First, a quick note about productivity. I seem to be writing here more lately and I think it has something to do with the launch of The Backfire Blog. The more I try to find stuff to write about over there, the more stuff I come up with here, or at least I’m actually taking the time to write over here when I get those impulses. That’s weird, but I hope my 3 readers enjoy it. Anyways…

I used to belong to a cult. Yeah, that’s right, I was a holocaust-cloak wearing, animal-sacrificing pagan to the cult of Apple. Guy Kawasaki had nothing on me. Being a graphic artist in the 90’s, I sweat, bled and cried Apple. I wasn’t one of those Windows bashers like a lot of Apple folks can be, but I loved Apple. Actually, that should be present tense because I still love them, just not as zealously.

As I mentioned before, I am a proud iPhone owner. Anytime someone asks about it, I let them know how much I enjoy my new toy. I even love the well designed box it came in. What also came in the box is a set of two white Apple stickers. You know the ones I’m talking about, usually prominently displayed in the rear window of some car you see on the road and you wonder to yourself, “what is the deal with those stickers.” It may seem geeky, but it’s significant to us and you’d be hard pressed to find anyone with a Microsoft sticker in their window.

Back in the day, those Apple stickers represented the cult, a sign of solidarity among a group much maligned by Windows users as “clueless”. We stood strong together and every time you saw one of those stickers in a window, it gave you pride. I remember one time creating a makeshift convoy by pulling between two other apple sticker toting commuters. We were guerrillas fighting against sameness. I don’t see many stickers on the road these days though. The cult has gone into hiding largely because we went from subculture to pop culture. Being an Apple user still makes us cooler than you, it’s just watered down now.

Now that iPhones have lept clean over the 1 million units sold mark, the Apple cult just isn’t as exclusive, and I’m sure that makes Steve Jobs very happy. He probably sells 5 times (if not way more) as many iPods as they do desktop and laptop machines, each one coming with its own set of Apple stickers. So today when I saw a young girl ahead of me on the freeway in a newish car with a fresh Apple sticker in the window, I still had a sense of pride, but no desire to convoy. Who knows what she bought to get that sticker, and even if it was a computer, she’s not old enough to know the significance or history behind the sticker. I just don’t feel solidarity toward every iPod Nano user.

As much as I like that Apple is making headway into Microsoft’s market share, I still long for the revolution.

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