Well, It’s Official – I’m Obsolete

Today was the Steve Jobs keynote at the Apple Developer’s Conference and as expected there as a ton of new stuff announced. Unfortunately, now that some of the dust is settling, it looks like a some of my gear is now obsolete. This is a first for me since switching to the Mac back in 1996.

I made the leap almost 5 years ago. I bought a white Macbook in August of 2006 and then later upgraded to the black Macbook in 2007 when my mother came across a great deal on a floor model “Blackbook” at CompUSA, but wanted a white one. I happily swapped out the hard drives and gave her a memory upgrade in exchange for a slight upgrade in hardware and the cool black color. Both laptops have been the best mobile computers I’ve ever owned and I still use the blackbook to this day.

Along the way I have added more memory, replaced hard drives and even added a vinyl sticker to personalize my beloved laptop. Of course I’ve also bought tons of software and upgraded the OS to the latest version every time it comes out. Tiger (10.4) was installed at the time of purchase, but I’ve upgraded to Leopard and Snow Leopard (10.6) with zero issues. Today Lion (10.7) was announced at it looks like my hardware won’t cut the mustard.

I’ve had a good run. 5 years of constant use, with 4 of those years being my primary machine, is quite an achievement! I never thought the Macbook would last as long as it has, so I have no complaints. Also, it’s not as if my laptop will suddenly turn into a pumpkin. I will still get plenty of use out of it I’m sure, but it’s kind of sad knowing that I can’t go any further with Mac OS X. I’ve been wanting a new laptop, but it’s still kind of sad to know that “Mashbook I” has reached the end of the line.

To add insult to injury, my wife’s 17″ White iMac and my mom’s white Macbook also share the same fate. Looks like 2011 is going to be an expensive year for computers!