My Mac history

Being an Apple guy has not always been popular or fun. I can vividly remember having to defend my use of Apple computers to friends. I’ve been ridiculed for not having a “real computer.” Yep. Those were the days. When I plunked my first Apple laptop down on a table in a coffee shop back in the late 1990s, I was stared at.

My, how times have changed.

It’s been years since I wrote Ode to Steve. Steve Jobs announced his second departure from Apple in 2011. That departure hit hard. Steve was fighting pancreatic cancer, and it didn’t look good. He passed away that October. I’ve contended in several places that Apple lost its creative way after Steve, opting instead to simply make money.¹

In the article, I penned a “thank you” to him. I doubt he ever saw it.

This week, in spite of an earthquake and a hurricane, all i’s have been on you, Steve. As you make this transition, my sincere prayers are with you - for your strength, health and healing. Also, because none of us truly knows our remaining days, I am praying for you to become a joyful follower of Jesus Christ. If I had an opportunity to sit down with you tonight, I’d challenge you like you challenged John so many years ago, “Do you want to sell glass and circuits for the rest of your life, or join me in following the One who has changed the world?”

In the end, when it comes down to it, we all have earthly loves. One of mine is all things Apple. But that love pales in comparison the love and gratitude I’ve found in following the Creator of the first apple. Mankind’s misuse of that apple didn’t turn out so well. I hope that my use of Apples in these days always points to and glorifies the grace and love of Jesus Christ.

In that blog, I chronicled my Mac/Apple history. It’s still hard to believe that I never had owned a personal computer before I graduated from college. I took a typing class in high school - on typewriters!

I’ve become a technological big boy since then. I’ve owned a lot of Apple computers in the last 15 years. I knew you needed to pause from your scrolling for a bit to take a tour down Apple lane with me.² Mind you, these are just computers - the iPhone, iPod and iPad history is just… crazy.

• 1988 - I co-founded AdVantage Advertising³ with Mitch Bettis in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. We bought three Macintosh SEs for the business.

• 1991 - I sold my portion of Advantage Advertising… and I bought a brand spanking new Mac LC (looked like a gray pizza box), began collecting baseball and football cards, and a few other purchases.

• 1997 - I bought my first tower Macintosh. The Performa 6400 was a doozy of a machine!

• 1997ish - I had been working with the Arkansas Baptist State Convention as a campus minister at the University of Arkansas at Monticello for a couple of years. I convinced them to buy me a laptop. The Powerbook G3 333 Pismo was my first laptop! It may be one of my favorites ever. It was comfortable and had an amazing form factor. “It was the first laptop to use the PowerPC G3 (PPC740/750) series of microprocessors, and was marketed as the fastest laptop in the world...” (per Wikipedia)

• 2003 - I resigned as a campus minister and became a church planter/pastor. I started Noble Design - a new graphic design business. I bought another Mac tower computer - the first Powermac G5 1.8 single. It was a beauty and a behemoth.

• 2004 - Carolyn had her own photography business called a Noble photo. We bought her an eMac. It was another all-in-one unit marketed to schools/students. It had a G4 processor in it and a 17” screen.

• 2005 - I helped my sister with a design project for Alltel, and as part of the payment, I received a used Powerbook G4 17″ 1ghz! Also in 2005, we upgraded Carolyn to Apple’s first Mac Mini, and I sold my Powermac G5 and bought iMac G5 20″.

• OK. This is getting tedious. And hard to remember. So here’s the dump of my Mac history that I can recall:

  • iBooks - our kids had clamshells! These were some of the most delightful designed units Apple ever made. I still have one!

  

  • Macbooks, white and black ones

  • Macbook Pros, silver and black ones (my current laptop is a 2024 MacBook Pro 14” M4)

  

  I obviously didn’t own all these - maybe 5-6 over the past 20 years? I typically upgrade every 3-5 years.

  • Numerous iMacs after the iMac G5

  • A silver Mac Mini

• The silver Mac Mini (circa 2012) may have been the last desktop Mac we’ve owned. We’ve had laptops ever since, including our kids.

My Favorite Mac

Perhaps my favorite Mac of all time was my Powerbook G3 Pismo. Those were the days that taking a Mac laptop out of your bag in a coffee shop still brought stares. Macs were still battling to be thought of as “real computers.”

It was hefty. I had to convince Arkansas Baptists to buy me one. I was the first campus minister in Arkansas to have a Mac. They had been PC-only to that point. But in the early 2000s, Macs began to turn a corner in the public’s view.

In 2006, Apple aired its infamous “Get a Mac” commercial series which ran for three years. You may remember them as “I’m a Mac … and I’m a PC” dialogue between actor Justin Long as the cool, youthful Mac and comedian John Hodgman portraying the stuffy, awkward PC. The last ad aired on May 21, 2010.

Those ads helped pave the way for a generation of Mac users. I can't count how many people I helped convert to Macs. To this day, friends remind me that they bought their first Mac because of my incessant propaganda/Mac evangelism. Of course, I was helped by Steve Jobs’ brilliant marketing of Apples to schools and colleges.

Today, it’s rare to see college students with a PC, unless they’re in engineering or science fields.

How about you?

• When did you buy your first Mac?

• What was your favorite Mac?

• How were you influenced to get a Mac?

1. Apple makes more money from the sale of its incrementally upgraded devices than can be believed. But don’t neglect the millions it makes from proprietary cables like the lightning connector for its iPhones.

“Apple’s Made for iPhone program requires any company making Lightning accessories to pay licensing fees—industry sources suggest these range between $2 and 10% per unit sold, though Apple doesn’t publish exact figures. These aren’t manufacturing costs or quality assurance fees. They’re pure profit for Apple, generating tens of millions annually just for permission to make products that work with your phone.” (Who’s Really Profiting Every Time You Charge Your iPhone, by Al Landes - Gadget Review: August 27, 2025)

2. You can look at other reveries (with some cool visuals) of Apple’s history here:

• Think Different. (October 2005) - This post reviewed my love affair with Apple, and it was prior to the introduction of iPhones!

• Apple visual history

• Apple History

3. Read more about AdVantage and its history here.