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I am no Fruit computer company aficionado. I don’t much think highly of anything they build. I marvel at those who coo and giggle at the simple act of opening a Fruity product box with the glee of a three year old tackling Santa’s droppings under the Christmas tree. I never got the whole sensation of near orgasmic release that Fruit Flies get when the next big thing is released. I did marvel at how easily fools and their money are so quickly parted after each “Dub” event. You know you are a Fruit Fly if you even know what that means. If you don’t, you are so blessed. I’ll have to admit to having owned two prior Fruit Company products – that company that prides itself on selling apples at outrageous prices. My first was a mirror door “wind tunnel” g4 tower that I was given because it didn’t work. It was my first peak at Fruit products and using my wintel experience, I was able to discover the cause of the non-performance of the noisy fruit and I got it back to its noise making. This model of a tower was nicknamed “wind tunnel” because it sounded like one when it heated up. I still have that machine as it has a beautiful lucite monitor with matching keyboard and the whole tower is an exercise in shaped lucite (clear plastic) and silver. It is simply gorgeous. I keep it because it is huge and makes a nice conversation piece. I was shocked while writing this article to find that there is just the tower with less memory and less storage selling on ebay for $600. I was floored. Shipping added another $95 because this and cement shoes and a dead crime victim weight just about as much to ship, er to sink. There were other more reasonably priced units for sale, but still people will go after antique fruit with almost as much cooing as they do the new shit. My second foray into the world of all things Fruit was another computer given to me – a classic white G3 laptop that again didn’t work. If you haven’t figured out by now that I am someone who routinely fixes broken computers for a hobby. My friends know this and I get some jewels to play with when they aren’t attached to a particular man! The G3 laptop wouldn’t charge. It was as dead as Ray Charles. There were two prospects as to the cause of said dead Fruit. The first was a motherboard that had an issue. The motherboard on this cost about $200 to purchase and would have taken several hours to swap out. On some Dell laptops, I can replace them in a full thirty minutes from the time the first screw is removed until the last screw is installed. In the world of early fruit, these things were built as if someone had their head up their ass. The other option to fix this non-charging Fruit was to replace the DC cable since it plugged into the motherboard. That cost $25. My friends know I’m one cheap SOB so I chose the cheapest option. It was also the most likely option as to the cause of non-charge. My hunch proved to be correct – after some choice words and some effort, I was able to charge said Fruit to an operational status – the original hard drive still functioned – the near stone tablet operating system was still operational. And it was not password locked. This was a beautiful laptop – the Fruit company long abandoned its support with an operating system that was at least invented in the era of paper, so I sold it on ebay for $100 which covered my costs and made up for the swear words uttered taking out the plethora of tiny screws inside. One must now also grasp my general contempt for the Fruit company as it is now comprised. I marveled at Steve Jobs and his passion for creating excellence and seeking new things – actually innovating. Alas, innovation at the Fruit company ceased when Steve passed away 10 years ago today. I won’t even pretend that this article comes out because of his 10th anniversary of his last breath, but it piggybacks upon the actual motive for writing this. Up until 2012, the Fruit company built what is perhaps the best ever conceived and designed laptop of any kind and flavor. I say that after having to eat much crow – my wonderful best friend Tim from Canada and I have had long discussions about all things fruit, and he has a 2011 macbook pro of the 15 inch variety. He does have a thing for size. But I digress. After having many co-workers and Fruit afficiandos tell the tale of how their such vintage Fruit computers were the best thing on earth next to individually wrapped real cheese slices, I began to contemplate my potential of acquiring said Fruit. These Fruit laptops, called Macbook pros (13 and the extra sized 15 incher) were of the unibody design where there were actual ports and the overall scheme of things wasn’t to make them pencil dick thin. I’ve found that girth has just as much importance of the inches on a ruler and screen size. I like a substantial piece of aluminum and have no need for something so thin as to make you forget the thing cannot be fixed when it breaks. And so it has been a journey of eating crow and wiping clean my belief window that I finally convinced myself that I too wanted some Fruit. I’ll admit to being more than intrigued by how the Fruit company has taken a two bit ARM processor and renamed it Fruit Silicone and integrated memory and storage into something that cannot be changed, upgraded, or fixed when it breaks. Alas it is efficient and processes things well enough to take the benefit of made for Fruit software and to produce compelling marketing slogans and copy. Fruit products may be less than useful overall with their continued need to be pencil thin, but at least there is movement on power efficiency when Intel gobbles up power and generates heat from their patting themselves on the backside. Yet, for all my desire for some Fruit, I am loathe to consider adding the 2021’s profits for the Fruit company. I may desire a bite out of some fruit, but I’m not going to reward Tim Cook for his continued desire to place profit over being able to fix his shit when it invariably stops working. So I went back to my Friend Tim from Canada and his 2011 laptop. I did my due research as I am want to do before committing to something and found that if I bought a non-retina display mid 2012 computer, it could be upgraded and still had value and could run a near modern operating system. And while it could not operate with the latest, it could with last year’s model and that was just fine with me. So I discovered the price point I could expect to pay and read up on the specifications of such 2012 macbook and I decided that 13 inches was fine for me (I have a small mouth). And I started looking at ebay lisitngs to see what was what and how things were selling in the end. I discovered by total accident one night a 13 inch macbook pro of the mid 2012 vintage that was working and had the basics that I could build upon. And it was going for less money than many of the others. I held back until the last 15 seconds and pounced with my commitment toward the fruit and I beat out the other stiffs by $2 and with all fees and taxes, I ended up with a working 2012 macbook pro 13 inch for $211. I was as giddy as a lad enjoying his first ice cream cake (a nod to “torch song trilogy”). I then set out to remediate the weakness of this computer – I secured a 1 TB ssd to replace the spinning drive and was all set to make this into the high performance version of the 2012 model. What I did not expect was the seller mislabeling the system as having 16gb of ram when it in fact came with a flaccid 4 gbs; but I have old technology surrounding me and I was able to repurpose 2 sticks of 8gb of DDR 3 memory from 2 different retired ASUS computers and the Fruit computer loved it! Now such a laptop is not going to process 4k video in under 3 days. It is not going to impress your friends who value pencil dicks. But it will impress people who still can appreciate a classic and who know that this model is the best ever laptop ever built. Thickness and girth have its benefits. Now if only I had a place to put my beer can….