25 Years of Mac: From Boxy Beige to Silver Sleek By Steven Levy 12.22.08 WIRED MAGAZINE: 17.01
In 1984, Steve Jobs gave the world a little beige box. Twenty-five years later, Apple is still thinking different. It's the 25th anniversary of the Apple Macintosh, but Steve Jobs' eyes are dry. At the company headquarters in Silicon Valley, where he was presenting a set of new laptops to the press last October, I mentioned the birthday to him. Jobs recoiled at any suggestion of nostalgia. "I don't think about that," he said. "When I got back here in 1997, I was looking for more room, and I found an archive of old Macs and other stuff. I said, 'Get it away!' and I shipped all that shit off to Stanford. If you look backward in this business, you'll be crushed. You have to look forward." Here's what's amazing about the Mac as it turns 25, a number that in computer years is just about a googolplex: It can look forward. The Mac's original competition-the green-phosphorus-screened stuff made by RadioShack, DEC, and then-big kahuna IBM-now inhabit landfills, both physically and psychically. Yet the Macintosh is not only thriving, it's doing better than at any time in its history. Much of the attention directed at Apple over the past few years has focused on new products like the iPod and the iPhone. Click wheels and touchscreens have distracted us from the news that the Mac market share has quietly crept into double digits. That's up from barely 3 percent in 1997, just before the prodigal CEO returned to the fold after a 12-year exile. Any way you cut it, the Mac is on the rise while Windows is waning. Roll over, Methusela-the Macintosh is still peaking. What's behind this autumnal upswing? Apple COO Tim Cook lists six factors: better computers, better software, seamless compatibility with Windows, marketing acumen, successful retail stores, and the belly flop of Microsoft Vista. (Redmond's lame new OS was merely the last straw; over the past two decades, millions have switched from PCs to Macs.) But the larger story of Apple's rebirth begins with the return of its cofounder. Jobs called the company he came back to a "beautiful Porsche speedster that had been sitting in a field. And it got really dirty, covered with mud." He slashed the product line, Picasso-ized the design, launched a wildly successful chain of retail stores, and turned the annual Apple keynote address into the high tech equivalent of a popcorn blockbuster. And yes, Apple did make better computers than its rivals. ... http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-01/ff_mac *********************************** * POST TO [email protected] * *********************************** Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
