Visiting the mother ship #tinychallenges

There are some events in life where you can't believe you're getting paid to do something. Visiting Apple's campus in 2012 was one of those events for me.

My first Apple product was a IIe in the early 80s. Since the mid-90s, I had been a PC guy, but one who ran Linux and avoided Windows at all costs. You would think that the Mac would have appealed to me, but frankly, I wasn't in a situation where I could really afford one. I was still building my own PCs from parts purchased at low-cost online stores and hoping all the pieces would work together. Usually they did, even if it took a lot more work than it should have to make them work together.

Even the iPhone didn't thrill me initially. No flash, no java, no apps... no thank you. Yes, I was a bit short-sighted and when the second version was released a year later, I purchased and was hooked. Soon after the phone came out, the Mac started its transition to Intel CPUs and I snagged my first Apple laptop. I haven't looked back since.

Being Apple, I didn't learn anything about their upcoming products (not that I expected to), but I did learn a lot about how Apple uses their own technology internally. It was interesting to hear their IT staff talk about their philosophy on development and support, how to minimize the later to maximize the former and what we could do to work more like them. It was a series of lessons that have stuck with me for years, largely for its pragmatism and even more so for its effectivity.

I find it highly unlikely I'll ever work at Apple, but it was interesting to see how they worked and think about how I could incorporate that into how I work.