You Are Now Leaving the Reality Distortion Field...

What does it say about the fabled Jobsian RDF Field that it takes only a glimpse of this to make me want to buy a product that has about 10 times LESS capacity than I felt I needed three months ago when I bought this?

Today's keynote was quite possibly the most impressive I've seen in the past five years. Great products made greater and some new greats added to the roster to boot.

What kills me about Apple is how it designs programs so elegant, simple and appealing that they make you want to try them. When I first used iMovie, I went from one who can't stand videocameras to thinking, "I should save up and get one..." Same thing with GarageBand; It had been over ten years since I last touched a piano (usually had to be forced to practice), yet seeing GB in action had me digging out my old sheet music. No wonder the platform has such a love affair with creative types - inspirations in any form are always a welcome thing.

A former Apple-mad coworker - a guitarist by avocation - once made a fantastic analogy that, sadly, memory no longer permits me to relate verbatim. The gist of it was: Using a PC like being given a guitar, having to learn how to position your hands, use the frets, strum the strings, etc. Using a Mac, however, is like being given a guitar that requires none of that learning curve - you can just pick it up and get straight into being creative.