Filed under: Switchers
Sweden's Foreign Minister calls his new Mac 'a new world'
Former Swedish Prime Minister (and now Foreign Minister) Carl Bildt has, "after much reflection, examination and discussion" decided to switch to a Mac. Welcome to the family, Carl! May we recommend your next purchase: a snazzy IKEA desk to go with your Mac?
According to the minister's website (in Swedish and English), he wonders why he waited so long to make the jump, and said "the new world is much definitely better than the old." How much of that is mangled by Google Translate I'll have to leave to the Swedish speakers among us. No word yet on whether Sweden's leading culinary celebrity uses a Mac. [Sorry, couldn't resist. -Ed.]
Bildt is not the first world leader to use a Mac: Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore has a Mac connected to multiple displays (as well he should: he's on Apple's board of directors). HRH Queen Elizabeth has an iPod. Many political powerhouses have iPhones, including Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who might have scored himself a black-market model.
Thanks, Gesen!
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jesse said 6:54PM on 10-06-2008
"Wow! Look at me. Pseudo-famous people use the same computer as I do! I'm Elite; leet; 1337."
A little bit too supercilious?
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Darren said 7:18PM on 10-06-2008
I pretty much felt the exactly the same, way back when I bought my first iBook (running 10.3). On the other hand, using Vista for the first time was a much less exhilarating experience, to say the least.
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nick said 7:57PM on 10-06-2008
@ Jesse: World leaders are "pseudo-famous"?! wow.
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Mike O said 8:13PM on 10-06-2008
Karl Rove is also a Mac user.
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mentalsticks said 8:17PM on 10-06-2008
Sweden - Ikea
Russia - black market
you have a very banale mind.
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Andrew said 8:22AM on 10-07-2008
Why? It's a well known fact that Russia was overflowing with blackmarket iPhones because Apple didn't sell it there..
And, seriously, Sweden is IKEA to many people. What's bad about being associated with a global success like IKEA?
Ed said 8:23PM on 10-06-2008
I think you missunderstand the point of editor's comments [really? -Ed]. The point is they're written by The Editor, not by you... The theory being that they're comments left in by the editor as a note to you, correcting something. Of course, they're intentionally added most of the time, for humor.
In your context it's not clear what the editor 'couldn't resist'? He didn't write the article did he?
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Michael Rose said 10:52PM on 10-06-2008
Hi Ed -- I edited Robert's post, and I was the one who added links to the Swedish Chef. Hence, the 'couldn't resist' comment.
Ed said 6:01AM on 10-07-2008
The 'Swedish chef' comment should probably be within the editor's brackets then... I think... At least, it'd make sense that way.
KarlW said 9:00PM on 10-06-2008
You're forgetting George W Bush, who also tries to keep up-to-date on his ones. He's got a standard iPod and a shuffle.
He went through his iPod with an interviewer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJKexMykBtE
Pretty cool. I like the idea of knowing what's on a leader's iPod. Just for curiosity's sake.
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Jackson Bohlender said 9:30PM on 10-06-2008
The pope also uses an iPhone 3G.
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Jash Sayani said 11:22PM on 10-06-2008
"I'm a new soul in this very strange world..." la la la la la...........
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kolizz said 1:32AM on 10-07-2008
The Google Translat'ed version seems to be correct (not including grammar ;) ).
Heh, and of course people goes on in the comments (at the original blog) about how he should/should not have made the switch. I love people discussing the Mac/PC topic :).
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Mathias Törnblom said 1:36AM on 10-07-2008
Google has done a fantastic job translating the obscure Swedish to English. It's a fantastic feeling seeing more and more people moving to words sanity. I have a few friends moving and they are all saying the same as Carl Bildt - "the new world is much definitely better than the old."
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Olof said 2:32AM on 10-07-2008
As a Swede interested in politics and a part-time IT consultant I happen to know that our foreign minister Carl Bildt is a real tech geek, including computer geek. This makes his switch fun and interesting not because he is foreign minister but because he is a guy with a lot of knowledge and interest who really needs technology to serve him around the clock. He blogs almost daily, from airports, meetings, hotel rooms, and such about everything that happens in a foreign minister's work and life, seemingly taking the blogging very seriously as a form of communication towards the citizens. Which is good. Even better with a mac!
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Harr said 8:17AM on 10-07-2008
Here is a translation that gets all his points across accurately.
"A new world
After a lot of thinking, testing and discussing i last week took the big step to switch from the world of Microsoft to the world of Mac.
I went and bought a Mac.
To say that i don't regret taking the step is this months big understatement. My only criticism is of myself fro waiting so long before taking the step.
Learning how some things work a bit differently takes a bit of messing around. That programs like Word, Powerpoint and other familiar ones comes with*1 makes things easier.
And after a while everything works simpler, faster and more smooth.
The new world is most definitely better than the old one. "
*He actually says "comes with" in the sense that those softwares would be included with the purchase, which is not true afaik? Demo versions only right? Maybe what he means is that these softwares exists in mac versions, although that's not what he says.
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Hannes Petri said 6:13AM on 10-08-2008
Moaha, he has yet to discover that the Microsoft Office applications were only trial versions... ;)
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Per said 8:19AM on 10-14-2008
Let's see if the Mac can withstand Carl Bildt's well known "pekfingervals" (forefinger waltz?) when it comes to the durability of the keyboard. He's known to break the keyboard in a couple of months since he's so abusive to the keyboard...
I guess that the new Mac keyboards might suit him perfectly...
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