think different, again
the first iphone, an ad about misfits, and what apple taught me about details.
the first apple product i ever held was the first-generation iphone.
my dad had bought one and showed it to me.
i still remember taking a photo and zooming into it.
it was butter smooth.
it was intuitive.
it was magical.
more like i had just seen a piece of the future.
i was instantly hooked.
i already knew apple existed. i knew about the ipod. i just didn’t know much about the company, what else they made, or the people behind it.
the iphone made me curious.
i started reading about apple, its products, its history, and somewhere along the way, i naturally stumbled across this:
this is the version narrated by steve jobs himself — the one i keep coming back to.
the first thing that fascinated me about the ad was what it didn’t do.
it didn’t talk about a computer.
it didn’t show you why one apple product was better than another.
it barely talked about apple at all.
instead, it showed people.
i didn’t know who everyone in the ad was at the time.
but the message was obvious even before i knew all the names.
these were iconic people. people who had made a difference. and apple was deliberately placing itself alongside them.
but the word i connected with most wasn’t genius, rebel, or troublemaker.
it was misfit.
i’ve always liked people who question what is considered normal.
people who ask why something has to be done the way it has always been done.
people who look at the obvious answer and wonder if there is another one.
people who think outside the box.
maybe that’s why “misfits” stayed with me.
apple also shaped the way i look at technology.
it taught me that the magic lies in the finer details.
things have to feel intuitive.
they have to feel simple.
not simple because there is less there, but simple because someone cared enough about the details that you don’t have to think about them.
that first pinch to zoom is probably the earliest example i remember of that.
you didn’t need instructions.
you just did it.
i’m much more critical of apple today than i was back then.
but that doesn’t change how much the company shaped the way i look at things i put out into the world.
how something feels matters.
the small details matter.
whether someone can understand what you built without having it explained to them matters.
apple made me notice those things.
and today feels like an especially strange day to think about all of this.
tim cook’s time as ceo is coming to an end, and apple is entering another era.
it makes me think about how far the company has come since that first iphone ended up in my hands.
and how far my own relationship with technology has come with it.
i don’t think “think different” taught me to be different.
i think it gave me a language for something i already admired.
the people who question the normal.
the people who notice things others don’t.
the misfits.