I’m tired of new things. Especially expensive new things. I say that because I have to buy a new laptop. My old one is still working perfectly fine but it’s over ten years old and won’t update or run the latest stuff anymore. So I have to buy a new one just to keep up. That annoys me.
Before I buy an expensive new piece of equipment I like to ask myself, “What new thing can I do with this new equipment?”. In recent years that question has gotten harder and harder to answer. In part that has to do with how well things have been made over the last ten to twenty years. Gone are the days of computers, phones, tablets, and whatever else we’ve got making improvements on existing technology in leaps and bounds. Now everything is in small increments if at all.
Just last year I bought two new scanners to replace two old scanners. What new things do they do? Well, they do come with nice new cleanup software, so that’s a good thing, but they mostly do the same old thing. The scanners scan art, photos, and negatives. Since the one scanner was broken it was good that I got a replacement but it really just maintained what I was already able to do.
I also just bought a new digital camera. It was one I was planning on buying pre-Covid but then never got around to until January of 2023. Even though I like the new camera it’s really just a convenience. It’s smaller than my old one and is good for carrying when I have to commute to NYC. I did carry my old one and it did take up too much room in my bag so I’m glad I have the smaller one but it really offers me no new options in taking photos. Digital cameras plateaued a while ago.
I’m not the least bit excited about getting a new laptop but it’s a forgone conclusion that I am getting one. As I was thinking about that today my mind drifted to all the old Apple stuff that I still have that is no longer compatible with my current setup. I have a first generation iPod, a couple of old iPads, an old mac Tower, and even an old iPod shuffle. I’ve been meaning to bring a bunch of that stuff to the Apple store to be recycled but haven’t. It’s still sitting around. But it did give me an idea.
I’m probably going to be buying a new laptop in the next month. When I do I might see if I can load an old version of the Mac OS on this laptop I’m using right now. It’s running Catalina at the moment but I want to see if I can load something even older. The laptop was made back in 2012 and I think it came with Mountain Lion. I’m not sure if I can still get that OS but if I can I’ll install it. That way I can run all of that old stuff I’ve got. Imagine that. The new thing I can do when I get a new laptop is to run a bunch of old stuff again.
One of the things I want to buy with my new laptop is an Apple Watch. I haven’t worn a watch in years. With everybody carrying a phone that has the time on it hardly anyone wears a watch anymore. I used to wear one all the time. At least all the time that I was out of the house. But then in 2005 I started mostly working from home so I had almost no reason to wear a watch. Plus the watch I bought in the early 2000s was beginning to give me trouble. It was a white faced watched with white hands and as my close up reading vision started to fail me I couldn’t read the time as easily as I could before. So I stopped wearing that watch all together.
Since I started teaching I’m back to commuting into the city a couple of days a week. I’ve got to catch a train so I have to know the time. I’ve got my phone on me, there is a clock in my car, clocks at the train stations, and clocks on the computers at school. There is no shortage of places for me to check the time and it’s not like I’m ever late because I lost track of time. Yet, I still find myself wanting to just be able to check my wrist for the time. It is still the way that takes the least effort.
The only reason I want an Apple Watch in particular is that it’s large and has an easy to read digital face. I don’t want to have to put on reading glass to tell the time. With the Apple Watch I won’t. Being that the watch is expensive at $250 for the cheapest one I really don’t want to spend the money on one, and probably won’t, yet I still want one.
I was even looking online for regular watches to see if there was one I liked. I’d be perfectly willing to pay $20 for a cheap watch that had some big numbers on it but none of them seem like they can do that. All the watches seem to have small numbers in fonts with terrible legibility. The faces on the Apple Watches look a lot more stylish.
As I contemplate watches I also came to a strange conclusion. Was the only reason that I wanted an Apple Watch because I was disappointed in having to buy a new laptop? After all the laptop offered me nothing new but keeping current but with a new watch I could, once again, tell the time just by glancing at my write. What a strange world I’m living in where telling time with a wrist watch if the hot new thing I’ll be able to do. Weird.