Rich Apple
not gonna put my address on the internet
                  Santa Cruz, CA
                    #####-####
                  February 11 , 2005

Philip Schiller
Senior Vice President, Apple Computers Worldwide Product Marketing
c/o 1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014 

Dear Mr. Schiller,

I wrote to you last November and you were kind enough to acknowledge my letter and give me a reply via a phone message from a “Patrick”. The message, of course, was that Apple would not be donating a system to me, but that you had looked at my letter. For that I say “Thank you.”

I did attempt to send a reply to Patrick, but without a last name (and eventually, when I did phone the number he left and got his voicemail, I still couldn't make out the last name) I worry that my letter to him – actually my final letter to Apple before giving up my crusade – ended up in the recycling bin without anybody seeing it.

Since this crusade of mine started in 1984, years before starting up again in earnest in 2004, I do see that final letter – that final appeal – as momentous. I'm hoping you might consider it.

In a nutshell, the point of that final letter is that all of the wonderful marketing PR and personal – priceless really – word-of-mouth goodwill and “stealth” advertising for Apple Computers can now be had for the incredible, low low price of just a one-time-only 20% discount on a spiffy new G5 system to rescue me from the Gates of Windows Hell. (So to speak.)

That final letter (this one doesn't count as it's merely a cover letter for that one?) is enclosed, and I hope you can take the time to have a look.

The only update from the situation as it was then (in terms of the Apple “developers discount” program) is that I actually have been doing more direct programming work with the Java Applet launches as they pertain to our Macintosh users. If you check with any of your tech folks in the Java end of things they'll confirm that Oracle Forms applications served via 9iAS to OSX's Java engine are not exactly playing nice (Oracle's fault, not Apple's!), but I have been able to improve the performance, the look-and-feel, and devise a method to allow multiple instances of the application that don't collide with each other's resources, which is important since half of our Finance applications users on campus are Macintosh fans. And now it's looking like we will be able to “go live” with our big upgrade at the end of this month and not make enemies of the Macintosh folks. Phew!

Again, congratulations on the continuing success of your company, and thank you for considering this.

Sincerely,

Rich Apple