I have been a Mac user seemingly forever.  I bought my first Mac in 1987 but I used my first Mac in 1986.  So now in 2010 as Apple gets set to release what some analysts say will be a tablet computer it’s hard to believe there are still some people standing on the sidelines.  Last quarter Apple reported record profits with Mac sales up 33% and iPhone sales doubling.  It certainly looks that Apple’s cool has finally caught on.

As the days have gone by leading up to the introduction of this new piece of technology of course I wondered just like everybody else what this thing is going to be.  Having used Apple’s technology for a career, none of this surprises me.  What did surprise me was the significance of Apple’s iPod leading people away from the moribund PC.

I have a bit of a hard time with some of this new tech revolution.  The reason I do is because in many ways it continues to reflect the digital divide we find in our society.  For instance last week I gave a three-hour presentation at the London St. Thomas Real Estate Association in London Ontario.  It was the first presentation I gave in my life where I went live on the Internet during the presentation to show the audience some specific audio and video resources that I thought useful to my presentation.  From a technical point of view in my estimation, it worked great and I was amazed myself I could get so much done using the great digital technology that they had in that building.  Four days later I got a call from an individual who had missed my seminar and wanted to attend the one in September.  She wanted more information and I told her to go to my website.  She told me she was not on the Internet.

In 2010, saying you are not on the Internet is like saying I prefer heroin for breakfast.  It’s almost preposterous.  Clearly though even in 2010 that remains a legitimate choice for some and a non-deliberate choice for others.  At the same time when Apple Computer is recording these record profits I see that in Canada last week more Canadians had exhausted their unemployment insurance benefits without finding work.  These Canadians will now have to rely on either their savings or borrowing from friends or family to make ends meat.  In my mind it doesn’t quite add up at a time when Apple Computer has record profits made from consumers spending a disproportionate amount of their disposable income on what are essentially tagged “gadgets”.

I suppose in many ways it means one of two things.  Either the recession continues unabated or the technology is so all-encompassing that growth in sales would be even better if there was no such thing as the recession.  In my mind I think it is the latter.  Yes the recession continues for many fellow Canadians but economic growth numbers have been improving.  At a certain point job growth should be able to catch up in eastern Canada and get some of these people back to work.  However, I think if everybody could have an iPhone or if everybody could have a Mac, after about 25 years of using the technology I think they would have one.  Think of it this way, there have been PC tablet computers out for quite some time now and their existence haven’t changed a thing. Apple on the other hand always positions their products as the “game changer “. It’s like everybody else in the technology world does nothing and “we” do everything.

So it is what it is.  As a long-time Mac user I think the announcement by Apple with regard to some type of tablet device will be huge.  However I question how much disposable income is going toward buying these devices.  For instance if you haven’t noticed our federal government is running a deficit of $36 billion so far for this fiscal year.  The same federal government has bowed to bring that back to earth.  That means higher taxes and spending cuts in some shape or form.  In other words Canadians had better get ready to pay back some of these debts and spend a little less on some of those sexy consumer-products like a tablet computer or an iPod.

I say this at a time when governments are throwing around money like it is confetti.  Don’t get me started on the $7 billion earmarked for wind and solar energy in Ontario!  That’s for another week.  So enjoy Apple’s announcement this week but keep your hand on your wallet.  I think Stephen Harper and Dalton McGuinty have some very heavy lifting is starting for all of us very soon.