There's always the hope that if you sit and watch for long enough, the beachball will vanish and the thing it interrupted will return."

Steve Jobs passed away yesterday. He's had an undeniable impact not only on technology, but on the culture. An entire generation (after mine) has been reared thinking that Apple has always been a highly successful, innovative company.

I'm a PC guy. Ever since I got my first computer in college, I've enjoyed tinkering around with components and dealing with Windows BSODs. I was never drawn to the Mac because it was VERY expensive. Also, it was relatively closed off and difficult to upgrade. This holds true today - you pay a premium for good quality. I didn't think I'd ever get over this anti-Apple bias.

True to form, when the iPod first came out during my senior year of college in 2011, I completely clowned it. Here was another amazingly expensive ($400) product that you could only use with a similarly expensive Apple computer. Also, the idea of carrying a spinning hard drive in my pocket seemed disastrous (I had a number of hard drive crashes in the previous year). My roommate, who was and is a huge Apple fan, thought it was funny to put a page of the first iPod ad on my door, with my name written on it. I wish I had kept it.

However, I got over this once the 3rd gen iPod came out in 2003. That was when iTunes finally dropped for Windows, and there was a harmonious mix between the iPod's price and my new fancy job. I dropped in and haven't looked back. Hell, I have completely digitized and sold my extensive CD collection partly due to the convenience that the iPod has provided. This convenience has extended to the iPhone and iPad, both of which I own and love.

I bought into Apple has a consumer electronics company, not as a computer company. I've still never owned an Apple desktop or laptop (except for an ancient iBook that I was attempting to fix for a local nonprofit).

That's how I got over.