely that I'll ever lose my entire music collection again.

And so I shall resolve to absolve myself of guilt over these Apples. Until I can accomplish that, I'll simply tuck them away in public settings so my embarrassment of riches isn't so obvious.