Think Different
An honorable discharge for the Apple icon on the Command key…


In a tragic turn of events and in an effort to reinvent the Mac bringing it into a vicious circle of conformity, the Apple logo has been relieved of duty as the once proud symbol that graced nearly every Mac keyboard for the better half of 20 years in the form of the Command key. At the Mac event last week where new keyboards were announced, the awful discovery became a reality. I’m mad to say the least…

Over the years, the Mac has lost more and more of its identity in an effort to make the Mac more attractive to the dark side. While a lot of the change has no doubt helped, a lot of it has stripped the Mac of its once totally unique persona. Macs for years were considered more of a friend than a computer. Lets start with the startup sound, which I affectionately call, the Bong sound. You didn’t have a mundane beep like PC’s… You had a vast array of different sounds throughout the Mac line. Macs still have this, but this is one of the few things which still remain. Then the Happy Mac… For 18 years, it was a symbol of the joyful exuberance and personality that made the Mac the Mac. With Jaguar came a new symbol… A dull, gray, boring, emotionless Apple logo. And who could forget the Power key on the keyboard? What PC could do that?

Those are only a few examples. Now the Mac loses the Apple logo on the Command key. What’s Apple smoking? Have they no respect and compassion for all the Mac users who grew up on the Mac? While the Command key will continue to march onward and invoke commands, it shall never be the same without the Apple logo to lead the way guiding the Command key with every keystroke.

As we mourn the passing of our fallen icon, I felt it was only fitting the Apple logo be given an honorable discharge for its proud 20 year service on Mac keyboards ’round the world. In unison, I ask everyone who reads this to invoke their favorite keyboard shortcut which uses the Command key to give the Apple logo a proper sendoff. As for me, I choose Command-Option-Esc. The Force Quit command… The 3-fingered salute. To Apple, I give the middle finger salute!

Remember… don’t just think… think outside the box… Think Different.

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