I have been traveling for nearly seven weeks now, on a tight and tough schedule.

Started my journey in Thailand in Bangkok . Made my way to Cambodia (Sihanoukville, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap), Hong Kong, Shanghai, Borneo Island , Malaysia, and now I am writing from Boracay Island in the Philippines.  A lovely, maybe a little too commercialized spot (they even have a Starbucks on the waterfront), but with a stunning beach. (Just awarded the #2 best beach worldwide on Tripadvisor).

All in, I intentionally wanted to get away from the Interweb and being online all the time.  But it wasn’t meant to be – at least not while in Asia .

Welcome to the world of Wifi, smartphones and Facebook supreme!

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Ground control to Major Tom – it’s now official, Planet Earth has found a new religion.

First the iPod. Then the iPod Touch. Next, the iPhone. And now, voila, in comes the iPad! At least throughout the Western hemisphere, the iGospel seems to have taken solid hold.

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At Tekserve over on 23rd Street in Manhattan, while waiting for my own MacBook repair, hordes of seemingly “ancient” Apple machines seem to stare at me.

There’s at least fifty of them it seems, spread out side by side on a sizeable wall-to-wall file cabinet waiting for repair.

Think a couple of ailing Macintosh Plus and Macintosh II machines. (Is that possible? They date back to the mid-eighties), plus Quadra 610s, an LC 55, and plenty of the (relatively) newer eMacs and iMacs Flat Panels.

All in, picture the robot warehouse scene from “I, Robot”. These Macs lined up in front of me look similarly alive inside, just intelligent enough to keep still and quiet, probably wise from age.

I am actually still a fairly new member to the Apple “universe”, and not sure what took me so long.

We only recently traded in our Dell machines for a slick(er) MacBook and a MacBook Pro.

Add to that an iPod Touch, a Shuffle, plus an Apple TV STB. (The design alone, I couldn’t resist).

Of course, with iTunes on top, everything integrates exceptionally well, making the user experience as good as advertised.

So, as I am staring at this mass of last-gen and older Macs, clearly their respective owners seem to have held long-lasting emotional bonds to each one of them. 

Almost like a pet hospital, each one of these Macs seems to have a name, had experienced disappointment (an occasional OS crash), and physical injury (cracks from something smashing into the monitor).

In yet another attempt further personalize the Apple experience, there is all these stickers on the side of these Macs. From what I can see, one is promoting world peace (I agree) , another a local pizza place (sure), and a rock band I never heard of in my life.

Clearly a CE marketer’s dream of permanent brand appeal.

Is that how I will soon cling on to my own Apple devices as we jointly age?

While my Tekserve customer service agent is working hard on my particular MacBook “emergency”, I am getting MBA marketing class flash backs; start thinking of J. Gutman’s “means-end-chain” model and how it says our personal purchasing decisions ultimately are driven by a particular emotional need, a visceral bond between yourself and product strong and lasting enough to have you actually expend money.

Clearly, Apple’s done it And they seem poised to carry their lead for time to come.